Page 31 - Studio International - March 1969

Van Doesburg:

a continuing

inspiration

Maurice Aggis &
Peter Jones

On Friday, 13 December 1968, Theo van movement, and the magazine of that name.
Doesburg was awarded the 1968 Sikkens The movement's aims were to promote
Prize, posthumously. Instituted by the Dutch amongst artists a concern with serving the
Sikkens company ten years ago, this inter- general public through the development of a
national prize is given yearly to an artist or universal style or language that could be used
architect for his or her work on colour and in all branches of the plastic arts. The de-
space. Van Doesburg's widow remarked velopment of this language, van Doesburg
ironically, 'It is only forty years too late'. The believed, should come through work and not
award coincided with the opening at the be a preconceived idea, and artists should
Municipal Museum, Eindhoven, Holland, of make the general public aware of their work
an exhibition of his work, covering the period in order to reinstate the artist's function with-
1913-1931. in society and establish a new relationship
It was in 1917, at the age of 34, that van Does- with society. De Stijl was anti-object.
burg began his real development. He worked `Let us create a new life-form which is ade-
intensively for thirteen years and died ex- quate to the functioning of modern life'—van
hausted at the age of 48. In fact his work has Doesburg.
more to do with the future than with the past. The magazine was the most important plat-
An artist of vision, he was groping towards a form of ideas for that time. Van Doesburg
new realization of plastic values in space and was the driving force behind the de Stijl
time, cutting through entrenched camps, and movement, and both editor of the magazine
stating the role of the artist as a public con- and chief contributor. His relationship with
tributor to society's needs. Capitalism has the other artists involved, Mondrian, van der
found it convenient to invest in private art, Leck, Huszar, Oud, Wills, van 't Hoff, Kok,
Communism in propaganda through art. Van Vantongerloo, Rietveld, van Eesteren, Rich-
Doesburg showed the way to an art form that ter, Severini, El Lissitsky, Kiesler, Arp, Graff,
by its very nature could live outside this kind was dynamic but tenuous—he kept them
of usage. contributing; without him it wouldn't have
To work with and in space there must be a happened. He was painter, sculptor, architect,
language. Van Doesburg's most significant poet, pamphleteer, teacher, art critic, archi-
contribution was to make people aware of tectural correspondent, agitator and chief
space and give us the beginnings of a space/ propagandist for the movement. He had the
time language. Since Einstein's theories of energy needed; he wanted to see immediate
relativity any philosophy, to be relevant, must results—to build. De Stijl was interrupted by
embody the space/time concept. After centu- the death of van Doesburg. Many of its values
ries of linear thinking it is virtually impossible were not completely realized and de Stijl
to grasp the reality of space/time through intentions are a stimulus for today. (Slogans
written and mathematical language only; van from banners at the May, 1968, demonstra-
Doesburg's work makes us aware that there tion at the Sorbonne : 'Object, hide yourself!';
can be a constructed reality which can offer `Be realistic: ask for the impossible!')
directly a space/time experience. Were van Doesburg to be considered for his
In 1917 van Doesburg founded the de Stijl painting alone he would still emerge as a
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