Page 24 - Studio International - September October 1975

Theo van Doesburg
Restaurant Aubette, Strasbourg 1928 (destroyed)

De Stijl: lie, and they cloud any clear-cut or superficial analogies could be drawn
simplistic interpretation of the movement
between the elimination of representation
and its philosophies. in painting and the elimination of
For although the similarities of aim and
Abstraction or expression which seemed to unite the ornament in architecture, the resulting
stress on the straight line and the right-
group when it was first founded in 1917 angle (the horizontal and the vertical) was
Architecture ? were remarkable — and all the more so inspired by individual rather than
since many of the founder members were
collective convictions. The founder-artists
unknown to each other before their (Mondrian, Van Doesburg himself,
collaboration with Van Doesburg — there Vilmos Huszar and the sculptor Georges
remained a fundamental schism between Vantongerloo) had arrived at abstraction
Gillian Naylor the experience and intentions of the either through analytical Cubism
painters and those of the architects. And (Mondrian and Van Doesburg) or through
It should not, in theory, be difficult to it was this schism, concerned both with the simplification and stylisation
evaluate De Stijl aesthetics, or to relate the ideal and reality of translating associated with Monumentalism
the ideals of its members to their various concept into form, which provoked most (Huszar and Van der Leck). The
achievements. It was, after all, a of the controversies and resignations resulting concentration on elementary
proselytizing movement: its members within the group. The basic question forms, therefore, held a meaning that was
set out, in the words of the first manifesto, was this : can the harmonies and values personal to each artist and represented
to achieve 'a balance between the of painting, which have been conceived for each of them a radical break with
universal and the individual,' and such a as a metaphor for spiritual convictions, be historical and personal, contemporary
programme, involving the practical translated without compromise into precedent.
achievement of a philosophical ideal, three-dimensional form ? De Stijl The founder-architects, on the other
naturally required both justification philosophy, as first formulated by Van hand, were at that time in no sense
and clarification. Every significant Doesburg and Mondrian, insisted that radical. Their work had strong and
De Stijl gesture, whether in art, this was possible — indeed essential — for conscious links with the Dutch
architecture or design, was explained humanity's spiritual and material architectural tradition as well as with that
and defended, either in the De Stijl survival, but the group's members came of Frank Lloyd Wright, so that the
magazine or in the numerous books and to differ fundamentally about means and formal and philosophical innovations
papers published by its protagonists. ends. Moreover, the initial 'collective claimed for Van t'Hoff's work at Huis
And seeming deviations from the Ideal manner of expression' which Van ter Heide, and Jan Wils' country house,
were similarly probed. There is little Doesburg discerned in the work of the had been anticipated by Berlage and
doubt, therefore, about the intentions of artists and architects who became, at his Frank Lloyd Wright, and had little to do
the more articulate members of the group. instigation, the founder-members of the with that 'intellectual expression which
It is in their achievements, and in their De Stijl group was more fortuitous than a expresses a vital repose superior to
own and subsequent interpretations of demonstration of a collective will to nature" which Van Doesburg claimed
these achievements that the ambiguities universal form. For although for them. However, since Van Doesburg
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