De Stijl 1917-1931

(1956)–H.L.C. Jaffé– rechtenstatus

The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art

5 de Stijl's influence on the various
artistic domains

In the preceding pages, various aspects of ‘De Stijl’ have been studied: its aesthetic conception, its philosophical base, its utopian ambitions and last, but certainly not least, its actual artistic realizations. It has been attempted to characterize ‘De Stijl’ from different points of view and to give as complete an image of its character as is possible more than 20 years after its termination. But this distance in time which does not make the description of ‘De Stijl's’ character and activity any easier, facilitates in its turn another task, which is to be accomplished in this study: the examination of the consequences of ‘De Stijl’ and its influence subsequently.

The 10th anniversary number of De Stijl has, on the back of its cover, a list of ‘De Stijl's’ activities, reading as follows: painting, sculpture, literature, music, abstract dancing, abstract films, architecture, town planning. This list is printed across a globe with two words superimposed: Neo-plasticism and elementarism. This page is, as it were, a graphic representation of our problem: the spreading of ‘De Stijl's’ ideas in different fields over the whole world. This

expansion was a far less slow and gradual process, than one would think; on the contrary, it was a series of active and interrelating events. Though ‘De Stijl’ was an almost anonymous group, the expansion of its ideas is entirely due to Van Doesburg and his inspiring enthusiasm. In the introduction of the 10th anniversary number he writes: ‘Though the internationalisation of “De Stijl's” idea has been the exclusive work of De Stijl's editor, and his work alone, “De Stijl” as a demonstration of a collective striving towards style was only possible in a group.’Ga naar eindnoot595 Van Doesburg had indeed travelled a good deal, and by these journeys he spread the ideas of ‘De Stijl’ and at the same time made contacts for ‘De Stijl’ all over Europe. In doing so, he was assisted by Mrs. van Doesburg, who accompanied him on his journeys, contributing her share to these trips for ‘De Stijl's’ expansion by the fact that she was-and still is-a gifted pianist who could perform and bring to notice ‘De Stijl's’ musical achievements. The first contacts outside of Holland however, had been made by writing: already in 1918 close collaboration with the Italian group ‘Valori Plastici’, headed by Mario Broglio, was achieved, and in the same year Dr. F.M. Huebner had acted as a go-beween to make contacts with German artists. Van Doesburg could not start travelling until after the war and the first journey brought him to Antwerp, as the Belgians of Dutch extraction were most anxious to know about the artistic realizations in neutral Holland during the war. This contact has been without much consequence; but it had shown to Van Doesburg that personal contact could achieve more than even the clearest articles in his review could do. In the meantime, in October of 1918, the first manifesto of ‘De Stijl’ had been published; it had caused violent reactions in different European countries and a series of demonstrations of sympathy with ‘De Stijl’ were its direct consequence.

In 1920 the first contact between ‘De Stijl’ and the Bauhaus is achieved. At the Bauhaus, which had only been founded in 1919, Feininger showed a deep interest in ‘De Stijl's’ work and aims; he had first spread ‘De Stijl’ ideas in the small group of Bauhaus-artists. Adolf Behne, who had already corresponded with the editor of De Stijl, came to visit its members early in 1920 and studied the works of the group which had already been realized. In the same year, Van Doesburg received an invitation from Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter, who were working together on the realization of an abstract way of expression in film, to come and visit them in Berlin. This invitation led to Van Doesburg's trip to Berlin in December 1920 and to his first personal contact with the artists of the Bauhaus. At the house of Bruno Taut, the architect, Van Doesburg met Gropius and other Bauhaus artists, among others A. Meyer and F. Forbat. Gropius, the director of the Bauhaus, invited Van Doesburg to come to Weimar and look around for himself. Van Doesburg accepted and the visit took place in January 1921. The Bauhaus artists and Gropius above all, felt the need for a close collaboration with ‘De Stijl’. After a lecturing and propaganda-trip in March 1921 to Belgium, France, Italy and Germany, Van Doesburg returned to Weimar; the editing office of De Stijl was installed there and the contact with the Bauhaus, which has to be examined in the following pages, had begun.

De Stijl was now printed in Germany and Van Doesburg went on lecturing tours to different German towns: Berlin, Hannover, Dresden, etc.

In 1921 Van Doesburg made a propaganda-trip to Belgium, and lectured in Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, etc. In the summer of this year Van Doesburg worked in Weimar, where Oud came to visit him; in the winter months he was in Berlin where he contacted another group of artists, among which was Richter who had arranged his first tour to Germany.

In 1922 Van Doesburg continued his work at Weimar, where Van Eesteren came to join ‘De Stijl’ group. Lectures and personal contact deepened the influence of ‘De Stijl’ on the Bauhaus, in a way that has to be examined.

1923 brought the invitation of Léonce Rosenberg for an exhibition of architectural work in Paris and consequently the installation of Van Doesburg and the Stijl-editors in Paris. The influence of the Paris exhibition on international architecture has to be examined as well, as it is of primary importance.

The same exhibition was shown, in 1924, in Weimar. The new development of architectural conception could be seen and digested by the Bauhaus artists; in the spring, a similar exhibition, to which paintings of Mondriaan were added, was opened at the Paris ‘Ecole spéciale d'Architecture’. In 1924 as well, two exhibitions of works by ‘De Stijl’ were held in Hannover, in the Kestner-Gesellschaft and in the Gallery ‘Der Quader’. There, Vordemberge-Gildewart made Van Doesburg's acquaintance and was invited by him to join ‘De Stijl’. In the autumn, Van Doesburg lectured in Vienna and in Czechoslovakia, spreading ‘De Stijl’ ideas in these countries as well. 1924 was made important by the completion of Rietveld's house in Utrecht, which was subsequently visited by many architects and students of new architecture.

1925 brought ‘De Stijl’ exhibition to Nancy. By a series of manufactured complications and intrigues, ‘De Stijl’ could not participate in the Dutch pavilion of the 1925 exhibition of decorative art in Paris. This exclusion raised a violent protest on an international scale and drew the attention to ‘De Stijl's’ activities. However, ‘De Stijl’ participated with a large contribution in the. Exposition d'Art d'Aujourd'hui, in the autumn of 1925 in Paris. A special number of Architecture vivante had been dedicated by its editor, Albert Morancé, to ‘De Stijl's’ realizations; the issue had been welcomed by artists with great enthusiasm. In 1925 as well, ‘De Stijl’ works were, for the first time, shown in the United States in an exhibition in New York.

In 1926, Van Doesburg moved to Strassbourg, where he had been commissioned to reconstruct L'Aubette. There he worked in close contact with Jean Arp and Sophie Täuber-Arp. The following year and the beginning of 1928 were entirely absorbed by this activity.

In 1929, Van Doesburg returned to Paris and started designing his house at Meudon. But he found time to lecture on architecture in Madrid and in Barcelona, bringing ‘De Stijl’ ideas to Spain as well.

In the last years of his life, Van Doesburg was seriously hampered by his illness, an asthmatic complaint which confined him to his studio for months. Yet, his inspiring activity continued: he instigated and stimulated the foundation

of the group ‘Abstraction-Création’ which tried to continue, after Van Doesburg's death, the activity of ‘De Stijl’. But Van Doesburg's death, on March 7th 1931, delivered a serious blow to the expansion of ‘De Stijl's’ ideas. By the fact that this expansion almost stopped after 1931 and only continued indirectly, it becomes clear once more that the spreading of ‘De Stijl's’ ideas was, at least to a great extent, the personal work of Van Doesburg.

Beside Van Doesburg's personal activities there was, of course, the inspiring force of the Stijl review as well as publications by various other artists such as Oud, who published his Bauhausbuch on architecture in 1926. The importance of the works achieved for the spreading of ‘De Stijl's’ conception is difficult to estimate: it is certain however, that only a few works by ‘De Stijl’ artists were seen by the general public before 1923, as ‘De Stijl’ artists did not frequently exhibit. As to architecture, this case presents itself in a slightly different way; but until 1920 the most important architectural realizations of ‘De Stijl’ were-apart from their publication in De Stijl-tucked away in such remote places as Noordwijk, Katwijk, Huis-ter-Heide and Woerden, where only people who had the fixed intention of seeing them would come. Only some time later the works of Oud in Rotterdam, of Wils in The Hague, of Rietveld in Utrecht, were to become a public proof of ‘De Stijl's’ architecture. But all the same, the influence of ‘De Stijl’ starts to make itself felt as from 1920 in consequence of Van Doesburg's visit to Germany.

When dealing with the influence of ‘De Stijl’ we shall not only have to examine works by artists who have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by ‘De Stijl’ conception. We shall also have to consider the work of these artists who, for a certain period, have belonged to ‘De Stijl’ group and whose subsequent creations, after their leaving ‘De Stijl’ have been influenced by the fact of their adherence to this conception, which has in almost every case, not been denied by their estrangement from the group from personal motives. Thus, the influence of ‘De Stijl’ does not manifest itself in one large artistic current, but is split into different trends and directions which, however, are all united by the common aim, determined by ‘De Stijl’: the search for an objective way of artistic expression, that is to say, the search for an objective and universal language which was not to be limited by any particularity; in one word: style.

Our investigation of ‘De Stijl's’ influence should follow, in its sequence, the enumeration of divers directions printed on the back of De Stijl's tenth anniversary issue. The list starts with painting-as painting had been the source not only of ‘De Stijl's’ influence, but of ‘De Stijl's’ activity as a whole. All the other domains of artistic activity have been influenced by the first discoveries of ‘De Stijl’ in the domain of painting: the first architectural projects by Oud, of 1917 and 1919, are a proof of the fact; besides, Oud as well as the other architects of ‘De Stijl’ are frankly and gladly admitting the fact.

Mondriaan, in one of his last essays, has written some remarkable lines on the influence of ‘Stijl’ painting, which may be quoted here: ‘Modern architecture and industry responded to our influence, but painting and sculpture were little affected. These seemed to fear that neo-plasticism might lead them into

“decoration”. Actually, there was no reason for this fear in pure plastic art any more than in any other art expression. All art becomes “decoration” when depth of expression is lacking. In painting and sculpture one must also fear eclecticism. All this is more obvious in genuine abstract art; but in every period of art, the expressive means are used in common and it is not the expressive means but the use of them that reveals personality.’Ga naar eindnoot596 These lines, witten in 1942, expose with perfect clarity, the two aspects of ‘Stijl’ influence in painting, which have, since, revealed themselves as a danger: decoration and eclecticism. Indeed, the majority of the works of painting, produced by the influence of ‘De Stijl’ are not much more than decoration or eclecticism and they are so by the very reason given by Mondriaan: lack of personality, lack of conviction. The great majority of ‘De Stijl’ followers has accepted ‘De Stijl’ influence not as an objective language, which has to be spoken, but as a system of forms which has to be applied. The result is an awkward mechanical aspect of these works; they seem to have transformed the neo-plastic ‘equilibrium of oppositions’ into a stiff anaemic contraption of straight but at the same time surprisingly harsh lines. The result is indeed, a kind of ‘Stijl’ mannerism-the only too obvious consequence of a borrowing of mere forms, without being aware of their content and their significance. This ‘Stijl’ mannerism is a proof of the importance of ‘De Stijl's’ general conception of life, of which the plastic realizations have been an expression; without this inherent content, without this-abstract-‘motive’, the application of ‘De Stijl's’ forms and means remains empty, remains decoration and eclecticism indeed. And eclecticism is the more painful as it is often practised with a certain lyricism, which is not only alien, but even hostile to ‘De Stijl’.

A comforting fact, however, in opposition to this routine derived from ‘De Stijl’ is the development of the painters who survived ‘De Stijl’. Mondriaan, first of all, continued to lead his neo-plastic compositions to even greater perfection. His development from 1925 on-the year when he left ‘De Stijl’-is a slow but consistent evolution towards yet greater purity, towards a greater simplicity, which no one at that time would have thought possible when looking at the works of around 1925. Yet, he accomplished an even simpler but not less rich harmony in his works of the thirties, by reducing colour to a smaller proportion of the surface and by emphasizing the interplay of lines and their relation to colour. His evolution continues gradually till 1938; then he moves to London and from there to New York. There, a new phase of his evolution starts: J.J. Sweeney has given a brilliant description of this period: ‘Finally in his BroadwayGa naar margenoot+ Boogie-Woogie and his unfinished Victory Boogie-Woogie we find him drawing all the strands of his research together. Here we have the restlesness and variety of minor form that he had in his first post-cubist phase,contrasting with a constant dominant rectangularity throughout the composition. The primary colours of his mature years are mingled with softer secondary squares reminiscent in tone of the golds and greys of his cubist work. And he has broken the agressiveness of his lines, abandoning not only the black, but even breaking the continuous character of the coloured bands of his first New York work with a

brilliant, multi-coloured mosaic effect. The whole canvas now dances with variously sized rectangles of different colours. The eye is led from one group of colour notes to another at varying speeds. At the same time, contrasted with the endless change in the minor motives, we have a constant repetition of the right-angle theme, like a persistent bass chord sounding through a sprinkle of running arpeggio's and grace notes from the treble.’Ga naar eindnoot597 Under the influence of a new rhythm of life, of a surprisingly rich and vivid surrounding reality, Mondriaan, with an amazing vitality for a man of seventy, had found a new way of expression. The fact and its results are to be equally admired. Yet, one personal remark may be permitted to the author: the exclusive praise for Mondriaan's late work, which is often uttered by American critics, seems to him to be slightly misleading. With all appreciation for the vivid bright works of the New York period, he is convinced that they should not be overrated at the expense of the earlier work. He does even admit that the austere sonority of the compositions, dating from about 1930, which are so closely related to the majestic adagio of the old ‘Wilhelmus’, and of the Calvinist psalm-melodies, ‘sound’ more typical for Mondriaan's work to his eye, than the allegro rhythm of his late Boogie-Woogies.

Next to Mondriaan's work, the evolution of Van der Leck's painting is to be examined. It is essential to note that Van der Leck left ‘De Stijl’ in 1919, before the definite establishment of neo-plasticism and that he had opposed in 1918 already, the tendency towards a greater emphasis on linear structure, which was ultimately to result in neo-plasticism. The reference to his using for a certain time ‘Mondriaan's concept of crossed vertical and horizontal lines as a basis for his composition’, expressed by J.J. Sweeney,Ga naar eindnoot598 must therefore be based on incorrect information. It was precisely his objection against the concept of crossed lines, which he considered as being too tight, that made Van der Leck leave ‘De Stijl’. Certainly, his decision has also been influenced by personal motives, for instance by a violent distrust of Van Doesburg's versatility; but the personal motives, mentioned by Van Doesburg in the 10th anniversary number of De Stijl (p. 7) have certainly not been decisive. It is true, though, that Van der Leck, less influenced by universalist and speculative theories, has had a different conception of the evolution of painting, to which idea he has clung ever since and which has been the rule of conduct of his development.

Van der Leck had his doubts about the value of the universalist and speculative conceptions of his fellow-artists of ‘De Stijl’. He therefore started from a different content than they did: his intention has not been, even in the first years, to reveal universal equilibrium. On the other hand, he had always opposed the particular representation: his whole development up to 1917 had tended towards an increasing generalisation, from his early naturalist works to a coloristic and linear stylisation. However, even after the foundation of ‘De Stijl’, he continues to consider painting principally as an objective language, capable of every expression, but bound to its own elements: plane and colour. His ambition had been to give painting its elementary objectivity as a language, to free

it from all interference by personal sentiment. ‘Painting - he once said - should be as clear as water’. Van der Leck has never been essentially an abstract painter - that is to say, he had never, beforehand, excluded motive; that is what makes him differ from his fellow - painters of ‘De Stijl’. But he had, with the same persistence as his friends, aimed at an objective pure and elementary art of painting. For him, the establishment of the elements of painting by ‘De Stijl’ - straight lines in rectangular opposition and primary colour - meant the discovery and the conquest of an objective means of expression, but nothing but a means. A means which enabled him to establish in an objective way, the ‘architecture of painting’ which Cézanne had already sought. He writes in 1949: ‘Thereafter came the struggle from the two-dimensional towards flat spaciality, from murality and monumentality towards the architectural with elementary means, that is to say the three colours plus black and white; and the three directions, by which non-figurative spacial harmonies have been realized (different compositions). But then, the whole problem of painting and colour can be solved again afterwards and by these means, for architecture as well as for the interior.’Ga naar eindnoot599 The use of these elementary means differs with Van der Leck from his fellow - painters in ‘De Stijl’. First of all, he does not reject the diagonal (cf. painting 1917, De Stijl I, pl. 1). Besides, he entirely excludes the linearGa naar margenoot+ element from his works, as much as Mondriaan and Van Doesburg have done in their first works of 1917. He did not oppose this relation of rectangular coloured forms to a background, a fact which brought Mondriaan and Van Doesburg to an increasingly prevailing emphasis of the linear element in their painting. Coloured rectangular forms are composed, according to the three directions, on a white background; they establish a rhythm of almost musical sonority; a rhythm sometimes austere and stately, sometimes even daringly gay, depending on the motive; but by this objective, universal language he succeeded in dematerialising it to such a degree, that it became as abstracted from the particular object as a motive can be abstracted in poetry or in music: dissolved into the rhythm of forms and merged into a cadence of determined, well-established and interrelated colours.

Van der Leck's ambition as to painting had always been an organic agreement of painting and architecture, both limited to their own domains. To this problem he had devoted two articles in the first volume of De Stijl: The place of modern painting in architecture (p. 6), and On painting and building (p. 37). He had first realized this union in 1918, when designing the stand of Messrs. Bruynzeel at the Utrecht fair. In later years, this preoccupation with the shape of human surroundings had increased. In 1919 he first concerned himself with the problem of textiles, projects which have been executed only in 1928 with the Amsterdam firm Metz & Co. In 1935, he started to work in ceramics and in the following years he realized the first interiors, in collaboration with the architect W. Elling: the interior of a house at Hilversum, Rossinilaan (now destroyed) in 1939; the interior of an apartment in Amsterdam in 1948; and finally in 1952, the canteen of the factory of Messrs Ketjen in Amsterdam-North. In a complete abstraction, without any motive, he has realized there by rectangular planes of

primary colour, one of the important aims of ‘De Stijl’: to create human surroundings by purely artistic means. He has succeeded extremely well in doing so, though in quite a different manner to that of Van Doesburg in this ‘Aubette’: he did not aim at the buoyant dynamism of Van Doesburg's Strasbourg creation, but he achieved a rhythm of a sober and yet bright austerity, which. is perhaps more congenial to the Dutch residents of these houses than the more lively rhythm of the ‘Aubette’ would have been. The interiors are indeed a fine solution of the problem of giving an adequate and harmonious surroundings to modern man. They are, at the same time, a proof of the fact that Van der Leck, though leaving ‘De Stijl’ at an early date and steering a course of his own, yet always remained faithful to the essential principles of a movement which he had helped to bring into existence: the realization of an adequate artistic environment of modern man and the purification of painting, the striving for the creation of an objective pictorial language, which he has pursued - as has become evident by one of his most recent works - with relentless consistency.

Four other painters are still to be discussed in this context, dealing with the influence of ‘De Stijl’: Huszar, Severini, Vordemberge - Gildewart and Domela. Severini, however, who had always been a kind of ‘corresponding member’ of ‘De Stijl’, can be left out of account, as he never collaborated, in close personal contact, with other artists of ‘De Stijl’ and therefore never was really influenced by its conceptions. On the other hand ‘mechanical inspiration’, his aesthetical consideration of the machine, has had a certain influence on ‘De Stijl’.

Huszar, one of the constituent members of ‘De Stijl’, shows indeed the influence of ‘De Stijl’ as we have tried to define it above. Huszar was a memberGa naar margenoot+ of ‘De Stijl’ from its beginning until the end of 1922. It was he who designed the typographical appearance of the review. Some of his paintings are reproducedGa naar margenoot+ in the first two volumes (De Stijl I, pl. 7, p. 61 and II, pl. 7a). But he did not realize most of his later work in free painting. In his contribution to the 10th anniversary number of De Stijl he tells how he had to concentrate on design for advertisements, for posters, etc. and how the demands of his employers made it impossible to realize his conceptions with the purity he had aimed at. Yet, though diluted, his works clearly show the influence of ‘De Stijl’; a tendency towards an objective, well - established use of forms, of a balance of forms in the plane, which excluded symmetry, an objective and functional use of colour. Of course, these works did not realize the utter purity ‘De Stijl’, and Huszar as well, had aimed at. They would not have been published by Van Doesburg, except in the anniversary number, as they showed signs of what Van Doesburg calls in his introduction to the anniversary issue: a relapse into naturalistic stylization. On the other hand they show how the principles of ‘De Stijl’, though diluted, entered and influenced the varions domains of human activity.

Vordemberge - Gildewart came to join ‘De Stijl’ when the original conception of neo-plasticism had already been substituted by Van Doesburg in his new conception of elementarism. Vordemberge's works of this period - about 1925 - agreed very well with Van Doesburg's dynamic conception, which had led to

elementarism. As has been stated before, Vordemberge had started immediately from abstract construction, without any naturalist or even abstractionistGa naar margenoot+ past. His early work had been inspired by man - made forms as letters, parts of machines, etc. In his later work, during his participation in ‘De Stijl’,this preference showed in a strong and dynamic expression; a good example of this trend is his coloured lithograph of 1935. in which he succeeded admirably in transforming the lithographic technique into a clear and precise manner of expression. This love for precision is Vordemberge's most remarkable feature; he has clearly expressed it in an article in the l0th anniversary number of De Stijl from which we have quoted and in all his later paintings. This love for precision permitted him to achieve excellent work as a typographer and to devote his skill to different domains of plastic activity, in order to introduce an orderly and neat spirit. Precision and neatness, two of the important qualifies advanced by ‘De Stijl’, remain characteristic of his work; in later years - about the time he settled in Amsterdam - he developed an additional refinement: his preference for the contrast of different materials, which in earlier years had been expressed by the application of fragments of material to the canvas, had by now been transformed into a different way of treating of the canvas's surface: rough and smooth, granular and polished, glossy and matt contrast in a way which gives an additional liveliness not only to the canvas' surface, but to the pictorial expression as well. By these proceedings he has enriched ‘De Stijl's’ means of expression, giving a new interpretation to ‘denaturalisation’.

Domela is the youngest of ‘De Stijl’ painters to be discussed here. His early work had much attracted Van Doesburg, who has devoted a special notice to it in De Stijl (VI, p. 98) in 1925. Domela's work of these years shows a strongGa naar margenoot+ dynamic expression, partly inspired by ‘De Stijl’, partly by the Russian constructivists, with whom he had come into contact through Lissitzky in Berlin. Since 1925, he worked in closer contact with Van Doesburg and Mondriaan; the influence of these dominating personalities on the rather youthful Domela shows by a straightening and by an increasing purification of his composition. On the other hand, he developed a special aspect out of the neo-plastic and elementarist composition by executing his compositions in different materials and in separate superimposed layers. His composition of 1932 is a typical example of this period. In the same period, he designed posters and executed various typographical projects, the best known of which is the cover of the review i 10, edited in Amsterdam in 1927. The composition of this cover and of similar works by Domela show an independent and adequate application of ‘De Stijl's’ principles: Van Doesburg in his design for the cover of the Bauhausbuch had indicated the possibility of an application of ‘De Stijl's’ principles in typography as early as in 1924. But Domela, in the years around 1927 developed this possibility into an arrangement and disposal of typographical material: the habits of symmetry and axis disposition, which hitherto had been considered as laws, were abolished by his new composition and replaced by a rhythmic division of the page. The principle of division no longer followed outward and pre - established laws, but the page was divided according to its own proportions

and to the functional importance of the words. Domela had thus attained a more objective form of typographical expression.

On the other hand, he abandoned in his painting, around 1932 the rigid discipline of ‘De Stijl’; since that year he has adopted a manner which is based on the expressive character of the curved line, thus aiming at a more personal expression, which did not agree with the principles of ‘De Stijl’. Yet, the influence of ‘De Stijl’ is still visible in his manner of using different denaturalised materials.

Thus, the painters of ‘De Stijl’ all developed the principles of ‘De Stijl’ in a particular and often characteristic direction. Also, in one way or another, they all realized ‘De Stijl's’ conception, that painting, the freest form of plastic art, should lead the way for other branches of human activity.

‘De Stijl's’ sculpture, as Mondriaan had written, had, with painting, relatively little influence on the development of sculpture in general. As a matter of fact, it had been but relatively little practised in ‘De Stijl’. Vantongerloo was the only sculptor of the group and he left it in 1920 when he moved to Mentone. In the course of his later development he was carried further and further by his interest in mathematics. His compositions of the early twenties are - captivating - translations of mathematical equations into a formal language, but it is exactly their objective, mathematical quality that makes them more or less unapproachable to the spectator. Higher mathematics are not yet a content sufficiently familiar to the average man to enable it to affect, by its purely plastic representation, even someone whose plastic sensibility lies above the average. He may experience the beauty of forms, but probablyhe will not grasp their structural reasons.

About 1937, Vantongerloo, who had already in the early thirties reverted more and more to painting, adopted curved lines, thus denying the principles of ‘De Stijl’. This change, in his case, can well be explained by his preference for mathematics: higher mathematics, though, did not permit a figuration which was exclusively based on straight lines and right angles and this perception may have led Vantongerloo towards an increasing use of curved lines.

Literature in ‘De Stijl’ had always rather lived in a world of its own. It had, apart from the reaiization of certain trends which were parallel to ‘De Stijl’, been influenced by Dadaism also. Van Doesburg had found contact with Dadaism in Germany through Kurt Schwitters and he had subsequently befriended Tzara, Raoul Hausmann, Jean Cocteau, Jean Arp (who had belonged to ‘De Stijl’ since 1925 but only as a poet, not as a painter or sculptor) and Ribemont-Dessaignes. This contact had influenced ‘De Stijl's’ literary activity; it had even led to the creation of Van Doesburg's second alter ego, Aldo Camini, the materialisation of his dadaist personality. The entire domain of ‘De Stijl's’ literary activity and influence demands a monograph which cannot be achieved here, as this study is mostly concerned with ‘De Stijl's’ creative activity in the domain of plastic arts. The dadaist aspect of ‘De Stijl's’ activity therefore has been neglected here, as it did not interfere with ‘De Stijl's’ plastic work at all. It was, at least to Van Doesburg, more of a counterweight than an independent

activity. Therefore, the accents and the influence of the literary work will be considered here, to the extent in which they ran parallel with the plastic ambitions of ‘De Stijl’. Our investigations have therefore to gravitate around Van Doesburg's own literary work and that of his first alter ego: I.K. Bonset. In the work of Bonset, Van Doesburg's desire for purification, for direct expression, is reflected in literature. These ambitions are well expressed by him in the ‘Foundations for a new expression in verse’, in De Stijl's 4th volume: ‘Poetry is no philosophy and certainly not history, it does not serve understanding. lt is existence itself, expressed by sound relations and contrasts of sounds. In order to realize this idea, we are to part with the multitude and the plenitude, with which the logical culture of Western Europe has burdened us during the last 50 years(......). At first, the restitution of inner sound of the word has to be considered. To strip it of its past, it is necessary to renew the alphabet according to its abstract values of sound. This means, at the same time, the recovery of the poetic membranes of our ears, which. are weakened to such a point that long phono - gymnastic exercises are necessary. By my last sound - figures I have satisfied this need. By them, I have again created the alphabet according to the inward sound and according to poetry. From this geometrical poetry the poetical speech needed by our time can develop. Though shapeless, these verses are strictly bound to laws of tempo, relationship and contrasting effect of sound, whereas every troublesome, pathetic secondary gesture has been avoided.’Ga naar eindnoot600

This programme shows features which are indeed almost parallel to ‘De Stijl's’ plastic ambition; the primary aim here as well is the creation of a new language based on its proper elements and not on various outward and incidental associations. In literature as well as in plastic arts, ‘De Stijl's’ striving for purification has been of equal importance and the polemic accent against the production of the past equally strong. ‘Logics, which are the basis of our literature, have deprived the word of its suggestive force. Thus all words are consumed, they are inappropriate as a means of expression for our deepened vitality.’Ga naar eindnoot601 And the emphasis is laid in literature, as in plastic art, no more on comprehension, but on inner experience: ‘What he (the poet, (ed.)) demands from his reader is not: to understand according to a logical pattern, but to experience.’Ga naar eindnoot602

The method, of the new trend in literature also, is similar to that which ‘De Stijl’ aims at in painting and plastic art; when Van Doesburg writes: ‘We have tested again the rnaterial of the words and we have brought it in agreement with the exact weight of the new spirit’,Ga naar eindnoot603 we can easily compare this passage with another one, quoted on p. 149 of this study, in order to see the parallelism of both movements. But the most striking parallelism between the literary and the plastic tendency of ‘De Stijl’ can be found in the determination of its aim: ‘Creative syntax; the word, the language, the sentence - according to a process of ideal ‘possessedness’ will be capable of altering human mentality so deeply and essentially, that an entirely new way of seeing and of thinking will be the result.’Ga naar eindnoot604 Thus, poetry and literature have been allotted a similar task to painting: to change, that is, to improve the aesthetic qualifies in man

and thereby to lead towards the evolution of a happier and brighter mankind.

The one essential difference between ‘De Stijl's’ plastic and its literary ambitions is, that the latter have been - almost by definition - confined to the limits of the Dutch language. Though on principle as international, because of its being universalist, as the other tendencies of ‘De Stijl’, the literary production of ‘De Stijl’ was based on the existing laws of Dutch language and could not exert any influence beyond its boundaries. After a period of poetical research, directed towards different aims in the thirties, a younger, post-war generation again became conscious of the importance of purifying the poetical means of expression. Though their research is not aimed at the construction of an objective language, all these young Dutch authors and poets, Schierbeek, Vinkenoog etc, have been, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by ‘De Stijl's’ experiments in language, syntax and phonetics. The poetic results, published in ‘De Stijl’ by Bonset, Kok, Arp and by guests and friends such as Til Brugman, Schwitters a.o. have certainly not passed unobserved and the - sometimes. violently riotous - literary soirees, illuminated by Mrs. Van Doesburg's musical performances, still live in the memory of many an older contemporary. The influence of the ‘Stijl's’ literary trend has been more indirect: it continued its underground course for many years, till it came again to light by the creations of a younger generation, in the years after the second world war.

Music had been, in ‘De Stijl's’ activity, closely linked up with literature. We have seen that the literary soirees of ‘DeStijl’ were accompanied by the musical performances of Petro van Doesburg. In the first years of ‘De Stijl’ and even in the years before, there had existed a close friendship between Mondriaan and the composer Van Domselaar. This friendship led to Mondriaan's taking an active interest in music and on the other hand to Van Domselaar's attempt to realize in music the conception, expressed in painting by Mondriaan. Van Domselaar did indeed, about 1916, achieve a few compositions, of only 15 bars each, which expressed a similar tendency towards harmony and musical equilibrium. They are, however, an expression of a static balance and therefore more parallel to the plastic movement of ‘De Stijl's’ early years. What Van Domselaar tried to realize in his short compositions, was to substitute melody and its continuous flow by a marked harmonic opposition which created equilibrium by simultaneous contrast.

After Mondriaan's departure for Paris, the contact with Van Domselaar lapsed somewhat; Mondriaan, though, became acquainted in Paris with the Dutch composer Daniel Ruyneman and both exchanged their views on the future development of painting and music. Ruyneman's compositions of these years show an increasing tendency towards the use of elementary musical means, their contrasting effect resulting in a well-established balance.

Mondriaan's interest in music found its expression in two articles on the future development of music: in the 4th volume on: Les bruiteurs futuristes italiens and The new in music (pp. 114, 130) and in the fifth annual series on Neo-piasticism and its realisation in music (pp. 1, 17). In these articles, Mondriaan rejects the traditional, melodic system of musical composition, he opposes the

individual expression of the composer, the soloist and the musician and establishes quite clearly the aim of neo-plastic conception in music: the creation of an objective language in music. To this end, he demands new instruments, capable of producing even and distinct sounds and inappropriate to interpreting any human emotion. He claims a new rhythm, based on opposition and a new way of composition which excludes vagueness, sentimentality and the domination of individual feelings. However, Mondriaan is aware of the fact that these claims and solutions are still more or less Utopian and that their significance consists in their marking the aim. It is in this context also, that Mondriaan develops his fascinating Utopian vision of the place, where modern music will be executed and where, in the intervals, projections of neo-plastic paintings might be shown (De StijlV, pp. 21-22). This conception is indeed the most surprising modern attempt to realize the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ which - since the middle of the 19th century, since the days of Wagner - has been the secret aim of a large section of European culture.

Neither Van Domselaar nor Ruyneman had belonged to ‘De Stijl’; only one musician has indeed - though for a short time from 1924 on - been a member of ‘De Stijl’: George Antheil. In several articles of De Stijl he has expressed his musical conceptions: a development of music that should emphasize the instrumental, objective qualities, which do already manifest themselves in present day's musical execution, where the individual musician has been more or less reduced to a machine. Only by a further consistent development of this tendency could music realize what plastic art had already expressed by its newly established and elementary means. He advocates (De StijlVI, pp. 99-102) a new mass-music, produced by giant machines, according to purely mechanical procedings and he insists (De Stijl VI, p. 152 sq.) on the fact that music establishes time in the way that painting - and especially neo-plastic painting - attempts to establish space. But Antheil, in his later years, more and more reverted to traditional composition, so that little has survived of the direct musical influence of ‘De Stijl’.

The next on the list, printed on the cover of De Stijl's l0th anniversary issue is the abstract dance. Van Doesburg refers to an article, published in De Stijl (VII, p. 12) by Valentin Parnac, describing a dance ‘Epopée’, created and executed by Parnac in the Meyerhold theatre in Moscow in 1925. Indeed, this dance and its spacial score, reproduced with the article, show a tendency similar to ‘De Stijl's’ realization in plastic art: first of all, the dance is ‘abstract’ in the sense of its having no particular subject, no individual content. Besides, it realizes another, much emphasized ambition of ‘De Stijl’: the tendency towards denaturalization. The human body, which after all is the means of expression of the dance, has been denaturalized to such a degree, that the dance might be expressed in a simple linear scheme. The article by Parnac has - to our knowledge - been the only manifestation of ‘De Stijl's’ activity in the domain of the abstract dance. On the other hand, ‘De Stijl's’ influence made itself felt on dancing in the subsequent years - on dancing and perhaps even more on choreography. There, the curved line has been avoided increasingly

and a scheme of choreographic composition, based on the contrast of horizontal and vertical movement, has, in a like measure, been adopted. It is exceedingly difficult to quote examples of this new tendency which manifested itself in choreography and dance in the late twenties, as photographs are scarce and only show one moment out of a development in time, but the fact of a gradual change to a more rectilinear scheme seems to be none the less well established.

The following field of ‘De Stijl's’ activity and influence, abstract film, has several features in common with abstract dancing: principally that it manifests itself in space and time. The flrst realizations of abstract film, by Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter, are introduced in De Stijl by Van Doesburg in an article on Abstract expression in film (De Stijl IV, p. 71 sq.), where he writes: ‘The idea of overcoming the static character of painting by the dynamic trend of film technique has already been practised by the artists who have tried to solve the modern problems of plastic art by means of the advanced technique of the film, thus uniting aesthetically the dynamic with the static.’Ga naar eindnoot605 There, Van Doesburg compares abstract expression of the film with music, as both imply a factor of time in their composition. Van Doesburg summarizes, in this new abstract realization, its possibility of objective expression and its anti-individualist tendencies: ‘When film technique will be entirely suitable for dynamo-plastics, the plastic artist will “write” his compositions for the film; colour and relation of forms will be exactly indicated by figures, whereafter their projects will find their most perfect and most precise expression by mechanical means, by an electric current.’Ga naar eindnoot606 In a following issue of De Stijl, Richter comments on his realizations and four phases (bars) out of the scene of his film are reproduced (De Stijl V, p. 109 sq.): ‘The event by itself; plastic evolution and revolution in the pure artistic sphere (abstract forms); almost analogous to the phenomena of music which are familiar to our ear. As in music, the action (in its most spiritual sense) comes out by the pure material and finds its tensions and its solutions in this material in a way, which - by the disappearance of all material comparisons and reminiscenses - is elementary and magical.’Ga naar eindnoot607 He emphasizes the importance of the creation of a language of forms which, by its elementary composition, can be indeed really objective: ‘For this new art it is absolutely necessary to dispose over primary elements. Without these, a (most captivating) game can be the result, but never a language.’Ga naar eindnoot608 In the fifth volume of De Stijl Richter again formulates his plastic principles, and insists once more on the need for objectivity (De Stijl V, pp. 91-92). The reproductions of several phases of his new composition ‘heavy - light’, which illustrate the article, had been published in an earlier issue (De Stijl V, opp. p. 24). But the essential contribution to this problem is Van Doesburg's article The Manifestation of light and time (De Stijl VI, p. 58), as a comment on a reproduction of a moment out of a film by Richter (De Stijl VI, p. 57) and a film-score by Graeff (De Stijl VI, opp. p. 64). The conclusion of the article, in which he insists on the realization of a modern, dynamic way of elementary expression and on the fact that the film has been liberated from its reproductive task, is as follows: ‘The possibilities of plastic expression are thus to be found in time as well as in space - just as in

modern architecture - and they are capable of rendering visible a new dimension, when the factors of time and of space come to equivalent (equilibrated) expression (......). Free from statics and from gravity, the film is able to realize a new architecture of light and time, which satisfies our modern emotion of life.’Ga naar eindnoot609

Abstract film had indeed been a most valuable realization of ‘De Stijl’. Its influence, its consequences have been very important indeed: almost all the films produced since 1924, in which film technique does not aim at a reproduction of nature but at an expressive language of its own, are based in one way or another on the first experiments of Eggeling and Richter, on the experiments of ‘De Stijl’. And there are quite a number of these films, differing in quality, in expressive strength and in execution, from MacLaren to Fishinger, a.o.

Architecture is the most important domain in which ‘De Stijl's’ influence made itself felt. And indeed, this influence dates back to the earliest days of ‘De Stijl’. We have seen how the first projects of ‘Stijl’ architecture, as Oud's houses on the esplanade and his factory at Purmerend, were developed directly from the new conceptions of painting and it is therefore quite logical that Oud - with his usual frankness - writes in his book on Dutch architecture: ‘The painter Piet Mondriaan; a person to whom “new objectivity” in architecture is very much indebted.’Ga naar eindnoot610 In the same work he defines this development even more precisely: ‘In Holland it has mainly been modern painting which by its influence revolted against traditional architecture. The work of the cubist and the futurist did this in the beginning, but only negatively so; as a reaction. Mondriaan's neo-plasticism (with its fervent propagandist Van Doesburg and his review De Stijl) later brought values to bear, which have been of positive importance to architecture. Mondriaan's composition - rectangular planes of pure colour, divided by straight black lines - gave the impulse to the rise of cubism in architecture (Dudok, later on, derived his work from it, Rietveld was its most complete representative).’Ga naar eindnoot611 Thus far, Oud's remarks mostly concern the Netherlands, and architectural development there. But soon after the end of the first world war and the reopening of the frontiers, ‘De Stijl's’ influence spread across Europe.

The importance of Van Doesburg's trip to Germany has already been mentioned in this context. But its actual consequences have not yet been examined; they are really most important for the development of modern architecture. A few lines from the article, already quoted, by Peter Röhl in the 10th anniversary number of De Stijl may be recalled here. The article is called The commencement and development of the Style 1921 in Weimar: ‘The year 1921 was of the highest importance for Weimar and for the development of German art. In 1921 the Dutchman Theo van Doesburg came to Weimar as our guest. His work was devoted to the new expression, which he suggested us by his achievements (......). To Van Doesburg we owe the evolution of modern architecture. Everywhere his suggestions can be found, applied and realized in new typography, in painted interiors, etc.’Ga naar eindnoot612

Indeed, this very bold statement - that the evolution of modern architecture

is due to Van Doesburg, or to ‘De Stijl’ - can be proved to a certain extent at least, as far as Germany is concerned. Van Doesburg was really aware of the fact and he writes in his retrospective articles in 1929: ‘Today one tries to ignore the fact, but at the time, in 1921-1923, the neo-plasticism of “De Stijl” dominated the whole of modern creation, from its two centres, Weimar and Berlin. At the desire of many young artists, the author conceived, in 1922, the plan of opening a “Stijl” course. This course, which has been mainly attended by pupils of the Bauhaus, contributed a great deal to re-orientate the creative mentality, as just about that time the younger German artists turned away from the caprice of expressionism. The intervention of “De Stijl” was extremely opportune for bringing the young artists into order and discipline.’Ga naar eindnoot613 In this context, Van Doesburg mentions a series of names; in Weimar Max Burchartz, Peter Röhl, Marcel Breuer, Adolf Meyer, Dexel, Forbat, a.o.; in Berlin Werner Graeff, Mies van der Rohe, Richter, Hilbersheimer. It is interesting to check these facts by comparing architectural results, using two publications as basic material: Walter Gropius' Internationale Architektur (Albert Langen, Munich 1927, 2nd ed., Bauhausbuch nr. 1) and the official publication of the Bauhaus Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar, 1919-1923 (Bauhausverlag, Weimar - München, 1923). From the illustrations the influence of ‘De Stijl’ on the Bauhaus pupils can already be noted quite definitely. But it is necessary to subject the events in Weimar in the years 1921 to 1923 to a yet closer examination, in order to gain full comprehension of the consequences.

The ‘Staatliches Bauhaus’, an institution dating from 1919 and the result of the initiative of W. Gropius, tried in its first years to revive the spirit of the mediaeval building community. Its slogan of 1919 runs as follows: ‘The Bauhaus strives for the gathering of all artistic creation into unity, for the reunion of all artisan discipline into a new art of building, as its indivisible parts. The final, though remote, aim of the Bauhaus is the complete work of art (Einheitskunstwerk) - the great structure in which there is no frontier between monumental and decorative art.’Ga naar eindnoot614 It is obvious that this passage has been inspired by an ambition to create an equivalent of the mediaeval cathedral, the prototype of the ‘Einheitskunstwerk’. But this striving for an almost anonymous realization of a collective and universal work of art was opposed in the Bauhaus by a tendency towards self-expression, which introduced a markedly individualist aspect. Both tendencies merged, in the first years of the Bauhaus, into an atmosphere of mystic exaltation; the Bauhaus terminology, dividing the workers into ‘Meister’ and ‘Schüler’ is typical of a spirit of romantic nostalgia, of a retrospective idealism. It may have been influenced as well, by the - similar - literary tendencies which found their origin in the ‘circle’ of Stefan George.

Van Doesburg, in the 10th anniversary issue of De Stijl quotes an article in the Chicago Evening Tribune of May 10th, 1927, written by Baron Dr. V. Erffa, on the events of 1921-1923 and the character of the Bauhaus before Van Doesburg's arrival. He characterizes the spirit of the Bauhaus by stating that it developed ‘almost into a cloister’.Ga naar eindnoot615 He quotes the influence of Johannes Itten (whose important deed was the introduction of the Bauhaus ‘Vorkurs’), his

inclination towards the mystic writings of Swedenborg and his preference for the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Confessions of St. Augustine. All these signs of a mystic exaltation may have been perfectly genuine and natural in post-war Germany - they led to a violent clash when Van Doesburg arrived in Weimar in 1921. Yet, as Van Doesburg saw immediately, the Bauhaus promised many possibilities for modern and constructive activity for, besides all romantic ideals and mystic exaltation, its principal aim was the merging of art and life, the bridging of the gap between artist and public. Van Doesburg was keenly aware of this fact and of the possibilities for a development coinciding with the aims of ‘De Stijl’; ‘not “art for art's sake”, but “art for life” was the device in Germany, but its significance was as badly misunderstood as was later the “new objectivity” (Neue Sachlichkeit) which came from Oud.’Ga naar eindnoot616

During these two years, 1921 and 1922, Van Doesburg led a violent campaign against the tendencies of self-expression, of the individual conception of the artist's task. He organised ‘De Stijl’ course, which has been already mentioned, with the result that the Weimar art world was indeed split up into two groups. The resulting clashes and outbursts have been mentioned most discreetly by Van Doesburg in his retrospective articles in the 10th anniversary number and in the Neue Schweizer Rundschau in 1929. He propagated the principles of ‘De Stijl’, he explained the leading ideas of neo-plasticism in painting and in architecture. In spite of the opposition in the Bauhaus, a gradual change took place in its general orientation. The change can be demonstrated in the works of the Bauhaus as well as in other documents. It comes down to what Erffa says in the article, quoted by Van Doesburg: ‘Bauhaus however, has gone constructivist.’Ga naar eindnoot617 Constructivism - the new trend in building, known under different other names as well - has indeed sprung from the clash of the Bauhaus mentality with the ideas of ‘De Stijl’, brought to Weimar by Van Doesburg. ‘De Stijl's’ ambition for aesthetic purity and objectiveness and the Bauhaus' endeavour to realize the ‘Einheitskunstwerk’, together brought forward a new conception of architecture, which dominated Germany for the next decade, until Hitler's grab for power. After 1933 it spread across Europe and over to the United States.

The contrast of the Bauhaus work before and after 1921 becomes indeed very clear by comparing two works by Gropius: the house ‘Sommerfeld’ in Dahlem-Berlin (Bauhaus publication pl. 116, 117, pp. 174, 175) dating from 1920-21, and the reconstruction of the Jena theatre (ibid. pl. 114, 115, pp. 172, 173) of 1922. The first example is still vaguely expressionist, there is no sign of any denaturalisation of material. The furniture, designed by Marcel Breuer (ibid. pl. 36 and 117) shows a similar character and is slightly reminiscent of parallel work of the ‘Amsterdam School’ in the Netherlands, a group led by de Klerk, which was continuously and violently attacked by Oud and Van Doesburg for their lack of objective discipline and their tendency towards self-expression, that is to say, individualism. The reconstruction of the Jena theatre, however, built after ‘De Stijl's’ influence had made itself felt, shows a conception of architecture which is closely related to Oud's buildings of the preceding years, at any

rate with ‘Stijl’ architecture of the same period. And a chair by Marcel Breuer (ibid. pl. 41, p. 83) can be set against to the one belonging to the Sommerfeld house; it is indeed closely related to Rietveld's chair of 1917, mentioned earlier.

The influence of ‘De Stijl's’ conception can be demonstrated in the work of different German artists of the period. Alfred H. Barr has shown the relation of Van Doesburg's 1918 painting ‘Russian dance’ to an architectural project of Mies van der Rohe of 1922: the scheme of composition as a pattern of rectangular opposition, is definitely derived from ‘De Stijl’.Ga naar eindnoot618 It is perhaps the most spectacular illustration of Oud's thesis on the genesis of modern architecture: ‘As remarkable as it may sound, new objectivity (nieuwe zakelijkheid) has come forth for a very great part from the development which the liberal arts - above all painting - had taken initially. The reason for its form lay in any case much more there - that is, in the aesthetic domain - than in the “objective”. This is clearly visible in its earliest expressions, and the influence has been such that ‘objectivity’ had often been completely sacrificed to aesthetic expression. Horizontal and vertical intersections of parts of a building, plates which hung suspended, corner windows, etc., all these features were for a certain time very much en vogue; their derivation from painting and sculpture can be easily demonstrated and they have been continuously used with on without any practical aim.’Ga naar eindnoot619

The consequences of ‘De Stijl's’ conception on German architecture are indeed far-reaching and they can be demonstrated by various instances: Gropius' 1922 projects for the Chicago Tribune building (Gropius, Internationale Architektur p. 47) is almost as closely related to a painting by Van Doesburg as Mies van der Rohe's project mentioned above; and Mies van der Rohe's model for a country-house of 1923 (ibid. p. 69). Projects of later years, by the same artists, still show the importance of the 1921-1922 influence, though they are sometimes superseded by a more recent influence of ‘De Stijl’: the results of the collaboration of Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren, which were exhibited in Paris in 1924, and, in the same year, in Weimar and which did not fail to exert a new influence on the Bauhaus and the artists assembled there. But before examining this second infiltration of ‘De Stijl’ into German architecture, the influence of ‘De Stijl’ on the general conception of the Bauhaus should not be forgotten. Gropius' introduction to the Bauhaus publication of 1923, dealing with the ‘idea and structure of the Staatliches Bauhaus’ starts as follows: ‘The idea of today's world can already be recognised, though its shape is still vague and confused. The old dualist image of the world, the ego as an opposition to the universe, is fading; the conception of a new unity of the world, implying the absolute neutralisation of all opposing tensions, looms up instead.’Ga naar eindnoot620 It may be permitted to compare these passages, with some of the sentences in the first manifesto of ‘De Stijl’, published in 1918: ‘There is an old and a new consciousness of time. The old is connected with the individual. The new is connected with the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal is revealing itself in the world-war as well as in the art of the present day. The war is destroying the old world with its contents; individual domination in every

state. The new art has brought forward what the new consciousness of time contains: a balance between the universal and the individual.’Ga naar eindnoot621 Parallelism between these two texts is evident and ‘De Stijl's’ manifesto having been published five years previous to Gropius' article, the direction of the influence is unquestionable. These lines show, that ‘De Stijl's’ influence on the Bauhaus has not only been limited to the formal, aesthetic conception of architecture, in which the Bauhaus followed ‘De Stijl’, but Van Doesburg's visit to Weimar had indeed achieved a re-orientation in the Bauhaus conception of art: it no longer lost itself in mystic exaltation, but it accepted the task of the realization by new means, of a problem presented by the period's circumstances. The solution was ‘new objectivity’. Oud has perhaps thought of this transformation which he witnessed from near by, when he wrote; ‘The development of new architecture must be a trial to everyone who sticks to the existing world of thought and feeling, considering art - without any possibility of an exception - as a kind of narcotic that withdraws us from reality and removes us into a Kingdom of Dreams, where all activity comes to a standstill and where we sink into the apathetic dullness of spiritual stupefaction. New architecture does not do so: it no more wraps up the common things of everyday life into forms remote from reality, as it used to do nearly always formerly. On the contrary: it accepts the problems, simply and plainly, as they appear and it grows up from active life, which it cherishes. The aim of new architecture can be described in a few words: the seeking of clear forms for clearly expressed needs’.Ga naar eindnoot622 These lines, which are the conclusion of Oud's article on Modern international Architecture show clearly that ‘De Stijl's’ effort towards a purification of the plastic means of expression has been one of the most important factors in the genesis of a new architecture, which, alternately, is called ‘constructivism’ functionalism, or ‘neue Sachlichkeit’.

Until now, the German line of development has been examined. This is indeed, chronologically, the first and perhaps the most important for its influence and its spreading over Europe and the New World. The influence of ‘De Stijl’ on French architecture is linked up with ‘De Stijl's’ architectural exhibition in Paris in 1923. When tackling the problems, set for this manifestation - the private house for Léonce Rosenberg, the artist's house, etc. - ‘De Stijl’ had already developed further than it had been when it had influenced the Bauhaus. The collaboration of Van Doesburg, Van Eesteren and Rietveld had indeed resulted in more developed architectural results: the architectural solution had acquired a new freedom, it had liberated itself - by the analytical method - from its dependence on painting and sculpture and it was dealing, much more indeed than it had done before, with space, the expressive means of architecture. Van Doesburg had described the aims of the 1923 exhibition in his 1929 retrospective article as follows: ‘Instead of repeating already established solutions, we aimed at raising architecture and painting to a height unconjectured hitherto and to bring them into yet closer relation. The house has been dismembered and dissected into its plastic elements. The static axis of old construction has been destroyed; the house became an object around which one could walk on all

sides. This analytical method led to new possibilities of construction and to a new ground plan. The house became free from the ground and the ceiling became a roof-terrace and consequently a kind of extra floor, laid open. At that time these problems were completely new and nobody had concerned himself with them as seriously as the young Dutch architects and painters.’Ga naar eindnoot623

Architecture in France has certainly been influenced by the achievements of this exhibition; the influence can be traced in the work of Mallet Stevens and quite distinctly in that of Gabriel Guevrekian. His project for a hotel for motorists of 1923 (Gropius, op. cit. p. 56) is certainly derived from architectural models of ‘De Stijl’, though Guevrekian's project has not yet entirely broken away from symmetrical design. But even the inspired and independent personality of Le Corbusier has been influenced by the new architectural ideas of ‘De Stijl’. A careful analysis of his work in the years from 1920 till 1925 will show that certain elements - almost the same which Van Doesburg mentions in his article - have entered into the work of this independent architectural genius in or after 1923 and that indeed, as Van Doesburg puts it,‘1923 has been a turning point in architecture’Ga naar eindnoot624 not only for ‘De Stijl’, but, through its influence, for all European architecture as well.

When studying the work of Le Corbusier chronologically in the survey of his complete oeuvre (Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, Oeuvre complet de 1910-1929, nouvelle édition publiée par W. Boesiger et O. Stonorov, introduction et textes par Le Corbusier; éd. Dr. H. Girsberger, Zürich 1937), three important architectural features will appear more clearly and pronouncedly after 1923: the free development of the roof, the suspended structural conception and the use of colour. The prototypes of Le Corbusier's early work, the villa at Vaucresson of 1922 and the house of the painter A. Ozenfant in Paris of the same year, show the basis of his later development, but both still are essentially cubist architecture: the Vaucresson villa (Le Corbusier, op. cit. pp. 48-53) is a cubic block, where only the roofing over the front door with the balcony above it breaks out into another direction. The roof is flat, accentuating the closed and solid structure of the building, which is firmly anchored in the ground. The house of the painter Ozenfant in Paris (Le Corbusier, op. cit. pp. 55-57) shows similar features: indeed, a freer solution of the roof could not have been possible here for practical reasons, but a certain square - set aspect still prevails, which contrasts quite obviously with the active movable aspect of the later works and with the products of ‘De Stijl’ in 1923.

As examples of Le Corbusier's later work, the maquette of the Salon d'Automne of 1924 (Le Corbusier, op. cit. p. 59) may be quoted, as well as the Jeanneret and La Roche houses of 1923 (Le Corbusier, op. cit. pp. 61-68), showing a development of roof-gardens and a freer solution of suspended parts of the structure. The most convincing proof of this development is the double house Lipchitz - Miestchaninoff at Boulogne sur Seine of 1924 (Le Corbusier, op. cit. pp. 70-71), where the roof is completely employed as living-space and where the suspended elements are much more emphasized than before.

‘Stijl’ emanation on the work of Le Corbusier can be traced in his magnificent

realization of the modern quarter of Pessac-Bordeaux (Le Corbusier, op. cit. 78-86) in the use of colour. The photographs on pp. 79, 81 and 85 give only a feeble impression of the striking beauty of colour, shining in a brilliant southern sun. Pessac has indeed proved to man, the layman as well as the student of architecture, the invaluable importance of colour in architecture; as a matter of fact, it is brought out in wonderful effect by the sun and the air of southern France. Pessac, built in 1925, shows all the new features in Le Corbusier's work united to a new and splendid beauty: the use of colour, the conception of the roof as a living space and the use of protruding and suspended architectural elements. There is still another fact to be noticed in this context: the project of Pessac is based on studies for a standard type of house which were made in 1923-25 (Le Corbusier, op. cit. p. 69). In these studies a method of architectural projection may be found which must be considered as new in the work of Le Corbusier (at least as far as our documentation leads) but which, on the other hand, coincides with the method of ‘De Stijl’ in its architectural drawings and projects for the 1923 exhibition.

It would, of course, be a serious mistake to call Le Corbusier's later work a ramification of ‘Stijl’ influence. Le Corbusier, who is one of the most inspiring and vivacious artists of the first half of the 20th Century, has from the very beginning developed an architectural opinion of his own. Yet, it may be affirmed that the 1923 exhibition of ‘DeStijl’ in Paris, which Le Corbusier visitedGa naar eindnoot625, has acted as a stimulus on his further evolution and has contributed to the realization of one of the most perfect architectural creations of this century: the garden district of Pessac-Bordeaux as well as to the other later works of Le Corbusier.

The influence of the Paris exhibition of 1923 has been relatively limited in comparison to the repercussions after the same series of projects, exhibited in 1924 at Weimar. This show administered a new shock to German architects, who had already been made acquainted with ‘De Stijl's’ work by Van Doesburg's stay in Weimar, three years before. Many examples of this influence can be traced, the most outstanding is perhaps Gropius' Bauhaus building in Dessau (Gropius, op. cit. p. 22) of 1925/26. In Gropius' publication, this building is shown in an aerial photograph, thus arriving at an approximately similar effect with the existing building as Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren had aimed at in their architectural projections on paper. This type of architectural drawing can be traced as well in the work of the Bauhaus pupils: Forbat's project for a house, dating from 1924 (Gropius, op. cit. p. 82) and Molnar's project for a one-family house of 1923 (Gropius, ibid. p. 78), Marcel Breuer's project for a house in steel construction of 1926 (Gropius, ibid. p. 91). In all these projects as well as in Gropius's and A. Meyer's models (Gropius, op. cit. pp. 72-73) of 1923 and 1924, the elements developed by ‘De Stijl’ appear clearly enough: all these structures are indeed derived, more or less, from the permanent and ever-recurrent influence of ‘De Stijl’ on the Bauhaus.

Yet, in spite of the fact that functional architecture was first realized on a larger scale in Germany, German functionalism did not retain the leading

position; the centre of functionalist architecture reverted soon enough to its place of origin, Holland. Oud and a series of younger architects as Duiker, Brinkman and Van der Vlugt, Van Loghem, Stam and others developed functionalism - or ‘nieuwe zakelijkheid’ - towards its culminating point. Works, such as Oud's Kiefhoek-settlement; the Bergpolder appartment-building in Rotterdam by Brinkman, Van der Vlugt and Van Thijen; the ‘Van Nelle’ factory by Brinkman and Van der Vlugt with Stam's collaboration; Duiker's open-air school in Amsterdam and his Zonnestraal hospital at Hilversum; Stam's project for a building on the Rokin and his plans for the station in Geneva, which together all continued the architectural conceptions of ‘De Stijl’, brought Dutch functional architecture to the front ranks in Europe. It is this architecture, about which Oud, its earliest protagonist, writes when demonstrating its origin: ‘On one hand cubism - misunderstood - went down into a new romanticism: playing with block - like masses for the sake of playing only. But on the other hand new values were born from it, which have been the spiritual basis of new architecture: straight and rigid lines, bright surfaces, pure colour, pure proportion, brightness of atmosphere, plainness, reciprocal action of full and empty (in architecture: between volume and space, between interior and exterior, etc.).’Ga naar eindnoot626

A lengthy list of realizations of functional architecture could be given here, in order to demonstrate the spreading of ‘Stijl’ influence to different countries. A few monuments can only be mentioned here out of the profusion of results. Yet it has to be mentioned that another factor played its part in the development of functionalism - as it had been of influence on ‘De Stijl’: the admiration for engineering and for the results of technical production; as Oud writes in his study on new architecture: ‘In full connection with this development and interrelated with it, there was a fervent enthusiasm among the vanguard of plastic artists (who had always accepted modern life in its extreme consequences) for the beauty, realized quasi unintentionally in large constructions (concrete and iron) and in more refined technique (motorcars, airplanes, steamships etc). The work of the engineer has been admired for its reasonableness, and the technical product has been set as an example for its unity of logical form and its fine appearance.’Ga naar eindnoot627 Functional architecture developed according to this line of thought, that is to say, it gradually drew away from its aesthetical source and became instead, increasingly a function in human life. It moved away from the individual work of art and approached style progressively - an anonymous expression of its period. Oud, in his study on new architecture, characterizes this development as follows: ‘For these architects, building therefore does no longer mean the opportunity to give full rein to their artistic passion when executing a commission, but they try as much as possible to satisfy the needs of the people who have commissioned them and they aim at the realization of all the direct happiness and comfort of life that can possibly be drawn from their task.’Ga naar eindnoot628

In his study, Oud mentions a series of monuments of new building of which the most characteristic item may be quoted here and to which a few others

may be added. As the most important buildings in Holland have already been listed, Dutch functional architecture will not be mentioned again, except the works of Dutch architects abroad; in France the various works of Le Corbusier; houses in the rue Mallet Stevens by Mallet Stevens; works by André Lurçat, more especially his hotel Nord-Sud in Calvi (Corsica); in Germany Gropius' Bauhaus buildings, Haesler's blocks of houses at Celle; Hilbersheimer's houses in Berlin; the important results of the Stuttgart architectural show of 1927 at theGa naar margenoot+ Weissenhofsiedlung, with examples by Le Corbusier, Oud and Stam; Stam's settlements in Frankfurt and E. May's settlements in the same town. In Czechoslovakia the important house ‘Tugendhat’ in Brno, by Mies van der Rohe; in Spain Mies van der Rohe's German pavilion of the 1927 exhibition at Barcelona and a club house at San Sebastian by Labayan and Aizpurua; in Sweden the students' hostel at Stockholm by Markelius and Ahren; in the United States Kiesler's Film Guild cinema in New York - to quote only a few early examples of the development of functional architecture. They all show, as Oud writes ‘that art is slowly but surely passing into style’,Ga naar eindnoot629 thereby realizing the ultimate aim which had animated ‘De Stijl’ and which it professed by its name. But when surveying the outward development of what Oud prefers to call ‘international architecture’, one point - already mentioned by Van Doesburg - cannot beGa naar margenoot+ sufficiently emphasized: ‘the Utrecht house by Rietveld-Schräder preceded all these realizations.’Ga naar eindnoot630 Indeed, the Utrecht house is the first and foremost accomplished realisation of a new trend in European architecture and in spite of the further development of architecture, it may still be counted among the finest. All the aims of ‘De Stijl’ have been realized in it and in such a way that it has become not only a monument of ‘De Stijl’ but indeed, a monument to the architecture of the period.

Town-planning is the field of activity with which the list on ‘De Stijl's’ cover ends. The development of modern town-planning is due, to a large extent at least, to van Eesteren, Parallel to the development of ‘De Stijl’ he has led town-planning from a utopian phase towards practical realization. He has emphasized in town-planning the analytical method - which has been his contribution to ‘De Stijl’ - and is still doing so. The fact that the international organisation of the C.I.A.M. (Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne) realizes the principles of ‘De Stijl’ is mainly due to Van Eesteren. It is but for the fact that a town-planner's work does not appear to advantage until after a considerable lapse of time, that Van Eesteren is not more generally known outside the circle of architects and planners. But when the new project for the enlargement of Amsterdam will be realized, at last his work will finally become visible and his merits will be evident to all. This plan of which he is the spiritual author, has been elaborated in long years of analytical work, establishing the social and practical needs of the surplus of the Amsterdam population which needs housing. From this profound analysis of facts, a project has resulted which comes near to realizing ‘De Stijl's’ aims in town-planning as Van Eesteren formulated them: ‘It is the task of the town planner to study and to prepare the reorganisation of our cities and the rational destination, repartition and

habitation of the ground.’Ga naar eindnoot631 By Van Eesteren's influence in the C.I.A.M. the ideas of ‘De Stijl’ have been spread over the whole world and have found realization in Soviet Russia as well as in the United States, everywhere increasing humanity's chance for better living and greater happiness.

‘De Stijl's’ influence has indeed been widespread and far-reaching. It has influenced many domains of life and it has greatly contributed to create order and harmony, to promote brightness and clearness in surroundings often chaotic. But is has brought into existence as well a merely outward application of its principles, a kind of ‘Stijl’ mannerism. Van Doesburg was well aware of this fact as early as in 1925: ‘Where didn't “De Stijl” make its influence felt? But hasn't it often been an evil influence? And what is the reason:

1.	that this influence is secondary and effected by those who, though hostile to the original idea, have borrowed the exterior form without understanding the spirit, thus systematically cultivating a quadratic baroque (......);
2.	that it won't do to use the exterior forms of the new as a recipe, in order to produce decorative and applied arts’Ga naar eindnoot632 (the pun cannot be translated: the plural of art in Dutch also means ‘tricks’).

Indeed, there has been - and still is - a lot of decorative pseudo-Stijl production, ranging from the downright odious to the ridiculous.

But on the other hand, ‘De Stijl’ has influenced the general aspect of everyday life by its effect on the various domains of applied artistic production. Its important deed of purification in all these fields consisted of reducing the artistic ambitions - or pretentions - of the often self-styled artists and in imposing rules for objective order. In the 10th anniversary number of De Stijl Domela stresses this idea: By consistent elaboration and by facing facts we have realized that painting comes to an end and will be absorbed in the surface of the wall. Therefore we turn to three-dimensional space, in order to divide it constructively by colour, as equally as in painting. Thus we enter the domain of ‘applied art’ and there we form a group which builds up constructively, starting directly from utilitarian notions, in opposition to others who only aim at ‘decorative work’.Ga naar eindnoot633 In this way ‘De Stijl’ and its offspring have purified and reformed many aspects of everday life: from its contribution to the purification of the contemporary interior, to the bright and clean aspect of many examples of typography, window display and advertising. Almost every reaction to the mixed, confused aspect of contemporary life can be traced back to ‘De Stijl’ and its work of purification; almost every attempt to establish a bright and rational environment for contemporary man is, in one way or the other, related to ‘De Stijl’: from the design of a modern tramcar to the lay-out of an advertising folder, from the new type of pillar-box to the colours of walls and curtains in a contemporary interior.

Mondriaan has indicated this trend: ‘Nevertheless, new life has been announced in our material surroundings, as well as in our private and collective life. The purification of the form and the research into the pure relations are not only demonstrated by our buildings, but by all that modern man creates:

utensils, furniture, means of communication and of transport, window-dressing, lighting for advertising purposes, for daily use, etc. All these requirements are ever so many proofs of a new culture, parallel to that of new art. And life itself shows us an identical way: the culture of the pure relations is going to annihilate all that which opposes the equivalent relations we have to create,’Ga naar eindnoot634

Yet, ‘De Stijl's’ influence started to be less visible in the early thirties of the century. The most important reason for this fact can be found in Van Doesburg's death: with him the movement had lost its dynamic force, its source of inspiration and animation. During the 14 years of ‘De Stijl's’ existence the personality of Van Doesburg had been a constant guarantee against any decrease of vitality. Without him ‘De Stijl's’ pace slackened and ‘De Stijl’ had lost its centre of gravity. The influence and expansion of ‘De Stijl’ had indeed been almost entirely due to Van Doesburg's activity and without him its expansion ceased and its influence diminished.

Another reason for ‘De Stijl's’ waning influence may, perhaps, be found in the development of modern science. When ‘De Stijl’ started in 1917, it could, to a certain point, consider its activity as being in unison with contemporary science and mathematics. Modern science has since developed to an incredible extent and this development has led to increasing complication and to an image of the Universe and its laws which is less adapted to visual interpretation and to any kind of expression by simple or elementary means. The scientific image of the world, the creation of the artistic parallel of which has been ‘De Stijl's’ ambition, has become so utterly complicated that no layman or outsider could possibly even attempt to approach it. Besides, the method and the language of modern science have, since 1917, ever increasingly developed a less prioristic or speculative conception, which hardly agreed with the universalist tendencies of ‘De Stijl’.

But the most cogent reason for a fading of ‘De Stijl's’ influence after 1930 may certainly be found in European political development. In the preceding pages we have seen that Germany has been the most suitable centre of ‘De Stijl's’ expansion; for the spreading of ‘De Stijl’ ideas the Bauhaus has been of great importance. The Bauhaus, however, has been one of the first victims of National-Socialist ‘cultural’ policy; as a result of the National-Socialist government in Thuringia, the Bauhaus had been closed as early as in 1931. In the following years, after the National-Socialist accession to power, all expressions of non-naturalist and more especially of ‘Stijl’ painting were severely persecuted: the two members of ‘De Stijl’ who lived in Germany, Vordemberge and Domela, left the country soon after 1933.

This hostility of National-Socialism is a fact which halted ‘De Stijl's’ influence and the further spreading of its ideas. On the other hand, it is a most significant symptom. This direct hostility has not only been inspired by the fantastically bad taste of the Nazi-leaders - Hitler first among them - in matters of art, combining the ‘petit bourgeois’ love for meticulous description with the ‘nouveau riche’ gusto for imposing dimensions, with all the appalling results of such a hybrid combination. For once the Nazi-leaders had seen the social and

spiritual meaning of a trend, the depth of which they could not by any means fathom. By some unaccountable accident, the Nazi ‘cultural’ experts, already in the early days, earmarlced everything that savoured of ‘De Stijl’ as ‘cultural (or artistic) bolshevism’ - a phrase in itself meaningless and more so when pronounced by these people. But it is not merely accidental, that a parallelism has been emphasized by the Nazi's between the Russian five-years-plans on one hand and ‘De Stijl's’ aims on the other, a fact about which we are certain, but regretfully unable to mention the exact source of.

What might have Struck them - if at least, they had the necessary knowledge - is a parallelism between a trend which has been almost constantly stressed in the preceding pages and some lines from the Deutsche Ideologie by Marx and Engels, running as follows: ‘It has set them the task of establishing the domination of the individual over accidental facts and conditions, instead of the domination of circumstances and accidentai facts on the individual,’Ga naar eindnoot635 This ambition of ‘De Stijl’ may indeed have caused the National-Socialists' hostility towards ‘De Stijl’ and the persecution of its members, though this may mean giving too much credit to the ‘cultural’ experts of the National-Socialist party. Yet, the fact in itself, that ‘De Stijl’ aimed at the creation of an orderly and equilibrated art and a similar life is one of its essential aspects, an aspect which gives historical and actual significance to ‘De Stijl’ and which we will discuss in the following pages.

eindnoot595: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 6

eindnoot596: Mondriaan, Essays, p. 14

margenoot+: pl. 48aant.

eindnoot597: Bulletin Museum of Modern Art, 1948, XII 4, p. 13

eindnoot598: Bulletin Museum of Modern Art, 1948, XII 4, p. 7

eindnoot599: Catalogue Stedelijk Museum, 1949, Van der Leek exhibition

margenoot+: pl. 15aant.

margenoot+: pl. 6aant.

margenoot+: pl. 17aant.

margenoot+: pl. 45aant.

margenoot+: pl. 44aant.

eindnoot600: De Stijl, IV, p. 100 sq.

eindnoot601: De Stijl, IV, p. 3

eindnoot602: De Stijl, IV, p. 1

eindnoot603: De Stijl, VII, p. 2

eindnoot604: De Stijl, VII, p. 3

eindnoot605: De Stijl, IV, p. 71

eindnoot606: De Stijl, IV, p. 75

eindnoot607: De Stijl, IV, p. 109

eindnoot608: De Stijl, IV, p. 112

eindnoot609: De Stijl, VI, p. 61/62

eindnoot610: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 11

eindnoot611: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 20

eindnoot612: De Stijl, Anniversary number, p. 103/105

eindnoot613: Van Doesburg, Neue Schweizer Rundschau, 1929, p. 536

eindnoot614: Gropius, Bauhaus, p. 9

eindnoot615: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 63/64

eindnoot616: Van Doesburg, Neue Schweizer Rundschau, 1929, p. 536

eindnoot617: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 64

eindnoot618: Barr, Cubism & Abstract Art, p. 157

eindnoot619: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 10

eindnoot620: Gropius, Bauhaus, p. 7

eindnoot621: De Stijl, II, p. 4

eindnoot622: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 17

eindnoot623: Van Doesburg, Neue Schweizer Rundschau, 1929, p. 537

eindnoot624: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 56

eindnoot625: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 56

eindnoot626: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 21

eindnoot627: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 21

eindnoot628: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 12

margenoot+: pl. 46aant.

eindnoot629: Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunst, p. 30

margenoot+: pl. 37aant.

eindnoot630: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 56

eindnoot631: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 96

eindnoot632: De Stijl, VI, p. 108

eindnoot633: De Stijl, Anniversary-number, p. 91

eindnoot634: Mondriaan, Art & Life, here, p. 228

eindnoot635: Marx-Engels, Die Deutsche Ideologie, Berlin, 1932, p. 416 sq

Vorige Volgende

De Stijl 1917-1931

The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art

5 de Stijl's influence on the various
artistic domains

Over het gehele werk

titels

auteurs

5 de Stijl's influence on the various artistic domains

Over het gehele werk

titels

auteurs

5 de Stijl's influence on the various
artistic domains