De Stijl Research Paper

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Aaron Begay Ms. Boni Ap Literature and Composition 11 December 2017 Art is defined as an expression of a human’s creativity that produces a work to be appreciated for their beauty and/or emotional impact. In the contemporary world in which we reside, it has been debated whether or not if abstract art is “art”. Among the list of the contemporary 20th-century art is a Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl or Neoplasticism. De Stijl is Dutch for “The Style”. Neoplasticism is an abstractionist and reductionist movement that was formed in 1917, which embraced the ultra-simplistic forms of straight-lines, rectangles, and primary colors. One of the most famous works from this movement is entitled “Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow”(1930) by Piet Mondrian. The main point of the movement is to utilize the most basic forms of composition to express the laws governing the harmony of the world. In 1917, A Dutch artist named Theo Doesburg founded the art journal “De Stijl” in order to recruit members for his reductionistic-utopian art style. The journal laid the groundwork for a group of like-minded individuals who embraced neoplasticism. De Stijl is a Netherlands based movement in the early 20th century, lasting only from 1917 to 1931. Neoplasticism began as a response to the horrors of World War I. Artists from …show more content…

The artistic movement was characterized by the non-objective visual language that aimed for a state of perfection. “Composition II in Red Blue and Yellow” best represents neoplasticism because it is the quintessential idea of the movement, which is to use art as a visual medium to influence society, which this movement ultimately did at the time. We see the effects of De Stijl even to this day. Among the things that has been inspired by neoplasticism is the Windows log-screen, an album title “De Stijl” by the White stripes, and architectural

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