De Stijl Research Articles

“Who’s Sidney Hunt? … He Was a Homosexual”

Abstract Sidney James Hunt, born in 1896, was a queer British poet, painter, and draftsman whose brief career was active and eclectic. Building on recent work, this article seeks to examine not only the scope of Hunt’s idiosyncratic experimentation with word and image, culminating in his editorship of Ray—the only English equivalent of such influential European publications as Der Sturm, De Stijl, and Mécano—but also the striking and suggestive originality of Hunt’s specifically queer literary and artistic production. His subjects include blushes of boys night bathing, sunbathing, and posing with pansies, as well as naked male figures (often of mythological origin). He was one of the few modernist artists to use abstraction to express the essentials of male beauty and, under a pseudonym, created several erotic photomontages. His work as a pioneer of the avant-garde in Britain and as a queer British artist deserves considerable reassessment.

Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and disinterested aesthetic experience

Despite the pivotal role of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) in the sophistication of Modern aesthetics and art theories in the 20th century and his special attention to aesthetic experience, considerably little is known about the impacts of his aesthetic theory, particularly pertaining his account on conception disinterested aesthetic experience formed based on his metaphysics of will, on some of the most enriched Modern art theories like Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism. On the other side of the spectrum, Mondrian’s Neo-Plastic paintings, his universal pure abstract style, have been well examined through historical approaches and Modernist theories, especially about the Greenbergian account and Modern styles like De Stijl art movement in the last few decades. Moreover, his quasi-philosophical writings have been vastly scrutinized in the light of their impacts on Theosophic, Platonic, and Hegelian doctrines. Interestingly, Mondrian, in his theoretical writings, explicitly refers to the Schopenhauerian conception of disinterested contemplation and the requirements for having a universal aesthetic experience. Yet, Mondrian’s account of Schopenhauer’s notion of disinterested contemplation, namely for notions like individual will, Will, intellect, cessation of subserviency of intellect to the will, and so on, has not been scrutinized through an aesthetic lens. Hence, this article first aims to investigate Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his account of disinterested aesthetic experience. Indeed, this article proposes this hypothesis that Mondrian, who always sought to unveil the Platonic Idea of an objective manifestation of a universal equilibrium (harmony) or pure beauty as truth through his universal Neo-Plastic art, was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his attitude toward aesthetic contemplation which is disinterested and objective. At the end of this article, it becomes clear that Mondrian’s conception of pure intuition and his contemplative approach to aesthetic experience intimately conform to Schopenhauer’s view on the notion of disinterested aesthetic attention or contemplation narrated within his metaphysics of will.

Postulating the impossible? The ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk in interwar avant-garde periodicals and their manifestos

The nineteenth-century principle of Gesamtkunstwerk was inseparably linked to the interwar avant-garde, as indicated in a plethora of manifestos and programmatic writings published in periodicals such as De Stijl, 7 Arts and Blok. The widely postulated interrelation of the arts in the service of social and cultural regeneration, however, did not always prove easy to implement. The social renewal of the Total Work of Art prophesied by avant-garde writers, painters and architects could hardly be achieved. This contribution seeks to answer the question whether the very synthesis of arts too was just an unachievable dream. Based on selected programmatic writings from avant-garde periodicals of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance I will analyse the recurring similarities and divergences that characterised various approaches to achieving the Total Work of Art voiced by particular artists. Subsequently I will scrutinise the chronicles of the actual cooperation between artists and architects in order to shed light on the actual application of the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal and the (im)possibility of its implementation.

“Tint and Form”: The Geometric Philosophy Underlying Oliver Byrne’sElements

AbstractOliver Byrne published his groundbreaking and visually remarkable edition of Euclid’s Elements in 1847. The book is extraordinary, featuring four-color diagrams, illustrations, grids, and decorative engraving. Its aesthetic similarity to various stylistic themes of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements has been noted, but little attention has been paid to the pedagogical and theoretical insights that shaped Byrne’s illustrative choices. In this article, the author explains some key philosophical ideas underlying Byrne’s geometric illustrations and contextualizes them amid Byrne’s wider mathematical preoccupations.

Модерното изкуство – двуликият Янус

Russian Constructivists and “De Stijl” don’t make autonomic Art, but are looking for a universal principle for total reorganization of the human environment; in such way they hope to remove the chaos and ugliness. Beginning with enlarging the boundaries of Art, they are coming to the idea of Art without Aesthetics.

Development Strategy for Talang Semut Areas as a Heritage Tourism Destination in Palembang

Talang Semut in the city of Palembang was designed by Thomas Karsten during the Dutch East Indies administration as a garden city for Palembang residents of European descent. In addition to a settlement, public and urban social facilities, including churches, hotels, swimming pools, and retention pools to prevent flooding, were constructed in this area. The architecture of the buildings in Talang Semut is distinct from local architecture due to the influence of Indies architecture and modern architecture (de Stijl). As a historic district in Palembang, Talang Semut continues to expand and attract increasing numbers of tourists. The general public, especially building owners, does not correctly comprehend the growth of the Talang Semut neighborhood, which undermines its status as a historic district. In addition, there is no clear direction or strategy for preserving and promoting Talang Semut as a heritage tourism attraction. This study aims to examine initiatives to prevent harm and loss of historical significance and the creation of heritage tourism sites. Observation, interviews, documentation, and questionnaires are used to collect data for this descriptive quantitative study. The results of this study reveal that the community does not see Talang Semut as a heritage region that must be maintained in addition to its development as a tourism attraction. Land conversion and building facade modifications will continue. This study concludes that immediate technical and non-technical measures must be taken to prevent damage to the Talang Semut region. In addition to a more organized management structure, the Talang Semut area must be directed to enhance and add supporting amenities to become a heritage tourism destination.

Review: Form and Feeling: The Making of Concretism in Brazil, edited by Antonio Sergio Bessa

Review: <i>Form and Feeling: The Making of Concretism in Brazil</i>, edited by Antonio Sergio Bessa

ANKARA EXHIBITION HOUSE BUILT IN THE STYLE OF DE STIJL MOVEMENT

De Stijl and Neoplasticism are two currents that are confused with each other. However, De Stijl emerged as an extension of Neoplasticism and influenced the following movements such as Futurism, Dadaism and Minimalism, and had an impact on the emergence of abstract art, especially in plastic arts and painting. In this movement, besides the use of straight horizontal and vertical lines, the use of the primary colors red, yellow and blue is frequently seen. The idea and purpose of living in art integrated with life caused De Stijl artists to focus on the art of architecture. In this trend, building units were built in which functionality is prominent, horizontal-verticality is emphasized, and with the materials and technology of the day, which can meet the needs of human beings. In the first period of the Republic, new architectural understandings began to be adopted in accordance with both Atatürk's will and industrial developments. As a result of these developments, although the emergence of the De Stijl movement and its entry into the Anatolian lands were simultaneously, it was observed that it mixed with other styles as well as alone in Turkey. With the Ankara Exhibition House, which was built with the De Stijl movement, universal tools were embodied, and a link was established between art and rational life. In a sense, the harmony of modern art with modern life has been realized. Keywords: De Stijl, Neoplasticism, Ankara Exhibition House, art history, history of architecture

“in itself a work of art”: Word-Image Encounters in Ray: Art Miscellany

ABSTRACT Ray: Art Miscellany was founded, edited, and published by Sidney James Hunt, a British painter, poet, and draughtsman, between 1926 and 1927. Ray was the first little magazine in England to introduce readers to the work of European and international avant-garde artists, including Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Naum Gabo, and László Moholy-Nagy, and might be regarded as the only English equivalent of such influential publications as Der Sturm, De Stijl, and Mécano. Building on recent work as well as previous critical efforts, I conduct a detailed study of Ray’s adventurous content and design by way of a series of close visual and textual analyses. Essentially combinatorial, Hunt’s idiosyncratic aesthetic project can be characterized by its compositeness and cut and mix quality. As a result, terms and concepts borrowed from art history, critical theory, and art practice, namely assemblage and collage, allow for the exploration of the numerous eclectic encounters between word and image found within the pages of Ray.

Le Corbusier’s Ineffable Space and Synchronism: From Architecture as Clear Syntax to Architecture as Succession of Events

This article examines Le Corbusier’s architectural design processes, paying special attention to his concept of “ineffable space”. Le Corbusier related “ineffable space” to mathematics, arguing that both mathematics and the phenomenon of “ineffable space” provoke an effect of “concordance”. He also argued that when the establishment of relations is “precise” and “overwhelming”, architectural artefacts are capable of “provoking physiological sensations”. For Le Corbusier, the sentiment of satisfaction and enjoyment that an architectural artefact can provoke is related to a perception of harmony. This article analyzes the reasons for which Le Corbusier insisted on the necessity to discover or invent “clear syntax” through architectural composition. He believed that the power of architectural artefacts lies in their “clear syntax”. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship of Le Corbusier’s theories of space with those of Henri Bergson and the De Stijl movement. At the core of the reflections that are developed here are Le Corbusier’s “patient search” (“recherche patiente”) and the vital role of the act of drawing for the process of inscribing images in memory. For Le Corbusier, drawing embodied the acts of observing, discovering, inventing and creating. This article also relates Le Corbusier’s interest in proportions and his conception of the Modulor to post-war Italian neo-humanistic approaches in architecture. It intends to render explicit how Le Corbusier’s definition of architecture was reshaped, shedding light on the shift from defining architecture as clear syntax to defining architecture as the succession of events.

Review: Life-Destroying Diagrams, by Eugenie Brinkema

Review: <i>Life-Destroying Diagrams</i>, by Eugenie Brinkema

Josip Seissel alias Jo Klek and the Zenitist Architecture

Zenitism was the first, originally Yugoslav, avant-garde movement articulated in Zagreb and Belgrade in 1921–1926. Its spiritus movens was Ljubomir Micić (1895–1971), writer, promotional critic and theorist of avant-garde, editor of the Zenitist publications. As a stronghold of the Zenitist movement and an international platform for the exchange of ideas between progressive intellectuals and artists of various specialties, Zenit played a key role in profiling the artistic ideology and practice of Zenitism. Based upon the synthesis of different artistic disciplines, styles and genres, as well as new media, the production of this movement had a syncretic, experimental, and transnational character. Although he entered the Zenitist circle as a high school student and a member of the experimental theater group Traveller in 1922, Josip Seissel (1904–1987) — later, in the context of Zenitism, known as Jo Klek — established himself as one of the leading exponents of the movement. His artistic production essentially marked the mature, Belgrade phase of Zenitism (1923–1925). Apart from leaving his trace in the Yugoslav art with his first abstract paintings (PaFaMa, 1922) and intermedial works created in the Constructivist manner, inventively conceived posters and designs of the Zenitist publications, costume sketches and scenography for the Zenitist theater — Klek was also the author of several visionary projects of the Zenitist architecture created at the very beginning of his studies at the Faculty of Engineering in Zagreb. These achievements were preceded by the “paper architecture” (house models) and several drawings, watercolors, tempera and collages (The Bayadera and Playing Cards, 1923; Tavern, 1924), adorned with motives of a fictitious architecture and urban ambiences, articulated on the principles of dynamism, simultaneism, juxtaposition and fragmentation, inherent to new visual media and mass media (film, photography, radio, poster, advertising). Klek’s draft for the construction of The Advertising (1923), his utopistic designs for Zeniteum 1 and Zeniteum 2 (1924), as well as for the Villa Zenit (1924/25) remain the outstanding examples of the Zenitist architecture. Its closest conceptual and formal analogies can be found in the innovative architectural concepts of Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, De Stijl, Purism, Russian Constructivism, and the Bauhaus. In the context of the Yugoslav interwar period art scene, these projects represented not only a formal-linguistic innovation, but also a kind of conceptual-ideological paradigm that laid the foundation for a new understanding of the social function of architecture. However, having existed exclusively in the form of a conceptual project and outside the context of the established trends in Yugoslav architecture, they could not lead to any significant shifts in local architectural practice of the 1920s and 1930s. Although unrealized, Klek’s architectural projects represent a problematically current and authentic contribution to the avant-garde architectural discourse in Europe.

Review: Eileen Gray, Designer and Architect

Review: <i>Eileen Gray, Designer and Architect</i>

“Vision in motion”: László Moholy-Nagy and the Genesis of the Visual Book

This essay aims to analyze the ways in which László Moholy-Nagy’s concepts of “new typography” and “typophoto” were essential to the creation of a new typology of publications: visual books, which have a strong image component, resulting from the popularization of photography and cinema. New typography was defined in 1923 by László Moholy-Nagy in a short text for the catalog of the Bauhaus exhibition Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923. New typography resulted from a new graphical orientation by Bauhaus, influenced by the ideology of several avant-garde movements, such as De Stijl and Russian Constructivism, that celebrated simplification, geometrization and the advantages of modern technology to construct a visual language that could communicate clearly and in a universal manner. In Moholy-Nagy’s text, new typography called for an analysis of the relation between form and content through the collapsing of the “classic model” (the “old typography”) and the objective use of photography. In 1925, Moholy-Nagy introduced the notion of typophoto in Painting, Photography, Film to realize the “bioscopic book” of El Lissitzky, which is more visual than textual. In publications like the exhibition catalog Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923 or the Bauhausbücher series, Moholy-Nagy puts both principles into practice, converting the book into a space of visual exploration, endowed with a cinematic dimension that comes close to his notion of “vision in motion”. Through the use of a qualitative research methodology, and based on a critical review of literature and the direct observation of case studies, this essay aims to show how Moholy-Nagy’s multidisciplinary legacy contributed to a paradigm shift in book design.

The Importance of Meller’s Model Workshop Experience for Modern Design Education

Research aim. To analyze the activities of the model workshop of the Berezil Artistic Association under the leadership of V. Meller, to establish the influence on modern graphic design. Research methods. Historical-comparative, study of art analysis. Scientific novelty. For the first time, attention is focused on the activities of the model workshop in the field of design of printed products with the provision of relevant visual evidence. The analysis revealed features that relate the design activities of the workshop with the modern advertising paradigm. An attempt is made to determine the educational achievements of the formation and their agreement with other art schools of the time. Conclusions. Undeservedly little-studied activity of the model workshop in the field of printed products is one of the highest achievements of Ukrainian graphic design of the twentieth century and corresponds with similar experiments in other countries. The commonality of program principles, the identity of the applied artistic techniques and technical means with the cor rection towards the specifics of the theatrical process on the part of the model workshop and the branches of Bauhaus, De Stijl, Vkhutemas artistic practice are traced.

The ‘Isms’ of Modern Art: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Beyond

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the topic of artistic ‘isms’ in the history and historiography of modern Dutch and Flemish art in a broader European context – such as Constructivism, Neoplasticism, Elementarism, Futurism, Cubism, Expressionism etc. Exemplified by the case of the historical artistic and literary avant-garde from the Low Countries, with its polyphony of overlapping artistic ‘isms’, this paper aims to scrutinize various limitations and imprecisions that result from the use of ‘isms’ in the history and historiography of modern art, exemplified by selected avant-garde formations such as De Stijl, Het Overzicht or 7 Art.

Review: John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, by Mardges Bacon, and Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Review: <i>John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York</i>, by Mardges Bacon, and <i>Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years</i>, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Karl Menger’s modernist journey: art, mathematics and mysticism, 1920–1955

In addition to being an accomplished mathematician and to being involved in the economic and philosophical circles of interwar Vienna, Karl Menger (1902–1985) had a lively interest in Modern Art. He appreciated the work of Hans Masereel, the Belgian graphic novelist; Peter Alma, the Dutchman associated with De Stijl; and the German Gerd Arntz, Otto Neurath’s right-hand man and the artist behind the Isotype system of pictorial education. He particularly liked the work of De Stijl’s Piet Mondrian, even making a pilgrimage to his studio in Paris in the late 1920’s. Menger perceived connections between the shift towards abstraction in such artwork and the rise of abstraction in his own field of mathematics. He favoured the clarity evident in such images, but, as he was keen to point out, not necessarily their political connotations or mystical underpinnings. This paper traces Menger’s involvement with art and aesthetics from his early days as a student in Vienna and the Netherlands to his arrival as an intellectual emigre in the American Midwest.

Proletarian Modernism and the Politics of Emotion: On Franz Wilhelm Seiwert and John Heartfield

Proletarian Modernism and the Politics of Emotion: On Franz Wilhelm Seiwert and John Heartfield Sabine Hake (bio) An art form that relates to a particular social class does not exist, and if it did, it would be entirely irrelevant to life. We ask those who want to create proletarian art: “What is proletarian art?” Is it an art created by the proletarians themselves? Or an art only in the service of the proletariat? Or an art intended to arouse proletarian (revolutionary) instincts? There exists no art created by proletarians because a proletarian who creates art no longer remains a proletarian but becomes an artist. —Theo van Doesburg, “Manifesto of Proletarian Art” (1923) The spirited defense of autonomous art by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp, and Kurt Schwitters and their denunciation of “proletarian” as a symptom of everything wrong with politically engaged art attest to the deep divides that haunted the culture and society of the Weimar Republic.1 Their manifesto presented formal innovation as the conduit to aesthetic autonomy and celebrated modern art as liberation from social determinations, national differences, and historical influences. According to van Doesburg, one of the founders of the De Stijl movement, a worker transcended his class origins when he became an artist. But could an artist also stand with the working class? Most Weimar artists associated with the KPD (Communist Party of Germany)—from Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Käthe Kollwitz to lesser-known ones such as Otto Nagel, Curt Querner, Oskar [End Page 735] Nerlinger, and Alice Lex-Nerlinger—would have answered with an enthusiastic “yes,” including those who, unlike Nagel and Querner, did not come from working-class backgrounds. Known for their realist, expressionist, constructivist, and new objectivist styles, all of these artists experimented with new media and techniques to uncover the structures of class society and support the struggle for revolutionary change. Modernist strategies such as typization and abstraction played a key role in the process—a connection first recognized in the late nineteenth-century Social Democratic debates on modern literature and working-class culture and revisited during the early 1930s in the famous Marxist debates on modernism involving Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, and Theodor W. Adorno. What has not yet been considered in greater detail is in what ways the question of workers’ representation in the artistic and political sense is inextricably linked to the process of emotional mobilization—that is, of envisioning and prefiguring collective bodies in the name of the revolutionary working class. Here the notion of proletarian modernism provides a useful critical tool for reconstructing the elusive configurations of politics and emotion that, under the influence of the October Revolution, brought together the political and artistic avant-gardes and redefined the complicated relationship between modernism and communism.2 For Franz Wilhelm Seiwert and John Heartfield, in particular, advancing the goals of proletarian art was inseparable from developing alternatives to the institutions and practices of bourgeois high culture. This included addressing the difficult position of the modern artist between classes. As Heartfield’s brother Wieland Herzfelde explained: “The artist [i.e., in capitalist society] is a worker and, like others, exploited. Nonetheless, he is no proletarian. . . . He has no comrades but only rivals and competitors; his existence is bourgeois.”3 Working through these contradictions for Seiwert and Heartfield meant to become active in artists’ groups—the Cologne Progressives and Berlin Dada, respectively—and to equate artistic innovation with political intervention. It meant showing their work in group exhibitions and nontraditional venues and publishing in new art journals and party newspapers. Last but not least, foregrounding the emotional qualities of political art meant drawing on elements of folk culture and religious culture and appropriating their didactic and rhetorical qualities for class-based interventions. In this article, the usefulness of political emotions as a critical category in the study of proletarian modernism will be tested on two specific works of art: Seiwert’s painting Demonstration (1925) and Heartfield’s photomontage Fünf Finger hat die Hand (Five Fingers Has the Hand, 1928). Seiwert and Heartfield are uniquely suited for such an exercise—firstly because of their self-identification as communist artists and secondly because of their use of political...

20세기 초 모더니즘 미술 작품에서의 수학적 요소에 관한 연구 – 데 스틸과 구체미술을 중심으로 -

20세기 초 모더니즘 미술 작품에서의 수학적 요소에 관한 연구 – 데 스틸과 구체미술을 중심으로 -