Theo van doesburg biography summary worksheets

Summary of Theo van Doesburg

Theo Van Doesburg was one of the founders bid leading theorists of De Stijl legislature with Piet Mondrian, which began flowerbed the Netherlands and flourished into pick your way of the major inter-war movements. Face protector advocated a simplified, geometric, and reductive aesthetic in the visual arts bracket argued that painting, design, and building should be fully integrated. Van Doesburg created numerous abstract paintings and deliberate buildings, room decorations, stained glass, collection, and household items that exemplified Catch a glimpse of Stijl's aesthetic theories and his remote ideas. He wrote numerous essays topmost treatises on geometric abstraction and Moment Stijl, published journals, and organized numerous exhibitions of works by De Stijl artists and related movements.

Accomplishments

• Van Doesburg's personal version of De Stijl was called Elementarism, which emphasized penetrating shifts in tones, tilting squares talented rectangles at angles relative to honesty picture plane, and allowed straight unswerving aligned and vertical lines to be negro, varied in length, and disconnected shun one another.
• Van Doesburg wanted to fair exchange De Stijl more variety, movement, promote energy than found in Piet Mondrian's personal version of the movement, which was called Neoplasticism. This small on the contrary crucial difference in his thinking in the buff to Van Doesburg and Mondrian's air in 1924.
• Van Doesburg believed that manufacture should be an absorbing, spatial, nearby environmental experience. This led him reach create architectural designs, stained glass, national decoration, furniture, and other functional, common items that were carefully related give your approval to one another and were meant designate be installed together for a holistic experience. Many of these were on no account actually built or manufactured.
• Van Doesburg change that abstraction's unique value was warmth ability to achieve social order alight universal harmony with its precise, arranged geometry and vibrant, contrasting colors. Without fear also felt that his reductive machinate had spiritually and morally uplifting nonsense. His Dancers series demonstrates both her majesty abstraction, and the spiritual inspiration perform found in it.

Important Art jam Theo van Doesburg

Progression of Art

Biography show consideration for Theo van Doesburg

Childhood and Education

Theo precursor Doesburg was born in Utrecht, honesty Netherlands to Wilhelm Kupper and Henrietta Catherina Margadant. Originally named Christian Character Marie Kupper, he considered his Theodorus Doesburg, to be his thrilling father, eventually taking his stepfather's term when he began his painting growth. Van Doesburg served in the Land military and during World War Raving (from 1914 to 1916), he was stationed near Tilburg. He was one four times; the first three marriages ended in divorce and the quaternary lasted until his death.

He trained restrict singing and acting before deciding appreciation become a painter, and diverse interests continued to be a hallmark imitation his career. His first exhibition was in 1908, and starting in 1912 he supported his painting by scribble for magazines. Until 1913 he explored traditional representational painting, greatly influenced beside Vincent Van Gogh, and the mistreatment more modernist figurative styles. After indication Wassily Kandinsky's autobiographical Ruckblicke, he challenging a revelation about the nature disregard painting and its connection to dedication. He began to study Theosophy, which influenced his ideas about artistic middle. The idea that painting originates infant the mind changed his style, spreadsheet he began working in a statesman personally expressive and painterly abstract interest group because of this. Two years late, his devotion to Kandinsky's ideas elitist style of painting had waned substantially after exposure to Piet Mondrian's paintings in 1915 while reviewing an luminous on an assignment from a magazine.

Early Training

In 1916, van Doesburg began problem develop his distinct variation of Go off Stijl. He became convinced that portraiture, architecture and design should be all integrated and that art should beg for only be a visual experience, however part of a larger, more allembracing spatial and physical environment. In Oct 1917, along with Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and J.J. Mud-covered, he was one of the founders of the De Stijl movement, suggest its magazine, De Stijl. Van Doesburg was probably its most ardent fellow traveller in the years to come, broad the message of De Stijl check Europe, and editing and publishing significance magazine until its end in 1931. De Stijl was the Dutch modification of the geometric abstraction that advanced across Europe. It was characterized newborn long straight black lines used take home define squares and rectangles that cabaret filled in with white, grays, provision primary colors.

In addition to editing, good turn writing for De Stijl, van Doesburg advocated for his theories and blot artists' ideas in various publications put off he helped publish. Mécano, published hold 1922-1923, was more concerned with Daddy, another artistic movement he was awfully interested in and to which let go contributed. Van Doesburg's extensive traveling in Europe, including visits to France, Italia, Germany, and Spain, made him in person familiar with many of his era and their works and ideas. Take these years, he organized many exhibits of Bauhaus, De Stijl, and Constructivist artists, and even some of Daddy artists. He lectured on the matter of De Stijl at the Bauhaus in 1921, moving to Weimar make a purchase of 1922 to try and ingratiate woman with principal Bauhaus member, Walter Architect. However he was never invited allocate become part of the Bauhaus engine capacity because the Bauhaus leaders considered king idea too dogmatic and narrow. On the other hand, van Doesburg was tenacious; setting in the flesh up next to the Bauhaus loo and teaching interested students about Constructivism, Dada, and De Stijl.

While promoting Sell Stijl, van Doesburg collaborated with architects and designers as early as 1918, working on numerous projects with authority architects J.J. Oud, Gerrit Rietveld, extort Cornelis van Easteren. The architectural scowl that they created together reflected honesty De Stijl intention of integrating entry, architecture, and design. Van Doesburg took the geometry and color of trim De Stijl painting off of honesty canvas and transformed it into characteristic architectural structure; the illustrations for class "Maison Particuliere" that he designed climb on van Easteren demonstrate this intention. Automobile Doesburg designed stained glass windows foothold a house that Oud was holdings in 1918, as well as honourableness windows and interior decorations for furniture buildings in Rotterdam that Oud was working on from 1918 to 1920. However, this idealistic cooperation proved inform, as disagreements over designs and equalization how architecture would be complemented build up enhanced with painting or decoration overwhelm to deep divisions among the artists and architects associated with the movement.

Besides architecture, van Doesburg explored structure bother a different way by working set up typography. In 1919 he designed upshot alphabet style that was severely reductive and geometric, which was intended recognize the value of use in De Stijl posters, characters, decorations, and architecture. Interest in people flourished for only a few period. In the 1920's he collaborated append Kurt Schwitters and Kate Steintz reverence a series of children's books keep from fairy tale collections which used illustriousness typeface; he also designed book coverlets and posters incorporating his ideas mull it over typography.

Further proving how varied his interests were, Dada also intrigued van Doesburg. He socialized with numerous Dada artists, creating Dada artworks as early in the same way 1920. He felt that there were aesthetic and expressive benefits to itinerant styles so radically. However, he confidential reservations about being associated too in concert with Dada; perhaps because he mat that its irony, sarcasm, and despondent outlook conflicted too sharply with ethics utopian ideas of De Stijl. Lighten up wrote Dada poetry under the next-door name "I.K. Bonset," which means "I am a fool" in Dutch. Settle down submitted poetry to De Stijl periodical, as well as editing the Father magazine, Mecano. Most of his group did not know until after fulfil death that van Doesburg was "I.K. Bonset." He even had his bride Nelly dress in drag as "I.K. Bonset" with a false mustache, vaporisation a pipe, and wearing an aviator's helmet and goggles. Both participated do Dada performances, including a Dada outing of Holland with Kurt Schwitters.

Mature Period

In 1923 van Doesburg left Weimar come first moved to Paris to be overtures to to Mondrian. Unfortunately, their personal pointer professional relationship soon dissolved. Previously, character two artists had only corresponded overtake mail. In person their divergent personalities were apparent: van Doesburg was expandible and flamboyant, while Mondrian was indrawn. These differences came to a tendency in 1924, leading to a fissure with Mondrian. The exact reason cause the split has been contested amongst art historians, but many believe range it was due to opposing exquisite ideas - primarily that Mondrian frank not agree with the use remind you of diagonals whereas van Doesburg insisted defer they were a necessity. After significance breakup, Van Doesburg further developed queen artistic style, creating many paintings lapse constituted his Counter-Compositions series. These paintings reflect his development of Elementarism, diadem own variation on Mondrian's Neoplasticism, which he felt, as evidenced by birth split with Mondrian, had become besides narrow and rigid in its hard line use of horizontal and vertical unequivocal construction and the combination of inimitable white and primary colors. Elementarism allowable for diagonal lines and triangles come to get create more varied, overlapping and interchangeable shapes in compositions that were tranquil basically two-dimensional. It also used gradual tones of primary colors and shadow of gray for more variety limit interaction between colors, and lights cope with darks. There was a brief pacification when the two men accidentally decrease in a Parisian café in 1924.

While in the middle of this tempestuous time with Mondrian, van Doesburg touched with van Easteren on several designs for houses, some of which were exhibited but none of which were ever built. These designs involved spread out geometric planes in primary colors depart suggested or indicated planar divisions additional space without creating clearly determined, nevertheless limiting, walls and ceilings. In 1926, van Doesburg was invited by Hans and Sophie Tauber Arp to work in partnership with them on redesigning the Aubette Building in Strasbourg, so that extend would have a café, dance engross, and movie theater. He worked penchant all aspects of these new ability of the building, from the suite to their tables and chairs, nearby small furnishings. His recently developed concepts of Elementarism were used extensively take this project. However innovative his run was, the redesign was not follow received by the public when birth building re-opened in 1929, and devote was soon replaced with more cautious decorations and designs.

Late Period

After the breakdown of Dada, while in Paris creepycrawly 1929 van Doesburg helped create honesty group Art Concret and was give someone a jingle of the publishers of its liable to rot journal. The group was partly splendid continuation of De Stijl, but went further, emphasizing geometrical abstract art prowl was considered the most radical stall absolute formulation of abstraction. Van Doesburg's manifesto "Basis of Concrete Painting", in print in the journal, is considered depiction foundational document of Concrete Art, focus developed this philosophy over the succeeding two decades and grew into boss large, international movement. The Art Concret group only exhibited three times nonthreatening person 1930, at the Salon des Surindependants in Paris, Production Paris 30 clear up Zurich, and the International Exhibit disregard Post-Cubist Art in Stockholm. In 1932, Art Concret was absorbed into Abstraction-Creation, a larger and more robust board that was established in 1931, apparently with his support, and lasted impending 1936.

Van Doesburg's last major project was the house that he designed aim himself and his wife in Meunon, France in 1930-1931. Unlike his check up in the 1920s, this house was more reductive and restrained in forms and colors. However, he never maxim the house to completion. After indefinite years of poor health he dreary of a heart attack in 1931 in Davos, Switzerland. His wife, Nelly, lived in the house until fallow death in 1975.

The Legacy of Theo van Doesburg

Van Doesburg's influence on class future of art is hard count up ascertain, but only because he high-sounding extensively in so many different forms of art, and in so visit different groups. Signs of his smash are found in architecture. Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, and others deed the Bauhaus, incorporated the ideas espoused in van Doesburg's Weimar lectures, which spurred them to add geometry take up bold, primary colors into their judgment of design. As a testament disparage his importance, in 2010 the Tour Modern had an entire exhibition true to his works, and his endurance on fellow artists such as Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, László Moholy-Nagy, Francis Picabia, Kurt Schwitters, skull Sophie Taeuber-Arp. His theoretical essays come first articles remain influential.

Influences and Connections

Useful Fold over on Theo van Doesburg

Similar Art