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Lot Essay
The response of European artists to the unprecedented carnage of the First World War ran a gamut of diverse attitudes, styles, sensibilities and programs, almost all of which amounted to, in intent and effect, a profound cry in protest that declared a cataclysm of this magnitude must never happen again. In Western Europe most of these ideas and efforts emerged under the banner of what the French called le rappel à l'ordre, "the call to order," which announced a return to the classical and humanist tradition of Europe's past, before the forces of industrial capitalism, nationalism and militarism spun out of control and brought the social contract down to a level so base that nothing more than the law of the jungle seemed to prevail. If destructively demonic forces in society and from within human nature had taken the nations of Europe to this terrible place, then the light of reason would deliver them from it, and bear forth the promise of a more enlightened and beneficent future.
A group of Dutch artists gathered in 1917, late in the war, under the name De Stijl. Their country had been neutral in the conflict, and perhaps for this reason they were able to approach the great new longing for harmony and balance with the benefit of insight derived from their singularly objective viewpoint. They dedicated their distinctly purist strain of idealism to a comprehensive synthesis of art, architecture and design, the goal of which was a new harmony in the expression of universal values, based on the precise geometry of abstraction, and the absolute supremacy that human thought and invention should wield over nature.
The group's leading painters were Theo van Doesberg, Georges Vantongerloo, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and the Hungarian émigré Vilmos Huszar; the chief architects were Gerrit Rietveld and J.J. Oud. Together they "not only redefined the vocabulary and the grammar of the visual arts," Hans L.C. Jaffe has written, "they assigned a new task to painting, architecture and the other arts: to serve as a guide for humanity to prepare it for the harmony and balance of the 'new life,' to serve mankind by enlightening it" (De Stijl: Visions of Utopia, exh. cat., The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1982, p. 15).
Van Doesburg became the prime mover behind the journal De Stijl, and as such the group's public spokesman. In 1922 he published "De Stijl: Manifesto I," which he had composed in 1918. He stated:
"There is an old and 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 and its contents: individual domination in every state. The new art has brought forth what the new consciousness of time contains: a balance between the universal and the individual. The new consciousness is prepared to realize the internal life as well as the external life" (trans. in C. Harrison and P. Wood, ed., Art in Theory 1900-2000, Malden, Mass., 2003, p. 281).
Van Doesburg famously declared: "The object of nature is man, the object of man is style...The development of art had to result in a new plasticity, which could only appear in and by a period which was able to revolutionize completely the spiritual (inward) and material (outward) proportions" ("Introduction to De Stijl," vol. II; trans. in H.B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art, Berkeley, 1968, p. 324). The present Compositie that Van Doesburg painted in 1917-1918 demonstrates the process by which the utopian practitioners of De Stijl early set forth on their quest, by first applying its principles within the context of the most basic human habitation, the house as home.
In 1917 Emilie Knappert, a dedicated feminist who directed the welfare organization Leiden Volkshuis, commissioned Oud and Van Doesburg to collaborate on the construction of a three-story house on the dunes by the North Sea at Noordwijkerhout, about six miles from Leiden. The building would be known as De Vonk ("The Spark") and was intended to serve as a holiday residence for girls and young women from local working-class families. Following instructions from his client, Oud designed the building in as a long, symmetrical, rectangular structure--to be built in brick--with wings, arranged around a central stairway. The ground floor contained a dining room and lecture halls; the female workers' rooms were located on the second floor.
Van Doesburg designed colored tiled mosaics for the face of the building (fig. 1), and the colored decoration in the hallways, including the walls, doors and floors (figs. 2 and 3 [the latter: Hoek, no. 569 IIa]). C.-P. Warncke has pointed out that "Van Doesburg's floor mosaic, with yellow, black and while tiles, added an element of unrest to this sculpture-like structure" (De Stijl, Cologne, 1998, p. 96) echoing Van Doesburg's own statement in the magazine De Stijl: "In the tiled floor composition, and in the painted doors, etc., in the manner of painting-in-architecture, an aesthetic spatial effect is achieved by destruction" (quoted in E. van Straaten, op. cit., p. 49). He thought it was "splendid to have it resolved in yellow, black and white" (quoted in Hoek. op. cit., p. 220). Van Doesburg regarded De Vonk as the first successful result in a collaboration between an artist and architect according to De Stijl principles; the vacation home marked the "beginning of monumentality... The rising stairs, the interrupted walls, the benches along the walls and the bench on the landing...they all have a logical functional meaning, which, contained in a single organic form, is plastically externalized. From whatever side it is seen, this form produces a surprising rhythmic effect" (quoted in E. van Straaten, op. cit., p. 49). The construction of De Vonk commenced in 1918; the house was officially opened on 8 February 1919.
While drawing the plans for the holiday home, Van Doesburg painted the present Compositie, which is closely related to his idea for the floor tile design. This painting is an entirely autonomous art work. The machine-made floor tiles have a smooth and regular appearance; Van Doesburg made no attempt, however, to downplay or minimize the hand-painted aspect of this composition in oils. He furthermore augmented the tile design by adding in the painting two framing bands in the same ochre, black and white colors he had employed in the internal structure of elements; this pictorial device sets off the composition from its surroundings, and focuses the viewer's attention more closely on the interaction between the colored rectangles and right angled bracket forms. The painting is intriguingly satisfying on several levels simultaneously--as an engaging design, a subtle and complex composition, and not least for the mysteriously elusive and hermetic effect that it produces. Even after repeated viewings it is virtually impossible to fix the composition in one's memory: each new viewing is like studying the picture for the first time. The three colors may be read as alternately overlapping and cut open superimposed planes, a sort of synthetic cubist puzzle. The composition is, of course, static--yet the elements, as cohesively interlocked as they are, nevertheless produce the illusion of being unsettled and in a state of flux. The viewer may rightly ponder if this is a composition in which connections are being made, and the elements coming together; or if the contrary applies, and the composition is coming apart. We cannot be sure if we are witnessing a process of construction, or--as Van Doesburg suggested in his assessment of the tiled floor above--destruction.
Theo van Doesburg, circa 1920. BARCODE: 28855545
(fig. 1) The holiday residence De Vonk, Noorwijkerhout, The Netherlands, in a recent photograph. Frank den Oudsten/Lenneke Büller, Amsterdam. BARCODE: 28855552
(fig. 2) The tile floor pattern at the De Vonk holiday residence, in a recent photograph. Frank den Oudsten/Lenneke Büller, Amsterdam. BARCODE: 28855569
(fig. 3) Theo van Doesberg, Design for a tiled floor; the entrance hall, stairwell and hallway on the ground floor of the De Vonk holiday residence, 1917-1918. Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague. BARCODE: 28855477
A group of Dutch artists gathered in 1917, late in the war, under the name De Stijl. Their country had been neutral in the conflict, and perhaps for this reason they were able to approach the great new longing for harmony and balance with the benefit of insight derived from their singularly objective viewpoint. They dedicated their distinctly purist strain of idealism to a comprehensive synthesis of art, architecture and design, the goal of which was a new harmony in the expression of universal values, based on the precise geometry of abstraction, and the absolute supremacy that human thought and invention should wield over nature.
The group's leading painters were Theo van Doesberg, Georges Vantongerloo, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and the Hungarian émigré Vilmos Huszar; the chief architects were Gerrit Rietveld and J.J. Oud. Together they "not only redefined the vocabulary and the grammar of the visual arts," Hans L.C. Jaffe has written, "they assigned a new task to painting, architecture and the other arts: to serve as a guide for humanity to prepare it for the harmony and balance of the 'new life,' to serve mankind by enlightening it" (De Stijl: Visions of Utopia, exh. cat., The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1982, p. 15).
Van Doesburg became the prime mover behind the journal De Stijl, and as such the group's public spokesman. In 1922 he published "De Stijl: Manifesto I," which he had composed in 1918. He stated:
"There is an old and 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 and its contents: individual domination in every state. The new art has brought forth what the new consciousness of time contains: a balance between the universal and the individual. The new consciousness is prepared to realize the internal life as well as the external life" (trans. in C. Harrison and P. Wood, ed., Art in Theory 1900-2000, Malden, Mass., 2003, p. 281).
Van Doesburg famously declared: "The object of nature is man, the object of man is style...The development of art had to result in a new plasticity, which could only appear in and by a period which was able to revolutionize completely the spiritual (inward) and material (outward) proportions" ("Introduction to De Stijl," vol. II; trans. in H.B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art, Berkeley, 1968, p. 324). The present Compositie that Van Doesburg painted in 1917-1918 demonstrates the process by which the utopian practitioners of De Stijl early set forth on their quest, by first applying its principles within the context of the most basic human habitation, the house as home.
In 1917 Emilie Knappert, a dedicated feminist who directed the welfare organization Leiden Volkshuis, commissioned Oud and Van Doesburg to collaborate on the construction of a three-story house on the dunes by the North Sea at Noordwijkerhout, about six miles from Leiden. The building would be known as De Vonk ("The Spark") and was intended to serve as a holiday residence for girls and young women from local working-class families. Following instructions from his client, Oud designed the building in as a long, symmetrical, rectangular structure--to be built in brick--with wings, arranged around a central stairway. The ground floor contained a dining room and lecture halls; the female workers' rooms were located on the second floor.
Van Doesburg designed colored tiled mosaics for the face of the building (fig. 1), and the colored decoration in the hallways, including the walls, doors and floors (figs. 2 and 3 [the latter: Hoek, no. 569 IIa]). C.-P. Warncke has pointed out that "Van Doesburg's floor mosaic, with yellow, black and while tiles, added an element of unrest to this sculpture-like structure" (De Stijl, Cologne, 1998, p. 96) echoing Van Doesburg's own statement in the magazine De Stijl: "In the tiled floor composition, and in the painted doors, etc., in the manner of painting-in-architecture, an aesthetic spatial effect is achieved by destruction" (quoted in E. van Straaten, op. cit., p. 49). He thought it was "splendid to have it resolved in yellow, black and white" (quoted in Hoek. op. cit., p. 220). Van Doesburg regarded De Vonk as the first successful result in a collaboration between an artist and architect according to De Stijl principles; the vacation home marked the "beginning of monumentality... The rising stairs, the interrupted walls, the benches along the walls and the bench on the landing...they all have a logical functional meaning, which, contained in a single organic form, is plastically externalized. From whatever side it is seen, this form produces a surprising rhythmic effect" (quoted in E. van Straaten, op. cit., p. 49). The construction of De Vonk commenced in 1918; the house was officially opened on 8 February 1919.
While drawing the plans for the holiday home, Van Doesburg painted the present Compositie, which is closely related to his idea for the floor tile design. This painting is an entirely autonomous art work. The machine-made floor tiles have a smooth and regular appearance; Van Doesburg made no attempt, however, to downplay or minimize the hand-painted aspect of this composition in oils. He furthermore augmented the tile design by adding in the painting two framing bands in the same ochre, black and white colors he had employed in the internal structure of elements; this pictorial device sets off the composition from its surroundings, and focuses the viewer's attention more closely on the interaction between the colored rectangles and right angled bracket forms. The painting is intriguingly satisfying on several levels simultaneously--as an engaging design, a subtle and complex composition, and not least for the mysteriously elusive and hermetic effect that it produces. Even after repeated viewings it is virtually impossible to fix the composition in one's memory: each new viewing is like studying the picture for the first time. The three colors may be read as alternately overlapping and cut open superimposed planes, a sort of synthetic cubist puzzle. The composition is, of course, static--yet the elements, as cohesively interlocked as they are, nevertheless produce the illusion of being unsettled and in a state of flux. The viewer may rightly ponder if this is a composition in which connections are being made, and the elements coming together; or if the contrary applies, and the composition is coming apart. We cannot be sure if we are witnessing a process of construction, or--as Van Doesburg suggested in his assessment of the tiled floor above--destruction.
Theo van Doesburg, circa 1920. BARCODE: 28855545
(fig. 1) The holiday residence De Vonk, Noorwijkerhout, The Netherlands, in a recent photograph. Frank den Oudsten/Lenneke Büller, Amsterdam. BARCODE: 28855552
(fig. 2) The tile floor pattern at the De Vonk holiday residence, in a recent photograph. Frank den Oudsten/Lenneke Büller, Amsterdam. BARCODE: 28855569
(fig. 3) Theo van Doesberg, Design for a tiled floor; the entrance hall, stairwell and hallway on the ground floor of the De Vonk holiday residence, 1917-1918. Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague. BARCODE: 28855477