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Lot Essay
In 1917, during the First World War, a group of Dutch artists united in common cause under the name De Stijl. The leading painters were Theo van Doesburg, Georges Vantongerloo, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and the Hungarian émigré Vilmos Huszár; the chief architects were Gerrit Rietveld, J. J. Oud, and Jan Wils. Together they “not only redefined the vocabulary and the grammar of the visual arts,” as Hans L. C. Jaffé 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).
Collaborating with the architect Wils, Van Doesburg during May-October 1917 applied his theories on merging art and design to create a three panel stained-glass window and other features for the home of Jan de Lange in Alkmaar (Hoek, no. 554). The present gouache is the actual-size design for a glass mosaic decoration above the fireplace in De Lange’s study.
The proliferation of variously sized and colored rectangular forms in this composition does not at first glance appear to conform to a rigorous, systematic conception of the De Stijl grid. Closer study, however, reveals 24 stacked component sections, the right-hand column mirroring the left; the artist inverted, reversed, and rejoined two fundamental patterns throughout the work to form an intricate, interlocking design.
Van Doesburg likened this effect to movement in dance, and the sequential techniques in the music of J.S. Bach. “I hope to set up something new again this week intended for a tile tableau,” the artist wrote to Antony Kok on 14 July 1917. “When once I have a motif I keep it too tightly together. In music, especially in Bach, the motif is continually being assimilated in a different way. That is what I want to achieve with a new dance motif” (quoted in E. Hoek, ed., op. cit., 2000, p. 201). The resultant mesmerizing effect suggests a kinetic phenomenon, and apropos of the fireplace setting, as if one were gazing upon flickering, dancing flames.
The fireplace still exists. The glass mosaic, set in plaster, was executed after August 1917, but never installed (Hoek, no. 554 IVb). It is known today only from a photograph in Van Doesburg’s portfolio, which his wife Nelly later mistakenly attributed to another project of 1917-1918, the Villa Allegonda in Katwijk aan Zee; the present composition has been likewise inaccurately annotated in older exhibition catalogues.
Collaborating with the architect Wils, Van Doesburg during May-October 1917 applied his theories on merging art and design to create a three panel stained-glass window and other features for the home of Jan de Lange in Alkmaar (Hoek, no. 554). The present gouache is the actual-size design for a glass mosaic decoration above the fireplace in De Lange’s study.
The proliferation of variously sized and colored rectangular forms in this composition does not at first glance appear to conform to a rigorous, systematic conception of the De Stijl grid. Closer study, however, reveals 24 stacked component sections, the right-hand column mirroring the left; the artist inverted, reversed, and rejoined two fundamental patterns throughout the work to form an intricate, interlocking design.
Van Doesburg likened this effect to movement in dance, and the sequential techniques in the music of J.S. Bach. “I hope to set up something new again this week intended for a tile tableau,” the artist wrote to Antony Kok on 14 July 1917. “When once I have a motif I keep it too tightly together. In music, especially in Bach, the motif is continually being assimilated in a different way. That is what I want to achieve with a new dance motif” (quoted in E. Hoek, ed., op. cit., 2000, p. 201). The resultant mesmerizing effect suggests a kinetic phenomenon, and apropos of the fireplace setting, as if one were gazing upon flickering, dancing flames.
The fireplace still exists. The glass mosaic, set in plaster, was executed after August 1917, but never installed (Hoek, no. 554 IVb). It is known today only from a photograph in Van Doesburg’s portfolio, which his wife Nelly later mistakenly attributed to another project of 1917-1918, the Villa Allegonda in Katwijk aan Zee; the present composition has been likewise inaccurately annotated in older exhibition catalogues.