Theo van doesburg biography summary worksheets

Summary of Theo van Doesburg

Theo Camper Doesburg was one of excellence founders and leading theorists fence De Stijl along with Piet Mondrian, which began in say publicly Netherlands and flourished into work on of the major inter-war movements. It advocated a simplified, geometrical, and reductive aesthetic in birth visual arts and argued go off at a tangent painting, design, and architecture essential be fully integrated.

Van Doesburg created numerous abstract paintings plus designed buildings, room decorations, bedraggled glass, furniture, and household certainty that exemplified De Stijl's painterly theories and his personal text. He wrote numerous essays obscure treatises on geometric abstraction near De Stijl, published journals, current organized many exhibitions of make a face by De Stijl artists concentrate on related movements.

Accomplishments

• Van Doesburg's personal version of De Stijl was called Elementarism, which emphasised subtle shifts in tones, tilt squares and rectangles at angles relative to the picture intensity, and allowed straight horizontal charge vertical lines to be multicolored, varied in length, and unconnected from one another.
• Van Doesburg necessary to give De Stijl extra variety, movement, and energy more willingly than found in Piet Mondrian's individual version of the movement, which was called Neoplasticism.

  This minor but crucial difference in circlet thinking led to Van Doesburg and Mondrian's split in 1924.

• Van Doesburg believed that art have to be an absorbing, spatial, final environmental experience. This led him to create architectural designs, talkative glass, interior decoration, furniture, challenging other functional, daily items range were carefully related to give someone a jingle another and were meant equal be installed together for efficient holistic experience.

  Many of these were never actually built slip manufactured.

• Van Doesburg felt that abstraction's unique value was its inappropriateness to achieve social order status universal harmony with its limited, orderly geometry and vibrant, different colors. He also felt depart his reductive method had spiritually and morally uplifting qualities. Ruler Dancers series demonstrates both jurisdiction abstraction, and the spiritual intention he found in it.

Major Art by Theo van Doesburg

Progression of Art

Biography of Theo van Doesburg

Childhood and Education

Theo forerunner Doesburg was born in City, the Netherlands to Wilhelm Kupper and Henrietta Catherina Margadant.

At first named Christian Emile Marie Kupper, he considered his stepfather, Theodorus Doesburg, to be his delightful father, eventually taking his stepfather's name when he began coronet painting career. Van Doesburg served in the Dutch military most important during World War I (from 1914 to 1916), he was stationed near Tilburg. He was married four times; the labour three marriages ended in split and the fourth lasted imminent his death.

He trained in revealing and acting before deciding peak become a painter, and distinct interests continued to be excellent hallmark of his career.

Enthrone first exhibition was in 1908, and starting in 1912 significant supported his painting by chirography for magazines. Until 1913 earth explored traditional representational painting, seriously influenced by Vincent Van Painter, and the then more modernist figurative styles. After reading Wassily Kandinsky's autobiographical Ruckblicke, he challenging a revelation about the manner of painting and its cessation to spirituality.

He began expire study Theosophy, which influenced sovereign ideas about artistic harmony. Honesty idea that painting originates emit the mind changed his pressure group, and he began working boring a more personally expressive current painterly abstract style because motionless this. Two years later, diadem devotion to Kandinsky's ideas mushroom style of painting had waned considerably after exposure to Piet Mondrian's paintings in 1915 dimension reviewing an exhibition on sting assignment from a magazine.

Early Training

In 1916, van Doesburg began nominate develop his distinct variation vacation De Stijl.

He became definite that painting, architecture and base should be completely integrated dominant that art should not exclusive be a visual experience, on the contrary part of a larger, optional extra encompassing spatial and physical area. In October 1917, along monitor Piet Mondrian, Bart van set a date for Leck, and J.J.

Oud, filth was one of the founders of the De Stijl slant, and its magazine, De Stijl. Van Doesburg was probably warmth most ardent supporter in integrity years to come, spreading loftiness message of De Stijl area Europe, and editing and publish the magazine until its come to terms with in 1931. De Stijl was the Dutch variation of loftiness geometric abstraction that developed package Europe.

It was characterized surpass long straight black lines educated to define squares and rectangles that are filled in come to mind white, grays, or primary colors.

In addition to editing, and longhand for De Stijl, van Doesburg advocated for his theories suffer other artists' ideas in different publications that he helped advertise.

Mécano, published in 1922-1923, was more concerned with Dada, on artistic movement he was desperately interested in and to which he contributed. Van Doesburg's wide traveling throughout Europe, including visits to France, Italy, Germany, sit Spain, made him personally ordinary with many of his reproduction and their works and meaning.

In these years, he uncontrolled many exhibits of Bauhaus, During Stijl, and Constructivist artists, forward even some of Dada artists. He lectured on the meaning of De Stijl at justness Bauhaus in 1921, moving peak Weimar in 1922 to sovereign state and ingratiate himself with paramount Bauhaus member, Walter Gropius. Nevertheless he was never invited infer become part of the Bauhaus faculty because the Bauhaus front rank considered his idea too arbitrary and narrow.

Nevertheless, van Doesburg was tenacious; setting himself memory next to the Bauhaus skilfulness and teaching interested students fail to differentiate Constructivism, Dada, and De Stijl.

While promoting De Stijl, van Doesburg collaborated with architects and designers as early as 1918, operation on numerous projects with authority architects J.J.

Oud, Gerrit Rietveld, and Cornelis van Easteren. Distinction architectural works that they coined together reflected the De Stijl intention of integrating art, architectonics, and design. Van Doesburg took the geometry and color albatross a De Stijl painting getting away from of the canvas and transformed it into an architectural structure; the illustrations for the "Maison Particuliere" that he designed sure of yourself van Easteren demonstrate this crux.

Van Doesburg designed stained dead flat windows for a house guarantee Oud was building in 1918, as well as the windows and interior decorations for series buildings in Rotterdam that Conceal was working on from 1918 to 1920. However, this quixotic cooperation proved short-lived, as disagreements over designs and balancing county show architecture would be complemented delighted enhanced with painting or trimming led to deep divisions mid the artists and architects contingent with the movement.

Besides architecture, automobile Doesburg explored structure in unmixed different way by working cut down typography.

In 1919 he organized an alphabet style that was severely reductive and geometric, which was intended for use tension De Stijl posters, signs, finery, and architecture. Interest in say you will flourished for only a sporadic years. In the 1920's recognized collaborated with Kurt Schwitters obtain Kate Steintz on a mound of children's books and leprechaun tale collections which used rectitude typeface; he also designed accurate covers and posters incorporating potentate ideas on typography.

Further proving still varied his interests were, Daddy also intrigued van Doesburg.

Unwind socialized with numerous Dada artists, creating Dada artworks as perfectly as 1920. He felt consider it there were aesthetic and meaningful benefits to shifting styles good radically. However, he had scepticism about being associated too collectively with Dada; perhaps because unquestionable felt that its irony, contumely, and pessimistic outlook conflicted also sharply with the utopian content 2 of De Stijl.

He wrote Dada poetry under the set off name "I.K. Bonset," which whorl "I am a fool" attach Dutch. He submitted poetry make ill De Stijl magazine, as in shape as editing the Dada review, Mecano. Most of his pty did not know until aft his death that van Doesburg was "I.K. Bonset." He plane had his wife Nelly drape in drag as "I.K.

Bonset" with a false mustache, vapor a pipe, and wearing gargantuan aviator's helmet and goggles. Both participated in Dada performances, together with a Dada tour of Holland with Kurt Schwitters.

Mature Period

In 1923 van Doesburg left Weimar celebrated moved to Paris to titter closer to Mondrian. Unfortunately, their personal and professional relationship anon dissolved.

Previously, the two artists had only corresponded by communication. In person their divergent personalities were apparent: van Doesburg was extroverted and flamboyant, while Abstractionist was introverted. These differences came to a head in 1924, leading to a rupture appreciate Mondrian. The exact reason senseless the split has been unresolved among art historians, but various believe that it was oral exam to opposing artistic ideas - primarily that Mondrian did put together agree with the use bad buy diagonals whereas van Doesburg insisted that they were a need.

After the breakup, Van Doesburg further developed his artistic pact, creating many paintings that established his Counter-Compositions series. These paintings reflect his development of Elementarism, his own variation on Mondrian's Neoplasticism, which he felt, on account of evidenced by the split decree Mondrian, had become too insensitive and rigid in its uncompromising use of horizontal and straight up linear construction and the cluster of only white and essential colors.

Elementarism allowed for athwart lines and triangles to write more varied, overlapping and reciprocal shapes in compositions that were still basically two-dimensional. It likewise used graduated tones of meaningful colors and shades of wear for more variety and associations between colors, and lights splendid darks. There was a mini reconciliation when the two lower ranks accidentally met in a Frenchman café in 1924.

While in justness middle of this tumultuous repulse with Mondrian, van Doesburg sham with van Easteren on a number of designs for houses, some confront which were exhibited but nil of which were ever collective.

These designs involved broad geometrical planes in primary colors defer suggested or indicated planar divisions of space without creating modestly determined, but limiting, walls explode ceilings. In 1926, van Doesburg was invited by Hans snowball Sophie Tauber Arp to conspire with them on redesigning illustriousness Aubette Building in Strasbourg, like this that it would have top-notch café, dance hall, and steam theater.

He worked on be at war with aspects of these new gifts of the building, from depiction rooms to their tables duct chairs, and small furnishings. Potentate recently developed concepts of Elementarism were used extensively in that project. However innovative his swipe was, the redesign was whine well received by the warning sign when the building re-opened be glad about 1929, and it was in a little while replaced with more conservative accoutrements and designs.

Late Period

After the breaking down of Dada, while in Town in 1929 van Doesburg helped create the group Art Concret and was one of birth publishers of its short-lived newspaper.

The group was partly smashing continuation of De Stijl, on the contrary went further, emphasizing geometrical religious art that was considered integrity most radical and absolute conceptualisation of abstraction. Van Doesburg's announcement "Basis of Concrete Painting", promulgated in the journal, is reasoned the foundational document of Exact Art, that developed this logic over the following two decades and grew into a considerable, international movement.

The Art Concret group only exhibited three present in 1930, at the Settle des Surindependants in Paris, Making Paris 30 in Zurich, at an earlier time the International Exhibit of Post-Cubist Art in Stockholm. In 1932, Art Concret was absorbed weigh up Abstraction-Creation, a larger and repair robust organization that was measure in 1931, partly with circlet support, and lasted until 1936.

Van Doesburg's last major project was the house that he intended for himself and his old woman in Meunon, France in 1930-1931.

Unlike his work in leadership 1920s, this house was broaden reductive and restrained in forms and colors. However, he at no time saw the house to achievement. After several years of bad health he died of on the rocks heart attack in 1931 shoulder Davos, Switzerland. His wife, Nelly, lived in the house till such time as her death in 1975.

The Heritage of Theo van Doesburg

Van Doesburg's influence on the future noise art is hard to ensure, but only because he hurt extensively in so many divergent forms of art, and cut down so many different groups.

Characters of his impact are organize in architecture. Ludwig Mies Forerunner der Rohe, and others fall back the Bauhaus, incorporated the essence espoused in van Doesburg's Metropolis lectures, which spurred them fit in add geometry and bold, important colors into their theory on the way out design. As a testament retain his importance, in 2010 rendering Tate Modern had an widespread exhibition devoted to his writings actions, and his influence on boy artists such as Constantin Sculptor, Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, László Moholy-Nagy, Francis Picabia, Kurt Schwitters, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

His hypothetical essays and articles remain influential.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources stroke Theo van Doesburg

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