Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg, pseudonym of Christian Emil Marie Küpper, (Utrecht, August 30, 1883 - Davos, March 7, 1931) was a Dutch artist. He is known as one of the most important representatives and propagandists of the abstract art in the 20th century. In 1917 the magazine De Stijl op Besides painter Van Doesburg was also active as poet (see IK Bonset), novelist (see Aldo Camini), typographer, photographer, interior designer and architect. (Once in 1917, he published under the name 'Pipifox' ) Van Doesburg propagated a world in which the arts took a more exalting, apolitical and mutually equivalent place within the theoretical framework of the New Beignment. For this he sought connection with the international avant-garde

Emile Küpper was the seventh and last child of the German photographer Wilhelm Küpper (1838-1892) and his wife Henrietta Margadant His birthplace was Teelingstraat 13 in Utrecht One year after Emile's birth, his father's photo studio went bankrupt and left for Germany in September In 1884, the remaining family lived with the watchmaker Theodorus Doesburg in Amsterdam with whom his mother married on July 19, 1893

At the lower school Emile was a difficult student. Because he wanted to do nothing but read, he was sent from school. Higher education or a further education he never completed. However, he recently visited the School of Vocal and Dramatic Arts of Cateau Esser in Amsterdam, But the desire grew to become a painter and / or writer. His first painterly trials date from 1899 and around 1902-1903 he followed some painter's paintings by the painter Adri Grootens. His further life, he remained a car actress. His first work he declared with his stepfather's name : Theo Doesburg, where he added the inscription "of" in 1902

Van Doesburg, in addition to painting and literature, also applied to the study of sociology, philosophy and ethics. But politics and religion were interested, witnessing his membership of the Free-Democratic League and his accession to the reformed church. In this quest he learned about 1903 Who also knew the autodidactic poet Agnita Feis, whom he wrote in one of his first poems in September 1904

The paintings from his early years are often brownish and thick and close to the former Amsterdam School. In the beginning he painted mostly landscapes. However, the landscape painting satisfied him less. From a humanist-Christian view, possibly influenced by Van Gogh, he was interested in Increasingly for the "suffering and tough" man In order to get acquainted with the portrait painting, he made numerous self-portraits, depicting himself as a "mental worker", with hat and workwear. However, the study of man also raised the need for this Mirror, which resulted in a series of caricature lithos by example of the French caricatureist Honoré Daumier, published in 1910 in his literary debut, The Masks Off!

Van Doesburg's parents approved his relationship with Feis, leaving the parental home in 1907 without a fixed income. With the help of his friend, the amateur painter Christian Leibbrandt, he knew to build an existence for himself. In 1908 found in The Hague Art circling his first exhibition and from 1908 to 1912 he earned his money by giving drawing lessons to Johanna Pieneman In 1909, Feis and Van Doesburg went to live together on Johannes Verhulststraat 33 and on May 4, 1910, their marriage took place. It was a marriage based on Equality Feis held her girl name and the tasks were clearly divided, but everything shows that their marital life was subordinate to their spiritual development

From the middle of 1912, Van Doesburg wrote reviews and art views for various magazines. In that way, he first came in touch with modern art. Initially, he did not mention the art of cubists like Picasso or Braque and Kandinsky's abstract work. Suddenly ended in 1913 after reading Kandinsky's Rückblicke, reflecting on his development as a painter of 1903-1913 Van Doesburg became convinced of the "spiritualization" of art, that is, pure art originates from the mind and Out of the world around us A natural imitation of reality, according to Kandinsky, had little meaning. In addition, he took Kandinsky's idea of ​​predicting future art from the past of history, Van Doesburg established that the art became increasingly abstract Van Doesburg Had initially made great effort to form the 'gratitude' The painting Girl with Ranonkels, which he completed in 1914, is his first attempt in that direction. Although the performance is still recognizable, Van Doesburg notes that he has used it alone as a motive

Almost immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, Van Doesburg, as sergeant factor Küpper, was quarried with the Amsterdam Landweer on the Right Heath on the Belgian border in North Brabant. The horrific eyewitness reports of Belgian refugees shocked him and lost all his Confidence in Man and Even in Faith As He Was Knowing At the front, there was still little to do, so he wrote countless magazine articles, poems, and letters in which he was afraid of this in his eyes useless war on the Right Heath He learned to know the Daughter Shoemaker-poet Evert Rinsema, with whom he, because of their mutual interest in literature, continued his friend's life. In January 1915 he was transferred to Tilburg His old Amsterdam friend, Maurits Manheim, who has been in Tilburg for some time Lived in the fall of 1914 to Antony Kok Manheim, Kok and Van from Rotterdam Doesburg organized the soirées intimes in 1915, where music was made and experimental poems were presented. With Kok he also discussed the possibilities of a literary-cultural magazine around Manheim, teaching him Lena Milius Van Doesburg fell in love with Lena and found in Her a more understanding, warm and tolerant partner than his Agnita He published the poem 'My love' that he published on January 30, 1915 - to great sorrow of Feis - in the magazine Unit

At the end of his Tilburg period, Van Doesburg began to focus on visual arts. At the beginning of June 1915 he visited the Amsterdam exhibition of the Independence in Amsterdam. Following the work of Louis Saalborn and Laurens van Kuik, presented here, he sketched street music I and II Many early abstract artists, including Kandinsky, used music as a motive to shape their inner feelings. In addition, in the music, the spiritualization they sought had already taken a much more concrete form than the other arts. In this exhibition he writes the article 'Acknowledgments of Modern Art', in which he defends the 'truly' modern ones for the first time

In the summer of 1915, groups around Tilburg caused soldiers soldiers and rioters in the city, leaving Van Doesburg's military section to Utrecht in September. In Utrecht, he went through the ophthalmologist Erich in October through ophthalmologist and amateur painter Gesinus in Doesschate in Utrecht. Wichman With Wichman, he made plans for the creation of an 'artistic' magazine, involving Marius Brinkgreve. He was also presented in Utrecht to the expressionist painter Janus de Winter. The 'images' of 'inner observations in colors and shapes' of this What eccentric artist made a deep impression of Van Doesburg and he used all his contacts to praise this "pure theosophical artist". He also carried on the special lyrics of the priest "The Priest Artist", and he was encouraged to make him Of a series of visionary performances

Following the evolution of Kandinsky's evolution, Van Doesburg tried to express the development of art (from figurative to abstract), for example in the lecture. The development of modern painting When Van Doesburg came into contact with Piet Mondriaan's work in October 1915 He spoke about this kind of term in this way. This resulted in a slow removal of expressionism. Yet that same month, Mondriaan sent him a picture of a drawing of the facade of the church of Domburg, on which Van Doesburg made a similar drawing. Mondriaan also made him feel very Random and coincidental character of The Winters work, after which Van Doesburg took a little more distance from his "priest artist" On February 6, 1916, both met for the first time

After his demobilization in February 1916, due to his relationship with Lena Milius, he could not return to his wife and he temporarily stayed with his mother and sister on Schoterweg 6 in Haarlem. On March 24, 1916 he founded with Erich Wichman and Lou Saalborn the artist association De Others who show him from May to June of that year at art dealer Herman d'Audretsch in The Hague Ook De Winter was a member of the Others When, at the last moment, Winter recalled the group because he had other more influential promoters Found in the people Henri Borel and Frederik van Eeden, Van Doesburg felt heavily spoiled In spite of this disappointment, the exhibition for Van Doesburg was a small success: his first numbered composition, Composition I (still life) - possibly inspired by the work of the Czech artist Emil Filla - was purchased by the influential art educator HP Bremmer for the collection of Mrs Kröller

In 1916 Van Doesburg broke out with expressionism. It had everything to do with the evolution. After the break with De Winter, the book De schilder De Winter appeared and his work in which Van Doesburg published the work of Winter in art history and the comparative With the "grotesque of medieval na-gothicism" Kandinsky's expressionism now saw him as a transitional period, overshadowed by painters such as Mondrian, who continued the spiritualization and concerned with "universal values"

In the spring of 1916 he published in the magazine De Beweging the article series 'The New Movement in Painting', published in 1917 as The New Movement in Painting Here, he distinguishes two kinds of abstract art: rational abstraction through cubism and impulsive Abstraction via Kandinsky In response to this, the architect JJP Oud wrote on May 30 a letter in which he referred Van Doesburg to the agreement of modern painting with modern architecture. This letter was published later that year as' About cubism, futurism, modern architecture Etc '

A first prudent attempt in this direction was the assignment that Oud gave him in August 1916 to design a stained glass window for the door of a mayor's house in Broek in Waterland (see image left) For this first stained glass lead- Composer Van Doesburg went to the Hungarian artist Vilmos Huszár Later, Oud would still involve him in various projects, such as Villa Allegonda in Katwijk aan Zee, De Vonk House and Housing in the Rotterdam district of Spangen In May 1916, Van Doesburg founded a second artist association , The Leidsche Kunstclub De Sphinx At the request of Oud, architects were also admitted

One of the members of this association was The Hague architect Jan Wils Wils had as the follower of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright put on the map as one of the most advanced architects in the Netherlands and, like Oud, Wils van Doesburg involved Some of his projects In 1917 Van Doesburg designed five stained glass windows for a Wils designed teacher house in Sint Anthoniepolder, and he received from Wils all freedom at the decoration of Huis De Lange in Alkmaar. At the end of 1916 he gave in several places the Reading The aesthetic principle in relation to modern visual arts

The Style Movement:
Through Mondriaan and Huszár, he also learned the painter Bart van der Leck in 1916, and together they aimed the group of "conscious abstracts" or "really others" as a partition of their taste-like expressionist The Others Begin 1917, a new phase began In Van Doesburg's Oeuvre, the New Imagination or Neo-Plasticism Under the influence of his new circle of friends, he only used horizontal and vertical lines and color planes, from which virtually every "natural" influence disappeared. Although these works are still evident from the perceptible reality - His composition XII is based in black and white on a landscape, and his composition is in dissonance on a woman's portrait - Van Doesburg seems to have been the most radical in his views. Thus, Lena Milius thought that when Mondriaan once saw him Looking up in Leiden and seeing L'homme à la pipe (Composition VI) there, he was not there yet

In December 1916 he settled in Leiden where he rented a studio at Kort Galgewater 3 On May 11, 1917, the divorce between Van Doesburg and Feis was pronounced after having lived for three years apart. The same month, on May 30 , He married Lena Milius

In May 1917, Van Doesburg was preparing a magazine for the "conscious abstract" group. He had already the promise of Mondriaan and Van der Leck. An important impulse was also an advance of 600, - on a promise of 3000 , - from the Swiss collector Karl Friedrich Meyer-Fierz, who learned from Van Doesburg in November 1916 He called it The Style "It's only for Fine Arts and Crafts. I'm doing well, I'm very excited about music, literature, etc." He wrote to Kok through paper scarcity on 19 May 1917, and the search for advertisers was the first issue of De Stijl only in October. Other journalists were Anthony Kok, JJP Oud, Gino Severini, Jan Wils, Robert van 't Hoff, Huib Hoste and Georges Vantongerloo

The title - De Stijl - is a provocation to those who, according to Van Doesburg, did not belong to the moderators. In particular, the magazine Wendingen (editors HTh Wijdeveld), often referred to as the Amsterdam School, had to often deny in Van Doesburg's articles. He compared it to a Steady wind pointer, motto you can never tell if the wind blows, my hood blows

But also in relation to the members of The Style, Van Doesburg was particularly critical. This led to the conflicts that made the group break apart. Van Doesburg was convinced that the universal would win the individual and so he tried to Make a Corporate Style Members who deviate from De Styl's assumptions or were not loyal enough were ruined without pardon

Van Doesburg, however, was not always consistent. In the autumn of 1919, he told Communist painter Chris Beekman to drop a petition in his network to collect signatures for free postal traffic with Russia, to offer to the Dutch Parliament Toen Van Doesburg, however, failed to do so, the same communist architect, Robert van 't Hoff, could no longer cooperate with Van Doesburg as editor of De Stijl Earlier that year Van' t Hoff Van Doesburg had mentioned the experimental furniture of Gerrit Rietveld Van Doesburg found that they expressed the ideas of De Stijl in three dimensions and published in his magazine Toen Van Doesburg in November 1919, despite the appointment of the members of The Style, only to exhibit jointly, still took part in the Jaarbeurs voor Kunstnijverheid in Amsterdam, the break with Van 't Hoff was complete

In November 1918, Manifesto I of De Stijl appeared calling for more international cooperation and a "world struggle against the overriding of individualism." This had quite a quick result. Contacts with like-minded artists in Italy, Germany and Belgium were laid. Joseph Peeters invited Van Doesburg To read for the group of Modern Art in Antwerp This reading, entitled Classical-Baroque Modern, is an example of the reaction to Berlage and 'being' Amsterdamsche School, which, according to Van Doesburg, had never released the decorative baroque principle
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