Kunstmuseum Den Haag

The Art Museum in Den Haag is one the last buildings designed by Berlage and was constructed 1931-1935.  H. P. Berlage is considered the "Father of Modern Architecture" in the Netherlands.
It has the largest collection of Piet Mondrian in the world and is a great place to learn about the Dutch art movement De Stijl.  More on Mondrian and De Stijl later, below.

De Stijl Intro

De Stijl is the name used for an approach to art and architecture based in the Netherlands in the 1920's.  It is both recognizable and also fuzzy.  
  This was an attempt to unite art, architecture and other arts in a coherent new approach that would revolutionize the world.  Did it?
  
  We recognize De Stijl classic art and architecture by abstraction, geometry and reliance on primary colors of black, white, red, blue and yellow - which may be one of the most recognized influence of the Netherlands in the twentieth century.
  At the same time, De Stijl was a magazine run by one man who seemed to quarrel with almost everyone and the movement as such fell apart when he died in the early 1930s.
Like many things, the story of De Stijl is the story of personalities and relationships.

  ' The object of this little journal is to help develop a new awareness of beauty.'  

     "This, in translation, was the first sentence of the first issue of the first volume of De Stijl, published in 1917.  Theo van Doesburg (1883 - 1931), conscripted for military service during 1914 - 1916, had been putting out feelers to members of the national avant-garde...  One of the first was Paris-based Piet Mondrian (1872 - 1944), who had been stranded in the Netherlands by the war and in those years was producing work of an increasingly abstract nature.  In the first months of 1916, Van Doesburg widened his network to include the architect J.J.P. Oud (1890 - 1963) and the Hungarian painter Vilmos Huszar (1884 - 1960).  The painter Bart van der Leck (1876 - 1958) and the architect Jan Wils (1891 - 1972).
      "As early as 1915, Van Doesburg had felt the need for a journal of his own as a platform for his ideas about art and for the sound poems he was writing.  It would take until November 1917 before it got that far and the first issue of De Stijl was published.  Van Doesburg originally wanted to call the journal De Rechte Lijn (the Straight Line) but ultimately opted for De Stijl, a title that seems to infer that its subject was the best, if not the only possibly modern style.  From then on, the journal appeared more or less monthly to begin with but later at ever increasing intervals until 1928...
     "Vilmos Huszar designed the title and logo of the first volumes of De Stijl but it was mainly Van Doesburg who would dictate the journal's contents and range.  Mondrian and Van der Leck were unenthusiastic about bringing architects into De Stijl.  They felt that in that case Van Doesburg, who was keen to involve as many artistic disciplines and national and international modernists as possible, should take full responsibility for the journal.  All the same, it was Mondrian more than anyone who set the theoretical tone in the initial years with a series of articles collectively headed 'De Nieuwe Beelding' (literally 'new imaging,' but usually rendered as Neo-Plasticism).
     Meanwhile, Van Doesburg enthusiastically drew others to the journal,  such as the architects Gerrit Rietveld (1884 - 1964) and Robert van 't Hoff (1887 - 1979) and foreign artists.  In a later stage, Van Doesburg added articles on poetry, theater, and music and published his own  Dadaist poetry and literature under assumed names.  As time went by, the journal increasingly became a vehicle for Van Doesburg's contacts and interests.  The other team members, some of whom had never met, let alone that there had ever been a general staff meeting, withdrew one by one or were shown the door by Van Doesburg.  The very last issue of De Stijl was published in 1932 following Van Doesburg's death.

Introduction (from De Stijl in the Netherlands, The 100 best places to visit) on the beginning of a magazine that turned into an art movement

Theo van Doesburg 1883 Urecht - Davos 1931

  The Hague Gemeente Museum:   "Born Emile Keeper, he adopted his stepfather's name, becoming Theo van Doesburg.  In 1908 this became his nom de guerre when he exhibited drawings that enabled him to 'move aside the curtain that obscures his spiritual life.'  In doing so, he reflected a commonly help opinion in the Netherlands regarding the function of art.  He was enchanted by Kandinsky's abstract art when he encountered it in 1915.  The door to a similar 'modern energy' when he met Mondrian in 1916 and they eagerly began to exchange ideas.  A radical new modern abstract art would change every aspect of life.  Van Doesburg established De Stijl as an instrument of propaganda and took up the fight against anyone who appeared to contradict him.  He ensured that, by 1924, De Stijl set the tone in everything.  He stole a march on Mondrian with elementarism, a fierce rebuttal of Mondrian's ideas, laying the foundations for the concrete abstract art that became so influential after van Doesburg's death."

Theo van Doesburg
The Cardplayers 1916-1917
Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Theo van Doesburg
Composition IX, Opus 18:
Further Imagining of the Cardplayers 1925
Kunstmuseum Den Haag

this is an abstraction of the first Cardplayers, above






Theo van Doesburg, Composition V, Design for a Stained Glass, 1917/1918
Zurich Kunsthaus

Vilmos Huszar 1884 - 1960

Vilmos Huszar, Composition II (Skaters) 1917
Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Vilmos Huszar
Color Scheme for boys' bedroom in home of the Bruynzeel family
1920
Kunstmuseum Den Haag 

Cornelis Van Esteren  1897 - 1988

  Museum label:  "Young and spirited, and difficult to keep on track, Van Doesburg found when he worked with Van Eesteren in Paris.  It was not quite like that, however.  Van Eesteren was from a family of builders and he had learnt the architect's trade from the bottom up.  He was, therefore, very practical.  He was also besotted with design because it allowed the 'spiritual utility' of the material to manifest itself.  Van Eesteren learnt a lot from his Parisian experiments with Van Doesburg:  that abstract, non-constructive aspects of a a design can liberate the creative process.  In his later urban planning designs, logical thought, and an eye for organization and efficiency, went hand in hand with undogmatic and imaginative solutions.  He referred to himself as an architect-urbanist concerned with design in a basic way.

J.J.P. Oud 1890 - 1963

"J.J.P. Oud had difficulty finding his way as a young  architect, until seeing the work of American architects in a slide show at Berlage's home one evening.  Becomes captivated by ceramicist Willem Brouwer, who is a zealous advocate of a society based on traditional arts and crafts.  Our helps Van Doesburg establish De Stijl.  From the outset, the two  wrangle over the question of the role of color in architecture.  Our realizes progressively more  innovative architecture projects for Rotterdam city council, shaping his ideas about De Stijl, but gradually turns away from collaboration with artists because he believes a pure architecture is a better way to achieve a spiritual revolution.  Believes theorizing about architecture is nonsense; only 'subordination to the task' can guide the design process.  This leads him, in the 1920's, to a highly radical form of functionalism based on how  people use buildings on a daily basis.  Exhibitions in the United States ensure he comes to be regarded as one of the four pioneers of modern architecture."
The Story of De Stijl, Mondrian to Van Doesburg.  Janssen and White

Bart Van der Leck  (1876  -   1958)

Bart van der Leck, Woodcutters, 1928

Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Georges Vantongerloo    (1886 - 1965)

Georges Vantongerloo, Relations of Lines: Yellow, Red, Brown, Greenish   1938

Zurich Kunsthaus

Gerrit Rietveld (1888 - 1964)

See chapters below on Rietveld and the Rietveld-Schroeder House.

Piet Mondrian  (1872 - 1944) 

Piet Mondrian, Composite Trees I, 1912
Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Piet Mondrian, Victory Boogie Woogie
1942-44
Kunstmuseum Den Haag




See chapters below on Piet Mondrian and his journey to abstraction.

Papaverhof Housing, The Hague,

It is difficult to say what is De Stijl architecture and what is not.  Its influence is both everywhere in The Netherlands and also there are few pure examples.  

  The Papaverhof Housing is a neighborhood of 128 middle-class semi-detached housing built between 1919 and 1922 in Den Haag.  It was designed by J. Wils for a cooperative housing association.  Van Doesburg, the editor of De Stijl magazine,  lived in one of the houses in 1922.  There is a communal central garden park.

  Here is what the book "De Stijl in the Netherlands" says, in part:
"Like Robert van t'Hoff and J.J.P. Oud, the other two architects at the birth of De Stijl, Jan Wils was influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Papaverhof has often been compared, now without justification, to Wright's housing for employees of the Larkin Company in Chicago.  When the neighborhood was restored in 1989, all dwellings were given an outer coating of insulation and untreated stucco and the door and window frames regained their original colors." [blue and yellow]

Piet Mondrian 1872 - 1944

The Gemeente Museum in Den Haag has a large collection of De Stijl and Piet Mondrian.
While the late geometric paintings of Mondrian are recognizable by almost everyone, it is startling to see Mondrian's  early landscapes from the Netherlands. Can you see an evolution in his use of color and move toward abstraction?   This and the next two chapters are arranged chronologically.



Kunstmuseum Den Haag: Piet Mondrian 1872 Amersfoort - New York 1944

"Mondrian is seen as an ascetic monk who turned his back on life and lived only for art.  It is true that he took art very seriously.  But we actually know little about his life.  And what we do know does not reveal some stiff Dutchman devoid of charm, but an artist who was receptive to influences, who enjoyed life and who wanted to contribute something special.  The unique feature of Mondrian's work is its progression.  To Mondrian, art was more than merely a representation of reality.  He had a her purpose, a universal art.  He found support for his ideas in theosophy, the spiritual movement that rejected materialism in search of inner wisdom attained through the development of the mind.  The more false elements like superstition and empty forms were purged from existing religions, the closer one would come to the core of all belief.  The same applied to art.  From the very beginning, Mondrian was in search of a radical harmony that would lead to an abstract art."

View of the Schinkelburt, 1895 

 Landzicht Farm, 1905

 Evening on the Gein, 1906

Eastside Mill, 1906-07

Mondrian and De Stijl

Den Haagse Gemeente Museum: Piet Mondriaan 1872 Amersfoort - New York 1944

"Mondrian embraced on his quest for a truly abstract form of painting in 1908.  This would not merely combine lines and colors in a decorative manner, it should also make tangible the 'spirit of the coming age.'  Mondrian slowly but surely, through experimentation, came to the conclusion that pure, intense, colors (primary colors) and a strong simple manifestation of the line (the horizontal and vertical) could help realize such an abstract form of art.  the visual manifestation was not an aim in itself; it was based on philosophical and moral considerations.  Thus would beauty become truly visible in life.  When, around 1917, a younger generation enthusiastically began to search for an art suited to modern life.  Mondrian appeared to have an answer of all their questions.  He easily filled the first two volumes of De Stijl with fairly inaccessible articles that gave him as a reputation as the founder of the new abstract art.  He fought with Van Doesburg, but his faith in their common cause - the new - ultimately remained unshaken."

 The Red Cloud, 1907

Landscape at Evening, 1908

Evening, The Red Tree 1908-1910

Flowering Apple Tree, 1912

Mondrian at Domburg

Den Haagse Gemeente Museum: Piet Mondriaan 1872 Amersfoort - New York 1944

"From 1908, Mondrian would regularly spend the summer in Domburg, where a real artists' colony had developed.  In search of new ways to express the spiritual and the modern, many artists would use bursts of color in their paintings.  To Mondrian, light, and therefore color, gave access to the profound, the spiritual.  He chose motifs with a strong horizontal or vertical effect, towers for the vertical and seascapes for the horizontal.  This gave him the opportunity to get close to the opposing universal forces that control the world.  He viewed the male and the female in the same way.  His palette became radiant, bright and light, and he started working with clearly visible brushstrokes, or with dots or squares.  The images dissolved into light."

Above:  Mill at Domburg, 1908

Below:  Sea After Sunset, 1909

 Dunes Near Domburg, 1910

Dune Landscape, 1911

Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld is the most prolific architect associated with De Stijl movement and beyond.

Below is the description of Gerrit Rietveld in the Den Haagse Gemeente Museum:

"Gerrit Rietveld   1888 Utrecht - Utrecht 1964

"A young dreamer, Gerrit Rietveld trained as a furniture maker in his father's workshop, simply for his own pleasure (he would later call this healthy egocentricity).  He abandoned the strict Protestant creed of his youth.  Henceforth, he would no longer regard the material as bad and only the spiritual as good.  In 1918 he exchanged his father's dowel hole joinery for joints that remained visible in the final product.  He helped Van Doesburg and J.J.P. Our in their attempts to give the traditional interior a new, spatial design, and went on the become an ingenious interior designer himself.  In 1924 he reinvented architecture when, in collaboration with Truus Schroeder, he designed and built a house in Utrecht.  Rietveld broke off relations with Van Doesburg in 1928 and aligned himself with architects who were aiming for a strictly functional form of architecture.  In 1951 he designed the De Stijl exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and did a great deal to spread De Stijl ideas in Dutch interior design."

Label from The Hague Gemeente Museum

 The Utrecht Centraal Museum displays a collection of the famous 'Red-Blue Chair'.
There are many variations over the decades.  The first appeared in 1919; it is still being produced by Cassina.   Here is what guide De Stijl in the Netherlands says about it:
"Like Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Rietveld's Red-Blue Chair is on an official list (The Canon of Nederland) of fifty objects and people who together summarize the history of the Netherlands.  Its basic forms, its sense of space, the easy-to-read construction and the 'Rietveld joint' make this chair the most consummate material expression of the ideas of De Stijl."
  Below, the Rietveld Schroeder House which is described further in the next section.

The Chaffeur's House in Utrecht, above on the left, from 1927-28.

Three houses from De Bilt outside Utrecht designed in 1958 by Rietveld.


Here is what a recent Wright auction catalog says about Gerrit Rietveld:

"Gerrit Rietveld was a celebrated designer and architect, famous for bringing the principles of the De Stijl Movement to these disciplines.  Rietveld was born in 1888 in Utrecht to a family of cabinetmakers and later studied drafting and architecture.

Rietveld opened his own furniture studio in 1917 and soon after became involved with the De Stijl Movement.  In 1918, he designed his now famous Red-Blue Chair, which was heralded as a distillation of the movement's emphasis on geometry, primary colors and an objective language of forms.  He regarded this chair, and others he would design, as 'spatial creations,' rather than simply furniture. 
  The Schroeder House in Utrecht, designed by Rietveld in 1924, is regarded as the architectural embodiment of the ideals of De Stijl and his most important work.  In 1928, Rietveld distanced himself from De Stijl and became concerned with the challenges of affordable housing.  He was a visionary in designing prefabricated and standardized buildings, which the architectural world would not consider more seriously until the 1950's."

Rietveld Schroeder House in Utrecht, 1924

 De  Stijl in the Netherlands:

"Inside, one can see that Rietveld besides being an architect was a furniture designer.  At every point - from the assortment of cupboards to the telephone table, from the ingenious stair to the fully opening living room corner window - one can see the pleasure this inspired carpenter took in his work.  With slats and boards he created a spatial work of art which still astonishes merely by the fact of its existence. The Rietveld Schroeder House has become a Mecca for lovers of modern architecture.  It was restored between 1985 and 1987 and fitted out as a museum house.  It has been on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 2000."

Rietveld Schroeder House, Part Two

These photos show the careful attention to internal design and furnishing.  It is difficult to imagine how revolutionary this was in 1924, and it still feels modern today.

To left, note steel beam offset from the corner window.  This is the family dining room.





Below, you can see the tracks of sliding partitions, which have been pulled back to create one unified space from three different rooms.  This is not a big house and every part of it has been carefully planned for maximum efficiency.

This house is called the Rietveld Schroeder House for a reason.

Gerrit Rietveld co-designed it with Truus Schroeder, who was a major influence.

Truus lived there until she died in 1985.

Gerrit had his office in the house and lived there after the death of his wife until his own death.

Robert Schumannstraat Housing in Utrecht

 'This modest block of four dwellings was built in 1931-32 designed by Gerrit Rietveld, who was working at that time on a prototype for mass housing.  Steel frame, wooden floors, brick party walls, sliding partitions, white stucco walls and flat roofs are all proof that Rietveld had embraced functionalism.'
  De Stijl in the Netherlands.