the class-o-matic

Christian Küpper, who adopted the pseudonym Theo van Doesburg, was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on August 30, 1883. A Dutch artist - practicing painting, writing, poetry, typography and architecture, but he had been more successful writing about art than working as a studio artist. Quite adept at making new contacts due to his flamboyant, impulsive personality, he had many productive connections in the art world.

In 1917 he founded the group De Stijl and the periodical of the same name together with the architects J. J. P. Oud and Jan Wils, Vilmos Huszár, Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and Georges Vantongerloo. The periodical propagated the group's theories.

The term De Stijl has come to represent their common aims and utopian vision.

The essential idea underlying De Stijl’s radical utopian program was the creation of a universal aesthetic language based in part on a rejection of the decorative excesses of Art Nouveau in favor of a simple, logical style that emphasized construction and function, one that would be appropriate for every aspect of modern life.

They simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only primary colors along with black and white.

THEO VAN DOESBURG
The Netherlands, Utrecht, 1883 - 1931
"There is an old and a 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." - Theo Van Doesburg