Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg (1883 – 1931) was a multifaceted Dutch artist and theorist who played a fundamental role in the De Stijl movement, founded in the Netherlands during World War I. This movement, deeply influenced by Neoplasticism, advocated for abstraction and simplification, aspects that van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian explored together, seeking to express a new aesthetic ideal based on balance and universal harmony. The collaboration between van Doesburg and Mondrian initially focused on the pure reduction of forms and colors to their basic essences, but they diverged in their methods when van Doesburg began incorporating diagonals into his work, as evidenced in "Composition VIII (The Cow)" from 1918, thus moving away from Mondrian's rectilinear orthodoxy. This tension marked a turning point in De Stijl, where individual differences in the interpretation of common principles led to evolution and eventually to a split within the movement.