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Opposite page: Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue (1921) Left: Mondrian continues to inspire designers, as shown by these pages from a 2016 issue of Shortlist magazineBelow: Recreation of Mondrian's 1920s Paris studio at the Mondriaanhuis museum in AmersfoortFor the working classes, life in the Netherlands at the turn of the 20th century was hard. Houses were tiny, families were large, and workers toiled for up to 12 hours a day in factories. The affl uent lifestyles of the merchant class were a world away.But change was in the air. Ideas were gaining ground from the UK (such as the Arts & Crafts movement), the USA (where Frank Lloyd Wright was promoting more ‘democratic’ architecture) and Austria, where Secessionists were examining the interpretation of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, or ‘total work of art’. It led to the creation of a movement known as De Stijl (The Style), the legacy of which can still be felt 100 years later.Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) is perhaps the best known of the De Stijl artists, famous already in his lifetime for his geometric paintings composed of straight lines and primary-coloured panels. Although he had started by painting charming, if rather unremarkable Dutch landscapes, in 1908 his work became more abstract, clearly infl uenced by van Gogh and Picasso. At the time this was so shocking it led to estrangement from his fi ancée and family, prompting him to move to Paris where his art might be better understood. He would stay in Paris for the best part of two decades before moving to New York – save for the years of WW1 when he returned to the Netherlands to visit his sick father and, when war broke out in Europe, found it diffi cult to leave. It would prove to be a pivotal moment.In 1917, Dutch artist and critic Theo van Doesburg assembled a group of young artists sickened by what they were seeing in Europe and eager to create a new age in which harmony and openness would forge a new society. For them, a visual language based on purity through abstraction seemed the only way. In order to share their vision, van Doesburg created a magazine called De Stijl, the ideas of which were to be used everywhere – architecture, design, paintings and furniture. (It rarely had a circulation of more than 300 copies across central Europe, but topics, even the most seemingly innocent like the use of the colour green, were frequently so controversial that many artists would leave after a few years to forge their own path). Mondrian was among those who signed a formal manifesto in 1918 explaining the exact parameters of what De Stijl should be, and the infl uence of it is clear on his work.For instance, it was fellow De Stijl ➤ Images: Mondrian courtesy of Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; studio © Mike Bink.DE STIJL www.nadfas.org.uk NADFAS REVIEW / WINTER 2016 33