De Stijl art and Dadaism art merges

    I was highly inspired by Theo van Doesburg and John Heartfield. Theo was heavily influenced by Wassily Kandinsky. Theo van Doesburg made the switch from a representational painting style to one that prioritized a minimalistic and geometric approach because of this influence. The Dutch artist championed the De Stijl artistic movement and has inspired many graphic designers over the decades with his thought-provoking art theories. The artists of De Stijl produced artworks that stretched far beyond painting and sculpture. They aimed for a unified synthesis of form and function in all media, covering literature, music, typography, and industrial design in addition to the fine and applied arts. Founded in 1917 by the ground-breaking abstract artists Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. De Stijl magazine’s name literally translates to “The Style” in Dutch. The De Stijl movement emerged as an Interwar Period artistic expression in reaction to the catastrophic devastation of World War I. In its effort to separate from the intricately ornamental and excessive artwork of previous eras, the movement strived for simplified and minimalist works of art.

In 1916, John Heartfield and George Grosz experimented with a form of art and combining images created what is now recognized as Photomontage. John Heartfield crafted highly political images that left a lasting impression with the Photomontage technique. He was known for taking iconic images from the illustrated press - like photos of well-known politicians or noteworthy events - and re-arranging them to form new and provocative messages. John Heartfield and George Grosz were pioneers of the German Dadaist movement, actively participating in the renowned Berlin Club Dada (1916-1920). Through their trailblazing work, they were instrumental in elevating the concept of montage to an art form that is recognized worldwide today.

My Creative Rationale: In much the same way that the De Stijl artists did, I recognized the boundaries of my poster space and filled it with geometric shapes. The background of the poster is made up of original De Stijl magazine pages that I found online. I added the De Stijl magazine name at the top. I also used a font that resembles Theo van Doesburg’s original lettering at the bottom page. The words written make a sentence that is similar to what John Heartfield wrote on the photomontage art piece of “The Happy Elephants.” I changed it to happy animals because in my art I included elephants and cows. Theo van Doesburg created cow art. He began with a series of figurative sketches of the cow and then transformed them into a geometrical composition. I wanted to be different but still show how I was influenced by Theo and John, so I drew John Heartfield’s happy elephants with wings with my pencils and then I turned them into shapes in Adobe Illustrator. I added both the pencil drawing and the shape components in my poster. Theo’s cows thus were turned into a photomontage in my art and I added wings to the cows to match the happy winged elephants. Photomontage is the method and outcome of combining multiple photos by cutting, pasting, rearranging and layering them together to form a unique image and that is what I did in my art poster. Dadaists revolted against the capitalistic logic and reasoning of their bourgeois society, which had driven them to war, by utilizing artistic forms that appeared to disregard rationality and instead celebrate chaos and absurdity. Thus, my art poster has a bit of chaos in the layering of the geometric shapes in the background. I merged Theo and John’s art styles to create my art piece. Combining them was thrilling. This was a fun artistic experiment for me.

The next page has original works from Theo van Doesburg and John Heartfield. After this are pictures of my art poster inspired by them.

My geometric shape sketch

My drawing of the Happy Elephants

The first rough draft

The final product