De Stijl 

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De Stijl movement was founded in the Netherlands .

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From 1917 - 1931

The term 'De Stijl' is a Dutch term for 'The style'

The two pioneers of the movement were artists by the names of:

Piet Mondrian & Theo van Doesburg (Steyn)

De Stijl focused on the simplification of art and life in all aspects.

It was the Utopian idea of spiritual harmony and order. They digested every element of art and deconstructed it to make it as pure as possible.

Expressing harmony is believed to be the law of the universe and everything was righteous - they believed their work was a pure path to the truth in all perspectives.

In doing this they stripped down art to its barest/purest & lived according to this too.

Chaos was too complicated and had no place in the world they had an idea for, an ordered world. (Steyn)

Simplifying everything - in Art: How they do this is by using

The 3 primary colours only

Blue

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Red

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Yellow

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With these three colours, you are able to create any colour and non of the other colours can create these colours.

After it being established and after a few years of its existence, other forms of art adapted the De Stijl Aesthetics,

Architecture

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Furniture

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In terms of form they resorted only to 90 degree angled shapes, 

Rectangles

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Squares

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The reason behind this is because all you need is line and angle to complete the figure, using only vertical and horizontal lines.

Piet Mondrian

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Born: 7 March 1872

in Amersfoort Netherlands 

Mondrian was a theorist artist and writer, He believed that art reflected the underlying spirituality of all things organic. He simplified the subjects of his paintings down to the most barest components, in order to reveal the essence of the mystical energy in the balance of forces that governed nature and the universe.

part of why the reason why Mondrian made everything in rectangles and squares, everything is parallel and two sides have to have the exact length in distance. (Hughes,2017)

His use of asymmetrical balance and a simplified pictorial style were crucial in the development of modern art, the development of art and his iconic abstract works remain influential in all forms of design and familiar in, not only contemporary art nut also in today's popular culture to this day.

 (Hughes,2017)

Biblography

Hughes,R.2017. Piet Mondrian Artist. Available:http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm [Accessed on 19 May 2017]

Steyn. D, 2016. ACHG200, De Stijl. Pearson Institute of Higher Education

Surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is an visual art and written movement that was begun in the 20th century, around the early 19th century - 1920's
The surrealism movement was a movement that based their beliefs on the superior reality of certain forms of association neglected power of the conscious.


Andre Brenton was the founder and chief promoter of the movement,  insisted that art and life could be renewed by reconnecting with the forbidden area of the mind - where chance, desire, dreams, coincidence and memory would meet. (Steyn,2016)

 The manifesto consisted mostly of poetry and imagination literature,  rather than your traditional visual arts. (Steyn,2016)
It went down as the liberation of art - Things are holding art back, rationality,  conscious and control.
Ideas are controlled, meaning they're not free.

Conscious vs Sub Conscious - Iceberg jpg

Everything was based on the dream world and how could one unlock that side of the brain and express it visually or in literature. The the sub-conscious photographic mind allowed them to express itself.
In this they challenged logic and reason it's not what they believed it to be - they portrayed it in their art, when the movement had more and more active members.

Surrealism was similar to DADA but, in their case it was more positive in spirit and light in terms of challenging the norms of society and status quo.

Brenton's early definition of surrealism is pure psychic automism.
They were heavily influenced by the psychoanalysis - they hoped the power of the psyche would reveal the contradictions of the real world, that couldn't be uncovered by the conscious mind - and what we are about to uncover would change the world we live in, also the perception of art in general.
All in all the surrealist wanted to explore the sub-conscious cause there is more to yourself than you know, or that the conscious mind exposes.

The crux of their art was how one can re-envision the dream world into a manifestation of fine or applied arts. (Somebody, 2016)

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali Portrait

Was a versatile and prolific artist in history and today, he was heavily influenced by the cubist movement and one other prolific artist, Pablo Picasso & Sigmund Freud. (Steyn, 2016)
He mastered the arts of - sculpting, printmaking, advertising, writing and filmmaking. He became part of the surrealism movement when he moved to Paris in the1920s. (Gibson,2017)

His paintings were of paranoia and what happens when you wake before having a dream. Most of his work started to take a more surrealistic approach when he delved into the art of symbolism and the extended concept of the subconscious, and later got deeply into the concept of 'critical paranoia' which he explains as a state in which one could cultivate delusion while maintaining your sanity. (Steyn, 2016)

The Melting Watch - Salvador Dali

That's when most of his works started to take on a more illustrative element to them, and encorporated more of the dream world type of style the surrealists painted.
Dali's Hyper-realistic style was hard to dictate even for himself the style was consistent but he grew more into many ideas at the same time which made his work soo Intriguing. (Gibson, 2017)

salvador-dali-soft-construction-with-boiled-beans

Bibliography

Gibson, I. 2017 - Artist; Salvador Dali. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm
Accessed: [10 May 2017]

Steyn. D, 2016. ACHG200 Early Modernism: Surrealism. Pearson Institute of Higher Education