Composition

1899–1914 · Munkahely

Amsterdam

1913

Kandinsky shows the way to abstraction

After reading Wassily Kandinsky’s “Rückblicke”, an autobiographical retrospective, van Doesburg realises that painting has a higher, spiritual level that originates in the mind rather than in everyday life, and that abstraction is its only logical outcome.

1914. július · Munkahely

Heemskerk

1915

Reviews Mondrian’s exhibition and gets in touch with him

Halfway through his two years of army service, van Doesburg reviews an exhibition by Piet Mondrian for a magazine and, inspired by Mondrian’s abstractions, gets in touch with him. On 6 November 1915 he writes in print that for Mondrian the line has almost become a work of art in itself.

1917

Founds the magazine De Stijl

Together with Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, Antony Kok, Vilmos Huszár and Jacobus Oud, van Doesburg founds the magazine De Stijl, in which he sets out the programme of the new movement, and becomes the “ambassador” of Neoplasticism, promoting its ideas across Europe.

1917. május 30.

Married: Lena Milius