TALK the talk: Tribute To Neo-Plasticism

INTRODUCTION TO NEO-PLASTICISM

Neo-Plasticism is an art movement created by Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian. It is sometimes refer as De Stijl. It debut at the year of 1917, the founder of this art movement included Theo Van Doesburg. It is the painting style and ideas developed by Piet Mondrian. Denoting the "new plastic art," or simply "new art," the term embodies Mondrian's vision of an ideal, abstract art form he felt was suited to the modern era. (Justin Wolf, n.d). (the term “plastic” here referred as visual art). Mondrian envisioned that the principles of Neo-Plasticism would be transplanted from the medium of painting to other art forms, including architecture and design, providing the basis of the transformation of the human environment sought by De Stijl artists. In Mondrian's words, a "pure plastic vision should build a new society, in the same way that in art it has built a new plasticism."

Broadway Boogie Woogie;

Piet Mondrian, 1942

ORIGIN OF NEO-PLASTICISM

It was influenced by Cubism and Post-Impressionism. Neo-Plasticism is about “ideal” geometrical form, hence it reflect the geometrical shape used in Cubism. Other than that, the art movement involved the use of bright colors such as red and yellow, it may resemble the emotive used of colors in post-impressionism. The diagram below showed the evolution of art-movement done by Piet Mondrian.

Mondrian Timeline

CHARACTERISTIC OF NEO-PLASTICISM

Neo-Plasticism has a strong characteristic of simplification. Most of the Neo-Plasticism or De Stijl artwork only consists of several intersecting straight lines, geometrical form which majorities of them are squares or rectangle. The colors used is also as simple as it can go, by only applied primary colors, black, white or grey into the artwork. However, Neo-Plasticism only involved the use of horizontal or vertical lines, it rejects the used of diagonal line which some applied in De Stijl.

PRINCIPLE OF NEO-PLASTICISM

The aim of Neo-Plasticism is to create extreme simplicity. By remove away any curve lines and prevent the used of gradient, shadow, highlight as well as other colors except of primary colors, black and white, the art-movement made an innovation in art history. Basically, Neo-Plasticism wanted to make art that was as simple and as basic as possible. They wanted to distill art to a level of almost scientific precision and perfection. The works avoided symmetry and attained aesthetic balance by the use of opposition. As a result, composition and balance play a huge part in the art-movement. The term “simple make perfect” is the best to describe the principle of Neo-Plasticism.

HOW NEO-PLASTICISM AFFECT DESIGN ERA

Neo-Plasticism may be out-dated but its principle is somehow remained until today. The concept of basic, simplify is becoming trend in nowadays design era. People nowadays prefer a simple design than a complicated one because it looks clean, straight forward and friendly. Flat design and minimalism have the same concept with Neo-Plasticism, as the two reduce the use of complicated design technique such as gradient, highlight and shadow. Metro design style is also seems to have some similarity with Neo-Plasticism as the design style paid the attention on the composition rather than the graphic itself and it used a lot of grid like structure just like Mondrian did for his art.

Neo-Plasticism also applied in layout design, perhaps, Mondrian’s layout is the layout design based on the artwork did by Mondrian. This art movement also influenced the field of product design and architecture. The example can be seen in Gerrit Rietveld’s Schroder House and his Red & Blue Chair as well as Zigzag chair.

Metro U.I; Microsoft Window 8, 2013

Flat Design

Red & Blue Chair

Gerrit Rietveld, 1918

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Zigzag Chair

Gerrit Rietveld, 1943

Rietveld Schoder House, Gerrit Rietveld, 1943

Mondrian Layout

Reference: 

Justin Wolf, n.d. De Stijl. [online], [accessed on 27th May 2013]. Available at <http://www.theartstory.org/movement-de-stijl.htm>.

Dan, 2007. Piet Mondrian: The Evolution of Pure Abstract Paintings. [online], [accessed on 27th May 2013]. Available at <http://emptyeasel.com/2007/04/17/piet-mondrian-the-evolution-of-pure-abstract-paintings/>

As a tribute to Neo-Plasticism, a product associated with the assignment in school is created. Click the link below to view the product and extra stuff.
http://heliostcs.blogspot.com/2013/06/hnd-lesson-design-principle-mondrians.html