El aura y las formas de pensamiento en la pintura abstracta de las Primeras Vanguardias

Resumen La publicación de una serie de manuales teosóficos a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX sobre cuestiones tan novedosas como la tipología de las formas del pensamiento y lo referente a la composición cromática del concepto del aura, supuso para numerosos creadores vanguardistas la apertura de nuevas posibilidades experimentales. En este sentido, algunas de las propuestas pictóricas de Wassily Kandinsky, Theo van Doesburg y František Kupka, entre otros, se podrían interpretar como permutaciones cromáticas a partir de la estipulación teórica que generaron especialmente los teósofos C.W. Leadbeater y Annie Besant. Sin realizar una traslación mimética de las diferentes conjeturas planteadas en las creencias de esta escuela de pensamiento hermético, dichos artistas se embarcaron en la proyección de nuevas oportunidades experimentales a la vez que se sustentaban en la validación de un corpus teórico que justificaba la práctica abstracta en relación con un entramado de mayor acercamiento espiritual.

Theo van Doesburg, Vladimir Tatlin en de constructivistische reis naar de vierde dimensie

Theo van Doesburg, Vladimir Tatlin and the constructivist journey to the fourth dimension The magazine De Stijl is considered a constructivist magazine with Theo van Doesburg at its centre, especially among writers. This article tries to find an answer to the question: which characteristics in van Doesburg’s poetry make him a literary constructivist, taking into account the premises of the original constructivism as it emerged in pre-revolutionary Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. This is done by analysing his poem entitled X-Beelden 1920 which could come close to constructivism. First, there follows a brief outline of some essential features of a constructivist work of art, explained by presenting an example from architecture, which at the time was considered the most important art also for literary constructivists. This idea was inspired by the non-Euclidean geometry and the theory of relativity. The new concept of time and space developed at the beginning of the 20th century was adopted by many artists, among them van Doesburg. Although he often reflected upon it in his programmatic essays, not enough evidence was found to prove the thesis that his poem X-Beelden 1920 could be constructivist and that the fourth dimension would find its way into his literary practice.

Abstraction-Création

Abstraction-Création was a collective of abstract artists active in Paris until 1936. Beginning in 1931, the founding committee was composed of Theo Van Doesburg, Jean Arp, Albert Gleizes, Jean Hélion, Auguste Herbin, František Kupka, Léon Arthur Tutundjian, Georges Valmier, and Georges Vantongerloo. Featuring reproductions of abstract paintings, sculpture, photography, and artists’ statements, participating artists were represented through the publication of the annual journal Abstraction, Création, Art Non-Figuratif (1932–1936). Abstraction-Création aimed to promote an international network of abstract artists, while simultaneously forming an aesthetic counterpoint to the increasing prevalence of Surrealism and social realism in France. Following the failure of the narrowly conceived abstract groups Art Concret and Cercle et Carré in 1930, Abstraction-Création pinpointed non-figuration as the only criterion for membership. This pluralist conception of abstraction reflected an intentionally democratic cultural position in contrast to the totalitarian regimes emerging elsewhere in Europe throughout the 1930s. At its peak, well-known abstractionist contributing members included Piet Mondrian, Vasily Kandinsky, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Kurt Schwitters, Jacques Villon, Willi Baumeister, and Alexander Calder. A year-long exhibition of Abstraction-Création artworks began in December 1933 on the ground floor of 44 Avenue de Wagram, Paris. The 1935 magazine issue claimed a membership of over 400 individuals hailing from seventeen countries outside of France.

De Stijl (1917–1932)

De Stijl (The Style) was an avant-garde artistic group founded in the Netherlands in 1917. The name was also applied to a journal used to propagate the group’s theories and published between 1917 and 1932. Led by the painters Theo Van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, the group developed an abstract, elemental style based upon primary colors, geometric planes and right angles. Pursuing spiritual harmony based upon mathematical order, De Stijl formulated a universal language of pure form and color. This became paradigmatic of modernist visual art and design. In 1915 the painter and theorist Theo van Doesburg encountered the work of Piet Mondrian, who had developed a visual style consisting of primary colors and asymmetrical, orthogonal grids. Mondrian was inspired by the mystical ideas of the Theosophists, particularly the eccentric mathematician M.H.J. Schoenmaekers, who devised a Neo-Platonic philosophy based upon pure geometric form. Influenced by Schoenmaekers’ publications The New Image of the World (1915) and Principles of Plastic Mathematics (1916), Mondrian developed an artistic philosophy known as Neo-Plasticism (Nieuwe Beelding): This new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary, it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour … [This art allows] only primary colors and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical line.

Filla, Emil (1882–1953)

Emil Filla (b. 4 April 1882 in Chropyně in Moravia; d. 6 October 1953 in Prague) is regarded as one of the main leaders of Czech Cubism in early twentieth-century Prague. Best known for paintings that interpret Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in a Czech context, Filla also produced accomplished sculptures, drawings, and prints. His early career was inaugurated by exhibiting with the group Osma (The Eight) (active 1907–8), of which he was a founding member. In 1909 he joined the Mánes Society and became co-editor of its journal Volné Směry (Free Directions) (ed. 1909–11). Filla was a founding member and leading figure of Skupina výtvarných umělců (the Group of Fine Artists) (active 1911–14) and assumed editorship of the group’s journal Umělecký Měsíčník (published 1911–14). From 1914 to 1920 Filla resided in the Netherlands, where he was active in anti-war politics. In 1920 Filla returned to Prague and resumed work with the Mánes Society. He collaborated with Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg on the first issue of De Stijl in 1917. After 1920 he left behind the analytic and synthetic cubist aesthetic for which he is best known and turned to figural themes. He was briefly influenced by Surrealism in the 1930s as a result of his friendship with Czech Surrealist and Devětsil member Jindřich Štyrský.

van Doesburg, Theo (1883–1931)

Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch painter, designer, and art theorist. As the founder and major polemicist of the avant-garde movement known as De Stijl (The Style), he was instrumental in developing an abstract style based on primary colors and geometry. Tirelessly promoting De Stijl across Europe, van Doesburg played a crucial role in the development of Modernist art, architecture and design in the first half of the twentieth century. Born Christian Emil Marie Küpper in Utrecht, van Doesburg was the son of the photographer Wilhelm Küpper. His pseudonym was developed from the name of his stepfather, Theodorus Doesburg, whom he regarded as his natural father. Van Doesburg became a painter around 1900. His early work was influenced by Post-impressionism and Fauvism, but in 1915 he discovered the work of Piet Mondrian and underwent a profound transition. Mondrian had developed an austere visual style based on primary colors and orthogonal grids. This convinced van Doesburg to pursue spiritual harmony based on mathematical order.