Counter-Composition VI - Theo van Doesburg
“In 1915 van Doesburg was inspired by the spirituality of Piet Mondrian’s abstract work to form the principles of the De Stijl movement, and he founded and became editor of the journal De Stijl in 1917. Ten years later, in 1925, van Doesburg reintroduced the diagonal into his work in his series of Counter-Composition works of which this one is a part. De Stijl design projects for private houses and for the 1923 De Stijl exhibition at Léonce Rosenberg’s gallery L’Effort Moderne helped the artist develop the dynamic principle of the series. He termed this Elementarism and outlined it in his 1928 De Stijl article ‘L’Elémentarisme et son origine’ (see van Doesburg 1928, pp.20–5), explaining that Elementarism was ‘based on the neutralization of positive and negative directions by the diagonal and, as far as color is concerned, by the dissonant.’ (Quoted in Jaffé 1956, p.126.)
“Despite using extremely limited formalist parameters, the Counter-Composition paintings are a schematically varied sequence that investigate contemporary ideas about both science and spirituality.“
