On June 21 1983 the Netherlands PTT issued two special stamps featuring “De Stijl” (The Style). The stamps were designed by Prof. Wim Crouwel of Amsterdam.

Values and designs were:

50 cents. The painting “Composition 1922” by Piet Mondrian (private collection) on an easel.

65 cents. C. van Eesteren and Theo. van Doesburg: Contra construction from the “Maison particuliere” dating from 1923.

“De StijI” movement
The movement known as “De Stijl”, or the Style (1917-1931) is internationally regarded as being the most important Dutch contribution to developments in modern art, graphic design and architecture. The prolonged horrors of World War I and the confusion and ominous political-economic situation which followed drew a variety of responses from artists in Europe. The various movements which sprung up are now known by the names Surrealism, Dadaism, futurism and De Stijl. The ideas of De Stijl were future-oriented, focused on a new, better world in which arbitrary individualism and umpredictabie emotions would be replaced by cooperation and harmony. The same ideas were evident among artists in Russia after the Revolution of 1917.

Their constructivism was for the benefit of the people and the socialist ideal. These movements met with a great response in Europe and the United States, and artists who propagated the ideas maintained close contact with each other.

Despite its international character, De Stijl is also considered a typically Dutch form of expression, and it is frequently said that there is a link between the austere Dutch polder land the pure art of De Stijl. There is the straight line forming the horizon, the horizontal lines of the canals and dykes – a rational landscape which clearly evolved from the endless struggle to hold back the sea.

In 1917, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondriaan, Vilmos Huszar, the architect J. J. P. Oud and the poet A. Kok decided to found a magazine called “De Stijl”. The fundamental elements of the ideas they published in the new magazine were an uncompromising form of abstraction and the restriction of pictorial composition to straight lines and right angles, and the use of the three primary colours and the “on-colours white and black-grey. This movement became known under the name “Neoplasticism” and its influence was felt in painting, architecture, typography and graphic design.

For the two “Style” stamps, designer Prof. W. Crouwel chose a painting by Mondriaan resting on an easel. In his paintings, Mondriaan expressed the ideas of The Style in their purest form.

The second stamp features one of the many drawings (contra constructions) of the “Maison Particuliere” dating from 1923. The drawing was made by the architect C. van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg was responsible for the colour composition. This project, which was first shown under the name “Vers une construction collective” at an exhibition of the De Stijl held in the “Galerie L’Effort Moderne” in Paris in 1923 can be considered an example of the close cooperation between the architect and the artist, based on common principles.