Vilmos Huszar

From our avante garde and propaganda lecture, the thing that stood out to me the most was the De Stijl art movement. I wasn’t aware of the movement prior to the lecture and the use of primary colours and shapes were eye-catching to me, even though I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at. I looked at artists that practise De Stijl and came across Vilmos Huszar.

The name De Stijl came from the art journal “De Stijl” and means “the style” in Dutch and was a reaction to WW1’s aftermath with the goal of remaking society and viewing art socially and spiritually. (Wolf, J, 2018) It was co-founded by Huszar with the painters Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, and others, in 1917. The motto for the movement was “the search for the universal, as the individual was losing its significance," (Wolf, J, 2018) and they wanted to be a new definition of art that had new rules, they said “art is all about line and colour” (Bolt, R, 2017) and they expressed this view through favouring simplified compositions, rather than natural reputations, that involved vertical and horizontal elements with geometrics like straight lines, squares and rectangles and the use of the primary colours red, blue and yellow along with black and white. (Wolf, J, 2018) (Vilmos Huszar, no date) The creators of De Stijl wanted to adapt to the new modern era and went against art deco style and created more than just paintings but made sculptures, typography, architecture, literature and music too. (Wolf, J, 2018) (Bolt, R, 2017)

(Potamianos, A, 2017)

Vilmos Huszar was an interior decorator, painter and graphic designer. (Vilmos Huszar, no date) He studied at the Budapest Academy of Decorative Arts and his works often were influenced by Vincent van Gogh. In the early 1900’s, his paintings mainly consisted his city’s society and designed his first stained-glass windows. (Vilmos Huszar-Museo, no date) Huszar worked in industrial and commercial graphic design up until WW2 where he moved to the Netherlands as he was a Jew. In 1955, his art evolved and he began using naturistic styles. This is interesting as De Stijl was all about going against natural art but it seems Huszar got tired of sticking to the one art style. (Vilmos Huszar-Museo, no date)

He would enhance or moderate the space in his work with polychrome floors, walls, furniture and ceilings. “Space was regarded as the sum of surfaces of different colours and material substance.” Huszar wrote for and designed the covers of the art journal between 1917 and 1921 Between 1917 and 1921. (Wolf, J, 2018)

(Branca, A, 2012)

One of Huszar’s early works, ‘Mechano Dancer’ portrays De Stijl’s use of different types of geometric shapes all layered upon each other in different directions. He uses no colour, which to me was confusing as the movement expresses it’s need to appear modern through reds, blues and yellows, so looking at this piece for the first time made me think it was more traditional than modern feeling. my guess is the artists following the movement were free to go against the main notions of the movement and apply the ones they resonated with most? If I hadn’t known the name of the piece used the word dancer, my interpretation of the piece would be that it is an illustration of a house blueprint, as Huszar was an interior decorator. However, one could see it as a dancer with the hexagon being the head of the dancer and the upper half being the dancer’s arms extended and the lower half with their legs bent.

(Soni, D, no date)

Huszar created different advertisements for Miss Blanche Viginia Cigarettes in 1927, the first type being more in line with the De Stijl style, not using many curves or colour. Whilst, the second seems a lot more modern, using the colours in De Stijl but the image not as geometric as the first ad. Despite being created in the same year, the two ads seem years apart. Again, my mind is left questioning why Huszar seems to go back and forth with practising the known styles of De Stijl and then doing something different.

(de Vries, D, no date) left. (Invaluable, 2015) right.

De Stijl has had influence on art, architecture, graphic art and product design for the past 100 years, with it’s anniversary taking place in 2017. It also had impact on contemporary design especially digital design. (Dujardin, A, 2017) Designers like Tom Andries, who is a part of the Belgian design agency ‘Branding Today’, has said “the contemporary move toward abstraction is rooted in the movement. It is still very relevant today. The designs are timeless because of their simple look and geometric shapes. The basic principles applied by the movement really add to contemporary design.” (Dujardin, A, 2017)

Consumers today are more fans of horizontally oriented shapes and grid-based layouts such as ‘Pinterest’, or ‘Windows 10’, which also use a geometrical layout. ‘Phonebloks’ was a project by Dave Hakkens who graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven and involves a modular smartphone made completely from square blocks all responsible for separate functions that allows consumers to build a customisable phone with their own choice of features. (Dujardin, A, 2017)

(Paula, A, 2014) left. (Fisher, T, 2018) middle. (getphonebloks, no date) right.

Wolf, J, (2018), De Stijl Movement Overview and Analysis, Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/movement-de-stijl.htm (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Vilmos Huszar, (no date), Available at: http://www.vilmos-huszar.com/ (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Vilmos Huszar, (no date), Available at: https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/huszar-vilmos (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Bolt, R, (2017), The most important art movement you’ve never heard of, Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/netherlands/articles/de-stijl-the-most-important-art-movement-you-have-not-heard-of/ (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Dujardin, A, (2017), This 100-Year-Old Dutch Movement Shaped Web Design Today, Available at: https://www.wired.com/2017/01/this-100-year-old-dutch-movement-shaped-web-design-today/ (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Potamianos, A, (2017), An unexpected journey [Online]. Available at: http://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/?tag=vilmos-huszar (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Branca, A, (2012), De Stijl publication, 1923 [Online]. Available at: http://acidadebranca.tumblr.com/post/33721793036/sitidleordont-de-stijl-publication-1923 (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Soni, D, (no date), Huszar Vilmos 1922 Mechano-Dancer [Online]. Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/504614333231833371/?lp=true (Accessed: 07/12/18)

de Vries, D, (no date), Vilmos Huszár: Miss Blanche Cigarettes, 1926 [Online]. Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/317714948696518362/?lp=true (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Invaluable, (2015), Poster by Vilmos Huszar - Miss Blanche Virginia Cigarettes [Online]. Available at: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/poster-by-vilmos-huszar-miss-blanche-virginia-c-1176-c-1c74d89bb7 (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Paula, A, (2014), Using Pinterest as a Search Engine [Online]. Available at: https://www.writeraccess.com/blog/using-pinterest-as-a-search-engine/ (Accessed: 07/12/18)

Fisher, T, (2018), Microsoft Windows 10 [Online]. Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/windows-10-2626217 (Accessed: 07/12/18)

getphonebloks, (no date), Twitter profile image [Online]. Available at: https://twitter.com/getphonebloks (Accessed: 07/12/18)