DOESBURG, THEO VAN

born Aug. 30, 1883, Utrecht, Neth. died March 7, 1931, Davos, Switz. pseudonym of Christian Emil Marie Kpper Dutch painter, decorator, poet, and art theorist, a leader of the de Stijl movement. Originally he intended to follow a career in the theatre, but he turned to painting about 1900 and worked in Post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles until 1916, when he began to paint geometric abstractions of subjects from nature. In 1917 he was instrumental in founding the de Stijl group and founded the avant-garde art review De Stijl (a publication that was continued until 1931). His advocacy of de Stijl's geometric style influenced the modernist architects Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. From 1921 to 1923, when he taught at the Weimar Bauhaus, Doesburg's painting style was much influenced by Piet Mondrian's aesthetic of neoplasticism. Using the alias J.K. Bonset, he exhibited as a Dadaist in Holland in 1923 and published another art review, Mechano. In 1926 he wrote his manifesto De Stijl, explaining his theory of elementarism, an aesthetic concept based on the use of inclined planes in geometric abstract paintings to increase the dynamic effect of the composition.