Art has poisoned our life. Aesthetics has infected everyone.. .If one chooses a typewriter or a sewing machine in the living room, the housewife say:… - Theo van Doesburg

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Art has poisoned our life. Aesthetics has infected everyone.. .If one chooses a typewriter or a sewing machine in the living room, the housewife say: 'Please take it away; it destroys the harmony of the room'. Post-cards, stamps, pouches, railway-tickets, pots umbrellas, towels, pyamas, chairs, blankets, handkerchiefs and ties – everything is 'arty'. How much more refreshing are those articles which are not called art: bathrooms, bath-tubs, bicycles, automobiles, engine-rooms and flat-irons. There are still people who can make beautiful things without art. They are the progressives.

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About Theo van Doesburg

Theo van Doesburg (30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl together with Piet Mondrian. Later he engaged himself more with Dadaism, in cooperation with Kurt Schwitters and Hans Arp.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Christiaan Emil Maria Kupper I. K. Bonset Christiaan Emil Maria Kupper Doesburg Christian Emil Marie Kupper Theo Van Doesburg Christiaan Emil Marie Küppers Aldo Camini C. E. M. Küpper Christian Emil Marie Küpper I.K. Bonset Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (Christian Emil Marie Küpper) in de stijl van Theo van Doesburg
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Additional quotes by Theo van Doesburg

'Art' is a Renaissance invention which has been carried to a state of extreme refinement in the present day. This is the so-called 'abstract art'. The production of good works of art was achieved only at the cost of an enormous concentration upon certain matters. This concentration could be achieved only through neglecting 'life', through the very loss of life- just as religion had experienced before. 'Today this situation is no longer tolerable'. Today life is paramount. Modern life in general rejects all tendencies towards isolation and ivory tower-like exclusiveness. It is absolute un-modern to concentrate upon just one thing (as did the middle Ages!) Modern life is based upon the construction, which is to say, upon a system of tensions or the neutralization of the system of carry and support. In agreement with this concept we too must distribute our vitality over the whole range of life taken in the broadest possible sense. All other attitudes towards life produce tragedy.

..a demand which will never be fulfilled as long as artists use individualistic means. 'Unity can only result from disciplining the means, for it is this discipline which produces more generalized means'. The objectification of the means will lead towards elementary, monumental plastic expression. It would be ridiculous to maintain that none of this relates to creative activity. If that were true, art would not be subject to logical discipline.

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Our time has produced a need for contrast. This has been achieved not only in the external appearance of plastic expressions of colour and matter, but also, and chiefly, in the tempo of life and in the techniques related to the daily, mechanical functions of life; namely standing, walking, driving, to lying and sitting – in short, every action which determines the content of architecture.

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