De Stijl, meaning 'The Style', was the name of an art and design journal founded in 1917 by Theo van Doesburg which advocated a form of abstraction based on horizontals and verticals. As a response to the upheaval caused by the First World War, the Dutch artists associated with the movement, including Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck and Georges Vantongerloo, sought harmony in life and art through simple geometrics and primary colours.
Mondrian originally referred to the style as 'Neo-Plasticism' in 1917.
