Dutch art: The Twentieth Century

During the 20th cent., Dutch painting was strongly influenced by fauvism, cubism, and expressionism. Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg founded the movement known as de Stijl, which radically altered the development of international design. After World War II, Piet Ouberg (1880–1954) influenced a younger generation of artists with his colorful abstract composition. In 1949 the CoBrA (an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam) group of avant-garde artists signaled the new tendency toward abstract expressionism. Contemporary Dutch art is best reflected in the works of Jef Diederon, Jan Dibbets, Stanley Brouwn, Jan Roland, and Ger van Elk. In the graphic arts an outstanding 20th-century figure is M. C. Escher.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Sculpture and the Minor Arts
• The Twentieth Century
• The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
• The Flowering of Dutch Art: The Seventeenth Century
• Early History
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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