History of painting group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van 't Hoff, and J. J. P. Oud. The artistic philosophy that formed a basis for the group's work is known as "neoplasticism" — the new plastic art (or "Nieuwe Beelding" in Dutch). Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical
Theo van Leeuwen Theo van Leeuwen Theodoor Jacob "Theo" van Leeuwen (born 1947) is a Dutch linguist and one of the main developers of the sub-field of social semiotics. Van Leeuwen obtained a BA in scriptwriting and direction from the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam in 1972. He married an Australian and moved to Australia later in the 1970s. Van Leeuwen worked as a director, script writer, and producer for film and television in both Holland and Australia. Van Leeuwen has also been noted as a former jazz pianist. In 1982, he finished a master's degree at Macquarie University in Sydney with a