Description

Composition XX follows to the letter the geometric abstraction advocated in De Stijl. According to Joop Joosten, Van Doesburg’s stay at Mondrian’s house in Paris in February 1920 would be decisive in his full-fledged conversion to abstraction. Furthermore, as can be appreciated, the grid structure that Mondrian and Huszár had employed at the end of 1918, before Van Doesburg did so, is not a rigid and even system for him as it was for Mondrian, but is flexible and uneven. Nor is Van Doesburg very orthodox in his choice of palette, as the primary colours are toned down considerably in the present painting.