Just like Bart van der Leck

About the artist

Bart van der Leck (1876-1958) was a Dutch painter and designer. He was part of De Stijl art movement with, among others, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld. Artists of De Stijl searched for a new art style that better suited to the future after World War 1.   

To create his abstract art, Van der Leck reduces a figurative representation further and further to squares, rectangles, triangles and lines in red, yellow and blue against a white or grey background. Although art work of Mondrian and Van der Leck may look similar, there is an important difference: Van der Leck works from a figurative representation that he slowly simplifies, while Mondrian works directly from abstraction. 

Instruction
View three works of art by Bart van der Leck without mentioning the titles: The Sower (1921), Composition IV (1918) and Farm girl with cow  (1921) (due to copyright only the links to the originals here.) 

Ask students what they see. They may not immediately see a sower, but probably come to a man who does something. A hiker? But what are those red squares? Do they see a cow and a farm girl? How do you recognize a cow? And finally: what do you see in Composition IV? This is the most abstract work and there is no clear representation in it. Perhaps students have an idea? 

Ask about the similarities between these works: 

• primary colors + black
• just straight lines 
• white background

What do you need?

• action photo of an athlete
• black sheet and a half white sheet
• scraps of paper in red, yellow and blue 
• scissors and glue

What should you do?

1. Paste the action photo of an athlete on black paper.  
2. Cut out strips and squares from red, blue and yellow. Place them in the same shape as the athlete on white paper. 
3. Satisfied? Glue them.
4. Glue the white sheet below the photo on the the black sheet. 

Artworks made by students of grade 3.