Modern Dutch Design 1890–1910

On one of the marble fireplace panels in the Kranenburg study, Nieuwenhuis portrayed a woman tracing a circle with a compass—a symbol of the centrality of geometry to the design method.

This manual by siblings De Groot became very influential in Dutch schools of applied arts that were founded around 1880. It expounded a system for using a compass and triangle to combine forms from nature in geometric grids and reduce them to two-dimensional ornaments. The authors were inspired by the mystical doctrines of Theosophy, which held that the cosmos was founded on geometric principles.

The application of abstract geometric principles to the design of practical objects can be seen in Lauweriks’s drawing for a teakettle. He generated the form of the kettle out of a modular series of circles laid out on a square grid that he drew himself.

While international Art Nouveau drew much inspiration from Japan, the Dutch interest in Asia leaned toward the East Indies colony, a key source of wealth for the Netherlands. The colonies featured prominently in the country’s participation at international expositions. Pavilions recreated Javanese settlements, presented models of mosques, featured dance and puppet performances, and offered batik demonstrations by Indonesian women.

Many Dutch artists appropriated Indonesian culture, starting from the use of the Javanese wax resist technique, known as batik. Batik was a critical factor in the development of the flat pattern design of Nieuwe Kunst.

C. A. Lion Cachet was the first to experiment with batik, initially on textiles, and, later, on parchment. For the cover of the famous Rembrandt portfolio, he designed a batik pattern that combines geometric shapes with a stylized fern.

The Amsterdam art dealer E. J. van Wisselingh & Co. set up workshops for furniture, copper-work, and batik in 1898 to promote Nieuwe Kunst designers . It also formed a partnership with the publisher Scheltema & Holkema to produce luxury books, portfolio stands, and bookcases for wealthy clients. This portfolio by C. A. Lion Cachet incorporates Javanese references in its flat, floral woodcarvings and an inlaid, stylized lyrebird, a recurring Art Nouveau motif.

This monumental stand, a display for large portfolios of art prints, shows the varied influences on Nieuwe Kunst design. Theo Neuhuys’s repetitive foliage motif is based on the geometric principles of ornamentation espoused by Theosophists and taught in Dutch applied arts schools. The stand’s symmetric, austere structure refers to Dutch Golden Age (seventeenth century) furniture.

Chris Lebeau, a versatile artist, designed batik cotton covers in several color variations, as well as a luxury version on velvet, for De stille kracht, a popular novel set in the Dutch East Indies. Lebeau’s design was inspired by lessons in geometric ornament given by the Theosophist architects Karel de Bazel and Mathieu Lauweriks.

Lebeau’s aim was to design high quality objects for people of all classes. In 1904, after gaining fame as a batik printer, he began designing textiles that could be produced by machine, making them affordable to large numbers of people. He started a successful collaboration with the manufacturer Van Dissel, which for decades produced his table damasks, featuring stylized natural elements set in geometric grids.

A renowned example of Dutch graphic design, this poster shows that the influence of the East Indies was not limited to batik. The designer Jan Toorop, born on the island of Java, used a linear style and strong silhouettes to evoke Javanese shadow puppets, elevating the preparation of salad to a mystic ritual. These flowing lines align his work, to some degree, with French and Belgian Art Nouveau.

The poster was so well-received that Toorop printed several variations in different colors. After the poster appeared, Nieuwe Kunst was often mockingly dubbed “the salad oil style.”

Toorop’s curvilinear style was influenced by several years he spent in Brussels in the 1880s. There, he joined Les Vingt [The Twenty], a group of young, progressive Belgian artists centered around James Ensor and Fernand Khnopff. On his return to the Netherlands, he turned toward Symbolist painting, which he applied to posters and book covers. Toorop was the most prominent Dutch artist of this period; his influence extended from the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt to the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Toorop’s poster for an exhibition about women’s work reflects the influence of his native Java, especially horror vacui (fear of empty space)—a term referring to artwork where all available space is filled with imagery. Showcasing women’s contributions to society as workers in an array of professions, the exhibition was held in The Hague on the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the liberation from the French in 1813, the Amsterdam feminist movement organized an exhibition showcasing women’s achievements.Artist Wilhelmina Drupsteen won the poster design competition, open only to women, creating a rigidly symmetrical composition influenced by the geometric design approach taught by her mentors Mathieu Lauweriks and Karel de Bazel.

This poster celebrating the new route from Harwich to Hoek was designed by architect H. P. Berlage, who created a symmetric composition with geometric and stylized motifs.

The most important architect in turn-of-the-century Netherlands, Berlage trained at the Polytechnic in Zürich. His most renowned building is the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (known as the Beurs, 1898–1903). In 1911 he traveled to the United States, where he admired the architecture of Louis Sullivan and especially Frank Lloyd Wright, whose work he introduced to the Netherlands.

The chair shows the influence that Berlage drew from both the British Arts and Crafts movement and from Old Dutch furniture. The rounded brass studs that secure the wicker seat to the apron also serve as ornamental accents, an expression of the principle that structure should dictate appearance. The Dutch oak used for the chair was neither painted nor bent, privileging “honesty” in the use of materials.

Jan Eisenloeffel’s metal tableware with plain geometric shapes, inspired by Japanese craftsmen, was sold at ’t Binnenhuis.

This lamp with plain, rounded surfaces that reveal its construction, was designed by Eduard Cuypers, an architect active in Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies. Cuypers’s multifaceted approach to design paved the way for young architects Joan Van der Mey, Michel de Klerk, and Piet Kramer, who eventually became key figures in Amsterdam School design.

Willem Kromhout’s American Hotel, with its combination of Dutch Renaissance and East Asian references, is an outstanding example of Nieuwe Kunst architecture. Kromhout created a vibrant, asymmetric façade centered on the corner tower, with arches, bow-windows, decorative tile panels, and alternating brick and natural stone.

For the café of the American Hotel, Kromhout designed this bronze chandelier, a radial structure with rigid plant-shaped braces, culminating in the forms of birds. It is a three-dimensional extension of the geometric reduction of natural forms stressed in applied arts education of the time.

Another Nieuwe Kunst showcase in Amsterdam is the Bensdorp Chocolate Factory. In the building, Anton Joling, who was trained at the office of Neo-Gothic architect Pierre Cuypers, combined his mentor’s influence with geometric motifs and references to Asian cultures.

Theo Molkenboer, who designed the factory’s interior and exterior ceramic ornaments, created a symbolic representation of taste. This panel features a Byzantine-inspired figure holding a cocoa bean, a product imported from the Dutch East and West Indies.

The sculptor Rien Hack incorporated exotic references into the basalt reliefs, such as this stylized animal head, on the Bensdorp Factory. The exterior of the building still exists.