(Dutch: “Style”).  De Stijl was a movement founded in 1917 in Leiden, Holland, by painter Piet Mondrian, architect/painter/writer Theo van Doesburg, and painter/interior designer/graphic designer Bart van der Leck. Proponents of De Stijl advocated a universal visual language of pure abstraction, known as Neo-Plasticism, which could be achieved by simplifying compositions to vertical and horizontal lines and using only black, white and the primary colors. Pronunciation here.

Bart van der Leck. Composition 1917 No. 3 (Leaving the Factory). Oil on canvas. 1917. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands.