Oil on board. 1947. Signed on the reverse; the Haard 47.
Dimensions image approx 24.5*48 cm, frame approx 49*62 cm.
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Biography
Pieter de Haard studied at the academy of fine arts in Rotterdam, and in Munich he studied painting materials and their historical application with Max Dörner (he worked for some time as a restorer).
Until World War II, de Haard painted figuratively and was a member of the circle of visual artists R 33, a Rotterdam association of visual artists (disbanded in 1941). In 1938, de Haard began experimenting with abstraction. In 1940, because of the bombing of Rotterdam, he moved to Beekbergen, where his work changed toward geometric abstraction. Through the writings of Kant and Spinoza, his ideas about space and infinity develop, Goethe interests him because of his color theory.
De Haard was a follower of the ideas of De Stijl; particularly the elementarism of Theo van Doesburg. Elementarism recognizes time and space as the most elemental factors of a new imagination. Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian set themselves the goal of purifying art of elements that, in their view, did not belong in it, and attempted to establish and apply by rational means the elementary principles of each art form. The possibility of expression of Neo-Plasticism espoused by Mondrian is limited to the two dimensions of the plane. Elementarism attempts to represent an image in four dimensions; the plane (length, width) and time and space.
In 1945, de Haard returned to Rotterdam. His paintings are based on the golden ratio; a principle to which a spiritual dimension was also attributed. The use of color is also systematic.
De Haard was friends with Koos van Vlijmen and Piet van Stuivenberg; he shared a studio with them at the Rotterdam Art Foundation.
Between 1960 and 1971, de Haard also created informal collages and matter paintings.
