<P> De Stijl (/ də ˈstaɪl /; Dutch pronunciation: (də ˈstɛil)), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in Leiden . De Stijl consisted of artists and architects . In a narrower sense, the term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands . Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors . </P> <P> De Stijl is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg that served to propagate the group's theories . Along with van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van' t Hoff, and J.J.P. Oud . The artistic philosophy that formed a basis for the group's work is known as Neoplasticism--the new plastic art (or Nieuwe Beelding in Dutch). </P>

What characterizes the art and design of the dutch art group known as de stijl