# De Stijl generator

Horizontal and vertical bars divide the field into unequal rectangles, and a few take red, yellow or blue. Tilt it 45° or add a title in block letters.

Open the generator: https://morph.ogeny.app/de-stijl/

## Design choices

- **Rectilinear** (`form.rectilinear`): Orthogonal bars, blocks and lines. Set by “Rectilinear”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rectilinear/
- **Dynamic asymmetry** (`layout.asymmetric`): Off-centre balance from the tension between unequal masses. Set by “Dynamic asymmetry”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/
- **Primary triad** (`color.primary-triad`): Red, yellow and blue with black and white. Set by “Primary triad”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/primary-triad/
- **Rules & bars** (`ornament.rules-bars`): Thick bars, lines and dots as structural accents. Set by “Rules & bars”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/
- **Diagonal axis** (`layout.diagonal`): Composition driven by tilted axes and oblique movement. Set by “Diagonal axis”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/
- **Flat fields** (`color.flat-fields`): Unmodulated areas of colour. Set by “Flat fields”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/
- **Non-representational** (`form.abstract`): Pure form with no depicted subject. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/non-representational/
- **Flat** (`surface.flat`): No simulated depth or texture. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/

## How it works

- Only horizontals and verticals: black bars divide the field into rectangles of unequal size, with one large empty plane weighed against a few small coloured ones.
- Colour is a handful of flat planes at the periphery, never a pattern; the bars, not outlines, separate every plane.

It never does:

- No regular grid of small coloured squares, no centred or mirrored division, and no large colour plane in a top corner answered by small ones along the bottom (a well-known arrangement).
- No diagonal except when the whole system is turned 45°; no gradients, texture or curves.

## Controls

- `divisions` Rectilinear (2–14, default 8): About how many bars divide the field; each variation draws a few more or fewer.
- `asymmetry` Dynamic asymmetry (0–1, default 0.65): How strongly one large plane dominates the smaller ones.
- `colours` Primary triad (0–6, default 3): How many planes take a colour: the primaries first, then grey and black.
- `bar` Rules & bars (6–40, default 22): The weight of the black bars; sparse variations draw them a little heavier.
- `tilt` Diagonal axis (seed | upright | turned; default seed): Turn the whole system 45°, as in the later Elementarist compositions. "Now and then" leaves it to the variation (about one in five).
- `fields` Flat fields (white | greys; default white): Whether some of the uncoloured planes are grey.
- `ends` Line ends (edge | short; default edge): Whether a few bars stop just before the edge of the picture.
- `balance` Balance (0–1, default 0.6): Low: the colour gathers on one side. High: it is spread to counterweigh across the field.
- `title` Title (default ""): Set a word in block letters built from rectangles; leave empty for a pure composition.

## About De Stijl

De Stijl (Dutch for "the style") was a movement founded in the Netherlands in 1917 around a magazine of the same name. Its painters, architects and designers reduced a picture to its elements: horizontal and vertical lines, rectangles, the three primaries, and black, white and grey. They wanted balance without symmetry: a large white plane held against smaller, denser patches of colour.

This generator builds pictures the same way. Black bars divide the field into rectangles of unequal size. One large plane stays empty, and a few smaller ones, usually at the edges, take a flat primary colour, placed so that the whole holds in equilibrium. For each variation number it grows many compositions and keeps the best balanced, so you get a new picture each time, not a copy of a famous painting.

About one variation in five turns the whole system 45°, as in the later Elementarist compositions; the diagonal axis setting fixes it upright or turned. Type a title to set it in block letters built from rectangles, as on the movement’s posters, with the bars running on beside it. With animation on, the bars drift slowly and the planes rebalance in a seamless loop.

De Stijl in Stylogeny (1917–1931): https://stylogeny.com/styles/de-stijl/

## Recipe

```json
{
  "tool": "de-stijl",
  "v": 1,
  "seed": 8,
  "format": "portrait",
  "params": {
    "divisions": 8,
    "asymmetry": 0.65,
    "colours": 3,
    "bar": 22,
    "tilt": "seed",
    "fields": "white",
    "ends": "edge",
    "balance": 0.6,
    "title": ""
  },
  "palette": "de-stijl"
}
```