NINETEEN SEVENTEEN was a year of revolution, ushering in the first-ever Communist government in Russia and one of the earliest abstract art movements, De Stijl, in Holland. The events may not seem immediately comparable, yet both were driven by utopian ideologies that shaped the modern world. And there was much communication between Russia’s own revolutionary abstract artists and the Dutch. While Soviet Communism came to an inglorious end, De Stijl inspired generations of artists and designers to believe that pure abstraction might serve as a universal language, one expressive of a higher cosmic harmony that might lead to a world where divisions between art, life, and culture would dissolve. If De Stijl’s preferred colors were primary, its vision was downright trippy.