Some of the -isms Post WW1

Some of the -isms
Post WW1
LIS470 Visual Communication
Back to our story ...
• Art Deco:
• Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art
Nouveau, Futurism ... between WW1 and WW2
• Part of the stream of “decorate everything” endof-the-Victorian era movement
• Guimard, Grasset, Lacenal: Société des artistes
décorateurs
• Main pt: use of modern iconography and faceted,
fractionated forms (e.g., sunburst, chevrons)
Quick list of the movements for today
Art Deco Movement
Art Deco was primarily a design style, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. In simplified terms,
the Art Deco movement can be considered as the follow-up style on Art Nouveau - more
simplified and closer to mass production. The Art Deco movement was dominant in
fashion, furniture, jewelry, textiles, architecture, commercial printmaking and interior
decoration. The best known name is René Lalique, a jeweler and glassmaker. The
Chrysler building in New York (1930) is an example of Art Deco style in architecture.
Impressionism
Impressionism began in Paris as a reaction to a very formal and rigid style of painting done inside studios and set by traditional institutions like the Académie des Beaux-Arts in
Paris. The exhibition of Edouard Manet’s famous painting, Déjeuner sur l’herbe, in 1863
in the Salon des refusés (organized by those painter who were rejected by the Académie
des Beaux-Arts), caused a scandal. It can be considered as the beginning of
Impressionism.
The Impressionist painters preferred to paint outside and studied the effect of light on
objects. Their preferred subjects were landscapes and scenes from daily life. The best
known names in Impressionist painting are Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas,
Camille Pissarro and Pierre Auguste Renoir in France and Alfred Sisley in England.
Fauvism
The word Fauvism comes from the French word fauve, which means “wild animals.” This
new modern art style was a bit wild - with strong and vivid colors. Paul Gauguin and the
Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh had carried Impressionism to its limits by using expressive
colors. Fauvism went one step further in using simplified designs in combination with an
"orgy of pure colors" as it was characterized by their critics. The first exhibition by Fauvist
artists took place in 1905. The best-known fauve artists are Henri Matisse, Andre Derain,
Maurice de Vlaminch, Kees van Dongen and Raoul Dufy.
Expressionism
Expressionism, in simplified terms, was some kind of a German modern art version of
Fauvism. The expressionist movement was organized in two groups of German painters.
One was called Die Brücke, literally meaning The Bridge. The group was located in
Dresden with the artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein,
Otto Müller and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. After World War I, this group was followed by
another group of artists, calling themselves Dresdner Sezession.
The second Expressionist gathering of artists was centered in Munich. The group is known
by the name Der Blaue Reiter, meaning The Blue Rider. The famous names are Franz
Marc, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Alexei
Yavlensky.
Cubism
Cubism, another modern art movement, was primarily restricted to painting and
sculpture. Nevertheless it had a major influence on the development of modern art.
Cubism was initiated by the Spaniard Pablo Picasso and the Frenchman Georges
Braques in Paris before World War I. Paul Cezanne, usually categorized as a PostImpressionist, can be considered as their predecessor.
Cubism had strong roots in African tribal art. In cubism, geometrical forms and
fragmentations are favored. Everything is reduced to cubes and other geometrical forms.
Often several aspects of one subject are shown simultaneously. As famous artists
besides Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Juan
Gris and Lyonel Feininger are to be mentioned. Cubism paved the way for abstract art.
Surrealism
Surrealism is another of the many modern art movements in the 20th century. Its
philosophical father was André Breton, a French poet and writer who published the
Surrealist guidelines, called Manifesto in 1924 in Paris. Surrealism emphasizes the
unconscious, the importance of dreams, the psychological aspect in arts. Surrealism
became an important movement in the fine arts, literature and in films (by the Spaniard
Buñuel for instance).
For the fine arts, the best-known names are Salvador Dali, the Italian Giorgio de Chirico
with his strange and eerie town views, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Yves
Tanguy, René Margritte and the Russian Marc Chagall.
Abstract Art
Russian-born painter Wassily Kandinsky is said to be the father of abstract art.
Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter, is another dominant character in establishing
abstract painting. Mondrian had experienced cubism in Paris. During World War II
many leading artists emigrated to the US, for instance Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp
and Marc Chagall. Thus New York became the new center for modern art and
abstract painting.
Cubism and information?
• Grid approach to representation
• Analytical cubism: a toolbox of visual literacy and
seeing if the result is successful communication
• Synthetic cubism: increasingly abstracted ideas
Bracque (l) and Gris (r)
Leger
Picasso
Picasso, painted by Gris
Futurism
• Italian school, 1909-?
• Marinetti’s manifesto
• Carrà, Severini, Balla, Boccioni, Sant’Elia
• Goal: to portray the dynamic character of 20th
century life
• Glorified danger,war, and the machine age!
• Favored Fascism
• Representing movement simultaneously,
representing several aspects of form in motion ...
Futurist Manifesto (Marinetti, 1909)
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html
1.
2.
3.
We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements
of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4.
We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A
racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring
motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5.
We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its
orbit.
6.
The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of
the primordial elements.
7.
Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must
be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
8.
We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment
when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are
already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9.
We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the
anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10.
We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian
cowardice.
11.
We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic
surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their
violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the
clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny
rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous
steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the
flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.
Futurism
• A love of danger, habit of energy and of fearlessness
• Is the point to shock the public?
• [Informative? What’s communicated?]
• Influenced Russian constructivism
• Rejection of harmony, increase the number of
colors in the work; crazy for fonts ... Parole en
liberté.
Futurism
• From harmony, flowing forms, bucolic idealism to
embracing the noise of the industrial age
• oral noise [poetry w/o punctuation]
• musical noise [no time indication]
• choral noise [just yells & shrieks]
• Destroy the cult of the past [cf return to
spirituality and purity of the past]
• Emphasize originality [hence individualism?]
Futurism
• “Regard all art critics as useless and
dangerous” [but they could critique!]
• “Support and glory in the day-to-day ... successes of
Science”
In reaction: Dadaism (Tzara’s 1918 manifesto)
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/tzara.html
There is a literature that does not reach the voracious mass. It is the work of creators, issued
from a real necessity in the author, produced for himself. It expresses the knowledge of a
supreme egoism, in which laws wither away. Every page must explode, either by profound
heavy seriousness, the whirlwind, poetic frenzy, the new, the eternal, the crushing joke,
enthusiasm for principles, or by the way in which it is printed. On the one hand a tottering
world in flight, betrothed to the glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men. Rough,
bouncing, riding on hiccups. Behind them a crippled world and literary quacks with a mania
for improvement.
I say unto you: there is no beginning and we do not tremble, we are not sentimental. We are a
furious Wind, tearing the dirty linen of clouds and prayers, preparing the great spectacle of
disaster, fire, decomposition.* We will put an end to mourning and replace tears by sirens
screeching from one continent to another. Pavilions of intense joy and widowers with the
sadness of poison. Dada is the signboard of abstraction; advertising and business are also
elements of poetry.
I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread demoralization wherever I
go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my eyes from hell to heaven, restore the fecund
wheel of a universal circus to objective forces and the imagination of every individual.
Dadaism (Tzara, 1922)
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I don't have to tell you that for the general public and for you, tlhe refined public, a Dadaist is the
equivalent of a leper. But that is only a manner of speaking. When these same people get close to us,
they treat us with that remnant of elegance that comes from their old habit of belief in progress. At
ten yards distance, hatred begins again. If you ask me why, I won't be able to tell you.
Another characteristic of Dada is the continuous breaking off of our friends. They are always
breaking off and resigning. The first to tender his resignation from the Dada movement *was
myself.* Everybody knows that Dada is nothing. I broke away from Dada and from myself as soon as I
understood the implications of *nothing.*
Dada is a state of mind. That is why it transforms itself according to races and events. Dada applies
itself to everything, and yet it is nothing, it is the point where the yes and the no and all the
opposites meet, not solemnly in the castles of human philosophies, but very simply at street corners,
like dogs and grasshoppers.
Like everything in life, Dada is useless.
Dada is without pretension, as life should be.
Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates
with the insistence of air into all the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or
conventions.
Dadaism
• Reaction a “world gone mad”
• 1916-23 - not long lasting, but not expected to
• Just an emphasis on the new, recreating
• Rejects war, blind faith in technical progress, and
moral codes.
• Had their own journal, of course, Dada.
Marcel Duchamp (Dadaist)
Tristan Tzara
Dadaism
You know you’ve made it when ...
German Dadaists were
politically charged moves to extreme
absurdism and looses
influence
Dadaism in Germany
Surrealism, 1920s
• André Breton: Manifesto du surrealisme: the true
function of thought ...
• Rejects conventions: speak from unaltered mental
symbols
• Intended to be more uplifting, through liberation
from social and moral conventions
• Open mind to “uninhibited truth”
André Breton, 1924, Manifesto
We
are
still
living
under
the
reign
of
logic,
but
the
logical
processes
of
our
time
apply
only
to
the
solution
of
problems
of
secondary
interest.
The
absolute
rationalism
which
remains
in
fashion
allows
for
the
consideration
of
only
those
facts
narrowly
relevant
to
our
experience.
Logical
conclusions,
on
the
other
hand,
escape
us.
Needless
to
say,
boundaries
have
been
assigned
even
to
experience.
It
revolves
in
a
cage
from
which
release
is
becoming
increasingly
difficult.
It
too
depends
upon
immediate
utility
and
is
guarded
by
common
sense.
In
the
guise
of
civilization,
under
the
pretext
of
progress,
we
have
succeeded
in
dismissing
from
our
minds
anything
that,
rightly
or
wrongly,
could
be
regarded
as
superstition
or
myth;
and
we
have
proscribed
every
way
of
seeking
the
truth
which
does
not
conform
to
convention.
...
[cut]
It
would
be
dishonest
to
dispute
our
right
to
employ
the
word
SURREALISM
in
the
very
particular
sense
in
which
we
intend
it,
for
it
is
clear
that
before
we
came
along
this
word
amounted
to
nothing.
Thus
I
shall
define
it
once
and
for
all:
SURREALISM,
noun,
masc.,
Pure
psychic
automatism
by
which
it
is
intended
to
express,
either
verbally
or
in
writing,
the
true
function
of
thought.
Thought
dictated
in
the
absence
of
all
control
exerted
by
reason,
and
outside
all
aesthetic
or
moral
preoccupations.
ENCYCL.
Philos.
Surrealism
is
based
on
the
belief
in
the
superior
reality
of
certain
forms
of
association
heretofore
neglected,
in
the
omnipotence
of
the
dream,
and
in
the
disinterested
play
of
thought.
It
leads
to
the
permanent
destruction
of
all
other
psychic
mechanisms
and
to
its
substitution
for
them
in
the
solution
of
the
principal
problems
of
life.
http://www.iefd.org/manifestos/surrealist_manifesto.php
Surrealism
• Questions of intentionality (Ernst and Dalí)
• Visual automism (intuitive stream of consciousness
and of calligraphy)
• Joan Miró and J. Arp
Joan Miró
Expressionism
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
• Symbolic content is very important
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
• Symbolic content is very important
• Tactile properties are introduced into painting
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
• Symbolic content is very important
• Tactile properties are introduced into painting
• Revolt against conventional aesthetic forms
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
• Symbolic content is very important
• Tactile properties are introduced into painting
• Revolt against conventional aesthetic forms
• Reject military, political movements; empathy for
the poor
Expressionism
• Color, drawing, proportion are exaggerated or
distorted
• Symbolic content is very important
• Tactile properties are introduced into painting
• Revolt against conventional aesthetic forms
• Reject military, political movements; empathy for
the poor
• two groups: Die Brücke (1905) and Der Blaue
Reiter (1911)
Die Brücke
Kölnisher Kunstverin
(1839-)
koelnischerkunstverein.de
Der Blaue Reiter
Kandinsky
Franz Marc
Kandinsky and Klee - Expressionists tending to the spiritual
Kandinsky
Kandinsky
Paul Klee
Klee
Klee
What do these movements have to do with information?
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
• Artist above society - by right of being an “artist”
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
• Artist above society - by right of being an “artist”
• Modernism: theories of breaking down wholes into
parts ... instrumental for mass education,
reproduction of ideas; perhaps mode of critique
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
• Artist above society - by right of being an “artist”
• Modernism: theories of breaking down wholes into
parts ... instrumental for mass education,
reproduction of ideas; perhaps mode of critique
• Individual art
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
• Artist above society - by right of being an “artist”
• Modernism: theories of breaking down wholes into
parts ... instrumental for mass education,
reproduction of ideas; perhaps mode of critique
• Individual art
• Colors ... and the technology to print many colors,
cheaply, on large format paper
What do these movements have to do with information?
• Advertising ... poster art ... mass communication
• Speak directly to the mind?
• Artist above society - by right of being an “artist”
• Modernism: theories of breaking down wholes into
parts ... instrumental for mass education,
reproduction of ideas; perhaps mode of critique
• Individual art
• Colors ... and the technology to print many colors,
cheaply, on large format paper
• Ephemeral.
Constructivism
Constructivism
• Russian art movement (c 1913,Vladimir Tatlin)
Constructivism
• Russian art movement (c 1913,Vladimir Tatlin)
• 1916: Gabo & Pevsner: politically intended, abstract
constructions
Constructivism
• Russian art movement (c 1913,Vladimir Tatlin)
• 1916: Gabo & Pevsner: politically intended, abstract
constructions
• building on cubism & futurism but with
architectonic emphasis
Constructivism
• Russian art movement (c 1913,Vladimir Tatlin)
• 1916: Gabo & Pevsner: politically intended, abstract
constructions
• building on cubism & futurism but with
architectonic emphasis
• Soviets liked it at first ... but disparaged as
unsuitable for mass propaganda.
Constructivism
• Russian art movement (c 1913,Vladimir Tatlin)
• 1916: Gabo & Pevsner: politically intended, abstract
constructions
• building on cubism & futurism but with
architectonic emphasis
• Soviets liked it at first ... but disparaged as
unsuitable for mass propaganda.
• Nagy, Rodchenko
Constructivism
Taitlin
Tatlin’s Internationale monument
Constructivism all over the place!
• http://www.unb.ca/naweb/2k/posters/Sadikfinal.htm
Constructivism - László Moholy-Nagy
Moholy-Nagy
Dadaist and then
Constructivist ... created
“photograms”
Joins Bauhaus under Gropius
in 1925;
establishes “New
Photographer’s” movement
Lasting influence?
• Educational theory using constructivism:
• http://www.edwebproject.org/
constructivism.basics.html
• http://www.artsined.com/teachingarts/Pedag/
Constructivist.html
Constructivist educational theory
• J. Bruner (1960s-80s):
• Instruction must be concerned with experiences
& contexts that make the student willing and able
to learn
• Instruction must be structured so that it can be
easily grasped by the student
• Instruction should be designed to facilitate
extrapolation and or fill in the gaps (going being
the info given)
Next?
• Theories of the role of art and society
• Use of visual communication to speak directly to
the mind ... to avoid social conventions, but at what
cost?
• Manipulation of the public?
• Propaganda?
• Education?