The Influence of Modern Art

A N M 1 0 2 | H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C A N D W E B D E S I G N
The Influence of
CHAPTER 13: THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN ART
William Pickering, title page for the Book of Common Prayer, 1844.
T H E I N F L U E N C E O F M O D E R N A R T
• The first two decades of the 20th century were time of social,
cultural and political upheaval. World War I was fought between
1914 and 1918 bringing about tremendous change in the traditions
and institutions of Western civilization.
• The visual arts and design exploded with creative revolutions that
questioned long-held values, as well as greatly altering the role of
art and design in society. Ideas about color, form, space, subject all
focused around social protest and deeply personal emotional states.
• Cubism, Dada and surrealism, De Stijl, constructivism and
expressionism all directly influenced the language and look of visual
communication in graphic design.
C U B I S M
Analytical cubism
• developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, it involves an analysis of the planes of its subject matter, often from several points of view, and using these perceptions to construct a painting composed of rhythmic geometric planes
• Analytical cubism’s compelling fascination grows from the unresolved tension of the sensual and intellectual appeal of the pictorial structure in conflict with the challenge of interpreting the subject matter.
Synthetic cubism
• Drawing on past observations, the cubists invented forms that were signs, rather than representations, of their subject matter
• The essence of an object and its basic characteristics, rather than its outward appearance, were depicted
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C U B I S M
CUBISM
• Geometric planes in African sculpture, masks and fabrics greatly influenced the Cubist artists.
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C U B I S M
Pablo Picasso
• most notable of the Cubist artists
• figures abstracted into geometric planes and classical norms for the human face are distorted
• perspective become ambiguous with several viewpoints seen simultaneously
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C U B I S M
Georges Braque
• a close associate of Picasso, Braque contributed much to the Cubist movment.
• introduced paper collage into the artists’ work, creating texture and adding text that enhanced the visual form and reinforced the meaning or message of the artwork.
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Fernand Léger
• took the geometric design aesthetic of the cubists a step farther by abstracting forms even more and assembling compositions of brightly colored geometric planes
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F U T U R I S M
Futurism
• a revolutionary movement in which all the arts were to test their ideas and forms against the new realities of scientific and industrial society
• Its manifesto voiced enthusiasm for war, the machine age, speed, and modern life.
Manifesto
• a public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, such as that made by the Futurists.
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F U T U R I S M
Filippo Mannetti
• produced explosive typography that defied correct syntax and grammar
• harmony was rejected as a design quality and the two dominant conditions of 20th century life, noise and speed were expressed in futurist poetry
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F U T U R I S M
Carlo Carrà
• “Parole in libertà” (free word composition), 1914
• futurist poets believed that the use of different sizes, weights, and styles of type allowed them to weld painting and poetry, because the intrinsic beauty of letterforms, manipulated creatively, transformed the printed page into a work of visual art
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F U T U R I S M
Fernand Léger
• La Fin du Monde…, 1919
• whirlwind tour of the re-creation of the earth after the fall of man is illustrated by a pinwheel of lettering spelling “accelerated slow motion cinema.”
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F U T U R I S M
Fortunato Depero
• New Futurist Theater Company poster, 1924
• futurist artist who applied the movement’s philosophy to graphic design
• designed New Futurist Theater Company poster, 1924
• flat planes of vibrant color, diagonal composition, and angular repetitive forms produce kinetic energy.
• Depero’s style was a major influence to the constructivist movement
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D A D A
Dada
• Reacting against the carnage of World War I, the Dada movement claimed to be anti-art and had a strong negative and destructive element
• Dada writers and artists were concerned with shock, protest, and nonsense
• Chance placement and absurd titles characterized their graphic work.
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D A D A
DADA
• claimed to be anti- art and had a strong negative and destructive element
• artists were concerned with shock, protest, and oddly, basic nonsense
• rejected all tradition seeking complete freedom of expression.
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D A D A
• poet who wrote Karawane, a Dada poem in 1917
• sound and sight poems such as this expressed the Dadaist desire to replace man’s logical nonsense with an illogical nonsense— creating sound poetry, nonsense poetry, and chance poetry.
‘What is Dada’? … Nothing? Everything?’— Hugo Ball
http://www.augustana.ualberta.ca/ files/group/612/14%20- DADA222.htm
D A D A
John Heartfield
• German designer adopted this English name as a protest against German militarism
• founding member of the German Dadaist movement
• used harsh photomontages to create posters with the Nazi party as his target
• he fled to London after discovering he was on a secret list of Nazi enemies
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D A D A
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D A D A
• American artist who is most noted for his avant-garde photography
• Rayographs camera-less prints, on which he frequently made his exposures with moving beams of light and combined experimental techniques such as solarization with the basic technique of placing objects on the photographic paper.
"When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track." — Man Ray
http://photossu.blogspot.com/
D A D A
• The Gift, 1919
• contradiction presented by the "smoothing" function of an iron and the denial of that function represented by the nails. Cognitive dissonance was always a favorite Dadaist and Surrealist theme
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D A D A
Man Ray
• was an admirer of the Ingres' paintings and made a series of photographs, inspired by his languorous nudes
• As a visual joke/pun he painted on the f-holes of a stringed instrument and named this, "Le Violon d'Ingres"
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S U R R E A L I S M
Surrealism
• Arising in Paris in 1924, searching for the “more real than real world behind the real”— the world of intuition, dreams, and the unconscious realm explored by Sigmund Freud
• Poet André Breton, founder of surrealism, imbued the word with all the magic of dreams, the spirit of rebellion, and the mysteries of the subconscious in his 1924 Manifesto du Surrealisme: “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, all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.”
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S U R R E A L I S M
Salvadore Dali
• Spanish painter who is most associated with the surrealist movement.
• Influenced by the Renaissance masters, he was a skilled draftsman and painter.
• This painting, The Persistence of Memory is Dali’s interpretation of Einstein’s theory that time is relative.
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S U R R E A L I S M
Salvadore Dali
• the style uses visual images of the subconscious or dreams without any attempt at literal comprehension.
• Soft Construction With Boiled Beans by Salvador Dali depicts the devastation of war and how it can be both self-fulfilling as well as destructive.
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S U R R E A L I S M
Giorgio de Chirico
• Italian artist who painted stark and empty landscapes of the Italian Renaissance palaces
• depicted vacant buildings, dramatic, harsh shadows, deep perspective and a feeling of melancholy or sadness
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S U R R E A L I S M
Max Ernst
• German artist who had a major impact on the use of photography and illustration in his art.
• Created strange juxtapositions of images using collage and rubbings (frottage,) to develop his compositions.
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S U R R E A L I S M
René Magritte
• Belgian surrealist who’s relatively common images are often juxtaposed in an unusual context.
• In his painting of a pipe, Magritte has written “This is not a pipe” along the bottom,” which in fact is true. It is a painting of a pipe
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Joan Miro
• depicted organic shapes and line on a flat plane of bright colors. This surrealistic style called “automatic drawing” allowed for drawing randomly across the paper, thus producing imagery from the subconscious.
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S U R R E A L I S M
“How did I think up my drawings and my ideas for painting? Well I'd come home to my Paris studio, I'd go to bed, and sometimes I hadn't any supper. I saw things, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I saw shapes on the ceiling...”
M E R Z
Merz
• A nonpolitical offshoot of Dada and a one- man art movement created by Kurt Schwitters
• He coined from the word Kommerz (commerce), which appeared in one of his collages.
• Beginning in 1919, his Merz pictures were collage compositions using printed ephemera, rubbish, and found materials to compose color against color, form against form, and texture against texture.
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M E R Z
Kurt Schwitters
• created a one-man art movement called Merz, that broke away from Dadism in a nonpolitical way
• Beginning in 1919, his Merz pictures were collage compositions using printed ephemera, rubbish, and found materials to compose color against color, form against form, and texture against texture.
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M E R Z
M E R Z
Kurt Schwitters
• Between 1923 and 1932, Schwitters ran a successful graphic design studio with a major client, Pelikan, a manufacturer of office equipment and supplies
• pages from Merz 11, 1924
• ads for Pelikan tusche and inks
• demonstrate Schwitters’s growing interest in constructivism during the 1920s
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E X P R E S S I O N I S M
Expressionism
• In early twentieth-century art, the tendency to depict not objective reality but subjective emotions and personal responses to subjects and events
• Emerging as an organized movement in Germany before World War I, color, drawing, and proportion were often exaggerated or distorted, and symbolic content became very important.
• Line and color were often pronounced; color and value contrasts were intensified. Tactile properties were achieved through thick paint, loose brushwork, and bold contour drawing.
• Woodcuts, lithographs, and posters were important media for many expressionists.
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E X P R E S S I O N I S M
Wassily Kandinsky
• Early 20th century art movement organized in Germany before WWI. Images depicted vivid colors, aggressive brushstrokes, and abstract forms.
• Russian born, Wassily Kandinsky is noted as one of the first creators of pure abstract expressionism.
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K E Y T E R M S
Futurism
Cubism • Pablo Picasso • Georges Braque • Fernand Léger
Expressionism • Wassily Kandinsky
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K E Y T E R M S
Analytical cubism developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, it involves an analysis of the planes of its subject matter, often from several points of view, and using these perceptions to construct a painting composed of rhythmic geometric planes. Analytical cubism’s compelling fascination grows from the unresolved tension of the sensual and intellectual appeal of the pictorial structure in conflict with the challenge of interpreting the subject matter.
Collage a composition of elements glued onto a surface.
Synthetic cubism Drawing on past observations, the cubists invented forms that were signs, rather than representations, of their subject matter. The essence of an object and its basic characteristics, rather than its outward appearance, were depicted
Futurism a revolutionary movement in which all the arts were to test their ideas and forms against the new realities of scientific and industrial society. Its manifesto voiced enthusiasm for war, the machine age, speed, and modern life.
Manifesto a public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, such as that made by the Futurists.
Parole in libertá (words in freedom)
a new and painterly typographic design in which three or four ink colors and twenty typefaces (italics for quick impressions, boldface for violent noises and sounds) could redouble words’ expressive power on the page. Free, dynamic, and piercing words could be given the velocity of stars, clouds, airplanes, trains, waves, explosives, molecules, and atoms.
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K E Y T E R M S
Pattern poetry The futurist concept that writing and/or typography could become a concrete and expressive visual. In the nineteenth century, the German poet Arno Holz reinforced intended auditory effects through such devices as omitting capitalization and punctuation, varying word spacing to signify pauses, and using multiple punctuation marks for emphasis.
Calligrammes Guillame Apollinaire’s name for poems in which the letterforms are arranged to form a visual design, figure, or pictograph. In 1918, a book of his calligrammes was published in which he explored the potential fusion of poetry and painting, introducing the concept of simultaneity to the time- and sequence- bound typography of the printed page.
Simultaneity concurrent existence or occurrence, such as the presentation of different views in the same work of art.
Artist’s book published by an artist as a creative expression independent of the publishing establishment.
Dada Reacting against the carnage of World War I, the Dada movement claimed to be anti-art and had a strong negative and destructive element. Dada writers and artists were concerned with shock, protest, and nonsense. Chance placement and absurd titles characterized their graphic work.
Ready-made Sculpture such as a bicycle wheel mounted on a wooden stool, and the exhibition of found objects, such as a urinal, as art, by Marcel Duchamp.
Photomontage the technique of manipulating found photographic images to create jarring juxtapositions and chance associations.
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K E Y T E R M S
Merz A nonpolitical offshoot of Dada and a one-man art movement created by Kurt Schwitters. He coined from the word Kommerz (commerce), which appeared in one of his collages. Beginning in 1919, his Merz pictures were collage compositions using printed ephemera, rubbish, and found materials to compose color against color, form against form, and texture against texture.
Surrealism arising in Paris in 1924, searching for the “more real than real world behind the real”—the world of intuition, dreams, and the unconscious realm explored by Sigmund Freud. The poet André Breton, founder of surrealism, imbued the word with all the magic of dreams, the spirit of rebellion, and the mysteries of the subconscious in his 1924 “Manifesto du Surrealisme”: “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, all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.”
Frottage a method invented by Max Ernst that used rubbings to compose directly on paper. As he looked at his rubbings, his imagination invented images in them, much as one sees images in cloud formations
Decalcomania Ernst’s process of transferring images from printed matter to a drawing or painting. This enabled him to incorporate a variety of images into his work in unexpected ways. This technique has been used extensively in illustration, painting, and printmaking.
Emblematics a group of surrealist painters who worked with a purely visual vocabulary. Visual automatism was used to create spontaneous expressions of inner life.
Visual automatism Intuitive, stream-of-consciousness drawing and calligraphy.
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William Pickering, title page for the Book of…

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