Task 2 - Modernist design.

Vladimir Majakovskij - For the Voice - 1923

www.bookworks.plus.com

The design above is from an experimental typographic book containing poems within which the design was supposed to enhance the meaning and delivery of the poems. It is by an artist called Majakovskij and shows very clear modernist features such as the use of new found printing techniques allowing for more experimental type and the strict use of geometric forms to create images.

 El Lissitzky - Russland journal - 1930

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=16286

This is a magazine cover for 'Russland' by El Lissitzky, a prominent Russian designer in the constructivist movement. Again there is a clear division being made clear by the designer between this piece and more classical art, moving away from realistic depictions into silhouetted black & white figures and again the use of geometric forms, this time, laid over the background image.

Jan Tschichold - Ausstellung Emil Nolde. - 1928

www.postersplease.com

Above is a poster for the 'Grand Nolde' exhibition in Munich by Jan Tschichold, a really interesting designer focusing on type and layout predominantly. This shows the movement of type away from 'Blackletter' and ornate styles which distract from what the type is saying towards much cleaner and simpler type designed only to aid in the messages readability. There is also the clear use of grid layout which became popular as a result of the movement towards clearer typography.

 

Paul Colin - Katherine Dunham - 1945

www.barewalls.com/pv-399954_Katherine-Dunham.html

Here is a poster by the designer Paul Colin, working in Paris in 1945. Again although traditional media, there is a clear element of the artists desire to move away from classical art styles and produce something more abstract. This simple image has been combined with some very clear type on a plain background to make the poster as clear as possible.

Wassily Kandinsky - 1922

http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/painting1914-1921.php

This final piece is one by Wassily Kandinsky, produced in 1922, in the midst of the constuctivist period. Although it is in some parts, rather rough and appears hand drawn, it has been combined with some rather more uniform parts to create a very geometric layout.

Revolutionary design in Russia.

Post war 1917-1925 Radical advances in art&design.

Workers mob to overthrow the winter palace.
Battleship Aurora - New Dawn
November 1917
Bolsheviks laying siege to winter palace
Revolution is sealed. 
LENIN takes Russia under communist control under the slogan of "peace, bread & land". 
Supposed to be more democratic, the peoples country. With equality being the main aim, reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. Equally shared wealth.
Own land 
Own food
Own space
Own voice

U.S.S.R.

Sergei Eisenstein- radical film maker. 
October.
Lots of symbolism in this film relating to the revolution.
Images of Christ, symbolic of a ressurection or new life.
Stealing things
Waving weapons- symbol of victory
Man climbing gate - puts foot on crown... want a workers society.
Shows passing of time
Decrees.
Boy on throne, symbolising a new dawn,
Wine - decadence
Don't believe in god - thought that he was ideology to make people work.

KUSTODIEV- The Bolshevik
Propaganda
fuedal- pre revolution.
Cultural/financial division.
60% illiterate so had to work visually and simply.
Bolshevik leader is dressed like every man, worker.
is large because trying to convey collective strength/might
Amount of white in the image possibly linked to counter-revolutionaries.
Red flag connotes communism. 
represents the blood of slain workers in the fight for the revolution.
for the MARTYRED WORKERS.


1917- mid 1920s intense artistic experimentation.
Trying to create an entirely new aestheti.
art was a symbol of power, so Bolsheviks changed it.
Radical INDUSTRIALIST aesthetic.
tryin to make the work appear better,

This new aesthetic was quickly abolished when Lenin died, and Stalin took his place.
It was too progressive.
Back to SOCIALIST REALISM.

There was no private art market in Russia.
Stalin encouraged European modernists such as Picasso and Matisse however Stalin deemed them dangerous.


1917-1924 was a period of more aesthetic development then anywhere else ever before. Almost overnight Lenin overthrew the old. 

Malevich & Suprematism
New aesthetic for a new world
Geometric. Not like any other art, classically modernist.

El Lissitzky - 'Beat the whites with the red wedge' 
Red wedge conotes Bolsheviks.
Spearhead of cultural revolution - power of revolutionaries against the weakness of the white army. old power.
Aims to be democratic & have a social function. STILL RADICAL.
Quick development of peoples aesthetic.
Before Bauhaus...
Avante garde- experimental advances.
Pave the way for people to follow.
Political & social aims. 
supposed to be understood be all
-belief in progress
-belief in workers
-deeply political
Rodchenko-commissioned by state to help aid cultural development. 
advertise libraries and bookshops.
Angular, modern, geometric, photography- new technology.
telling people to teach themselves.
books are visually tied to Bolshevism.
revolution also brings increased role for women... co-leaders to the revolution.

Montage experiments
represents collective. might to change and build modern world.
Lenin represented as reguler Bolshevik. 
circle and wedge return.
supposed to show Russia as axis of the world. 


Continued development of aesthetic... Print- mass produceable and quick. 
people took turns in running the country and being part of the state. 
constructivists set up exhibitions like spaces where there was an emphasis on being new and different.
CONSTRUCTIVISTS.
constructions- pieces of art & structures that could translate and be used in the modern world.
artistic & practical.
Viewed like a lab or a look into the mind of the constructor.
Plans for Tatlin's monument. 
Communist reposte to the Eiffel tower.
three times the size!
designed to be a functional building with lecture theatres, teaching space, and broadcasting etc.
NO heirarchy of art culture in Russia. 
the constructivists aim = achieving the communistic expression of material structures.
Lenin in his constructivist overalls, supposed to be seen as no better than anyone else.
Everything built should represent the glory of Russia. 
& not simply that of certain people.
Textiles and other crafts seen as equally as important as any other form of design.
Elevation of something inferior to very important status.
patterns etc were revelusionary sentiment. and spoke the visual language of bolshevism, circles red wedges etc.
EMPHASIS ON FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.
Heading to a fairer and more equal society through the medium of art and design? 

VKHUTEMAS - progressive art school. prospectus cover by El Lissizky.
Art school to train new constructivists and designers. Came before the Bauhaus.
Shut down when Stalin was instated!
perhaps also capitalist nations didn't want to show communist work as more radical than their own. 
women served great role in the revolutionary new aesthetic. Equality
Women were not to be objectified by men aso as not to sexualise. Sports wear is good example of this.
Began to jettison variety... and tried to create armies of workers dressed in professional revolution suits.
Loss of individuality
went against individuality as they thought it went against equality.
design for workers sky bike...

... Socially equalise.
then also really fantastical objects such as sky bike.
radical thinking.

Dictatorship towards the end of the 20th century. 
REMAINDER OF 20TH CENTURY RUSSIA BECOMES BLACK HOLE. 
1930s saw the loss of female equality.
all aims of communism were lost by the return of the classical art style. 

Cultures can only develop when given chance to do so...

Modernity & Modernism.

Modern was a negative term. Originally modern artists were socially 'below' classical artists.
Through 19th Century, modern becomes purely about progress.
1900 - shift in society - URBANISATION
Factory work in cities became most common employment - where used to be farming in small communities.
Changes in transport - trains.
Changes in communication - telegraph/telephone.
FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES OF LIFE.
Leisure activities change.
Shopping
cinemas
music halls

The city becomes the centre of modernity and is synonymous with the term.
STANDARDIZED WORLD CLOCK
factories introduce shifts.

Eiffel tower.
A direct effect of modernism.
built using purely modernist design

Enlightenment - late 18th century when scientific/philosophical thinking improved massively.
SECULARISATION
HAUSSMANISATION
Hausmann - Architect tasked with revamping Paris city centre.

Paris - 1850 onwards... A NEW PARIS
Large boulevards in favour of narrow streets
Form of social control. (social engineering)
Areas were easier to police
Inner city became an expensive middle class & upper class area. Middle & lower were pushed out of the centre because of the modernisation.
Pschology emerged due to peoples perception of how modernisation was affecting them.
No cohesion within society because of massive physical divide of classes and areas.
Boredom-distraction-alienation became worries.

New Technologies. KAISERPANORAMA 1885
People preferred to view the new world through new technologies. a new way of seeing things?
However new technologies were also very shocking.
first cinema showings, people fled in terror etc. LUMIERE BROTHERS

Modernism is the artists subjective response to their experience of modernity

flying machines that took people to parts of the world they'd never before seen.

People believe painting is no longer necessary due to the introduction of photography.
Painters were therefore forced to look for a new style in which to keep people interested in 'traditional' media.

MODERNISM IS A DIRECT RESPONSE TO NEW TECHNOLOGIES & THE SHIFT IN SOCIETY 
Anti-historicism
Truth to materials (letting modern materials speak for themselves)
Form following function (form is dictated by its purpose)
Technology
Internationalism (art & design should speak universally)

Adolf Loos "ornament is crime" 1908
Felt that people shouldn't feel the need to aestheticise/flourish/decorate.
MASS PRODUCTION became massive due to ideals of Bauhaus movement.

Harry Beck, London underground map
Herbert Bayer's typeface- get rid of capitals.
Times new roman-1932-after futura.
MODERNITY - 1750-1960 Social, cultural experience. 
IMPORTANCE OF MODERNISM 
1. A vocabulary of styles.
2. Art&design education
3. Idea of form following function.

Task 1 - Comparison of 'Uncle Sam Range' and Savile Lumley's poster.

In this essay I am going to compare and contrast two images with a similar intention but with very different ways of delivering it. The first image is one from ‘The Uncle Sam Range’, an American advertising campaign for a range cooker, this particular example by Schumacher & Ettlinger of New York. The second image is a British campaign image by Savile Lumley created to encourage recruitment for the armed forces during the First World War.

            Both images are created with the intention of advertising by making something appear better than it is.  For example Savile Lumley’s poster has a very personal approach to encouraging recruitment, by putting emphasis on the word ‘you’ in the tagline and also making the father figure look directly at the viewer.  This gives the feeling that it’s aimed directly at you. The American poster takes rather a different approach, by giving the product the appearance of wealth and trying to instil feelings of pride and patriotism for an American viewing the image. It uses really simple and almost brash imagery such as including a black slave, and a stereotypical African American face on the earth, which is sat at the table. This is to make other races and countries appear inferior to the Americans, almost trying to advertise the cooker as providing them with the American dream. This is a style advertising that would almost certainly be illegal nowadays because of its references to race.

            The reason for the Uncle Sam advertisements brash use of imagery is its target audience, probably aimed at the middle classes, but giving the image a very upper class feel, implying that that’s how the viewers life would be by buying the cooker. Also this type of imagery and use of references to inferiority was not considered wrong at the time of the images production in 1876, it was merely a way of trying to instate Americas ‘superiority’ over other countries. Savile Lumley’s poster is much more subtle and is based around some fairly clever references to wealth and trying to change the perception of stories people ‘back home’ heard about the war. For example the use of the royal crest on the arm chair to imply wealth, and placing a family in a front room setting, almost showing how the children look up to their father for being a part of the war. The term ‘Great War’ is also used to put a positive outlook on the war, as it persuades people that they will be involved in something honourable and will be fighting for their country, although the reality was often very different.

            To conclude, although the two posters are used to encourage something, recruitment and purchasing a product, in Savile Lumley’s and Schumacher & Ettlinger’s respectively. Due to the social contexts in which they were produced they both have very different approaches, despite both trying to show wealth and pride, Savile Lumley’s poster takes a much more subtle approach which I think works much more effectively.