Chapter 13: The Influence of Modern Art Part I
The Influence of Modern Art Basic Ideas about color, form, social protest, and raw emotion occupied the thoughts of many artists. Some modern movements had more of an effect than others on graphic design as a whole such as Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. Pablo Picasso, Man with Violin, 1911 12.
Cubism By innovating a new approach to visual composition, this movement changed the course of painting and graphic design. Its visual inventions became a catalyst for experiments that pushed art and design toward geometric abstraction and new approaches to pictorial space.
Cubism: Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso Cubism introduced a design concept which was not based on nature. What are the general characteristics of Cubism? LegeAfrican mask, from what is now the Republic of Congo, undated. Pablo Picasso, Nude, c. 1906 07.
Cubism-Analytical The shapes, textures and values are the real subject of these early paintings. The cubist sought to show everyday objects as the mind, not the eye, perceives them from all sides at once. What are the characteristics of Analytical Cubism? Pablo Picasso, Man with Violin, 1911 12.
Cubism-Synthetic What are the characteristics of Synthetic Cubism? Juan Gris, Fruit Bowl, 1916
Fernand Léger Fernand Léger moved cubism away from the initial impulses of its founders and took Paul Cézanne s famous dictum, treat nature in terms of the cylinder and the sphere and the cone far more seriously than any other cubist. Fernand Léger, The City, 1919.
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Fernand Léger The letterforms in his graphic work pointed the way toward geometric letterforms. His flat planes of color, urban motifs, and the hard-edged precision of his machine forms helped define the modern sensibility after World War I. Fernand Léger, page from La fin du monde, 1919.
Futurism The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the first amongst them to produce a manifesto of their artistic philosophy in his Manifesto of Futurism (1909), calling for artists to test their ideas and forms against the new realities of a scientific and industrial society, first released in Milan and published in the French paper Le Figaro (February 20). Marinetti: Futurist Manifesto (1909)
Filippo Marinetti The founder of Futurism was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The Futurists admired all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature.
Futurism Manifesto of the Futurist Painters: 1. Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism. 2. Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation. 3. Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent. 4. Bear bravely and proudly the smear of madness with which they try to gag all innovators. 5. Regard art critics as useless and dangerous. 6. Rebel against the tyranny of words: Harmony and good taste and other loose expressions which can be used to destroy the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin 7. Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past. 8. Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.
Futurism-Poetry The manifesto voiced enthusiasm for war, the machine age, speed and modern life We will destroy museums, libraries, and fight against moralism, feminism and all utilitarian cowardice. Marinetti and his followers created emotionally charged poetry that defied correct syntax and grammar. Challenging grammatical and typographical constraints, the futurists discarded horizontal/vertical structure in their poetry. Filippo Marinetti, cover for Zang Tumb Tumb, 1912. The title is a sound poem in itself.
Filippo Marinetti, cover for Les mots en liberté futurists (Futurist Words-in-Freedom), 1919.
Futurism-Poetry What are two common elements in Futurist poetry?
Futurism-Poetry Stéphane Mallarmé, pages from A Throw of the Dice, 1897. Lewis Carroll, Alice and Wonderland page
Guillaume Apollinaire Apollinaire incorporated words, letters and phrases into complex visual collages. His contribution was a book called Calligrammes. It contained poems in which the letterforms were arranged to form a visual design, figure, or pictograph. He introduced the concept of simultaneity to the time-and-sequence-bound typography of the printed page. Guillaume Apollinaire, Il pleut (It s Raining), from Calligrammes, 1918.
"il Pleut" ("it's raining"), from Calligrammes (1918) Guillaume Apollinaire A poem from Calligrammes (1918) Guillaume Apollinaire
Futurism The futurist painters sought to introduce dynamic motion, speed, and energy to the static, twodimensional surface. Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912.
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Fortunato Depero One of the artists who applied futurist philosophy to graphic and advertising design. New Futurist Theater Company Poster (1924) Fortunato Depero
In 1927, he published a compilation of his typographical experiments, advertisements, and other works as DinamoAzari. This book is a first-hand account of the Futurist Fortunato Depero'sapproach to Futurism until 1927. First time featured a mechanical binding consisting of two bolts holding the pages together, as conceived by Fedele Azari, the publisher. Influenced by the focus on the machine that characterized Futurism in the early 1920s book should be considered a manifesto of the Machine Age. Dinamo Azari (1927), Fortunato Depero
How did Futurism affect other art movements? What was Fortunato Depero s contribution to the modern art movement? Fortunato Depero
Dada Dadaism was a cultural movement that involved visual arts, literature, poetry, theatre and graphic design. The dada movement began around 1915 and continued until about 1923. For many it was an anti-war (World War I) movement protesting traditional beliefs of art.
Dada According to the artists, dada was not real art, it was anti-art meant to be everything opposite of what art stood for. Dada was a movement in visual art, but also literature (mainly poetry), theatre, and graphic design.
Ball, reading "Karawane", Club Voltaire, 1916 Hugo Ball, Dada poem, Karawane, 1917
Fortunato Depero, page from Depero futurista, 1927.
Alfred Stieglitz, photograph of The Fountain, by Marcel Duchamp, 1917.
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Dada Dadaists claimed to not be creating art, but to be mocking and defaming a society gone mad. For so much protest against creating art they did manage to create some notable visual art that influenced graphic design. Photomontage - Images and materials are recycled, with both chance juxtapositions and planned decisions contributing to the creative process. Hannah Höch, Da dandy, collage and photomontage, 1919.
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Dada: Kurt Schwitters, Collage artist When asked what is art? He replied, What isn t? In this modern fairy tale, type and image are wedded literally and figuratively as the B overpowers the X with verbiage. Kurt Schwitters, untitled, probably 1920s. Material gathered from the streets, alleys, and garbage cans was washed and cataloged according to size and color for use as the raw material of art.
Dada: Kurt Schwitters Kurt Schwitters, pages from Merz 11, 1924. Ads for Pelikan. Kurt Schwitters, stationary for consulting agency, 1927
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Dada: John Heartfield Berlin Dadaist, John Heartfield, held vigorous revolutionary political beliefs against the growing Nazi party and oriented many artistic activities toward visual communications in order to raise public consciousness about it. He used photomontage as a powerful propaganda weapon.
John Heartfield, page from Neue Jugend, 1917.
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