ART modern movements:CubismFuturismConstructivismDe StijlSurrealismExpressionism

The first decades of the 20th Century witnessed a tremendous range of experiments leading to an expanded vocabulary of graphic forms: Following are examples of art and graphic designs that make use of the similar vocabulary.

You should be able to identify work by each of the listed artists and know some of the defining principles of each style.

ART modern movements:Cubism

Pablo PicassoGeorges Braque

Cubism: developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1905.

Abandoned literal representation of space for shifting multiple views and a flat pictorial space.

Reconstructed space as fragmented planes, with emphasis on the flatness of the picture plane

(Cubism’s approach to redefining pictorial space had an enormous impact on graphic design; but its rejection of classical perspective began with the emulation of Japanese prints in the late 1800s)

Cubism:

Three paintings byPablo Picasso

Cubism

A .M. Cassandre

Influence of syntheticCubism

also interesting use of figure and groundand balancing largemass on the tangentwhere the wheel meetsthe rail.

Cubism

Art Deco

A.M. Cassandre explored many other forms of expression, including sequential images, as in thefamous Dubonnet ads.

Art Deco

Sources and Iconography: Abstract ArtThe language of Cubism and Futurism was put to good use by graphic artist like E. McKnight Kauffer.Cubism allowed objects to be abstracted to geometric forms reassembled in new waysand futurism used repetition and converginglines to suggest speed and energy.

Posters:

Art Deco

Sources and Iconography: Abstract ArtA.M. Cassandre was a master at manipulating thespace of the design to increase the sense of sizethrough scale contrasts (the tug boat in front of the the liner. He worked largely with strong geometric formsin carefully defined relationships.

Left: Poster for the film Metropolis, 1926, Paul Neudmann

Middle: Brooklyn Bridge, painting by Joseph Stella, Amercan 1941Right: Poster for Daily Herald, E McKnight Kaufer 1919

E. McKnight Kauffer

Influence of syntheticCubism

Kauffer was born in America and moved to England to work, Making many memorable posters and book covers.

Book cover

Cubism

ART modern movements:Futurism

Giocomo BallaGino SeveriniFortunato Depero

Rhythmic repetition,

 

Futurism”

painting by Giacomo Balla 1912

The Futurists use the fractured planes explored in cubism to create sense of motion in space. Largely an Italian movement, Futurism experiments with restructured type compositions were influential in suggesting new ideas in graphic design.

They also glorified speed, industrialism and violence. Read the Futurist Manifesto on the class web site painting by Gino Severini “armoured train in

action” 1915

Rhythmic repetition,

 

Futurism”

Futurists imagery came from the explorations of cubism.

(above left) Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending A Staircase 1912 (above right) Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity 1913

Rhythmic repetition,

 

Futurism”

E McKnight Kauffer: 1919 Poster for the Daily Herald of London

Futurism:

Veramon-Schering Fortunato Depero, 1928Ink on card,  

Rhythmic repetition,

 

Guns in Action Gino Severini, 1925 Oil on canvas)

Often, words would be included in paintings to create a

sound landscape as well.

 

Futurism”

Futurism:

Clearly there are (and perhaps always have been) cultures and subgroups that glorify violence. (Gang culture?). But let's focus our attention on how that glorification finds expression in art and design.

The futurists were (before WWI at least) not fighting a war. What was unique in their case was they found a means to express those feelings in visual form, through images in the new cubist genre.

Are there art forms today (music, visual art, or interactive art) that feed our appetite for experiencing the thrill of violence? Is our consumption of special-effects ultra-violent movies any different from the glorification of violence that the Futurists were about?

Any art/music/entertainment trends that you know of that seem to glorify violence today?

Futurism”

Futurism:

Multiplied Cyclist

Fortunato Depero, 1922-23

Oil on canvas (700 x 765)

  Futurism”

Futurism:

Multiplied Cyclist

Fortunato Depero, 1922-23

Oil on canvas (700 x 765)

 

  Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1920s Photograph

Self Portrait  

Converging Lines, forced perspective, tightly-cropped

 

Futurism”

Futurism:

Book Cover of Depero Futurista(The Bolted Book)Written and Published - Fortunato

Depero, 1927Aluminium nuts and bolts, steel cotter pins, ,  

Stated limitation of 1000 copies (never completed). Design by Depero. Depero's famous `bolted book,' an anthology of his own theatrical and commercial designs from 1913 to 1927, "one of the avant-garde masterpieces in this history of the book-object" (Jentsch). "[This] book is Mechanical, bolted like a motor, Dangerous, can constitute a projectile weapon. Unclassifiable, cannot fit into a library with the other volumes. And therefore it is in its exterior form Original, Invasive, and Assaulting, like Depero and his art" (from the preface to the work)."

Futurism”

A.M. Cassandre

One of the best-knownposter artists of the period, he employed a large vocabulary of graphic devices to create forceful graphics. He did many posters for the French Rail System, expressing speed and movement using devices pioneered by the Futurists

Rhythmic repetition, exaggerated perspective, rapidly-converging lines, top-heavy

 

Futurism”

Russian Artists following the First World War split into two camps: those like Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky and Kasimir Malevich believed art should be free of practical concerns and devote itself to spiritual expression

Malevich promoted pure geometric abstraction as way of seeking a pure artistic experience

Kandinsky later authored the book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” was primarily interested in the psychological and spiritual implications of color:

IT IS EVIDENT THEREFORE THAT COLOUR HARMONY MUST REST ONLY ON A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION IN THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS ONE OF THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF THE INNER NEED.

Wassily Kandinsky “Improvisation 1912

Kasimir Malevich Suprematists Painting

Suprematism

Suprematismand Art as SpiritualExpression

This is similar to attitudes of the German Expressionist movement,

with which Kandinsky was laterassociated, but Expressionist

artists tended to favor representationFor example, Kathe Kollwitz (1923)

“Survivors Make War on War”

ART modern movements:Surrealism

Rene MagritteMax ErnstGiorgio de Chirico

De Chirico:( left) Disturbing Muse(above) andromache

)

Surrealism

Surrealism:

Developed from Dada movement: began as anti-art that deliberately defied reason.

Reaction against what it saw as the innate insanity of rational culture that produced the horrors of World War One.

Drawing heavily on the theories of Sigmund Freud, it sought to unite conscious and unconscious realms. It saw the unconscious mind as a well-spring of creativity that could be tapped.

(Based on the “Surrealist Manifesto” [published by Andre Breton in 1924)

De Chirico:( left) Disturbing Muse(above) andromache

)

Surrealism

.

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SurrealismMax Ernst 1923-2Woman, Old Man and Flower/Femme,

)

SurrealismMax ErnstWavering Woman 1928

Max Ernst and de Chirico both employed doll-like figures in an abstracted landscape.

Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression. The movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the "rationalism" that had guided European culture and politics in the past and had culminated in the horrors of World War I. According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."

(Based on the “Surrealist Manifesto” [published by Andre Breton in 1924)

Villa Savoy, Le Corbusier 1928-31

)Max Ernst 1932 City: using rubbing and found imagerySurrealism

Magritte often employed disturbing juxtapositions of objects or visual contradictions.

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Surrealism Rene Magritte, 1964

)

Surrealism

The human condition: often disturbingSpatial paradoxes or visualizations of metaphors

ART modern movements:Expressionism

Oskar KokoschkaEgon Schiele

Kathe Kollwitz

)

Expressionism

Figurative movement that tried to capture the angst of Post-War Europe in the 1920s

Expressionism sought to convey the inner landscape of the soul of the artist. It also addressed social issues, but usually with a spiritual motive.

Wassily Kandinsky “Improvisation 1912

Kathe Kollwitz (1923)Survivors Make War on War”

)

Expressionism

Expressionism in visual and graphic art was a large movement that often sought to evoke spiritual qualities through images. Some groups include the Blue Rider group, centered on Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, and Die Brucker, which included Ludwig Kirchner and Emile Nolde.

Kandinsky published a work called “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” He ascribed specific spiritual and emotional qualities to colors.

Der blaue Reiter booklet, 1912

Die Brucker Poster1906

)

ExpressionismWassily Kandinsky “Improvisation 1912

Perhaps the best-knownmanifestation of GermanExpressionism is in film. Classics of the 1920s such as the dark and brooding“Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”and the mad-scientist androbot tale of “Metropolis”by Fritz Lang had a majorimpact on cinema and are quoted in many contemporary films.

)

End of survey of modern movements :

Things to do:

Read the Futurist Manifesto to better understand motivation of the Futurists

Watch some or all of Battleship Potemkin and observe the complex way Eisenstein builds scenes from multiple separate views pieced together.

Watch some of “Metropolis” compare its robot and mad scientist to others you have seen. (see clips on your DVD or on line) Note the themes of progress and social class

Watch “the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” a classic of GermanExpressionist cinema.