Modern Art & Design Ⅲ Edit/Leeinhee, PNU

PhotographyAlthough not a new medium, photography

was rapidly developing during this time period. Artists began to explore photographic options such as multiple exposures, and differences in light and shadow.

Often these photographic discoveries intersected with surrealism, resulting in dream-like images.

Left: Man Ray (Rayograph) Untitled, Center: Alvin Langdon Coburn, Vortograph, 1917Right: Man Ray, Le Violon d'Ingres, 1924

Plakatstil (Poster style)Early expressions of modernism are evident in the simplistic

and flat-colored Plakastil (poster style) design school. Plakatstil artists often included nothing more than a single background color, a large simple image, and the product name.

The Sachplakat movement in Switzerland was closely related to the Plakatstil, sharing characteristics of minimalism.

Left: Ludwig Hohlwein, Gaba (bookplate), 1926Center: Otto Baumberger, Hotel St. Gotthard Zurich, 1917Right: Lucian Bernhard, Breisgau-Perle, 1914

Political & Social ClimateThe political and social climate during the

first part of the century was a major catalyst for modernist ideas.

Starting before World War I, many countries were facing growing tensions and unrest in the social order.

These tensions became evident in the design world as modernists sought to break from past ideologies, and experiment with new forms that echoed their dissatisfaction with tradition.

World War IWith the onset of World War I in 1914, applied

art took on a new role as a means of propaganda.

Countries seeking to justify their involvement in “the war to end all wars” launched poster campaigns to acquire resources necessary for the conflict, and to garner support from the public.

Modernist ideals of simplistic form and geometric expression are evident in these examples of propaganda from various countries.

The Nazi RisingThe National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, led by Adolf

Hitler, rose to power during the economic and political turmoil in Germany that followed World War I.

Hitler and the Nazi party launched a massive, and psychologically powerful propaganda effort in order to advance their views and gain power.

These posters, like propaganda used during World War I, embody the ideals of modernist theory. Even the swastika symbol of the Nazi party (right) embraces the pure geometric form loved by modernists.

The Russian Revolution and the Spread of Socialism

Like Germany, Russia was facing serious political and economic turmoil following the war.

Political and social upheavals resulted in the overthrowing of Czar Nicholas II and the end of Russia’s Romanov dynasty.

Shortly after, the Bolshevik party led by Vladimir Lenin, gained power, establishing rule in what was to become the Soviet Union.

Under the new socialist regime, the artist’s sole purpose was to advance socialist theory. Art for art’s sake was denounced, and artists who refused to comply were severely punished. Unable to express themselves, many artists and designers perished in the Gulags (Soviet prison and labor camps).

ConstructivismA result of changes in Russia (USSR), a new movement of art

and architecture called Constructivism was born.

Constructivists believed that “pure” art had no purpose in society, and that art’s only application was to serve the new socialist regime.

Dominant motifs in constructivist art include minimal use of colors (generally red, black, and white), and a strong geometric element.

Advertising poster for the state airline Dobrolet. 1923. A. Rodchenko and V. Stepanova Archive, Moscow

Klutsis, Gustav, Millions of qualified workers for the 518 new factories, 1931

ConstructivismConstructivist artists, such as El Lissitzky,

experimented with photomontage and abstraction in shapes.

Proun 12E, El Lissitzky, 1923

Top: Photomontage studyBottom: Exhibition poster, El Lissitzky, 1929

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919 El Lissitzky

De StijlDe Stijl was a short, yet influential,

movement launched in the Netherlands in summer 1917.

De Stijl artists sought universal harmony and order through the use of pure abstraction. Subjects were reduced in form and color.

Characteristics of classic De Stijl design include strong horizontal and vertical components, and the use of primary colors with black and white.

Proponents of De Stijl include its founder, Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian.

Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red, 1939-1942, Piet Mondrian

Arithmetische Compositie, 1924, Theo van Doesburg

Destroy the Object

The Cubists retained the three-dimensional space . . . their way of seeing remains deeply materialistic; my thinking on abstraction, on the other hand, rests on the belief that such a space must be destroyed; to achieve the destruction of the object I have reached the point of using surfaces.

-- Mondrian

We want concrete not abstract painting, for nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a color, a surface. Once they are liberated . . . they are on their way towards the real goal of art: to create a universal language.

-- Theo Van Doesburg

.

BauhausAt the height of the

Modernist movement emerged one of the most influential design schools of all time, the Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus was opened in 1919 in Weimar, and closed in 1933 as a result of Nazi persecution.

Even after its closing, the Bauhaus continued to leave its mark on the world, through influences on graphic design, architecture, and furniture design.

BauhausFaculty and students from all over the world

united at the Bauhaus to combine new design approaches using elements from a variety of movements.

Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar, 1919–1923, 1923, Walter Gropius

Bauhaus Ausstellung Poster, Fritz Schleifer, 1922

Modernism in Furniture DesignModernist ideals became a pivotal influence in other areas of design as well.

These examples show how furniture reflected modernist principles.

Red and Blue Chair, Gerrit Rietveld, 1917

Nonconformist Chair, Eileen Gray

The Barcelona Chair, Mies van der Rohe The Barrel Chair, Frank Lloyd Wright

Modernism in Architecture

These examples show modernism’s influence on early and present day architecture.

The Bauhaus Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, Walter

Gropius

I.M. Pei, Architect - Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University

The Berlin Holocaust Memorial, Peter

Eisenman.

Modern PhilosophyRationalism & Empiricism

Historical OverviewRationalism

Descartes Spinoza

Leibniz

Empiricism

Locke Berkeley

Hume

Wolff

Kant

Rationalism

Leading contributors:

Spinoza

Descartes

Leibniz (Leibnitz)

Knowledge has a base of which we can be certain.

Mathematics illustrates this.

We know general statements (universals) which logically could not be the result of (a finite number of) sense impressions

Basic tenets of RationalismReason has access to reality as it really isReason can go beyond what is given to us in experienceReason can then grasp things, not as they appear, but as they really are

The Leibniz-Wolffian SchoolReason (without experience) can know about God, immortality of the soul, and human freedom

Reason has direct access to “meta-physical” knowledge

Empiricism

Leading contributors:

John Locke (1632-1704)

David Hume(1711-1776)

And the influence of Isaac Newton is not to be ignored!

Basic tenets of EmpiricismAll knowledge comes from experience.The mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa).The mind is passive, merely a receptor of sense impressions.

Hume’s radicalizes these, ending in SkepticismUnbridgeable gap between sense impressions and objects in the world.All we know are ‘sensations’ playing in our minds.The necessary ‘connectedness’ of experience is problematic Causality is merely superstition, born of habit

Rationalism

Its view of the fundamental problem to work on: carefully deducing from clear premises what we can be certain of.

Problem posed by critics: those premises reflect non-necessary properties of the real world. How can that be? Too much of a coincidence not to be the result of learning!

Innate ideas

Empiricism

Fundamental problem: the justification of any sort of generalization, going beyond the data.

(“…Yes, on this side…”)

Problem posed by its critics:

But we do know things with certainty, which empiricism can’t account for.

No innate ideas, of course