WEEKLY JOURNAL 6: November 05
The Culture of Consumption 1920’s - 1930’s
The Culture of Consumption 1920’s - 1930’s
Designing the modern lifestyle
Modern style in graphic design
Consumer culture
The profession
Public Interest Campaigns and Information Design 1930’s- 1950’s
Public interest and education
Photojournalism and documentary
Wartime information
Commercial and technical uses of information design
Information analysis and design process
The Culture of Consumption thru Public Interest Campaigns and Information Design 1920’s- 1950’s
In Module 7, we experienced the artist rebellion ‘Breaking the Rules’ to the ‘culture of consumption’, as a result they were able to create a defined profession, by developing the following: public interest, public education, photojournalism with documentary, training out of work people as artists through the ‘wartime information program’, developing commercial and technical uses of information design, and reestablishing information analysis & design process. In Kent Manske’s lecture we saw many examples of the development of design from many countries, including Russia, Germany and the Netherlands’s to name only a few. We learned about the artists sensibilities. This weeks examples are of, “Object Posters, that can be found at http://www.internationalposter.com/search-results.aspx?defaultview=browse&title=Object+Poster&style=Object+Poster&page=1*2. (If you are viewing this document online please find the missing pictures online, links are provided in the bibliography.)
During the Culture of Consumption in the 1920’s - 1930’s, artists of the ‘culture of consumption’ expressed themselves in the ways of spontaneity ‘geometric abstraction’, their mind set was of ‘spirit of the times’, and with an attitude of ‘better the world we live in, an advancement in consciousness.
Public Interest Campaigns and Information Design 1930’s- 1950’s, was a time of ‘fusion of neighbors in Europe’. This is the time when branding really started and it was the large corporations that employed the futuristic, rebel artists that raised the status of the artists to a profession of professional graphic designers. Small movements in Europe started to brand, give purpose. Expression in design replaced ornamentation and design sensibilities are abstract.
Graphic design goes through streamlined, reductionism, sans serif fonts are used ‘minimizing’. Art Deco, occurs after World War 1 when America has money and is prosperous and is aimed at consumers. It’s components are rounded, gradient and uplifting. Heroic Realism, under Stalin, was design, in a sole purpose to persuade.
There was so much information this week that I think a person could fill ten separate journals on this period alone. I looked up the ‘Wartime Information’ project and did not find much, which was disappointing, as I was going to focus on that particular subject. I did find a rather nice article about the ‘Swiss Object Poster’, and I have posted it here.
Object Posters
“The term Sachplakat, or Object Poster, was coined in Germany to describe a new type of poster which featured a realistic depiction of the product and little else. Lucien Bernhard’s revolutionary 1905 poster for Preister matches is considered the first of this type, and its utter simplicity became a hallmark of the emerging Plakatstil (Poster Style).
The craze for this poster type continued in Switzerland, where the passion for precision in printing and drawing technique was unsurpassed. In 1923 Otto Baumberger drew a tweed coat for PKZ with its label serving as the only text - which many mistook for a photograph.
Shortly after, the iconic beauty of the everyday object became the mission of a group of artists in Basel, who made the Sachplakat the leading Swiss style in the ‘40’s and early ‘50’s. Laced with humor and stunning visual impact, these posters represent the last great period of the lithographic poster, which high cost and long production cycles was soon to eliminate.” * 2
To view all Object Posters: http://www.internationalposter.com/search-results.aspx?defaultview=browse&title=Object%20Poster&style=Object%20Poster” *2
The following information, I found so very interesting and pertinent to our focus, that I’ve chosen to place it in this weeks journal, as opposed to a link, that might not get clicked. It is taken from a very lengthy discussion I found at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.pattern/lesson8art.html. All credit goes to “© Copyright 1996, Pippa Drew and Dorothy Wallace, Dartmouth College”
Post War Art in Europe
“World War II presented Europe with another major disaster. Artists again raged at the hypocrisy of society -- it’s willingness to destroy life in spite of pretensions to humanism and justice. Wheeler. The existentialist writer, Sartre expressed the core philosophy of post-war art movements in Europe. “Man is alone in the world in a metaphysical void... the individual is free to seek his own way.” Wheeler. In this case, angst over the brutality of war produced “an anti-aesthetic primitivism” rather than the cool and absurdist expressions of Dadaists. Wheeler. Their approach encouraged the concept of man’s inner life as a valid subject, producing an and intuitive style, which came to be known as Art Informal or Tachism. Wheeler. It was characterized by loose, unconfined marks and shapes, as distinct from the hard edges of geometric abstraction. Wheeler. Expressive areas of texture were created by mixing paint with metal and other materials. The paintings of Dubuffet, reveal these features through flat, grotesque figures. These images express his low regard for conventional standards of beauty and composition. Wheeler. European Op artists countered his crude, accidental shapes with highly ordered patterns that made vibrating optical effects. Janson 804. 37. Jean Dubuffet, Le Metafisyx (Corps de Dames), 1950.
Hundertwasser
A Viennese post-war artist, Hundertwasser adopted automatism and tachism into a style that exhibited strong biomorphic patterns. Hundertwasser was born in 1928 in the repressed atmosphere of pre-war Vienna, and found inspiration in Klimt’s paintings. Strongly individualistic and talented, Hundertwasser left art school and went to Paris in 1949 where he was exposed to the work of Paul Klee and the Tachists. He invented his own style of painting, transautomatism. Briefly, transautomatism is planned automatism, or as Hundertwasser described it, the ability to identify with the process rather than the creation. Still in his youth Hundertwasser began a bohemian nomadic life and devoted himself to a philosophy based on the organicism of art. Hundertwasser opposed the Bauhaus and its square geometry. He eschewed the straight line in preference for the spiral which he regarded as a symbol of natural cycles -- the continuity of life and death. “The spiral is a moral rejection of a rational mechanistic world with destructive and straight line.” The organic shape of the spiral infused his work with repeating “onion slice” patterns in bright jeweled colors. Hundertwasser’s anti-establishment theories on the environment, and his sense of art as a happening and consciousness raising process presaged the Sixties. His enthusiasm led him to write the Mouldiness Manifesto, a treatise on the “organic law of expansion, and rejection of rationalistic and functionalistic architecture.” In this eccentric piece he proposes that a building should embody organic patterns of mildew.
Postwar American Painting
While there was artistic growth in Europe after the war, the center of attention shifted to America where many great European artists sought refuge from Fascism. The United States had emerged as an unscarred victor from the preceding two wars, and provided an inspiring environment for artists. At the same time, existentialism and Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious influenced the mind set of American artists as it had European artists. Janson, 794.
In post-war New York City the early Abstract Expressionist movement blossomed, and evolved into two bold styles: Action Painting and Field Painting. The painter, Jackson Pollock exemplified the style of Action painting in his famous drip paintings where the painting process became a “counterpart to life itself.” Pollock’s paintings developed into a record of the artist’s psychic and physical journey with the medium. His marks, as they splashed the surface, recorded thickness, velocity and color of the paint pigment. The resulting paintings possess lavish textural patterns and energy. Page 796. 38 Jackson Pollock Autumn Rhythm: number 30 1950.
The Color Field Painter, Rothco reduced the wild elements of action painting into large patches of color that establish a subtle balance on the canvas. Other Color Field painters eliminated brushwork completely. Morris Louis poured thin paint onto the canvas producing a delicate pattern of stained colors that make a composition approaching bilateral symmetry.” *3
Conclusion
There was a lot going on in this time frame 1920’s - 1950, I’m exhausted having experienced the artist rebellion ‘Breaking the Rules’ to the ‘culture of consumption’, though I believe this would have been, so far, the most exciting time to be a professional graphic design artist. Kent Manske’s lectures and enthusiasm as we approach the now keeps my interest ever growing. This weeks examples are of, “Object Posters, that can be found at http://www.internationalposter.com/search-results.aspx?defaultview=browse&title=Object+Poster&style=Object+Poster&page=1*2. (If you are viewing this document online please find the missing pictures online, links are provided in the bibliography, below.)
Bibliography
All information, most everything written unless marked otherwise is all credited to the authors of ‘Graphic Design History, A Critical Guide’ and Professor Kent Manske.
*2 http://www.internationalposter.com/style-primer/object-poster.aspx
*3 © Copyright 1996, Pippa Drew and Dorothy Wallace, Dartmouth College
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.pattern/lesson8art.html
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