1900 - 1920 - Robyn Rand - Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with the strings."

A Russian artist, he is one of the most famous early 20th Century artists and painted some of the first modern abstract works. A successful lawyer, he chose to study art at the age of 30 and only 26 years later was teaching at the Bauhaus. Mostly he learnt to love colour and contrast as a child and, as the quote above implies he related the act of painting to that of creating music.

From 1909 to 1911 Kandinsky painted a large series of paintings he called 'Improvisations', these were a great development in the painting style of the time and he called this style 'Expressive Abstraction' in which he displayed his own 'inner nature'. 

In all of his work, particularly in his Improvisations, Kandinsky used colour to find forms of expression that would be capable of representing inner visions, associations and emotional or intellectual matters in pictorial form, as if seen through the senses. He seems to show us a conflict between line and colour which brings release from the traditional painting of an object. Using shape, space and colour to help with placement and represents the object rather then trying to imitate or reproduce an exact image of the object. Doing this he seems to have achieved a 'floating in space' state for the image which exceeds the limits of traditional perspective and presents a sort of 4th dimension through the use of weight, placement and colour, which gives his paintings amazing visual energy. 

 Kandinsky co-founded a number of movements with in the two decades we are looking at, the most well known are: The Phalanx in 1901, The New Artists Association in 1909, and Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. He was also well known to, and worked with some of the most influential artists of that era.  His experiments with colour, space and placement have had and still is having a huge impact on the art world. Kandinsky was always adamant about the importance of including text, music and movement to make a complete work of art, so I think he would be thrilled to use the materials we have available to us today (and probably would be a huge contributor to youtube).

http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Kandin.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

http://www.thefineartcompany.co.uk/abstract/abstract-LW13.htm

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/

ART NOUVEAU

 

1890 - 1914

{Post by Melissa}

{ Art Nouveau - Organic forms inspired by nature, frequently accentuated with asymmetrical curves or elaborate flourishes characterize its decorative vocabulary }

Art Nouveau was in many ways a response to the radical changes caused by the rapid urban growth and technological advances that followed the industrial revolution. Art Nouveau believed that all the Arts should work in harmony to create a total work of Art. Being buildings, furniture, textiles, clothes, design and jewelry all conformed to the principles of Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau's fifteen year peak was strongly felt through Europe - from Glascow to Moscow to Spain but its influence was global. As in France, the "New Art" was called by different names in the various style centres where it developed through out Europe. In Belgium, it was called Style nouille. In Germany, it was Jugendstil or "Young Style".

It later influenced psychedelic Art that flourished in the 1960's and 1970's. Japanese wood block prints with their curved lines, patterned surfaces, contrasting voids and flatness of visual plane also inspired Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau style reached an international audience through the vibrant graphic arts printed in such periodicals as the Savoy, La Plume, Jugend, Dekorative Kunst, The Yellow Book and The Studio. The Studio featured the bold, symbolist - inspired linear drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. Other influential graphic artists included Alphonse Mucha, Jules Cheret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautre.

By the start of the first World War, Art Nouveau design, which itself was expensive to produce, began to be dropped in favour of more streamlined, rectilinear modernism that was cheaper and thought to be more faithful to the rough, plain, industrial aesthetic that became Art Deco.

http://www.modernsilver.com/artnouveaudeco.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

http://www.muchafoundation.org/MHome.aspx

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mucha.htmhttp://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c19th/artnouveau.htm

JOANA_POST.7

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  (1864-1901)

Many immortal painters lived and worked in Paris during the late 19th century. They included Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec observed and captured in his art the Parisian nightlife of the belle époque.

Unknown at the time, Henri suffered from a genetic condition that prevented his bones from healing properly. Deprived of the kind of life that a normal body would have permitted, Toulouse-Lautrec lived wholly for his art. 

He became an important Post-Impressionist painter, art nouveau illustrator, and lithographer; and recorded in his works many details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec also contributed a number of illustrations to the magazine Le Rire during the mid-1890s.

He was drawn to Montmartre, an area of Paris famous for its bohemian lifestyle and for being the haunt of artists, writers, and philosophers. Tucked deep into Montmartre was the garden of Monsieur Pere Foret where Toulouse-Lautrec executed a series of pleasant plein-air paintings of Carmen Gaudin, the same red-head model who appears in The Laundress (1888). When the nearby Moulin Rouge cabaret opened its doors, Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to produce a series of posters. 

He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, and at the same time he would make swift sketches. The next morning in his studio he would expand the sketches into bright-colored paintings.

His debt to the Impressionists, in particular the more figurative painters Manet and Degas, is apparent. His style was also influenced by the classical Japanese woodprints which became popular in art circles in Paris. In the works of Toulouse-Lautrec can be seen many parallels to Manet's detached barmaid at A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and the behind-the-scenes ballet dancers of Degas. He excelled at capturing people in their working environment, with the colour and the movement of the gaudy night-life present, but the glamour stripped away. He was masterly at capturing crowd scenes in which the figures are highly individualised. At the time that they were painted, the individual figures in his larger paintings could be identified by silhouette alone, and the names of many of these characters have been recorded. His treatment of his subject matter, whether as portraits, scenes of Parisian night-life, or intimate studies, has been described as both sympathetic and dispassionate.

In order to become a part of the Montmartre life--as well as to protect himself against the crowd's ridicule of his appearance--Toulouse-Lautrec began to drink heavily. In the 1890s the drinking started to affect his health. He was confined to a sanatorium and to his mother's care at home, but he could not stay away from alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on Sept. 9, 1901, at the family chateau of Malrome. Since then his paintings and posters--particularly the Moulin Rouge group--have been in great demand and bring high prices at auctions and art sales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec

http://www.lautrec.info/

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/toulouse-lautrec/

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/T/toulouse-lautrec.html

http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Toulouse.html

post7: katie1900-1920 Designer

El Lissitzky 1890-1941

El Lissitzky was a Russian artist, designer, photographer,typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design. Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change. In 1920 he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. Lissitzky soon devoted himself to Jewish art, exhibiting works by local Jewish artists, traveling to Mahilyow to study the traditional architecture and ornaments of oldsynagogues, and illustrating many Yiddish children's books. His first designs appeared in the 1917 book Sihas hulin: Eyne fun di geshikhten (An Everyday Conversation), where he incorporated Hebrew letters with a distinctly art nouveau flair. His next book was a visual retelling of the traditional Jewish Passover song Had gadya (One Goat), in which El Lissitzky showcased a typographic device that he would often return to in later designs. In the book, he integrated letters with images through a system that matched the colour of the characters in the story with the word referring to them. In the designs for the final page, El Lissitzky depicts the mighty "hand of God" slaying the angel of death, who wears the tsar's crown. This representation links the redemption of the Jews with the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. An alternative view asserts that the artist was wary of Bolshevik internationalisation, leading to destruction of traditional Jewish culture. Visual representations of the hand of God would recur in numerous pieces throughout his entire career, most notably with his 1925 photomontage self-portrait The Constructor, which prominently featured the hand. In development since 1915, suprematism rejected the imitation of natural shapes and focused more on the creation of distinct, geometric forms. most famous work by Lissitsky from the same period was the 1919 propaganda poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge". Russia was going through a civil war at the time, which was mainly fought between the "Reds" (communists and revolutionaries) and the "Whites" (monarchists, conservatives, liberals and socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution). The image of the red wedge shattering the white form, simple as it was, communicated a powerful message that left no doubt in the viewer's mind of its intention. The piece is often seen as alluding to the similar shapes used on military maps along with its political symbolism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Lissitzky

www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/digitized_collections/lissitzky

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/lissitzky_el.html

www.el-lissitzky.com

www.studiocleo.com/gallerie/lissitzky/lissitzkywel.html

art nouveau and architecture

The architectural and artistic answer to the literary Modernist movement that began in the late 19th century was the Art Nouveau movement in Europe. The Art Nouveau movement reached its peak in the early 20th century, which is when the majority of Riga’s Art Nouveau houses were built, beginning in 1899. Riga’s term for the movement, Jugendstil, comes from the German and Scandinavian movement named after the avant-garde periodical Jugend (“Youth”). Unlike the stiffer sensibilities of Victorian style, Art Nouveau stressed a complete creative freedom, mixing fantastic elements with a tendency to show all utilitarian construction elements as artistic value, with very characteristic elements such as dynamic, undulating, and flowing lines and geometrical ornaments. In Riga, Art Nouveau could be split into two main directions, decorative and romantic-nationalistic Art Nouveau.
Riga is one of the largest centres of Art Nouveau, with more than a third of the buildings of its Central District built in the style; other significant centres include Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Vienna, Krakow, and Moscow and St. Petersburg, among others. The main street for Riga’s Art Nouveau district is Elizabetes, which intersects Brivibas Boulevard. In addition to Elizabetes Street, Alberta and Strelnieku Streets also feature impressive examples of the style. In total, there are over 800 Art Nouveau buildings in Riga, but finding them all would be quite an ambitious undertaking, so we’ll try to guide you to the most noteworthy ones
www.laviniaathome.com/ images/riga-st-peter
www.rigalatvia.net/en_art_nouveau.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Y2otylg7Y
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Y2otylg7Y
www.riga.lv/EN/Channels/About_Riga/Riga_architecture/Art_nouveau/

this is a post

Jack's post about Art Nouveau

ART NOUVEAU

Art Nouveau is an international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century 1890–1905. Art Nouveau's fifteen-year peak was most strongly felt throughout Europe—from Glasgow to Moscow to Spain—but its influence was global.

                                                                                     

Embracing all forms of art and design: architecture, furniture, glassware, graphic design, jewellery, painting, pottery, metalwork, and textiles. This was a sharp contrast to the traditional separation of art into the distinct categories of fine art (painting and sculpture) and applied arts (ceramics, furniture, and other practical objects) it was also a movement of distinct individuals such as Gustav Klimt, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Alfons Mucha, René Lalique, Antoni Gaudí and Louis Comfort Tiffany, each of whom interpreted it in their own individual manner.  Although Art Nouveau fell out of flavour with the arrival of 20th-century modernist styles, it is seen today as an important bridge between the historicism of Neoclassicism and modernism.

There's also something about Art Nouveau that is perhaps an antidote to the irony that permeates contemporary practice. Art Nouveau is based on very positivist principles. It's not critique and irony. It is celebratory art; it can be shocking, but it's celebratory.

Art Nouveau is an important part of art history because it not only bridge between Neoclassicism and Modernism but also arefreshing punch that can still be scene in art today. 

Links

www.highbeam.com

www.historytoday.com

www.amazon.com/Art-Nouveau

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

www.gaudiallgaudi.com

Chloe. Hector Guimard 1900- 1920

Hector Guimard is best known for his architectural achievements at the end of the nineteenth century, including several entrances for the Paris Métro. His designs represent the unique vision of Art Nouveau, which developed in Europe as a reaction to the mechanized world engendered by the Industrial Revolution and to the historical revivalist style prevalent during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Guimard envisioned his architecture as a totality, within which interior space, decoration, and furnishings corresponded to the exterior structure and appearance of the building. Thus every detail—upholstery, wall and floor coverings, ceiling ornaments, hardware, and fixtures—was a part of his creation.

This silk panel (1900) conveys Guimard's brilliant elegance and sensuality. Its strongly marked lines seem to take possession of the form. The panel, possibly an insert for the bodice of a dress of cream-colored silk tabby, is embellished with machine embroidery in white and ivory silk and worked in stem and satin stitches. Parts of the design are painted light tan with black details.

Hector Designed the Balcony Railing in 1905 – 1907
In 1900 he designed the Paris Metro Shield, which are now being sold all over the world as reproductions made from an original shield.
Hector also designed the Sign for the classical art nouveau metro in 1900.


http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwf/ho_49.85.11.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Guimard

http://www.wetcircuit.com/2007/01/31/hector-guimard/

http://www.decodame.com/archgarden/agaa12.htm

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5180308

Awww... do I have to?

Technological Advancements and Influences in 20th Century Graphic Design

Technology impacted not only the way work was produced, but how it was designed as well. In 1907, Peter Behrens became the first corporate designer for AEG. His designs were made for a mechanical age; the stark, geometric solutions were easily reproduced through mechanical means and easily translated into other forms. Behrens’ use of objective forms gave his work a machine-made look and eliminated all traces of the human touch. These forms were said to be objective, universal, and modern, an embodiment of everything mechanical and technological.

The Letterpress

• -The advancement of the letterpress in the 19th century greatly increased possibilities of mass production of graphic design. It made design accessible to the public in not only mass amounts, but at a quicker rate as well. 
  
• -Mass production aided in the advancement of culture and raised society's awareness.
  
• -Helped inform the public of international affairs when they were previously only exposed to their local news.
  
• -"These pages are vital to the thought and action of the nation. The city without newspapers is a city paralyzed, hesitating in its trade, given over to rumor and uncertain in its social life. The nation without newspapers and magazines would be a nation in the dark"
  

The Linotype

• -Developed by Ottmar Mergenthaler. A brilliant machine of it’s time which could cast an entire line or slug of type from brass matrices brought into place by a keyboard.

The Monotype

• -Created by Tolbert Lanston. As opposed to the linotype machine which would cast a single line or slug of type, the monotype can cast separate pieces of type. 
• The Monotype was most popularly used for quality printing and bookwork.

The Ludlow System

• -Created by W.I. Ludlow and A Reade in 1906. A method of casting larger slugs of type. Each line is cast from brass matrices set by hand and locked in a Ludlow composing stick. Especially useful for setting headlines and adverting displays. 
  

The Punch-Cutting Machine

• -Developed by Linn Boyd Benton. Inspired by the old pantograph machines which was able to mechanically cut an entire range of type sizes from a single set of patterns.
  

Negative Outcomes Due to Technology

The rapid improvements in the typefounding industry raised some major problems.

• -Antiquation of type sizes. Originally there stood about twenty different names for vary type sizes. In 1886 this problem was righted by the American Point system which mandated that a point was fixed at .01387 inch and a pica was 12 points. This meant that roughly about seventy two points, or six picas is equal to one inch.
  
• -Economically disastrous. With the expansion of machine set type, the demand for original foundry type diminished. The American Typefounders Company on top of the virtual monopoly printed their first specimen book in 1912 which weighed in as a ten pound book, cataloging over thirteen hundred pages!
  

Results on Graphic Design Due to Technological Advancements

Magazines
The graphic arts industry underwent a tremendous production surge after the invention of machines which improved and perfected the process of type setting and ultimately created a superior form of printing. Prior to these modern printing methods, typography most typically done by wood engravings, was seen as uninteresting and quickly replaced in bulk-printed magazines such as Sears and Montgomary Ward. Technological advancements also allowed for advertisements and magazine covers to order brighter and more colorful pictures in large amounts.

Gasoline Engine
The invention of the gasoline engine drastically changed the course of the graphic arts and advertising. American life was radically changing with the invention of the automobile. the production of cars rose from 5,000 in 1900 to 600,000 in 1914 and production lines made it easier for people to own autos which resulted in a greater potential for advertising.

Outdoor Advertising
In 1912 advertising expanded into the countryside. Intended to catch the eye of motorists, a standard size of bulletin space was adopted at eight by nineteen feet. These bulletin boards could be filled with posters assembled from twenty four lithographed sheets. The sheets could be printed economically in large quantities and posted from coast to coast.
[edit] Other Technological Developments

Transportation

• - The automobile was invented and marketed by Henry Ford in 1907. Ford used a factory assembly line to mass-produce automobiles for the public.
  
• - Subways and trollies became popular methods of mass-transportation.
  
• - The first airplane was successfully tested by the Wright Brothers.
  
• Science
  
• - Albert Einstein released his theory of relativity, E=mc(2). Theories of quantum mechanics were also developed.
  
• - Sigmund Freud's writings on the human psyche changed the way people viewed themselves and others in countless ways.
  
• - New technologies in medical research lead to the discovery of antibiotics like penicillin and insulin.
  
• - Discoveries about our planet were constantly being made, such as the discovery of new species, and the discovery of Pluto.
  

Entertainment

• - The Industrial Revolution created more luxury time, which gave way to a growing theater industry.
  
• - The first silent movie was made; later color and sound were incorporated into the picture.
  
• - The television was invented.
  
• - Records and phonographs were essential to a growing music industry.
  
• - Color photography was invented in 1907.