Post-modernism

Modernism in the USA

Lester Beal 1903-69
Pioneers in Peoria
open symmetrical grid
wood type, arrows
Running Water (is good)
Had to campaign for electricity
How to translate something for the illiterate
modernism meets pragmatism

Works Project Administration Exhibition 1940 (creative commons)
limited color palette
Better housing
Free classes
Getting people back to work.

Swiss Design
international typographic style
more than just grids!
visual unity achieved by asymmetrical organization
objective photography
sans serif type + flush left/rag right
mathematical grids
design should be socially useful
"How can we make life better?"
Its the way problems are approached
socially useful and important activity
Ulm, clean efficient modern type

semiotics-syntactics-order
semantics-meaning or referred to
pragmatics-how it is used
Ferdinand de Saussure
dyadic model
a 'signifier'- the form which the sign takes
the 'signified'- the concept it represents

charles sanders peirce
triadic model
sign vehicle: the form of the sign
sense: the sense made of the sign
referent: what the sign 'stands for'
Everything has meaning
What things mean in relationship to other things.

Joseph Muller-brockmann

grid is just a system

Swiss modernism vs NYC modernism

paul rand, saul ball and ivan chermayeff

1940 begin to see effects of modernism in ads

european theoretical- ny, pragmatic

"The Big Idea"

Europeans theoretical, NY- pragmatic

Postmodernism

Used to note a break w the earlier modernist principles by placing emphasis on form over function, by reintroducing traditional or classical elements or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.

Seen in art, design, lit, and architecture

emphasis on feel rather than rationale

emphases on surface, texture and materials

self-consciousness or self-referencing

mixes high and low

historical refs

vernacular-language of things

Wolfgang Weingart-Teacher

"What if?"

computer fuels post-modernism

Memphis Group-texture, pattern, color for no apparent reason

Thoughts

I'm still not sure what post-modernism is about. :( I couldn't understand what the people in the movie were saying most of the time.

Questions

None at this time.

Review

Everything started in Europe.
Aubrey Beardley was the bad boy of art with his asian block printing and abstraction.
The Arts and Crafts movement took a while to catch on the US.
Art Nouveau was about tendrills and flat color planes that weren't flat...yes it does make sense.
Peter Behrens was offical Sanserif god.
Nazis still suck and don't understand different artistic views.
Bauhaus started in Weimar which sounds like a cool place to be at the time. Moved to Dessau which also seems fun. Then ended up in Berlin where the Nazis crashed the fun.

And some other stuff where my notes are not making much sense at the moment.

Thoughts

Not a lot of info has been sticking in my brain. I think I need to empty the cache, somehow.

Q's

I had a question but I forgot it, come back later.

Avant Garde-I think

avant garde

cubofuturism- Cubism and futurism.

futurism-exploring time

suprematism -Malevich-black square, form and shape. rejects function
El Lissitzky-was influential at Bauhaus, proun(s) acronym-experiments, explorations into space with painting
Enough with the pictures already.

Kandinsky- abstract, teaches at Bauhaus

constructivism-Rodchenko
function, geometrical
art that does not serve purpose is meaningless
grid system
photo montage-two completely different takes and putting it together, cutting film

every canvas is analogous to music
Design is problem solving.

De Stijl-rectallinear structures
netherlands
looking for utopian approach to art
suprematism and constructivism, unite!
Piet Mondrian-the main man
diagonal lines broke up a friendship
negative space is vital

Bauhaus (school)
1919-1933
14years
33 faculty
1250 students
1919-1925 Weimar-kicked out by government
    1923 first public exhibition
    1924 letter of resignation from faculty
1925-1932 Dessau-industrial city, Nazis suck
    1928 Walter Groupius replaced by Hans Meyer
    1930 Meyer replaced by Van Der Rohe
1932-1933 Berlin
Utopian desire to create a new spritual society
Unity of Artists and Craftsmen to build for the future.
Ideas from all of the Advanced Art and Design Movements were explored and applied to functional design
Paul Klee- painter, Moholy Nagy-constructivist, Johannas Itten-develops the foundation program, Herbert Bayer, Kandinsky, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Groupus-director and first head of Bauhaus, Oscar Schlemmer, Joseph Albers-color theory


Thoughts
So many squares. I think that the Russians need a safer way to carry their babies.

Q's
No questions at this time.

Cubism and stuff

Peter Behrens
first running sans serif
identity system
lots of circles and squares
architecture
building houses turbine

Narrow tracks freak us artists out.

Different interests include design.

Design is trying to take over the world.

The way of thinking-design

1914 WWI   1917 Russian Revolution   1918 Czar Assassinated WWI Ends   1919 Bahaus opens   1926 NBC First national radio network   1929 stockmarket crash

ask "What's it all about, Alfie?"

design relates into everything!!

Lucien Bernhard Priester (matches)

less traditional and more abstract

Julius Klinger war bond posters

Uncle Sam by James Flag
Bauhaus 1919-1933
cubism create 3d form in 2d space
Dada 1916-1920 "A European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that flouted conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by nonsense, travesty, and incongruity."

1920s entertainment posters, cubism
travel posters

reductive design, abstraction

mathmatics is in everything...(sigh.)

Paul Rand cubism, collage

Avant Garde

Thoughts
It seems today that all forms of art, new and old styles, are used in all media because there is a broader base of artists. Since each generation composes something creative by modifying multiple styles, there are also opportunities to create more styles of art and design in all forms of media.


Questions

When did writing letters and using the post office become popular?

art nouveaux

Art Nouveau

Armond Hoffman, if you design negative space everything will work.

Alfose Mucha- He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.
Didn't finish Sara Bernhardt's poster so it is less saturated at the bottom of it.

JOB ~ Alphonse Mucha - Poster for the cigarette brand job.

Decorative pattern became popular. Organic.

Art journals/manifestos

flat panels of color, but dimensional figures, abstraction

Bradley was most popular in America, egotistical.

Difference between cover and depiction of cover

Abstraction rather than actual product. Flat panels of color.

Begins in France,
germany- called jvgend stijl.

Peter Behrens - inspired french art nouveaux

Circles and squares. geometry inception

first comprehensive system

logo, typeface, consistency

Scotland - Glasgow school-art movement
"The Four"
Charles Rene Mcintosh
work is defined by rectangular structure, interior-curved elements, spirituality, metaphysical
feminine motifs

Talwin Morris-makes pragmatic designs with rectangular structure and curved elements

Gustav Klimt-Vienna Secession

David Carson-grunge typography

Artists question and confront older generations

Always ask why does it look this way?

Final Thoughts:

I don't know my final thoughts thus far.

Question:

What is the name of the poster that looks like the figures is texting?

See Allison's question.

Victorian Era

Notes

Victorian era is characterized by aesthetic confusion.
chroma-lithography = color lithography
*color blending
*cheap color art in homes
Ephemera-products used more as function, movie tickets, posters, magazines, travelling amusements...
Prang
very busy posters and such
trompe-l'oeil - a style of painting in which objects are depicted with photographically realistic detail; also : the use of similar technique in interior decorating.
Persona on products.
Manipulative advertising
The juxtaposition of let's say a quaker oats ad next to an article on practical housekeeping is valuable real estate.
It was about the sale and not the art in graphic design for advertising. 
Shift in children's literature. Books created for children's entertainment. Sprouted imagination and how people think.
Greenway-first prominent female in children's illustration.
Walter Crane's Absurd ABC
Periodicals, political cartoons (Thomas Nast)

Wlliam Tweed was the star of Nast's political cartoons.
Heinz figured out corporate image

John Ruskin-spiritual head of Arts and Crafts

*social reform

*rejected mercantile economy

***William Morris***aka Topsy

overachiever, pattern design, poetry, etc.

wanted to go back to making things by hand-however hand making takes more time and money

Thoughts

I agree that it sucked to live back in the "good ole days". It sounds like there were no "good ole days." I would like to go back in time for just a small amount of time and visit Thomas Nast just because of his fathering the political cartoon.

Questions

No questions at this time. 

Type during the Industrial Revolution

Peter Behrens was first person to use sanserif in text. First iron printing-press made by Earl Stanhope, in 1800. 1814 Frederich Koenig, first double cylinder steam powered press. 19th century ads were lame. Ottmar Mergenthaller perfected his linotype machine in 1886.

The letter-press is just like stamps I used to have as a kid. There was usually an illustration of some kind, I'd press it in the ink and then onto the paper. A sort is a piece of type.

The Linotype machine is pretty cool. I love the sound effects it makes.