Vienna Secession

Vienna Secession:

• Josef Hoffmann part of Vienna Secession, create workshop, Wiener Werkstatte
• Vienna Secessions Group want to make things that are useful, functional
• Strengths lie in proportion and materials, relating to Arts & Crafts Movement
• Wiener Werkstatte create chairs, strong vertical and horizontal lines
• Marks created are both geometric and lyrical, methodical like stained glass
• Hoffmann's designs use thin lines, black and white, creates a language
• Flat panels, figure-ground play, abstraction, negative space becomes form
• Peter Behrens page layouts believed to be first use of running sans serif text
• Behrens credited for creating first comprehensive identity program
• Behrens pioneers idea of non load-bearing walls, support is on the interior
• Behrens does dedication page, similar to other layout, rectilinear, planes
• Another pages design using sans serif, letterform relating to aesthetic of piece
• More pages from Behrens, running aesthetic, text in simplified blackletter
• In 1903 becomes director of Dusseldorf School of Arts & Crafts
• Guy joins faculty, interested in grids based on geometry, teaches Behrens
• Pavilion architectural exhibition 1906 geometric structure, circles, squares
• Poster uses same system, circles and squares even used as decorative motif
• AEG power company wants artistic director logo made of hexagons
• Uses metaphor of honeycomb representing structure and division of labor
• Develops logo, typeface and consistent layout system for corporate identity
• 1914 Deutsche Werkbund poster uses similar proportion system
• Poster shows man on horse bearing torch, metaphor for designers bringing light
• Even applied this to design of tea kettles, sell in range of colors and textures
• Designs turbine hall, form reflects function, creates glass curtains for light
• 1914 WWI begins, AIGA founded, 1917 Russian Revolution
• 1918 Czar assassinated, WWI ends, 1919 Bauhaus opens
• Lucian Bernhard enters competition, painting of matchsticks and name Priester
• Judges throw it away because of its simplicity, one judge didn't like the ones chosen
• Reaches down and pulls this piece out of the trash and says its the winner
• Plakastil is born from this poster, means "poster style" in German
• People emulate this with flat backgrounds, object and name of company posters
• U-Boat poster with U becoming form of person and also periscope, decoding
• Klinger poster with arrows in serpent, 8th bond drive, bond is the arrow
• Many posters used as propaganda for axis powers, falcon grasping RAF symbol
• Graphic, abstract and sophisticated, call for understanding of context, history
• Posters for allies are illustrative, layers of information, very relatable
• Imagery used to provoke, touchy-feely, loads of content, saccharin

I loved watching all the old film from the early 1900s in the movie we saw..there's something so mesmerizing about the graininess, randomness and how time appears to slow down and speed up..it's like something from a dream..or maybe I'm just overly nostalgic.. I thought the Berhrens posters were really amazing in their simplicity and geometric themes and I can see why geometry and design go hand-in-hand. I wish I liked the American propaganda posters as much as I did the ones coming out of Austria at the time..the American ones are just so cheesy that they come off as juvenile.

Art Nouveau

Arts & Crafts to Art Nouveau:

• renewed interest in book art reaches Germany
• Neuland(sp?) created with idea that it would be pinnacle of German typography
• looks chiseled out, reminiscent of mediaeval
• Neuland designed 1923 by Rudolph Kosh
• Neuland most commonly used for African American literature
• Arts & Crafts leads to Art Nouveau, logically
• decide that machinery isn't all bad, try to incorporate
• Jules Cheret, father of the modern poster, 1866 doe in the wood
• poster is about theater, entertainment, trompe l'oieul
• Jules Cheret 1900 la Pantomime, ephemeral, sold for 41k in 1998
• typically in his work is central female figure, vignette, atmosphere around her
• typography is placed around the scene
• approaching designs as artist, painter
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1891 contemporary of Cheret
• Cheret Moulin Rouge 1890
• Eugene Grasset exhibition poster 1894
• Grasset is rival of Lautrec
• coloring book style, heavy black lines, flat panels of color
• lithograph print that looks like xylography
• heavy influence of eastern art, specifically woodblock
• Grasset title page 1883, reductive, abstract
• reductive styles start to become more important
• complex figure-ground, planes, panels
• Arthur Mackmurdo, chair from 1851 compared to title page from 1883
• quality of line, sensual, high-contrast, rugged
• The Century Guild has magazine Hobby Horse, Machmurdo and others
• Hobby Horse is where they shared ideas, showed designs, experimented
• spreads ideas of arts and crafts movement, vehicle to spread philosophy
• beginnings of manifesto, ideas about the world, making a stand
• organic forms become very popular
• another popular magazine was The Studio, highlighted work of Beardsley
• The Studio early issues edited by Walter Crane
• Beardsley bad boy of art nouveau, infant terrible, famous at 20
• does his own illustrations, influenced by Morris
• nymphs tangled in designs, naked playing with thorns, more contrast, darker
• while reminiscent of Morris designs, much darker, different thought
• Morris thought he vulgarized the Kelmscott style
• The Yellow Book another magazine, symbol of new and outrageous
• illustrations reminiscent of woodblock prints
• Beardsley illustrations for Oscar Wilde, women, eastern influence, considered shocking
• Victorians shocked by this celebration of "evil"
• Alfons Mucha illustrator goes to Paris for work, works in print shop
• Sarah Bernhardt leading actress of era
• she didn't like posters that had been done, someone comes to shop Mucha works at
• they want rush job, he's alone covering for co-worker
• art nouveau gets its identity from Mucha, names synonymous
• in his work is stylized forms, plants, flowers, reductive, folk art elements, byzantine tiles, elements of magic and occult
• Mucha influenced by Grasset, elements breaking planes
• Mucha poster of stylized female figure, tilework, tendrils of hair, whiplashed, repeating pattern in background giving depth
• Vienna Chic 1906, woman with tendrils, peacock feathers, negative space integrated with text, exotic lines, flat female form
• Bernhardt signed Mucha six year contract
• Orazi also did work for Bernhardt, influences are Grasset and Mucha
• Orazi uses hair tendrils, flat female form, sophisticated young woman in front of counter
• GE logo designed during this period, asian motif

I guess I never realized how much my own illustrations draw from the themes of art nouveau..not that I'm the next Mucha or anything..but I like to draw with bold lines, patterns, tendrils of hair, clothing and flat colors. I was really impressed with all the illustrations and the Lautrec pieces brought be back to my high school french class, where my teacher, Mme. Pisano has Lautrec posters on the wall..I always loved them. I find it interesting that they all seemed to be drawing from eastern woodblock printing, which I've always admired, but that they were translating it in a western fashion. I also thought the typography was impressive, and I liked how the letterforms curved and flowed into one another, yet could often fit into a strict grid.

Arts & Crafts, Test Review

Arts & Crafts Movement:

• Arts & Crafts Movement reaction to Industrial Movement
• John Ruskin is philosophical leader - how can we restructure society?*
• People start having Utopian ideals - how can I make a better world?
• Ruskin rejects idea of mercantile economy
• Idea that work should be in service of society
• Uses construction of gothic cathedral as model**
• Bauhaus - Gropius will also point to cathedral as model
• Collected works fill 24 volumes, published book of poems at 24
• Return to medieval, back to handwork
• Most people remember William Morris for pattern designs
• His original plates still being pressed
• Morris tries to implement Ruskins ideas into factory system
• Reaction to tasteless goods of time period, back to honest craftsmanship
• How can the worker once again find joy in work?
• Flaw in thinking is that handmade craft is much more expensive
• Noble thought but inherent flaw in process
• His book of fabric samples still preserved
• Renewed interest in book arts
• William Morris develops typeface Golden - Oldstyle - based on Jenson
• Establishes Kelmscott Press
• Wanted to go back to origins of printing
• The Story of the Glittering Plain by William Morris
• Morris designs Troy - Blackletter and smaller version called Chaucer
• The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer - took 4 years to make - carving
• 1860s - Arts & Crafts Movement
• 1834 - William Morris - 1891 Kelmscott Press
• 1914 - World War I
• 1880s - Art Nouveau
• Art Nouveau driven by young ppl influenced by Arts & Crafts Movement
• Bruce Rodgers and Frederic Goudy
• Roycroft take ideas of Arts & Crafts and Americanize it - make affordable
• William Morris is an overachiever, Crane is Waldo

Test Review:

• Thomas Nast - father of American political cartoon
• Five type families - pay attention to stroke and serif
• Be able to label x-height, ascender height, descender height, cap height, etc
• Lascaux, Sumerian Cuneiform, Early Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Rustica and Quadrata
• Fall of Rome, Book of Kells, Charlemagne, Crusades, block printing, Gutenberg Bible, Michael Angelo, Histories of Troy, Shakespeare
• Understand sequence and context
• Capitalas, Carolin Minuscules, Celtic - differentiate
• Jack of Diamonds and devotional important - early woodblock printing
• Two different Ars Memorandi - 1466 and 1470 - Manual for Art of Dying - black plague - display text systems, one is hand colored, one telling reader to give money to church
• Gutenberg credited for advent of press - brought systems together - alloy, ink, paper, casting - business
• Printing valuable at time because of growing middle class, growing literacy, valuable, expanding universities
• Punch, matrix, type mold - punch most important
• Letters of Indulgences - early manifestation of Gutenberg's printing efforts
• Gutenberg bible has very even texture - textura
• exemplar page - initial drawing, planning for printed page, layout accurate - Nuremberg Chronicle - 1493
• Swvyheym and Pannartz - evolution to Roman letters - 1465-1467 - based off Venetian scribes based off Carolin Minuscules
• Calendarium - 1476 - people interested in science, math during Renaissance - addition of string on page
• Steven Daye brings printing to colonies - 1639 - Booke of Psalmes - 1640
• Louis Simmonneau - early grid systems for individual letters - too intricate for punch cutter - greater variation in letter forms - refined by applying science and reason
• Romain du Roi - typeface of King - average person could not use typeface of King
• Fournier le Jeune - Manuel Typographique - Rococo design
• Copper plate allows intricacies of Rococo - free drawing on plate with stylus
• Copper plate engravers find they can do books, typeface designers evolve their designs
• Bodoni develops to Neo-Classical style - style comes about from French Revolution - fills void of Rococo
• Bodoni characters based on interchangeable parts and base units
• Happening same time as cotton gin - mechanistic
• Develops into fat face - display for posters
• Wood type possible due to power of router - used for display not body
• Not so much designed as composed - pragmatism - what fits in the space? 1854
• Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Egyptian, Sans Serif
• Printing largely unchanged from Gutenberg to WWI
• Ottmar Mergenthaller perfected linotype machine - 1886
• First ad men were not conceptualizing, just brokers of space
• Victorian art known for aesthetic confusion
• Coming about as result of changes in society - more people w money, selling goods, consumerism
• Ephemera - printed materials not meant to be collected - inevitably are
• Louis Prang known for this - 1880-early 1900s
• Chromolithography exemplified
• Use of allegory - popular in creating graphics - Cincinnati Industrial Exposition
• Victorian era - packaging and printing on tin
• Develop relationship with product, modern American food culture
• Letterpress 1866, Mixed 1856, large-scale Wood cut 1856
• Development of toy books - books for entertainment
• Randolph Caldecott - Hey Diddle Diddle - 1880
• Kate Greenaway another illustrator
• Harper's explodes on scene
• Thomas Nast cartoon 1871 for Harper's Weekly
• Heinz develops idea of corporate identity where workers represent
• Workers set up corporate image, labor force is form of advertising
• Morris - Kelmscott, three typefaces, overachiever

It's incredible to think about the sheer quantity of work Morris was able to create over his lifetime..and the fact that he did it all by hand. I'm always more impressed by handmade work, and I don't know if it's more so that I'm a fan of the aesthetic or I just know how much time was put into its creation. I like the ideas of the Arts & Crafts Movement in the sense that they wanted to return to handwork, but their Utopian ideals were simply unrealistic for the time. I was very impressed by the book of fabric samples and wish I could see something like that in person. I think if more clothing companies and designers created sample books as personal as this they would more effectively get their idea and mood across to their audience and therefore establish a deeper connection with their buyers.