Bauhaus in America

Bauhaus in America:

• Jan Tschichold hand-lettered advertisement
• Tschichold is son of artist, studied calligraphy at young age
• Walker Evans photograph of design during time, Victorian-esque
• at the beginning, Bauhaus influence is very small, changes with WWI
• Tschichold sees Bauhaus exhibition in 1923
• 1924, year later, his work exudes essence of Bauhaus
• then writes pamphlet explaining to printers how to do it
• in 1925 he writes a book about typography, asymmetry in type
• at time, most German typography still printed in Textura
• he uses bars and blocks reminiscent of De Stijl
• publishes The New Typography, Die Neue Typographie
• only 25 years old when he publishes this, still famous and relevant
• he wanted to wipe slate clean, assert asymmetrical typography
• wanted to deliver message in most efficient manner, modernism
• 1927 invitation card, limited palette, grid, negative space, sans serif
• 1937 poster with circle and line, simple type and color
• underlying grid, mathematical in structure
• define problem, solution is there, what is geometry of area
• Nazis come to power in 1933, Tschichold and his wife arrested
• Nazis thought they were creating un-German typography
• found Soviet posters in his house, more incriminating
• held for 6 weeks, released and he flees with family to Switzerland
• returns to classical typography which is all centered, serif type
• The Form of the Book written later, published in 1991
• gives ideas of Bauhaus practical expression, helps propagate
• Herbert Matter did hundreds of sketches for New Haven Railroad
• Matter uses extreme perspective and scale shifts
• concise and efficient typography, clear and direct
• All Roads Lead to Switzerland poster promoting Swiss tourism
• Paula Scher virtually recreates the Herbert Matter poster, rip-off
• Matter uses basic vocabulary of flag, imagery to create travel brochures
• Matter brings style to America, installation of Eames chairs
• ad for Knoll Chairs, radically different then what had been going on
• Addison Dwiggins has modern design, limited palette, sans serif
• Lester Beall really brings modernist ideas to population
• Beall uses lots of arrows, bars, sans-serif, old wood type for contrast
• Beall known for work with Rural Electrification Administration
• Running Water poster from 1937, promoting electrification
• simplified negative form, could be understood without reading
• uses imagery and graphics as message, type not even necessary
• 1937 REA posters use limited palette of primary colors
• posters also use photo montage, heavy in graphic elements
• WPA Federal Art Project, supporting and promoting arts
• Robert Muchley poster Port of Philadelphia
• concern for negative space, silkscreen popular
• Sheer poster in 1936, wheat creates artist palette
• Jerome Roth WPA poster 1938, silkscreen, limited palette
• corporations start playing important role in design, spread gospel
• certain wealthy and intellectual people exposed to European influence
• develop cardboard boxes, Container Corporation of America
• would hire Europeans to create art and advertisements
• montage, non-classic type, negative space valuable
• poster with model sitting in chair, in one she is wrapped in paper
• Portfolio Magazine design by Alexey Brodovitch
• Ladislav Sutnar works with abstraction, open composition
• Sutnar uses geometric shapes, generous negative space
• Sutnar catalog design spread from 1950, open and simple
• International Style reaches everything, type, graphics, architecture
• started as great idea, looking for universal truths, pure, clean, efficient
• International Style and Swiss design gets bastardized by corporations

I find Tschichold's work to be very inspiring, and I really appreciated his hand-lettered typography in some of the works. Overall, I love this new approach to type, especially when it comes to asymmetry and negative space..I just feel it's so necessary in design..it's kind of weird that it took so long to be truly implemented and seen as commonplace. I thought a lot of Beall's work reminded me of Abram Games' posters. He did a lot of posters for the government, used a similar palette, worked a lot with forms becoming image and also used that sort of old wood-cut type..though I feel Games' were a bit more sophisticated. I'm really excited to talk about Alexey Brodovitch..I'm a big fan of his work for Harper's..everything of his has this surreal quality about it that I love.

Bauhaus

My Bauhaus

• school of design
• in Germany, I think
• practical and useful design
• accessible design
• started by a few men and women
• they were all designers/professors?
• geometric designs
• rectilinear and curvilinear
• shut down during WWII, I believe
• functionality important
• students taught several areas of design
• arts and crafts aesthetic?
• extremely important to design history

Real Bauhaus

• Bauhaus looking for utopian
• how to model perfect life
• how can we make things better
• 1919-1925 Weimar
• 1923 first public exhibition
• 1924 letter of resignation
• 1925-1932 Dessau
• 1928 Gropius replaced by Meyer
• 1930 Meyer replaced by van der Rohe
• 1932-1933 Berlin
• only open for 14 years
• roots of design education
• 1,250 students to pass through
• Broken Wings final days in Berlin
• art schools cornerstone of revitalization
• Weimar after WWI economy shot
• Walter Gropius there until 1928
• Gropius director of the Bauhaus
• Gropius uses cathedral as model
• 3 spires represent painting, sculpture, architecture
• thought all should be equally valued
• high sense of community spirit, believed in it
• Gropius had council of masters:
• Gerhard Marks- sculpture, pottery shop
• Lyonel Feringer- painting
• Johannes Itten- preliminary courses
• Itten's goal was to release students creative abilities
• focused on understanding of physical nature of materials
• study based on contrast
• analysis of old masters
• art made of found objects, all they had
• tools were limited to what they could find and manipulate
• in a way scientific, about analysis
• Itten leaves in 1923, same year as first exhibition
• started with focus on craft and old methods
• starts moving towards design thinking and machine
• great philosophical exchange
• elements of Cubism, De Stijl
• art and technology a new unity
• first exhibition in 1923 pivotal moment
• Itten replaced by Nagy, a Hungarian Constructivist
• interested in experimenting with resins, photo montage
• becomes Gropius' right-hand man
• piece by Nagy for tires, letterforms art and communication
• calls this typophoto- letterforms, design, graphics
• sees photography as replacing painting
• tries to develop new visual language for new age
• how do we incorporate appropriate technology
• how to adapt these technologies for our age
• making meaningful art with meaningful communication
• total integration of type and image
• looking for new language through experimentation
• invents photoplastik
• collage, assemblage, montage
• tension with city forces them to leave
• move to Dessau, and industrial city
• works well with Bauhaus creating objects for industry
• building's windows are curtains of glass
• modern building design, unlike previous one
• Sciemmer painting of Bauhaus students ascending stairs 1932
• Roy Lichtenstein version in 1989
• started creating for industry
• cover for Bauhaus Magazine, text and image one
• cover includes all elements of the Bauhaus
• made series of books about artists philosophies
• Baer develops universal alphabet
• did away with capitals in his type
• did away with serifs, experimented with flush left and rag
• contrast and hierarchy, bars, squares, open compositions
• strong horizons and verticals
• invitation for Kadinsky's bday has open composition, implied grid
• final building rather depressing compared to Dessau
• closed in 1933, recognized they could no longer run

If it weren't for all the political turmoil involved with the Bauhaus, I would have done anything to attend. I love the idea of experimenting with found objects, textures and contrasting elements. It's also interesting that they did practically everything, from furniture design to theater to collage. While I appreciate everything I have done thus far, I sort of wish there was more of a push to design outside the rules and push our ideas beyond the tools we are accustomed to. One of my favorite projects was the Alice book I did for Image and Color because I was experimenting the entire time..using all these different elements from calligraphy to dirt and flowers. I love that architecture played such a strong role..it reminds me of my Dad, who is always trying to talk to me about the Bauhaus. It's funny cause I never thought about how much building I did with toys as a kid. From linknlogs to marble towers to train sets, I feel I was always thinking systematically without even knowing it. This was probably just my Dad trying to brainwash me..but it worked and I'm glad. Maybe it's cause we're German..I can remember a lot of older relatives doing woodwork and handcrafts.

Avant Garde in Russia

Avant Garde in Russia:

• questioning spacial relationships, visual architecture
• reoccurring use of black bars
• Lazistky(sp?) Constructivist
• his early work is supremacist, practical application
• 1929 poster using photo montage
• photography seen as modern way of creating art
• photo montages become popularly used
• ides of montage in cinema, The Battleship Potemkin by Eisenstein
• experimenting with layering images, cutting images, juxtaposing sequences
• reveals power structure, social relationships
• Alexander Rodchenko most associated with Constructivism
• Rodchenko is doing graphic design, creating for the people, moral good
• 1910-1914 Rodchenko attends art school
• process is significance of the work
• starts working for magazine, uses collage, metaphor
• by 1932 Stalin is in power, oppose artists
• good art measured in functionality, therefore has moral value
• De Stijl is movement that develops in Netherlands, utopian approach to aesthetics
• De Stijl based on functionalism, should be useful
• characteristics include rectilinear planes, void of surface textures or decorations except for pure, primary hues and black and white, no illustration, mathematical structure
• looking for universal harmony to use in art
• Piet Mondrian is well-known in De Stijl
• Theo Van Doesburg is founder and leader, De Stijl dies with him in 1932
• ideas of De Stijl are applied to architecture, sculpture, painting, graphic design
• experimenting with structures, intellectual pursuit, text elements become structure
• in 1921 introduce format change exploring asymmetrical composition
• pivotal to modernist design and composition
• Van Doesburg worked with Dadaists

I think it's interesting that the artists seemed to take such a seemingly simplistic approach to design in the face of revolution. I don't know..I guess I've just been so exposed to American patriotism that I imagine art in response to governmental oppression to be loud and dramatic. But I guess these works have their own quiet drama going on if that makes any sense..as if their restraint was a message in itself. While I don't respond that emotionally to the works, who knows what my response might have been had I lived there at the time. I definitely appreciate the structural approach to design and exploration of spacial relationships..the resulting work is always clean, simple and balanced.

A Romance with the Revolution

Film: A Romance with the Revolution

• Russian Avant Garde
• such art was forbidden in totalitarian Soviet state
• modern artist Nikolai Punin
• Punin arrested 3 times, sent to concentration camp 1950
• first major undertaking was to commission exhibition of contemporary art 1919
• almost 2000 works from various artists
• during Revolution, young artists decorated streets with painted murals
• Punin had strong negative reaction to public sculptures of political figures
• felt that the human body should no longer serve as artistic form in sculpture
• artist Tatlin hoped future would be filled with beautiful, useful things
• in 1921 revolutionary artists founded their own museum
• Punin helped to procure funds to purchase paintings for museum
• bought works of Tatlin, Malevich, Kandinsky, etc
• 60 out of 70 taken with Punin were shot, he was released
• "My romance with the revolution was over" Punin
• established Research Institute of Artistic Culture, museum as base
• Punin helped Tatlin to construct iron spiral at his workshop
• Tatlin and Malevich were bitter rivals
• 1920s was a time when revolutionary illusions collapsed
• works eventually taken from the Institute for the Russian Art Museum
• had an extremely hard time gaining acceptance
• people now wanted tinted and lacquered photographs
• after 1935, works of Avant Garde were no longer exhibited
• they were replaced by socialist realism
• in 1940s, wave of repression began, Punin blamed for Western influence
• Malevich died in 1935, supremacist symbols on his coffin
• Tatlin cried at Malevich's death, lived quiet life
• Punin died in his barracks, buried without a coffin

While I thought the film was a little slow at times, I definitely learned a lot about Punin and the Avant Garde artists during the revolution in Russia. The works of the artists were beautiful, and I wish the film had actually shown more of the works. At times I felt the visuals were a little random and distracting, when they could have been highlighting more of the artists' works. It was a pretty sad story overall, and it's hard to believe that the incredibly intricate and imaginative works went so unappreciated. I felt the artists and especially Punin were misunderstood and treated as scapegoats by the government. It's just depressing to me that they had to die in concentration camps and be buried in nameless graves. I am very inspired by the works of these artists and I appreciated the romantic outlook and quotes from Punin throughout the film.

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.