Saturday, March 3, 2012

Your turn #6

Jugend cover, 1901 (via Juxtapoz)
We've gone through an explosion of art movements & personalities. The main idea is the  design of the avant-garde: Cubism, Blue Rider, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Neo-plasticism, Constructivism, Surrealism, art for the people, art goes to the movies, propaganda vs. advertising, collage, photo-collage, the propaganda poster, (functional art ---> floor plans? ---> elevations?). Big names: Picasso, Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Marinetti, Duchamp, Breton, Dalí, Mondrian, Magritte, A. M. Cassandre, John Heartfield, etc. 

Go ahead!

25 comments:

Emilee Lau said...

After learning about so many distinctive and revolutionary design movements, I find myself asking: what is the next big thing going to be? We’ve discovered beauty in Aestheticism, created social impact using poster art, bridged art and industry with Bauhaus, and even made urinals works of art in Dadaism. Even dreams, unreality, and the grotesque have taken their rightful and significant places in the history of art and design. History has showed us that art is not synonymous with “beauty” as it is most often used. Something does not have to look pretty, be tasteful, or seem intricate in order to be considered art. In fact, art can be the complete opposite of “pretty.” For example, Jan Švankmajer’s goal in making his Claymation “Darkness Light Darkness” was probably not for the viewers to watch it and think that the clay used was a pretty color or that his molding was immaculate; his goal was to produce a feeling of uneasiness and curiosity in his audience in order to extract from them an emotional reaction that only surrealist and expressionist art can. Švankmajer’s clay work reminded me of the incredible rendering of Bruce Bickford, who collaborated with musician Frank Zappa to make the movie Baby Snakes (here is an excerpt of one of Brickford’s Claymations, and may I suggest watching this during the day). Although extremely disturbing and discomfiting, there is no doubt that this is an example of beautiful artistry that took masterful skill, plenty of time, and even more patience to achieve. So if even the “ugly” has been made beautiful in art, what is left? Does the pendulum of design have any more places to swing before art movements begin to recycle themselves? I suppose that ultimately, the search for what has yet to be done is what continues to drive artists forward to discover that new, fresh way to design visual communication.

Haley said...

Last thursday, Dr.Triff stated; " I want to see your psyche. You're very pretty, but inside you're twisted. That is expressionism." I found this to be a beautifully spoken and intriguing statement. The art movements we studied last week seemed to prove more evident in the evolution of psychology. The paintings we saw had more bold personalities than those from earlier movements. Expressionism exhibits a more primitive, raw psychological emotion, with influence on the space of design. It suggests an almost chlostrophobic mind, in which an escape is only possible through artistic mediums. The constructivists also demonstrated their bold personality with a revolutionalized and radical approach to propaganda. It also revealed new technical capabilities in society, and made functional, simplified pieces of art that was available to the masses. Examining different art movements throughout history, we can see the rich historical context held in the canvases and pages of art. Art often depicts not only stories, but also the mentality, personality, and attitude of the artist and a particular time period.

Haley said...

Last thursday, Dr.Triff stated; " I want to see your psyche. You're very pretty, but inside you're twisted. That is expressionism." I found this to be a beautifully spoken and intriguing statement. The art movements we studied last week seemed to prove more evident in the evolution of psychology. The paintings we saw had more bold personalities than those from earlier movements. Expressionism exhibits a more primitive, raw psychological emotion, with influence on the space of design. It suggests an almost chlostrophobic mind, in which an escape is only possible through artistic mediums. The constructivists also demonstrated their bold personality with a revolutionalized and radical approach to propaganda. It also revealed new technical capabilities in society, and made functional, simplified pieces of art that was available to the masses. Examining different art movements throughout history, we can see the rich historical context held in the canvases and pages of art. Art often depicts not only stories, but also the mentality, personality, and attitude of the artist and a particular time period.

Anonymous said...

I really like that now we're focusing on the more avant-garde, modern art rather than aestheticism---something that I find to usually be so classical and overdone. The transition of style that artists like Mondrian have undergone--from an impressionistic style to completely modern--with solid lines, primary colors, extremely minimalistic, tied in perfectly with our conversations about the Stoclet house, for example. The fact that graphic design is so intimately intertwined not only with painting and posters, but also architecture, speaks largely to this evolution throughout the 1900s. Something that I learned though, was that this sort of modern, minimalistic style evolved well before the past 50 years, that many of our poster images from even the 1890s begin to incorporate heavily outlined figures, dramatic composition by using 2 or 3 colors and little clutter to grab attention of the eye. This radical twist to propaganda pieces, demonstrated in the war posters, was in great contrast to the more emotional, visually complex pieces of the impressionist artists.

-Stephanie Kryzak
(also, I didn't post the link to the Mapplethorpe movie last week: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Pictures)

Anonymous said...

Last class we covered a lot of topics and I noticed the theme of dreams and escaping reality coming into our discussion frequently. Jan Švankmajer’s “Darkness Light Darkness” comes to mind as my first example. His Claymation doesn’t portray reality, but rather a feeling. The sounds, in particular, gave the piece a specifically uncomfortable tone. Duchamp’s peices worked in a similar fashion. It wasn’t designed to be pretty or to be easily understood. It was meant to just be an expression of his idea. Even though, Dadaists conveyed their ideas differently than their predecessors, the expressionists, I still feel like their purpose was the same: to escape their reality through visual abstraction to create a mood.

Alexandra Roe

Anonymous said...

Alexandra Roe. comment continued...

I would also suggest visiting this website and scroll to the end of Duchamp's life. I think that he is particularly interesting then. He renounced art in order to become a professional chess player while secretly working on one of his most controversial pieces. I like how both his work and his life follows the dadaist style of collage.

http://www.understandingduchamp.com/

augie kazickas said...

Thanks for the link, AROE. Duchamp's work is extraordinary. It is interesting to see his abstractions as satiric and comic messages. Duchamp poked fun at cubism by adding motion to figures not perspectives. His readymade 'Fountain' urinal challenged the art world. The use of household or common items as art inspired audiences to create new thoughts and meaning to everyday objects. Duchamp graffiti'd the Mona Lisa, re-titling it "she's hot in the ass." This brought political criticism, not Nasty, but artsy and comedic. His "First Papers of Surrealism" exhibit consisted of spiderwebbing gallery space with string -a not so subtle jab at traditional aesthetic art. Duchamp represents a rebellion against "retinal art." Using comedy to satirize other forms of art legitimized the role of conceptual thinking in art reception. But does using humor like paint trivialize Duchamp’s work. Nonetheless, his goal to engage the mind with his art is the keystone to abstract art.

Amy said...

I really enjoyed watching the parts of the films we watched in class. The topic of art goes to the movies got me thinking about “art movies” and how we classify them as different from mainstream films. Art film contrasts classical Hollywood cinema in that its narrative is not guided in an organizational way with every scene driving towards a goal. Instead, its narrative deals more with the psyche, and as Professor Triff mentioned in class “I want to see your psyche. You're very pretty, but inside you're twisted’ the art movements we discussed were more about discovering inner issues than aesthetic beauty. I thought this was an interesting correlation. The unexplained gaps in art film and unresolved sequences lets the viewer make their own interpretation of the film’s message.

Liudamy Sedeno

Alexa Prosniewski said...

I was also really intrigued by the film clips we watched in class. Motion picture is my major and in another class of mine we also discussed video art as a sub genre of experimental film. I was happy to discuss this in Dr. Triff's art history class as well because film has become such a mainstream medium that its fundamental artistic emelents are often forgotten.

Take this video Water for Maya for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rJVm5VEnG4
When I studied for my MP exam I remembered it as "the one that looks like a computer screensaver."

I realize that the progressive development of film and technology have lead me to confuse what quality video really is. The "art" in "art form" has been overwritten by more materialistic elements like celebrity actors and big-budget sets. Last class helped me to look for more intellectual quality in film,and appreciate video art as abstract as seen in Water for Maya.

Lindsey Reiff said...

I am so intrigued by the old advertisements and propaganda posters shown in class. Whether showing an idea, such as the ads searching for US soldiers and supporters of the Women’s Suffrage movement, or selling a product, such as the Reagan ad for Chesterfield Cigarettes, these ads of the past have something that ads today are missing. We rarely see illustrated print ads today- I think that we feel more comfortable with photographs at this point. I cannot quite put a finger on what it is, perhaps something as simple as nostalgia, but I love the way the page seems a little too cluttered with information and testimonials, or the opposite- very simple, yet so effective, using images, fonts, and colors to get the point across. Maybe the images seem less forced because we know that they are not of an actor who is being paid to promote the product, but pictures drawn with the consumer in mind. The advertising business has always been manipulative, and I do not see earlier ads as an exception, but at least they were something of an art form.

Anonymous said...

I also found the idea of art and advertising to be very interesting. I'm an advertising major so I constantly see traces of earlier art movements in the art direction of a lot of advertisements. A lot of people don't consider advertising to be art, because it is considered to be manipulative and has a negative conatation. Advertising is so much more then just taking a picture and slapping a logo on it to call it an Ad. There is always an insight, idea, or concept behind it, just like there is with all art. There's a strong use of typography, imagery, and even illustration. I think advertising is an art form and one that I'm very interested in.

Also, advertising has stylistic changes throughout the decades just as there were changes through artistic movements. It is constantly drawing from surrealism, expressionism, and so many other forms of art.

-Maddie Nieman

Anonymous said...

Over the years there have been numerous art movements; this implies that art is always changing and adapting. The question I wonder about is how does an art movement become established? More specifically, are there kinds of requirements necessary to differentiate between different art styles? A wide variety of artists were discussed in last class. Picasso is such a well known artist for Cubism because he changed the way of creating a painting by breaking down elements into their most basic shapes from multiple perspectives and created a blending of the views. It is sometimes difficult to interpret his works because it may appear chaotic. I find it interesting to see how he is able to combine these multiple perspectives into one assemblage. One of my favorite artists discussed was Magritte. I like how he challenged the viewer and changed our way of viewing the world. Another topic I found interesting was propaganda vs. advertising which has often been difficult to differentiate and are closely related. I think that propaganda appears to be deceitful because the viewer is not always aware that they are viewing or being exposed to propaganda. Lastly, one of my favorite art movements discussed would be Suprematism. I really like the definition of Suprematism as a “rediscovery of pure art which, in the course of time, has become obscured by the accumulation of ‘things’.” I feel that sometimes, as time and technology evolves, everyone gets caught up in the chaos and their surroundings and simply forgets the simple, pure things.

Ashley Bahamon

kaitlin said...

Regarding the advertisements we viewed in class, it is incredible to see the progression between the old and the new. Todays advertising focuses on use of programs such as illustrator, photoshop, indesign, etc. to make ads, but there is a much different feel to the older ads. Sometimes simplicity is more – something we seem to forget in this clutter filled world we live in today. I believe there are roots of art in advertising; however, today some of those roots are almost lost. We seem to focus on selling a product for the sake of selling that product sometimes. HOWEVER, I do think there are exceptions to this, for some advertisers truly have creative concepts and directions driving their ads. I think the new ways of constructing ads with these new programs and solutions really is just a progression of art and our time, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In a world that’s always moving and changing, art must keep up as well right?


- Kaitlin Stevens

Anonymous said...

An interesting topic we discussed last in our meeting was Expressionism, Eastern European Expressionistic Film, in particular. The film which stuck out for me was "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari". The film was revolutionary in that it was successfully used the style the style of the German Expressionism in several media. The look of the film shared the dark melancholic style of the movement. The set design mirrored the imagined, just-not-right world of scenes depicted in the art. And most importantly the Kafkaesque story was in line with the Expressionist view on the human experience. The film showed the relationship with the German Expressionists and psychology. While cinema was becoming an artistic industry in America, the Expressionist used the medium as a tool to depict the unconscious mind.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8455250375270835043

-Eric Rodgers

joyce sosa said...

During the course of the semester we have seen how art has evolved and kind of grown with time. Art went from being restricted , and just accepted under certain standards, to the point where it accomplished complete freedom and it can go in any direction it wants. Like life itself , in your early years you do what you are told to , but then you become independent and develop your own lifestyle. For me art has changed in that way. It is amazing how this freedom has led to so many different art movements coming from different personalities , techniques etc. Moreover all these new movements are being combined resulting i more movements and this process will go on and on in time.
A good example of this expressionism was the movies seen in class which even-though were silent movies, did not need the help of any words because of the amazing strength of the images. I found those 3 minutes of film more interesting than some current talked films at the movie theater which for me made this film really successful.

Kristen said...

Avant garde means new and advanced. Avant garde artists viewed society with a detached eye and through their work, showed society what is was becoming even before society was aware. Expressionism, particularly German Expressionism, focused on color theory, and how specific colors were supposed to activate a certain emotion in the viewers. Cubism, another modernist movement, attempted to show multiple perspectives of an object or subject. Picasso is primarily associated with this movement. His use of collage in synthetic cubism was avant garde in that society had never seen such an approach to art. In his collages, he used various media to convey meaning to the viewer. Regarding posters, I was particularly interested in the war examples discussed in class. These posters were meant not only to catch the viewer’s attention but also contained calls to action. They were meant to evoke emotion and educate.

-Kristen Vargas Vila

Anonymous said...

There are so many different forms of art including photography, architecture, and film. Silent films are not common today however make a huge impact on me. Today films are very predictable and do not have much too them. Silent films have to get the message across without using words. A melody or tone is usually played in the background for more effect. When creating a silent film there are so many things you have to take into consideration. The actors have to be able to get the message across just using actions, the scenery has to let you know exactly where you are and what time it is, and the use of the camera is also very critical by getting the right shot and angle. Like the famous saying says “actions speak louder than words.” I completely agree with that. I personally think silent films give much more of an impact and get the meaning across in a way that leaves you speechless.

- Erika Gonzalez-Rebull

Nan Gallagher said...

I was so excited this past week when we finally reached Kandinsky and the subject of abstract art. I remember the first time I ever saw a Kandinsky piece on a field trip to D.C. when I was in 4th grade, and I've wanted to be a part of everything that is the world of art ever since. Something about his work is so raw and spontaneous while at the same time always appearing to be so polished and purposeful at the same time. Such as most great artists he went through several different periods and styles, however the ones that I find to be the most powerful are his Compositions - my personal favorites are five and eight. Check them out: http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/

Kandinsky has always had such an influence on my life as an artist because his pieces and philosophies embody everything that I believe art should be. He paints with tangible passion and feeling, and paints with the purpose of creating a bond with the viewer. He didn't paint as a selfish creative outlet, he had strong messages of love and peace and acceptance that he wanted to put out into the world, and the paints were his words.

Patty Alfaro said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Patty Alfaro said...

I also really appreciated the use of video clips to illustrate movements last class. That was my second time watching Jan Švankmajer’s “Darkness Light Darkness” and I have to say, that it really captured the claustrophobic, unsettling feelings of expressionism. I also really enjoyed the clip of Gertrude Stein’s “The Making of Americans,” as I had been previously unaware that cubism and literature were cross contaminating each other. I haven’t necessarily kept track of the current art world, but from what I have seen, I would argue that the spirit of Dada never really died. The art world now is pretty much a free for all where anything can be considered art as long as, somewhere, an audience considers it art. Even though photography collage is not as popular these days, I think Dadaism has grown so far as to even alienate common audiences (if such a common audience exists), who cannot relate to art that does not fit into their classical expectation of what art should be. Duchamp’s urinal if taken out of its obviously rebellious and humorous context, certainly comes to mind. I admit that all art is subjective, so people will find depth and value in different things, but perhaps the lasting influence of the dada movement, directly correlates to why so many modern people believe that “modern art is bullshit.”

Jamie Shankman said...

This Jugend cover from 1901 involves a variety of techniques and contains a great amount of underlying messages. Jugend was a German Art Nouveau icon that played a role in a sort of impressionist movement. Nouveau seeks to capture the feeling or expressing of an image and does not necessarily seek to depict precise realistic detail. Its purpose, then, is to evoke emotion out of the viewer in addition to instigate conversation and contemplation. This particular cover is done in muted tones, accented with a harsh and deep red, to allude to deep attraction between the figures. Perhaps the intertwining of the vines is a symbol of how passion is a feeling of two hearts intertwining to feel like one.Though some might find this image disturbing, others can pick up the beauty of deep and raw passion.

Jamie Shankman

Jamie Shankman

Lauren Hahamovitch said...

The difference between propaganda and advertising is quite interesting to pick apart, especially as an advertising & art major. The biggest difference that I can see is that propaganda is trying to sell an idea to someone, not necessarily literally, and advertising attempts to sell a service or product, more literally. Advertising does though have some of the same qualities as propaganda in that often it tries to create awareness of something in the target audience. Advertising helps bring a brand to top of mind, while propaganda brings an issue or moral value to top of mind. Propaganda though can also be used as a more subtle version of advertising if done properly. A propaganda poster may come across to the viewer as trying to expose an issue, but if it is somehow tied back to a product, it will subconsciously raise awareness or favoritism towards a certain brand, product, or service.

Anonymous said...

I think the Jugend cover of 1901 is very successful in that it is aesthetically pleasing yet has a creepiness that is hard to define. The design of this piece is very well executed because the actual image we are looking at is not ugly, however we get an eerie feeling from the movement of the lines, the color choice and overall tone. This goes to show that by the early 1900s magazines truly had intent behind the images chosen on the covers and I am curious to know what this 1901 cover was promoting. It is intriguing because it doesn't reveal too much. As a matter a fact, we don't know what we should be looking at. So we are forced to flip open the magazine and see what's inside. In my opinion it is a good marketing technique.
Natalia de la Canal

Anonymous said...

One of the most interesting topics among these, to me is the propaganda. The distinctness between propaganda and advertisement is really worth to talk about. I was amazed when I saw the old fashioned coca cola poster, comparing to the advertisement we see today, you can’t feel much sense of art in today’s advertisement. Both of propaganda and advertisement have the same purpose, which is to persuade the viewers to buy the ideas in their work. However, no matter advertisement or propaganda, we have missed something time by time. The best propaganda and advertisement supposed to combine the concept that the artist trying to sell and the beauty of art together perfectly. The two parts must be equal and mixed together. But the propaganda and advertisement have more purposiveness than beauty of art; you can feel they are trying too hard to persuade the viewers, that’s why I’m not feeling very comfortable when I saw some advertisements recently.

Qiansongzi Chen

Isaac said...

I find very interesting the delayed relationship of art movements to architecture. The most obvious (partly due to the simplicity) is the influence of the De Stijl to the Schroder House. The progression from an art piece to a structure that imposes an image/feel of a modern movement to the public realm is challenging. It takes many people to create a building that is expressive of a modern art movement, were as an art piece only takes one person. A client, architect, city officials, contractors, neighbors, etc. all must be on a somewhat same boat to make such a structure. Architecture naturally comes after the art movement. For instance: Le Corbusier’s domino plan following his influence by Picasso’s cubist style, surreal neo-classical architecture in the footsteps of Dali and Chirico, etc. I can even see a relationship between the outlandish neon signs collaged to the buildings of Vegas to the ‘anything goes’ mentality of Dadaism.