Gustav Klimt, Woman in Gold, 1907
Hi class.
We're already in Twentieth-Century-earth. But the end of Nineteenth-Century was intense.
We talked in detail about the Vienna Secession and its subsequent step, The Wiener Werkstätte (Germany and Austria's answer to England's Arts and Crafts movement), plus the Deutscher Werkbund.
Plus, there are other topics, Expressionism's graphic arts and movies, Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter, Bruno Taut's Glass Dome, Henry Van de Velde (here's the video of Hohenhof House), Marcelo Dudovich, Peter Behrens, Josef Hofmann's Stoclet Palace. Don't forget Symbolism.
Avoid the echo chamber. Please don't repeat a theme already in the comment thread.
18 comments:
I wanted to write about Fortunato Depero. I discovered him when I was taking a course in Domestika and the instructor showed Depero’s work as some of his influences. His vibrant colors, geometric shapes, and Futurist style fascinated me instantly.
Depero was an Italian painter, but also a sculptor, a writer, and a graphic designer. He grew up in Rovereto, where he first began to exhibit his work while he was an apprentice to a marble worker. In his Vanity Fair cover, he features a collage of a horned man with a cigarette in his mouth. He was inspired by the Futurist movement when he discovered an article by one of the founders of that movement. After that, Depero moved to New York, where he experienced success as an artist, doing costumes for stage productions or designing covers for magazines like Vogue or The New Yorker. In addition to colorful posters, he also designed black and white ads.
Vienna Secession helped put Austria on the map when it came to Modern Art. The art movement rejected the traditional conservative art scene. Gustav Klimt was a popular example of the Vienna Secession. His works were the most notable. He was a pioneer in how he composed his paintings. The gold leaf was a signature emblem to his paintings. The “Gold Phase” occurred from 1901 to 1909. Klimt frequently received requests to create paintings of affluent women from the city's elite. One of his most famous works in this genre is the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), showcasing the spouse of a prosperous Jewish banker. Despite capturing an actual person from Klimt's era, this artwork stands out for its striking incorporation of gold, creating a dreamy aura similar to that of a Byzantine mosaic. This choice of style not only highlights the elegance of the subject but also symbolizes the essence and style of the modern Viennese woman.
Deutscher Werkbund is a German association of artists, designers, and other creatives that was founded in 1907. Henry van de Velde was commissioned to design a theater for the 1914 Werkbund Exhibition, but unfortunately was dismantled due to the outbreak of the first World War.
Henry van de Velde was the founder of the first gallery of Art Nouveau in Paris. He was strongly influenced by Paul Signac and George Seurat and later developed a neo-impressionist style, which is characterized by movement and harmony. A painting that I love from the neo-impressinst style is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by George Seurat in 1884. It is a warm, familiar feeling oil painting of people gathering by the water on a beautiful day. Geometric shapes were used to simplify the relationships of objects to each other.
Sydney Goltzman
I wanted to talk about Lynd Ward. Before the class I didn't know him specifically, but I did know about the style. 5 years ago, my mom went to Norway and brought me back some prints that give a very similar feeling to Lynd's drawings. Because I like the prints so much, I wanted to find out more about him.
So, what I found is that Lynd Ward revolutionized the world of art during his lifetime and continues to influence it today. As an expressionist artist and illustrator, Ward pioneered the graphic novel format through his wordless novels, such as "Gods' Man" and "Vertigo," published in the 1920s and 1930s. These novels, consisting solely of woodcut illustrations, broke new ground in storytelling, inspiring future generations of artists and writers.
Ward's influence on art is evident in the way he used the graphic novel as a medium for social commentary and introspection. His works often explored themes of social injustice, the human condition, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. This thematic depth, combined with his mastery of the woodcut medium, set a standard for artistic storytelling that continues to inspire artists today.
Even now, Ward's legacy lives on in the world of art. His innovative approach to storytelling and his ability to convey complex emotions and ideas through imagery have left an indelible mark on the graphic novel genre. Artists continue to draw inspiration from Ward's work, finding new ways to push the boundaries of visual storytelling, thanks to his groundbreaking contributions to the art form.
Symbolism is just one of the many important concepts which were heavily used toward the end of the nineteenth century, especially in countries such as Austria and Germany as a result of the Vienna Secession. Symbolist art aims to illustrate inanimate aspects of human existence. One such artist that embodies this practice is Gustav Klimt, as seen with paintings such as Philosophy or Medicine (1900-1907). Here, Klimt visualizes the unfolding of creation and time in a cohesive and artful manner. The naked female body is the medium through which Klimt portrays this idea, as seen through his inclusion of both decayed and heavily pregnant figures. Similarly, themes of symbolism can be observed in Joseph Maria Olbrich’s Secession Building (1989), which was created to serve as a manifesto of the Secessionist Movement. The most prominent feature is a dome made of 3,000 gilt laurel leaves and signifying attributes of Athena (including wisdom and victory). As a result of this symbolism, Olbrich makes Athena both a liberator and guardian of the arts, while commenting on the human desire for individuality which inspired the Secession.
Henry Van de Velde's designs had a profound impact on the artistic landscape of his time, particularly during the height of the Art Nouveau movement. His innovative approach to design, characterized by a harmonious blend of organic forms and geometric elements, challenged traditional aesthetic norms and sparked a new wave of creativity. Van de Velde's architectural projects, furniture designs, and decorative arts pieces reflected a bold departure from the ornate styles of the past, embracing instead a modern sensibility rooted in nature and innovation.
One of Van de Velde's notable contributions was his emphasis on the integration of art and craft in design, a principle that became central to the Art Nouveau ethos. His belief in the unity of form and function led him to create not only visually striking pieces but also functional and practical objects for everyday use. This holistic approach to design resonated with contemporary audiences and set a precedent for the modernist movement that would follow.
Something that intrigued me from the last class was the work of Marcello Dudovich. I have seen many posters of his work and wanted to learn more. Throughout the 20th Century, he was one of Italy’s most renowned poster artists and was important to the development of advertising. His style is very distinctive and uses rich colors and strong composition. He was formally trained in the arts and was recruited as a lithographer for Ricordi, a music publisher. He eventually moved to Bologna and designed billboards, book covers, and illustrations for publisher Edmondo Cappuis. He was also important for the advertising of Generali Insurance and created a large number of posters for them. Dudovich later returned to Ricordi and produced a series of posters alongside several other artists. This ultimately became a duel between him and his former teacher, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, who had a more painterly style in comparison to Dudovich’s solid graphic style. Ultimately, Dudovich won because of his captivating and unique style, inspiring other poster artists for decades.
When I was very young, my mom loved the character Betty Boop and she used to watch the cartoon with me and my little sister. Although the cartoon was from 1932, we all found it entertaining to watch. However, some might find it inappropriate. Betty Boop was inspired by the Jazz Age flappers of the Roaring 20s and modeled after the Black jazz singer, Esther Jones, who used "boops" and other childish scat sounds combined with seriousness. Unlike other female cartoon characters of the time, Betty Boop was not childish, she was a mature and sexual woman and the star of her show. She wore short dresses that showed her cleavage, a garter, and high heels so she was very aware of her sex appeal and used it for her benefit, she was also the victim of sexual harassment by male characters. Some of the most engaging scenes are when Betty Boop is being chased by these men because she is usually able to escape, which is why many see her as a feminist icon. Betty Boop was not just a sex symbol but a free and independent woman.
Diego Chang,
Glass Pavillion, 1914 by Bruno Tauta is the piece I'm going to be talking about today. History likes giving us hints as to whats to come through very smart people. These people, at the time, either looked ahead of their time or crazy. What was Bruno trying to say was that glass is wont be decorative soon but fuctional architecturally speaking while still being a transportative material. The building was destroyed leaving us only Stories and pictures to describe the inside the Building but we can only speculate on the actual appearance of the "glass pavilion" as the surviving photographs are only in black and white, providing limited insight into the building's true colors. "Temple of Beauty" people say it was and Professor Triff describes it as an "outfit for the soul". Going back to my first point what is this hinting at? The glass revolution that was to come in the later years culminating in the Sir Norman Foster, The Gherkin, 2004 which i believe drew a lot of influence from Brunos exact piece. It would be wrong to go on talking about the glass revolution without talking about the Crystal Palance 1851 which was an industrial marvell as it was only 39 weeks which was unheard of for a building that was almost 1 million square feet and 128 feet tall.
I wanted to talk about expressionism and how the little flecks on gothic inspiration aid in cultivating a new form of artistic expression that welcomes melodrama and theatrics. With expressionism, the objective is to represent a space or the world through a warped lens that evokes more feeling than it does depict reality. By observing the works of Wells and Hitchcock, one can see how the intent is to create expression deeper than the surface level and encourage the viewer to digest what it is they're viewing. F.W.'s Nosferatu takes a more gothic and theatrical approach by obscuring the human figure into something much more mystical and fantastical, forcing the viewer to think outside the box in terms of what they're perceiving vs the message that's being conveyed by the story. Expressionist architecture also transports those who engage with to another world, expanding the possibilities of architecture and the stories they’re trying to tell.
Zieli Ennisacevedo
I was inspired by the die Brucke expressionist group of German artists. I think something that attracts me to their work is the level of modernism and how they’re embracing an entirely new form of art. Recently, I’ve found myself really interested in simple, flat arts when doing work for my graphic design class. The idea of them “bridging” famous past artworks with new avant-garde movements. This is something that isn’t easily attainable and could absolutely go wrong if not executed perfectly. While researching, I found that they created a manifesto which really caught my attention, “who want freedom in our work and in our lives, independence from older, established forces”. The level of abstraction they were able to achieve is incredible, and something I struggle with very frequently when going through any design process. This level of abstraction really allowed for their pieces to be that much more powerful with the use of dynamic, bold colors, and these almost ambiguous shapes that emulate this extreme level of emotion.
- John Kovacic
I find Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion incredibly interesting. There are only a few photos of this beautiful exhibit, taken in black and white in 1914. The world today will never get to see the beautiful colors of this glass pavilion. We will never see the “reflections of light whose colors began at the base with a dark blue and rose up through moss green and golden yellow to culminate at the top in a luminous pale yellow." I do not understand why they would destroy it after the exhibit closed. Of course, I understand it is incredibly impractical and cannot be used for anything other than viewing, but why would they just destroy it? The pavilion's purpose was to provoke emotion and showcase how glass can be used. The pavilion was supposed to resemble the geometry of true nature, so I think it would have been interesting to see the natural ware and tare that would have occurred due to nature. Was the cupola strong? Would it have lasted for more than a year? Would it have been surprisingly sturdy but the colors of the glass faded? We will never know.
The Symbolism phenomenon, especially the works done by French painter Paul Gaugin stood out to me the most. My mother replicated Gaugin’s famous When Will You Marry painting and it sits in a corner of her office. Even Though I had seen this painting many many times I had never looked into it. Paul Gaugin’s When Will You Marry is an oil painting depicting two Tahitian women sitting in front of a lush mountainous landscape. The two women are depicted differently, the figure closer to the foreground is a younger Tahitian woman in a traditional wrap-around dress crouched down and wears a flower behind her ear representing her availability for marriage. Behind her sits an older, stern woman sitting up straight and dressed in a western-style dress making a hand gesture believed to indicate warning or threat. The contrast in the women's clothing, facial expressions, and posture reflects Tahitians during the period of Tahiti's colonization and Gaugin’s interest in the exotic. Symbolist painters stopped depicting real life as it is and instead shifted to painting imaginary and colorful landscapes that evoke emotion rather than just portray real life.
Peter Behrens is widely known as one of the prominent design figures in Germany during the 20th century. In researching I found his work as an industrial designer to be important since he is seen as the first industrial designer. A few objects he took part in designing and developing were the tea kettle, plates, and glasses to name a few. His ethos regarding product design was to simplify a product and have variations of some aspects that make a product well executed. His designs were created from multiple standard parts that can be replaced such as handles, if these elements were changed with different models it would make it possible to create a variety of products at a lower cost. The first electric kettle appeared in the 1890s, but the potentially hazardous proximity of water and electricity and the lack of effective electricity distribution networks delayed its widespread acceptance. Behruns version of the kettle developed in 1909 used higher quality materials and introduced his concept of reusing other materials. The same concept was applied by changing the object's color. This philosophy is the basis of Peter Behrens's projects and inspires future designers who still use the same concept today. Behrens was a successful industrial designer in that he understood that to make a product "successful" it needs to meet the needs of society and be practical in the development process.
I was especially interested in the movies section of expressionism, as film has always been an art that I hold very dear to my heart. Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang, is a German silent film that embraces a futurist aesthetic and gothic style throughout the movie. The film is a representation of social classes and the economic differences that these classes face on a day to day bases. The era in which the film focuses on is the time where economic inbalances were prevalent and industrial disputes were heavily in motion, resulting in the film serving as a social critique to everything that was happening in that time. After looking at some images from scenes of the movie, it was obvious how significant different patterns, symmetrical objects, huge mechanical machines, and even the makeup on the actors, all contributed to the expressionist design that was present throughout the film. One of the most remarkable scenes in the movie is when Schufftan process was executed through the usage of mirrors to demonstrate an illusion that actors are occupying smaller sets. The main message of the film was to highlight the immense fear of over production and industrialization.
The part about symbolism stood out to me the most. Symbolism is so broad and uses marks to communicate ideas. What I think is so interesting about symbolism is how certain designs don’t only communicate ideas, but emotions and feelings as well. It gives the viewer a deeper understanding into what the artist was trying to communicate. There were also many different ways that artists used symbolism in their art. Gaugin was exotic, Redon was Bizarre, and Munch was decadent. Despite using symbolism in many different ways, all three artists shared the same foundation which was to communicate feelings to the viewer. As a graphic design major, I have learned how important symbolism is in advertisements and logos. It is interesting to see how long symbolism has been used for and how important it has been throughout art history. As I continue to learn more about symbolism, I realize how many different ways it can be used.
-Jackson Harris
I was interested in Bruno Taut’s glass dome built in 1914 for the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne, Germany. What interested me is how this design has been replicated in modern structures across the world. Bruno Taut’s design was innovative because of how he used colored and reflective glass to create a dome shape. The design, shape, and materiality were and are still considered modern, which I thought was interesting. Last summer, I was able to see a similar building style in Barcelona called the Torre Glòries. This building has a more cylindrical shape but also utilizes colored and reflective glass so that the “colors of the Mediterranean are reflected” by the windows. More recently, when visiting Tokyo, Japan, we saw a building designed by Tange Associates called Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in the Nishi-Shinjuku district. This building also incorporates Taut’s glass dome effect but has an outer shell of white aluminum and dark blue glass, criss-crossed by a web of white diagonal lines.
Benjamin Rosen-Cappellazzo
Christine Oyalo
The topic of expressionism influencing American and British cinema interested me because I've watched Alfred Hitchcock's work, including "Pyscho". Expressionism can be observed in the film in its use of striking contrasts, unusual camera angles, and shadowy lighting to create an atmosphere of tension and unease. The iconic shower scene, with its sharp cuts, extreme close-ups, and the harrowing score by Bernard Herrmann, is a masterful example of expressionist techniques being employed to evoke intense emotional responses. Hitchcock's use of distorted perspectives and surreal imagery in "Psycho" can be traced back to German Expressionism, which aimed to externalize inner states of mind and subjective experiences. The skewed angles and stark light-and-dark contrasts in the film draw a direct parallel to the expressionist aesthetic seen in German cinema. Moreover, "Psycho" employs expressionism not just visually but also in its narrative structure. The unsettling, unpredictable plot progression, and the exploration of the human psyche align with expressionist themes of madness and the blurring of reality and illusion. The character of Norman Bates, with his fractured identity, serves as a conduit for exploring these darker, more introspective themes.
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