The design of "socarrat"

the following three photos show the process of cooking the paella for socarrat. 

1. water boiling with the sofrito and the liquid (very good Pinot Grigio & beef broth)

2. The paella is done, not the socarrat. Now comes to the complex process of getting the right rice-toasting consistency, neither cooked/soggy nor burnt. This is my simile with Gutenberg's press, i.e.,  socarrat is to paella what a fine indelible print is to a page. Gutenberg's pages are masterful in that the ink trace on the page's surface has a unique "flavor" to it. 

3. The socarrat is already formed. As you scrape the pan's surface, you end up with an upside-down uniform film of caramelized beauty. 

Amazing!

Jan Toorop

Jan Toorop, a leading Dutch Symbolist Painter, exhibited with Les XX in Brussels, as early as 1884. He developed a unique Symbolist style, with dynamic, unpredictable lines based on Javanese motifs, highly stylised willowy figures, and curvilinear designs. Toorop shows interest in literary metaphor, evocative form, and the linear depiction of scenes in a highly decorative manner of organic nature, often depicting women (he achnowledged Beardsley's influence). Above, Jan Toorop's Psyche (1898).

There was a great toorop site that is gone. here is a short video of his work.

Just in case.

The internationalization of "Art Nouveau," "Jugedstil" and "Modernista"

stairwell in Riga

Known as Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Modernista in Spain, and Stile Liberty or Stile Floreale in Italy. 

Art Nouveau has become the general term applied to a highly varied movement that was European-centred but internationally current at the end of the century. 

Xavier Schoelkopf, Yvette Gilbert's House, 1899

a link to Hôtel Yvette Gilbert, Paris (destroyed in 1950)

gate of the castle Beranger, hector guimard

Art Nouveau architects gave idiosyncratic expression to many of the themes that had preoccupied the 19th century, ranging from Viollet-le-Duc's call for structural honesty to Sullivan's call for organic architecture. 

Taken from Le Duc's Dictionary of French Architecture 9-16th century

The extensive use of iron and glass in Art Nouveau buildings was also rooted in 19th-century practice. In France, bizarre forms appeared in iron, masonry, and concrete, such as the structures of Hector Guimard for the Paris Métro (c. 1900), the Montmartre church of Saint-Jean L'Évangéliste by Anatole de Baudot, Xavier Schollkopf's house for the actress Yvette Guilbert at Paris, and the Samaritaine Department Store (1905) near the Pont Neuf in Paris, by Frantz Jourdain. 

Hector Guimard, Entrance of the Metro, Paris

Art Nouveau architects' preference for the curvilinear is especially evident in the Brussels buildings of the Belgian Victor Horta. In the Hôtel Van Eetvelde (1895), he used floral, tendrilous ornaments.  

Decorative exploitation of the architectural surface with flexible, S-shaped linear ornament, commonly called whiplash or eel styles, was indulged in by the Jugendstil and Sezessionstil architects. The Studio Elvira at Munich (1897-98) by August Endell and Otto Wagner's Majolika Haus at Vienna (c. 1898) are two more significant examples of this German and Austrian use of line.

What do we have here?

(1) make beautiful objects & constructions available to everyone 

(2) no object is too utilitarian.

(3) Art Nouveau sees no separation in principle between high and low and applied or decorative arts 

(ceramics, furniture, and other practical objects)

(4) Nouveau reacts against the precise and clean geometry of Neoclassicism. It's a form of maximalism.

(5) a new graphic design language, as far away as possible from the historical and classical models employed by the art academies. It's pretty free-spirited within the conventions of the time,

Who doesn't want 1-5??

Why does modern architecture begin with the death of the curve? A little history

 

let's start with this promising definition: a curve is an object that follows a specific path which gives it its defining shape. a curve can be a straight line, an open curved line, or a closed, multi-segment path.

so, a line is a curve, i.e., the line is not apriori the curve, but the opposite.

here is a historic presentation of the curve in architecture.

here is an exciting discussion with historical examples.

yet, modern architecture is anti-curve. why? 

it rejects ornament.

this is a crucial moment. ornament is essentially curvy. 

Edwin Heathcote makes a good point that ornament communicates with a broader public. He doesn't go after the WHY.

here is the manifesto against ornament by the anti-ornament architect Adolf Loos.

here's his house (exterior)

👇🏻

here are nine Loss houses to prove the point.

then, comes Corbusier's amazing Villa Savoye, 

then Mies ven der Rohe's masterpiece, The Barcelona Pavillion.

is Jules Chéret & the cherettes

Jules Chéret (1836-1932) was a French painter and who became a master of poster art. Often called the father of the modern poster. Influenced by the scenes of frivolity depicted in the works of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and other Rococo artists such as Antoine Watteau, Chéret created vivid poster ads for the cabarets, music halls, and theaters such as the Eldorado, the Olympia, the Folies Bergères, Theatre de l'Opera and the Moulin Rouge.

As his work became more popular and his large posters displaying modestly free-spirited females found a larger audience, pundits began calling him the "father of the women's liberation."

This is a great source of chéret's illustrations!

Mythic primitivism return to innocence: Koloman Moser Ver Sacrum, 1898

Koloman Moser excelled in diverse fields, including painting, graphic design, interior design, fashion, and scenography, embodying the "Gesamtkunstwerk" (total work of art) philosophy of the Vienna Secession. 

His graphic designs for the Secession's journal Ver Sacrum, became a model for graphic design and  helped define the art of his time. 

Something else: Moser designs have the peculiarity of "reducing" the shapes of furniture and art objects while maintaining high-quality ornamentation, a characteristic of Viennese Art Nouveau. 

He is credited as the first Austrian designer to invent a complete corporate identity, in this case, that of the Wiener Werkstätte. 

Moser's designs in architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries helped characterize the work of the era, drawing upon clean lines and repetitive motifs of classical Greek and Roman art and architecture in reaction to the Baroque decadence of his surroundings. Influence on Viennese Modernism: Moser's work is considered one of the most important pioneers of Viennese Modernism and one of the most influential artists of Viennese Art Nouveau.

For all of the above, Moser is the powerhouse of the Vienna Secession.

(Here is a quick look at Moser's oeuvre)

What is Gesamtkunstwerk?

Victor Horta's tassel hotel in Brussels, 1894. this is one of the first examples of Art Nouveau. horta is obviously evoking the vital force of nature. the whiplash curves resembling vines literally overtake the house, and iron support columns are cast in the form of a stem or root that is bursting alive at the top. horta designed literally every element of the interior, including the window frames and stained glass, the metal radiator covers and the floral light fixtures, floor tiles and stair rails.

architect charles rennie mackintosh & his wife margaret mcconald on designing several interiors in their entirety, including their own home (1906). each room presented a different, unified color scheme, with furniture, light fixtures and wall paintings conceived by the couple.

frank lloyd wright's Robie House (1910) is just one example of the american architect's mastery of gesamtkunstwerk. wright took the concept even further than some of his peers by joining different interior elements into single pieces. in the Robie House's dining room the light fixtures are actually a part of the dining table. wright placed the sconces within the ceiling strapwork. 

 

The Barcelona Pavilion, an emblematic work of the Modern Movement, has been exhaustively studied and interpreted as well as having inspired the oeuvre of several generations of architects. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as the German national pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. Mies writes: "The design was predicated on an absolute distinction between structure and enclosure—a regular grid of cruciform steel columns interspersed by freely spaced planes". The floor plan is very simple. The entire building rests on a plinth of travertine. A southern U-shaped enclosure, also of travertine, helps form a service annex and a large water basin. The floor slabs of the pavilion project out and over the pool—once again connecting inside and out. Another U-shaped wall on the opposite side of the site also forms a smaller water basin. This is where the statue by Georg Kolbe sits. The roof plates, relatively small, are supported by the chrome-clad, cruciform columns. This gives the impression of a hovering roof. A masterpiece!

 

in 1956, SAS commissioned arne jacobsen to build their royal hotel in Copenhagen. jacobsen not only designed the architecture of the building, but also the interiors, from the furniture to the flatware and the door hardware. it is for thisproject that he created his famous Egg and Swan sofas and chairs.

Art for art's sake

A term Oscar Wilde made famous: l'art pour l'art. 

A view known as aestheticism, which is synonymous with symbolism or decadence (decadentismo in Italy). 

What does it mean really? The artist doesn't do art for any other reason than art's sake.

Art is autarchic!  

The movement happened from around 1870 to 1901. It's generally ended with the trial of Oscar Wilde.

Ramon Casas, Decadent Youth, 1899

Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, 1919

Dora Carrington, Litton Strachey, 1918

James Ensor, Dunkards, 1883

Gustav Klimt, The Virgin, 1913

charles rennie mackintosh's hill house

house for an art lover by charles r. mackintosh and margaret macdonald

let's start with this video,

hill house, front

hill house, side view with side garden

what do we see here?

1. bare, harled, brutal exterior...
2. the vast colliding masses anticipates Le Corbusier and 1960s brutalism.
3. the prominent gables and conical-topped turrets, point to Baronial and vernacular design,
4. the interior features ornate, organic stencilled designs and coloured glass in light fittings and balusters.
5. the Hill House Chair are influenced by Japanese design.

a masterpiece!

fire place, furniture, moldings (all designed by charles and margaret mackintosh) 

living room

Early women photographers

Genevieve Elizabeth Disdéri, Plougastel Cemetery (1856)

Bertha Wehnert Beckmann

Hilda Sjolin portrait of Ida Hultgren (1863)

Thora Hallager, portrait of Hans Christian Andersen (1869)

Mary Steen, Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice, 1895

Julia Margaret Cameron 

Clementina Hawarden 

Wikipedia has a good page of early women photographers.

The Harper's Dinasty

The rise of American editorial and advertising design begins with the Harpers brothers. They started their publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. The company changed its name to "Harper & Brothers" in 1833.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March, 1858

Harper & Brothers began publishing Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1850. The brothers also published Harper's Weekly (starting in 1857),

First Harper's Bazar's Cover, 1867

Harper's Bazar (starting in 1867). Harper's New Monthly Magazine ultimately became Harper's Magazine, which is now published by the Harper's Magazine Foundation.

Here are five key contributions: 

1. Harper’s covered major national and international issues, including the Civil War, Reconstruction, and industrialization. It helped shape public discourse by providing in-depth reporting and political commentary. 

2. The magazine featured works of the most notable American authors, such as Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Henry James, helping to establish a uniquely American literary voice. 

3. It was one of the first American periodicals to use extensive illustrations, making news and literature more accessible. Political cartoons, such as those by Thomas Nast, were instrumental in influencing public attitudes on issues like corruption and civil rights. 

4. The magazine provided a blend of fiction, essays, and news that catered to the growing literate middle class, reinforcing cultural and intellectual trends of the time. 

5. Harper's documented westward expansion, urbanization, and technological advancements, providing readers with a broader understanding of the rapidly changing nation.

Margaret MacDonald: The White Cockade tea room menu, 1911

 

This menu design for a tea room at the Glasgow Exhibition shows the evolution toward geometric and modular form. The composition of motifs, borders, and delicately defined solid volumes established a language of interlaced lines and flat shapes that works abstractly. The attention to order and arrangement of forms moves dramatically ways from the illustration, although the female face, rose, and hand hint at sensuality. The degree of abstraction of this work indicates the readiness for the repeatable modularity essential to design in an industrial context. The patterns echo the geometric system that Mackintosh used to organize his architectural elements (GDCG).

or this,

or this,

Primarily drawing from her imagination, she inventively reinterpreted traditional themes, allegories, and symbols. For instance, immediately following the 1896 opening of her Glasgow studio with her sister, she transformed broad ideas such as "Time" and "Summer" into highly stylized human forms. Many of her works incorporate muted natural tones, elongated nude human forms, and a subtle interplay between geometric and natural motifs. Above all, her designs demonstrated a type of originality that distinguished her from other artists of her time. (Wikipedia)

Aubrey Beardsley's exquisite decadent style

the mirror of love

Aubrey Beardsley is the enfant terrible of Art Noveau, with his striking pen line, vibrant black-and-white works, and shockingly exotic imagery. He was intensely prolific for only five years and died of tuberculosis at age twenty-six (MHG). 

Beardsley did illustrations for The Yellow Book, a leading journal for Aestheticism (England's foremost decadent movement). Above, right, poster for Isolde (1895). 

Here are some of Beardsley's infamous Lysistrata, 

Nice video produced by the Tate Britain . 

Selwyn Image, The Century Guild Hobby Horse (1886), how to represent an ideal integrated graphic design

Artist Selwyn Image, writer Herbert Horne, and other founding members of the Century Guild used the Hobby Horse to represent an idea of integrated graphic design and the fine arts.

Selwyn cover design for The Tragic Mary, 1890.

1. The Hobby Horse was a quarterly Victorian periodical published by the Century Guild of Artists in England. The magazine ran from 1884–1894 and spanned seven volumes and 28 issues. It featured various articles on arts, design, and other subjects, including literature and social issues.

2. The Century Guild Hobby Horse was one of the last versions of the literature and art journal, a genre born with the Pre-Raphaelite Germ in 1850.

3. Unlike The Yellow Book and The Savoy, The Hobby Horse was not solely committed to elite aestheticism.

Here's a link to an excellent text about the Hobby Horse by Rebecca Mitchell