Your turn #8

 

The velocity of an automobile, Giacomo Balla, 1911

Dear class: you have a good list of themes to pick from. Neoplasticism, Surrealism in graphic design (see the different techniques) & Depero and his onomalanguage (which is Depero's way of standardizing Futurism for commercial purposes). Three female surrealist artists: Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington & Dorothea Tanning. WW 2 & the German propaganda machine. NY designers such as Alex Lieberman, and Herb Lubalin. Russian Cubofuturism & Malevich. 

I would add the following (which I didn't have time to talk about):

1. Joseph Binder 

2. different forms of Dada collage.

3. Breton's Manifeste du Surréalism.

4. A more detailed analysis of the graphic techniques of Max Ernst and John Heartfield.

Remember 200 words. No echo chamber.

dorothea tanning (the american surrealist)

portrait of Muriel Levy, 1943, 

Tanning was a self-taught artist. The surreal imagery of her paintings from the 1940s and her close friendships with artists and writers of the Surrealist Movement have led many to regard Tanning as a Surrealist painter, yet she developed her own individual style over the course of an artistic career that spanned six decades.

Profanation Landscape, 1947

Tanning's early works consist of precise figurative renderings of dream-like situations. Tanning read many Gothic and Romantic novels from her local library in her hometown of Galesburg. These fantastical stories, filled with imagery of the imaginary, heavily influenced her style and subject matter for years to come. Like other Surrealist painters, she was meticulous in her attention to details and in building up surfaces with carefully muted brushstrokes. 

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1943

Through the late 1940s, Tanning continued to paint depictions of unreal scenes, some of which combined erotic subjects with enigmatic symbols and desolate space. In the 1950s, her painting became less explicit and more suggestive. 

Rêve de Luxe, 1954

The Guest Room, 1950

In France, she moved away from Surrealism and develop her own style. During the mid-1950s, her work radically changed and her images became increasingly fragmented and prismatic, exemplified in works such as Insomnias (1957, Moderna Museet, Stockholm). 

Family portrait, 1954

here's an short about Tanning's work,

Your turn #7

Raoul Hausmann, Tatlin at Home, collage, 1920s

So, we have Expressionism's contribution to printing, Schmidt-Rotluff, PROGAPGANDA, DADA and its different manifestations in the graphic arts (Max Ernst, Grosz, Hausmann, etc.), 1920's & 1930s Plakatstil, the contribution of Mehemed Fehmy Agha to graphic design in the USA, and the different sides of BAUHAUS: Gropius, Albers, Moholy-Nagy, van der Rohe, Klee, Kandinsky, etc. I tried to show more images this time.  Pick anything from the list and elaborate on your comments. No echo chambers. If someone addresses a specific topic, move on to something else. That should work. 

Go ahead.

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your turn #6 (due on tuesday March 28)

Gustav Klimt, Woman in Gold, 1907

Hi class, today, Tuesday, March 21, you received an announcement regarding our class next Tuesday, March 28, which I’ll attend. I will be there to teach the class@ 5pm. I’m sorry for the mixed messages. Everything else stays the same. Here's the homework in place of my absence. 

There's plenty to talk about: Gesamtkunstwerk, Symbolism in its three variants (check the post), Vienna Secession, Behrens, Dudovich, Hoffmanss' Stoclet Palace, Wiener Werkstätte, the Deutscher Werkbund, the mark of Analytic Cubism, the mark of collage, how today's "Installation Art" is just an evolution from Gesamtkunstwerk, 

1. Instead of the usual 150 words, let's produce 200 words for this specific homework. 

2. Research the topic and avoid the echo chamber syndrome. 

3. When we get together, I expect to have a lively discussion on your comments.

Go ahead.

your turn #5

Chromolithographs, circa 1850

Dear class, there's plenty to comment on: William Blake, Crystal Palace, Art Nouveau, Pictorialism, the Pre-raphaelites, and their heroes: Mackmurdo, Morris, Owens, Evertt Millais, Ford Madox Brown, Morris's Kelmscott Press, etc. 

Go ahead.  

your turn #4

 The Crystal Palace, 1854, (perhaps the the symbol of Victorian design)

Dear class: please, take a look at this link for typeface development from 15th to 19th century!

We had to move fast, so there is plenty to comment about typeface development: from Gutenberg to Jenson to Manutius, Griffo, Caslon, Baskerville, Didot (influenced by Baskerville), and Bodoni. It's a fascinating story of design influenced by climate, language, and culture, and by "culture" I mean religion, politics, ideas, etc. In the end, you could see it as a struggle between north and south, Humanism vs. Conservatism, Protestantism vs. Catholicism, etc.   

Erotica, take a look at these works (it's all in Wikipedia) 

Here are the graphic design highlights: 1. newspapers, 2. magazines, 3. the advent of "community of interests" (gardening, mechanics, children's books, music printing, postcards), 4. 19th-century posters: fairs, circus, nightlife in general, etc. (this is for next class).  

In terms of technological development, we had: the advent of photography and how it changes how a culture sees itself: landscape photography, portraiture, natural science, war reportage, anthropology (Talbot's Pencil of Nature), etc.  

In terms of movement, we briefly talked about Romanticism and Victorian design (by the way, forgot to talk about this).

your turn #2

 

Hypteronomachia Polyphili (Trophy of Roman arms) This is the most celebrated book of the Renaissance, 1490s

(amazing) map of Venice, 1546 y Jacopo de Barbari

We've moved on to the late Middle Ages & the beginning of the Renaissance, right before Gutenberg's moveable type invention in 1450. There's plenty to discuss. You may go back and pick any theme from the last class: Decretals, cartography, the printshop, Ratdolt, The Nuremberg Chronicles,  life in the scriptorium, how the mark changes itself, design in the middle ages, even cheese production!  Research your topic; no echo chambers.

Go ahead.

your turn #1

chichen itza, mexico, 1200 AD

Yesterday's class was fun. 😀

To bring home this idea of the mark, it would be nice to think of a mark that has made a difference in your life. 

So, think of anything, man-made, that contains design and purpose in it, that means something to you (for whatever reason). It could go from trivial to mind-boggling. Search and try to connect the dots between the mark and your mind. 

150 words minimum. 

To leave a comment, click the word "comment" next to the pencil. A comment box appears. Write your comment in the box, sign with your name, and click "post comment." 

Better to write down your comment first, and cut and paste it into the box. If there's a glitch, your comment may disappear. 

Go ahead.      

the mark in all its three dimensional beauty (the trajan column)

the column itself, quite a marvel for first century ad. standards. the structure is about 30 metres (98 feet) in height, 35 metres (115 feet) including its large pedestal. the shaft is made from a series of 20 colossal carrara marble drums, each weighing about 32 tons with a diameter of 3.7 metres (12. feet). the 190-metre (620-foot) frieze winds around the shaft 23 times. inside the shaft, a spiral staircase of 185 steps provides access to a viewing platform at the top. the capital block of Trajan's Column weighs 53.3 tons, which had to be lifted to a height of 112 feet. which makes it a feat of architecture and engineering. so, the design as a mark obliges technology, production of coins,

excavations around the column court indicate that there were preexisting roads and buildings on site. the column shaft was an artificial unit of 100 Roman feet, increased and adjusted by the pedestal and other elements,

the crowning statue and the helical frieze both elevate the princeps and advertise victory over the dacians which financed the forum. Trajan is presented as a paternal commander, exhibiting the formulaic ruler-ship qualities of pietas, clementia, liberalitas, etc, control of a disciplined, multi-cultural army,

on the frieze itself (and keep in mind the freeze wraps around the whole column we see history unfolding before our eyes... trajan army forces presented as disciplined and technically accomplished, held in reserve during battles, but active in hi-tech sieges. here romans become acculturators, spreading mediterranean culture and architecture through their construction of military installations, clearance of forests and road-building,

the art becomes extremely detailed, key historical and topographical points were presented on vertical axes to improve viewer comprehension and to emphasise cardinal achievements (victory between wars, the danube bridge, capture of treasure, death of Decebalus, the presentation of his severed head, etc). these key episodes and symbolic elements were strung together with logically organised generic images (march, construction, adlocutio, sacrifice, battle, siege, submission), always subordinated to panegyric intent of the whole, the lesson? 

PROPAGANDA EXISTED BEFORE 20th century!

by presenting the veristic and ethnically specific barbarian spolia on the pedestal reliefs victory beyond far imperial frontiers was given detailed immediacy. trajan’s triumphs, triumphal games and coin issues had already educated the audience about warfare events, barbarian peoples and barbarian material culture,

here are two angles, one from from the balcony with the lower elevation reconstruction of the Basilica Ulpia and the asymmetric positioning of the Equus Traiani base, the two most prominent statues of Trajan in his Forum were intervisible.

a clear appreciation of the magnificence of the whole Forum complex was facilitated. see that beyond the confines of the Forum a number of Trajanic building projects were also viewable to advantage from the balcony, notably the Thermae Traianae on the Oppian Hill to the east-south-east, dominating the Amphitheatrum Flavium and the Thermae Titi (many of these buildings have disappeared).