chapter 14 pictorial modernism - fall2010 · pdf filepictorial modernism william pickering,...

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Pictorial Modernism

C H A P T E R 1 4

PICTORIAL MODERNISM

P I C TO R I A L M O N D E R N I S M

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The Beggarstaffs

• Brothers-on-law, James Pryde and William Nicholson opened an advertising design studio in 1894 and to protect their reputations as fine artists, they named it The Beggarstaff Brothers. They developed a new technique that was later called collage. By cutting pieces of paper, moving them around and pasting in position on a board, they created flat plans of color where the edges of the shapes were “drawn” with scissors.

• Unlike Art Nouveau, the Beggarstaffs forged a new beginning of design focused on powerful colored shapes and silhouettes rather than organic and decorative form.

PICTORIAL MODERNISM

William Pickering, title page for the Book of Common Prayer, 1844.


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Poster Design in Europe

• The European poster in the first half of the 20th century was greatly influenced by the modern-art movements surrealism, cubism, and dadaism. Designers were aware of the need to use pictorial references in their posters as a way to visually enhance and ultimately communicate more persuasively their views. Influenced mostly by cubism and constructivism, poster artists combined expressive and symbolic images as well as total visual organization on the picture plane.

PICTORIAL MODERNISM

P O S T E R D E S I G N

The Beggarstaffs

• poster for Harper’s Magazine, 1895

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The Beggarstaffs

• poster for Don Quixote, 1896

• never printed because the director/producer of the play felt the image was a bad likeness of Quixote.

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Dudley Hardy

• British painter who joined The Beggarstaffs in creating posters and advertising design

• Theatrical poster for The Gaiety Girl, 1898

• Developed a formula for theatre poster design where letters and images appeared on a flat plane of color

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Plakastijl

• A design school originating in Germany—the name means “poster style.”

• The traits of Plakastijl are usually bold, straight lettering with a very simple design.

PICTORIAL MODERNISM


Lucien Bernhard

• Considered the founder of the Plakastijl movement.

• His first poster created for Priester matches, in 1905.

• His style moved graphic design one step closer in the simplification and reduction of naturalism into a visual language of shape and sign.

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Lucian Bernhard Posters

• Manoli cigarettes, 1910

• Stiller shoes, 1912

• Adler typewriters

• Bosch sparkplugs

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Hans Rudi Erdt

• Plakastijl posters

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• modern adaptation of the style

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T Y P E D E S I G N

Berthold Type Foundry

• Block Type, 1910

• Early twentieth-century German sans-serif typefaces were based on Bernhard’s poster lettering.

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The War Posters

• During WWI posters became an important medium for communication

• Governments used posters for visual persuasion and propaganda.

• Lucien Bernard for a war loan campaign.

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• Alfred Leete, recruiting

• James Montgomery Flagg

• J. Paul Verrees, victory gardens

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Joseph C. Leyendecker

• poster celebrating a successful bond drive, 1917

• Leyendecker’s painting technique of slablike brush strokes makes this poster distinctive

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Abram Games

• poster to recruit blood donors, c. 1942

• placing the soldier inside the diagram of the blood bottle cements the connection between the donor’s blood and the soldier’s survival

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Saville Lumley

• “Daddy, What Did YOU Do During the Great War?,” poster, 1914

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Jesse Willcox Smith

• poster for the American Red Cross, 1918

• public display of graphic symbols showing support for the war effort were encouraged

• viewers are asked if they have a service flag, which signified that their household had supported the Red Cross effort, and emphasized the public’s contribution to the war effort by appealing to patriotic emotions

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PICTORIAL MODERNISM


Ludwig Hohlwein

• leading Plakastijl designer

• designed this fund-raising poster, 1914

• a graphic symbol (the red cross) combines with a pictorial symbol (a wounded soldier) in an appeal with emotional power and strong visual impact

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Ludwig Hohlwein

• poster for the Deutsche Lufthansa, 1936

• mythological winged being symbolizes the airline, German victory in the Berlin Olympics, and the triumph of the Nazi movement

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• concert poster, 1938

PICTORIAL MODERNISM


Ludwig Hohlwein

• recruiting poster, early 1940s

• In one of Hohlwein’s last Nazi posters, a stern and somber soldier appears above a simple question, “And you?”

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Art Deco

• A popular design movement in the 1920 and 30s.

• An extension of Art Nouveau, this movement focused on a more architectural style, described as elegant, sophisticated, and glamorous as well as functional and modern.

• Ludwig Hohlwein was a leader in this style.

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Ludwig Hohlwein

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Art Deco

• posters and advertising generally featured glamorous, “high-class” society.

• Typography had a strong vertical structure and was generally a clean, sans serif style often with linear embellishments.

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Art Deco

• was a significant design influence on product design and architecture as well as graphics.

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Art Deco Today

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E. McKnight Kauffer

• London Underground poster, 1930

• Lyrical muted colors capture the idyllic quality of the rural location

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A. M. Cassandre

• set up his own advertising agency called Alliance Graphique, serving a wide variety of clients during the 1930s

• posters for Dubonnet, 1932

• DUBO (doubt): man eyes his glass uncertainly

• DU BON (of some good): the beverage is tasted

• DUBONNET: the product is identified as the glass is refilled

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A. M. Cassandre

• In addition to Dubonnet Cassandre’s other notable clients were steamship lines and railways

• simple designs were characterized by broad planes of color, diagonal shapes, exaggerated perspective reminiscent of the cubists, and integrating typography into the composition.

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A. M. Cassandre

• modern promotion for the movie Ratatouille was influenced by Cassandre’s Dubonnet poster series.

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A. M. Cassandre

• Peignot typeface designed by Cassandre replaces lower case letters with small caps.

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• Also designed by Cassandre, the Bifur typeface replaces some strokes with lines

• Both are classic Art Deco fonts

PICTORIAL MODERNISM


Austin Cooper

• English graphic designer influenced by the cubist and collage-inspired posters.

• created this poster for the Southern Railway, showing fragments of a paris trip.

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Austin Cooper

• poster for the London Underground, 1934

• color conveys the comfort of warmer temperatures in the underground railway during winter

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• and cooler colors during the warmer months

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Austin Cooper

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K E Y T E R M S

Plakatstil (poster style)

the reductive, flat-color design school that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century; it employed flat background colors; large, simple images; and product names.

Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

written by Adolf Hitler to set forth his political philosophy and political ambitions for Germany. He wrote that propaganda “should be popular and should adapt its intellectual level to the receptive ability of the least intellectual” citizens. Hitler was convinced that the more artistically designed posters used in Germany and Austria during World War I were “wrongheaded,” and the slogans and popular illustrations of the Allies more effective.

Art deco

popular geometric works of the 1920s and 1930s, which to some extent were an extension of art nouveau. It signified a major aesthetic sensibility in graphics, architecture, and product design during the decades between the two world wars. The influences of cubism, the Bauhaus (see Chapter 16), and the Vienna Secession commingled with de Stijl and suprematism (discussed in Chapter 15), as well as a mania for Egyptian, Aztec, and Assyrian motifs and a passion for decoration.

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K E Y T E R M S

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Plakastijl

Art Deco

Lucien Bernhard

A.M. Cassandre

Ludwig Hohlwein

Austin Cooper

chapter 14 pictorial modernism - fall2010 · pdf filepictorial modernism william pickering,...

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