Art 345: Ch. 15
PROUNS
("projects for the establishment of a new art")
Ladislav SUTNAR
A leading supporter and practitioner of functional design in Czechoslovakia Migrates to America.
Ladislav SUTNAR
After World War I, constructivist ideas were adopted by artists in other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. In Czechoslavakia, __________ became the leading supporter and practitioner of functional design. He advocated the constructivist ideal and the application of design principles to every aspect of contemporary life. His book jackets and editorial designs evinced an organizational simplicity and typographic clarity, giving graphic impact to the communication. A good example is the 1929 cover design for Getting Married, in which a triangle creates a strong focal point, unifies the silhouetted figures, and becomes the main structural element in a delicately balanced composition.
Novyi lef (Left Front of the Arts)
Alexander RODCHENKO designed this magazine for all fields of the creative arts. His design style was rooted in strong, static horizontal and vertical forms. Overprinting, kiss registration, and photomontage were used regularly. RODCHENKO delighted in contrasting bold, blocky type and hard-edged shapes against the softer forms and edges of photomontages, as shown in Chapter 17 on the magazine s cover designs.
Tectonics (per Aleksei Gan)
An early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology was the 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by Aleksei GAN. He criticized abstract painters for their inability to break the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art and boasted that constructivism had moved from laboratory work to practical application. GAN wrote that ___, texture, and construction were the three principles of constructivism. *represented the unification of communist ideology with visual form*
Texture (per Aleksei Gan)
An early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology was the 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by Aleksei GAN. He criticized abstract painters for their inability to break the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art and boasted that constructivism had moved from laboratory work to practical application. GAN wrote that tectonics, ___, and construction were the three principles of constructivism. MEANT *the nature of materials and how they are used in industrial production*
Construction (per Aleksei Gan)
An early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology was the 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by Aleksei GAN. He criticized abstract painters for their inability to break the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art and boasted that constructivism had moved from laboratory work to practical application. GAN wrote that tectonics, texture, and ____ were the three principles of constructivism; symbolized the *creative process and the search for laws of visual organization*
Aleksei GAN
An early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology was the 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by THIS MAN. He criticized abstract painters for their inability to break the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art and boasted that constructivism had moved from laboratory work to practical application. He wrote that tectonics, texture, and construction were the three principles of constructivism. Tectonics represented the unification of communist ideology with visual form; texture meant the nature of materials and how they are used in industrial production; and construction symbolized the creative process and the search for laws of visual organization.
Vladimir Vasilevich LEBEDEV
Another Soviet artist associated with Tatlin and the constructivists who profoundly influenced Russian modernism was __ ___ ___. He embraced Bolshevism and designed bold, flat, neoprimitivist agitational propaganda posters for ROSTA, the Soviet news agency. This work proved to be excellent preparation for designing picture books for children. He learned to simplify, to reduce forms to their basic geometric shapes, to use only brilliant primary colors, and to tell a story visually and in sequence. "In the twenties," he explained, "we fought for mastery and purity of art; we wanted fine art to be descriptive, not illustrative. Cubism gave us discipline of thought, without which there is neither mastery nor purity of professional language." With the growth of the Soviet children's book industry under Lenin's New Economic Policy of the 1920s, He became the father of the 20th-century Russian picture book He was an agitational propagandist at heart. But a good communist, he insisted, "doesn't deny the necessity of an individual approach to illustrations. And the more the artist shows his personality in his work, the more effective will his art be, the deeper it will influence the reader, the closer it will bring him to art
Vladimir TATLIN and Alexander RODCHENKO
By 1920, a deep ideological split developed in Russia concerning the role of the artist in the new communist state. Some artists argued that art should remain an essentially spiritual activity apart from the utilitarian needs of society. They rejected a social or political role, believing the sole aim of art to be realizing perceptions of the world by inventing forms in space and time. Others renounced *"art for art's sake*" to devote themselves to industrial design, visual communications, and applied arts serving the new communist society. For example, _____________ turned from sculpture to the design of a stove that would provide maximum heat from minimum fuel, and ____________ gave up painting for graphic design and photojournalism.
Piet MONDRIAN
DUTCH PAINTER WHOSE paintings are the wellspring from which de Stijl's philosophy and visual forms developed. He was influenced by philosopher M.H.J. SCHOENMAKERS who defined the horizontal and the vertical as the two fundamental opposites shaping our world. SCHOENMAKERS called red, yellow, and blue the three principal colors Mondrian began to paint purely abstract paintings composed of horizontal and vertical lines. He believed true reality in visual art "is attained through dynamic movement... established through the balance of unequal but equivalent oppositions. The clarification of equilibrium through plastic art is of great importance for humanity.... It is the task of art to express a clear vision of reality." Prescribed visual vocabulary was reduced to: • primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) • neutrals (black, gray, and white) • straight lines (horizontal and vertical) • flat planes limited to rectangles and squares
Elementarism
Diagonal is more dynamic than horizontal and vertical
Veshch/Gegenstand/Objet
During the early 1920s, the Soviet government offered official encouragement to the new Russian art and even sought to publicize it through an international journal created by Ilya EHRENBURG and EL LISSITZKY. They saw the publication as a meeting point for new works from different nations in which parallel yet isolated art and design movements that had occurred during a seven-year period of isolation caused by revolution and war could be showcased. The title was chosen because the editors believed that art meant the creation of new objects.
Kasimir MALEVICH
Founded a *nonobjective* painting style of basic forms and pure color that he called suprematism; after working in the manner of futurism cubism, he created an elemental geometric abstraction that was new and totally nonobjective. he rejected both utilitarian function and pictorial representation, instead seeking the supreme "expression of feeling, seeking no practical values, no ideas, no promised land." Also rejected a social and political role, believing the sole aim of art to be realizing perceptions of the world by inventing forms in space and time. believed that the essence of the art experience was the perceptual effect of color In his Suprematist Composition visual form becomes the content, and expressive qualities develop from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors. Consider: • motion, movement • depth due to scale (contrast in sizes) and overlapping • contrast (diagonal/horizontal) • advancing (of warm colors) • receding (of cool colors) • grouping of like color
Théo VAN DOESBURG
Founder of and guiding spirit of De Stijl movement; joined by Piet MONDRIAN, Bart Anthony VAN DER LECK, and Vilmos HUSZAR, the architect Jacobus Johannes Pieter OUD, and others he wrote "the old is connected with the individual. the new is connected with the universal." an individual with personal expression might use images and form that are specific to one political regime. but an individual designer could not own reductive abstract geometry based on mathematical proportions. these are universal forms. they could not be related to the soviets, the germans, british or any nation.
Salomon TELINGATER
His yellow book's front wrapper suggests a combination of agitprop and Dadaist elements via collage techniques. His work is akin to the art of declamation: letters react to slightest fluctuations of poetic intonation instantly changing the size and color
Alexander RODCHENKO, Cover for Novyi lef
IDENTIFY
Alexander RODCHENKO, Cover for Novyi lef (Left Front of the Arts), no. 1, 1923.
IDENTIFY
EL LISSITSKY, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919
IDENTIFY
EL LISSITSKY, Pages from For the Voice by Mayakovsky, 1923.
IDENTIFY
Gerrit RIETVELD, The Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924 (chair)
IDENTIFY
Kasimir MALEVICH, Suprematist Composition, 1915
IDENTIFY
Théo VAN DOESBURG and Lazlo MAHOLY-NAGY, Book cover, 1925
IDENTIFY
Théo VAN DOESBURG, Cover for de Stijl, 1922
IDENTIFY
Théo VAN DOESBURG, Exhibition poster, 1920
IDENTIFY
DE STIJL; Type is asymmetrically balanced in the four corners of an implied rectangle. The designer developed a new horizontal format for de Stijl magazine that was used until the last issue, published in 1932. NB: Nieuwe Beelden
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Théo VAN DOESBURG, Cover for de Stijl, 1922*
RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM; His design style was based on strong, static horizontal and vertical forms placed in machine rhythm relationships. The logo is printed in tight registration, with the top half of the letterforms red and the bottom half black (kiss registration).
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Alexander RODCHENKO, Cover for Novyi lef (Left Front of the Arts), no. 1, 1923.*
RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM; This Russian artist delighted in contrasting bold, blocky type and hard-edged shapes against the softer forms and edges of photomontages as in this example.
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Alexander RODCHENKO, Cover for Novyi lef*
RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM; The Bolshevik army emblem, a red wedge, slashes diagonally into a white sphere signifying Kerenski's "white" forces. The slogan's four words are placed to reinforce the dynamic movement; space is dynamically divided into black and white areas.
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *EL LISSITSKY, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919*
RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM; The poem "Our March" begins, "Beat your drums on the squares of the riots, turned red with the blood of revolution." The title type has staccato cadences of a drumbeat; the red square signifies the bloodstained town squares. The graphic designer constructed the book by visually programming the total object.
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *EL LISSITSKY, Pages from For the Voice by Mayakovsky, 1923.*
DE STIJL; De Stijl architectural theory was realized in 1924 and is composed of planes in space. Predated by half a century the integration of industrial equipment in domestic interiors (during high-tech movement of late 1970s).
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Gerrit RIETVELD, The Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924 (chair)*
RUSSIAN SUPREMATISM; A symphonic arrangement of elemental shapes of luminous color on a white field becomes an expression of pure feeling; visual form becomes the content, and expressive qualities develop from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors.
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Kasimir MALEVICH, Suprematist Composition, 1915*
DE STIJL; Original lettering was executed in ink in a poster for The Golden Section: International Exhibition of Cubists and Neo-Cubists
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Théo VAN DOESBURG, Exhibition poster, 1920*
DE STIJL; The direct application of the de Stijl vocabulary to graphic design is conveyed in this 1925 cover in collaboration with two designers for VAN DOESBURG's book "Basic Concepts of Formmaking."
IDENTIFY: ART STYLE/PERIOD & Notable characteristics of *Théo VAN DOESBURG and Lazlo MAHOLY-NAGY, Book cover, 1925*
László MOHOLY-NAGY
In 1921, the Hungarian ____________ moved to Berlin, where EL LISSITZKY, Kurt SCHWITTERS, and Théo VAN DOESBURG were frequent visitors to his studio. He saw type as form and texture, to be composed with a rectangle, lines, and spatial intervals in order to achieve dynamic equilibrium through which clarity of communication and harmony of form could be achieved, as in his design for Arthur LEHNING's avant-garde publication i10. This is one of the purest examples of de Stijl principles applied to typography.
Gerrit RIETVELD
In the Red Blue Chair, Rietveld manipulated rectilinear volumes and examined the interaction of vertical and horizontal planes, much as he did in his architecture. Although the chair was originally designed in 1918, its color scheme of primary colors (red, yellow, blue) plus black—so closely associated with the de Stijl group and its most famous theorist and practitioner Piet Mondrian—was applied to it around 1923. Hoping that much of his furniture would eventually be mass-produced rather than handcrafted, Rietveld aimed for simplicity in construction. The pieces of wood that comprise the Red Blue Chair are in the standard lumber sizes readily available at the time
László MOHOLY-NAGY
Inspired by the non-representational work of MALEVICH, this Hungarian designer was influenced by Constructivism, Merz, and de Stijl Also went on to great influence as an instructor at the Bauhaus, and also innovated new ways of incorporating type and photography in his designs Migrates to America.
The Isms of Art
One of the most influential book designs of the 1920s was ______________, a forty-eight-page pictorially illustrated portfolio that EL LISSITZKY edited with Dadaist Hans ARP. The format for this book was an important step toward the creation of a visual program for organizing information. Other important design considerations included asymmetrical balance, silhouette halftones, a skillful use of white space, and sans-serif typography with bold rules, an early expression of the modernist aesthetic.
Henryk BERLEWI
Polish designer decisively influenced by El Lissitzky's 1920 Warsaw lectures.
true
T/F: Dadaist influence is seen in this witty piece by Salomon TELINGATER
true
T/F: This 1917 cover design for de Stijl magazine was designed by Vilmos Huszár. The layout combines Huszár's composition with type and van Doesburg's logo to create a concise rectangle in the center of the page.
Henryk BERLEWI
The Polish designer ____________ evolved his mechano-faktura theory while working in Germany in 1922 and 1923. He believed that modern art was filled with illusionistic pitfalls, so he mechanized painting and graphic design into a constructed abstraction that abolished any illusions of three dimensions, as on page 6 of the 1925 Putos Chocolates brochure (Fig. 16-63).
EL LISSITZKY
The constructivist ideal was best exemplified by ____________, who was influenced by Kasimir MALEVICH and applied suprematist theory to constructivism, as evident in the 1919 poster *"Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge*" (Fig. 15-9), in which he transformed suprematist design elements into political symbolism for communication purposes.
EL LISSITZKY
The constructivist ideal was best realized by this Russian painter, architect, graphic designer, and photographer El Lissitzky, who profoundly influenced the course of graphic design. The mathematical and structural properties of architecture formed the basis for his art; developed a painting style that he called *PROUNS ("projects for the establishment of a new art"), *which introduced three-dimensional illusions that both receded behind the picture plane and projected forward from the picture plane called PROUNS "an interchange station between painting and architecture" indicating his synthesis of architectural concepts with painting. PROUNS pointed the way to the application of modern painting concepts of form and space to applied design. Visionary designs for characters in *"Victory Over the Sun,"* a Futurist opera intended to underline parallels between literary text, musical score, and the art of painting saw the October 1917 Russian Revolution as a new beginning for mankind. To him: • Communism and social engineering would create a new order (the application of sociological principles to specific social problems) • Technology would provide for society's needs • The artist/designer would forge a unity between art and technology by constructing a new world of objects to provide mankind with a richer society and environment. This idealism led him to put increasing emphasis on graphic design, as he moved from private aesthetic experience into the mainstream of communal life In 1921 He traveled to Berlin and made contact with de Stijl, the Bauhaus, Dadaists, and other constructivists. Access to excellent German printing facilities enabled his typographic ideas to develop rapidly. tremendous energy and range of experimentation with photomontage, printmaking, graphic design, and painting enabled him to become the main conduit through which suprematist and constructivist ideas flowed into Western Europe
Théo VAN DOESBURG
The de Stijl movement's founder and guiding spirit _____________ was de Stijl, so it is understandable that de Stijl as an organized movement did not survive his death at age forty-seven in 1931.
Suprematism
The leaders of this movement rejected both utilitarian function and pictorial representation, instead seeking the expression of feeling, seeking no practical values, no ideas, no promised land. They believed that the essence of the art experience was the perceptual effect of color. Visual form became the content, and expressive qualities developed from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors. (formed in Russia in 1915-1916) Art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms. MALEVICH created a "grammar" based in particular on the square and the circle.
Constructivism
This movement symbolized the creative process and the search for laws of visual organization. The movements leader developed a painting style that he called PROUNS (projects for the establishment of a new art), which introduced 3Dl illusions that both receded behind the picture plane and projected forward form the picture plane. He developed visual ideas about balance, space, and form in his paintings, which became the basis for his graphic design and architecture. He put increasing emphasis on graphic design, as he moved from private aesthetic experience into the mainstream of communal life. Artistic and architectural movement in Russia from 1919 onward (especially after the October Revolution). The movement dismissed "pure" art in favor of an art used as an instrument for social purposes, specifically the construction of a socialist system. • Mathematical and structural properties of architecture • Unity between art and technology by constructing a new world of objects to provide a richer society and environment • Visually programming the total object: constructing • Visual program for organizing information •Sans-serif typography and bold rules
De Stijl
This movement was launched in the Netherlands in the late summer of 1917. Working in an abstract geometric style, the leaders of this movement sought universal laws of equilibrium and harmony for art, which could then be a prototype for a new social order. They worked within a proscribed SM Should be prescribed ( a rule to be followed) visual vocabulary that was reduced to the use of primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) with neutrals (black, gray, and white), straight horizontal and vertical lines, and flat planes limited to rectangles and squares. They advocated the absorption of pure art by applied art. The spirit of art could then permeate society through architectural, product, and graphic design. Under this system, art would not be subjugated to the level of the everyday object; the everyday object (and, through it, everyday life) would be elevated to the level of art. • Expression of mathematical structure of the universe and universal harmony • Universal laws that govern visible reality • Purity by banning naturalistic representation, external values, and subjective expression • Asymmetrical balance with tension between elements to achieve harmony • Horizontal, vertical, limited palette • Elementarism: Diagonal is more dynamic than horizontal and vertical
De Stijl magazine/journal
Théo VAN DOESBURG edited and published this journal. He designed a logo for the magazine with letters constructed from an open grid of squares and rectangles. The publication advocated the absorption of pure art by applied art and became a natural vehicle for expressing the movement s principles through graphic design.
Georgii and Vladimir Augustovich STENBERG
Two brothers who collaborated on theatrical designs and film posters. Three-dimensional illusions contrasted with flat forms of bright color in dynamic posters conveying strong, direct messages In this picture, Spatial dislocation is achieved by extreme perspective, circular type, and the fragmented figure.
Vilmos HUSZÁR
Van Doesburg edited and published the journal de Stijl, which advocated the absorption of pure art by applied art. As __ __ combined his composition with type and van Doesburg's logo to create a concise rectangle in the center of the page for the cover design for the journal *de Stijl.* The spirit of art could then permeate society through architectural, product, and graphic design.
Roklama mechano
Warsaw advertising firm opened by designer Henryk BERLEWI and futurist poets Aleksander WAT and Stanley BRUCZ; Introduced modern art forms to Polish society in industrial and commercial advertisements. Their brochure stated that advertising design and costs should be governed by the same principles that govern modern industry and the laws of economy.
Vladimir Vasilevich LEBEDEV
With the growth of the Soviet children's book industry under Vladimir LENIN's New Economic Policy of the 1920s, ______________ became the father of the 20th-century Russian picture book. He cultivated *"infantilism*" in his work by borrowing the spontaneous and naïve techniques of children's art. In his picture books, he illustrated Marxist parables on the superiority of the Soviet system to capitalism.
Gustav KLUTSIS
______________, the master of propaganda photomontage, referred to the medium as *"the art construction for socialism.*" He used the poster as a means of extolling Soviet accomplishments, as in the 1931 poster *"Building Socialism Underthe Banner of Lenin.*" His work has been compared to John HEARTFIELD's powerful political posters.
Vladimir TATLIN
a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir MALEVICH he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became an important artist in the Constructivist movement. He is most famous for his design for The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, which he began in 1919 renounced "art for art's sake" to devote time to industrial design, visual communication, and applied arts serving the new communist society. This constructivist called on the artist to stop producing useless things and turn to the poster for "such work now belongs to the duty of the artist as a citizen of the community who is clearing the field of the old rubbish in preparation for the new life." He turned from sculpture to industrial design and designed a stove that would give maximum heat from minimum fuel.
Cubo-futurism
common traits in cubism and futurism; recognized by the Russian avant-garde
Alexander RODCHENKO
designed propaganda posters, book covers, textiles, candy wrappers, furniture and clothes, created photomontage, camera's point of view was very high or low, documented for the Soviet Artistic community until his style was questioned, then photographed parades and sporting events, later painted He gave up painting for graphic design and photojournalism. renounced "art for art's sake" to devote time to industrial design, visual communication, and applied arts serving the new communist society. This constructivist called on the artist to stop producing useless things and turn to the poster for "such work now belongs to the duty of the artist as a citizen of the community who is clearing the field of the old rubbish in preparation for the new life."
Jacobus Johannes Pieter OUD
designed the Café de Unie with an asymmetrical façade, projecting De Stijl's vision of order on an environmental scale.
Karel TEIGE
from Prague, was initially trained as a painter but early in his career began working in typography and photomontage as an enthusiastic advocate of international modernism. He was an active participant in Devetsil (Nine Forces), a group of avant-garde poets, designers, architects, performance artists, and musicians, and designed many of their publications using what was available in the letterpress printer's type case. Founded in 1920, Devetsil would eventually have as many as eighty members. He believed that the untrained practitioner could contribute a fresh and innovative approach to design, and from 1922 until 1938 he designed over one hundred books and periodicals. His constructivist approach involved an expressive use of type, montage, collage, and borrowed clips from silent films
Mechano-faktura theory
mechanized painting and graphic design into a constructed abstraction that abolished any illusion of three dimensions.
Bart Anthony VAN DER LECK
reduced his visual vocabulary to the use of primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) with neutrals (black, gray, and white), straight horizontal and vertical lines, and flat planes limited to rectangles and squares like MONDRIAN and VAN DOESBURG used flat, geometric shapes of pure color and created graphic designs with flat color images and simple black bars organizing the space
Gustav KLUTSIS
•Master of propaganda photomontage; "art construction for socialism"; Used posters as means for extolling Soviet accomplishments; Arrested in 1938 in Stalinist purge; Died in labor camps
