Charlotte Wagstaff A2 Graphics Essay
How does the universal language of music specifically 1950’s music, link to the society of artistic movement in 1950’s? Music is the universal language of mankind’ (Henry Wadsworth) To some extent I agree with this quote above, I feel in life you come across many sayings, many quotes, but these quotes above are many of which explain exactly how I feel about music. From Shakespeare to the Sex Pistols, music quotes extend from observations by music lovers to commentaries from musicians. Music quotes are an expression of the role music plays in our lives. From the unique songs that identify our culture to the universal compositions that all societies share, music quotes define the connection of music to the world we live in music brings the world together and we can „connect‟ and understand the same thing, regardless. As a contempory Graphic designer, I feel it is a moral obligation of my duties that I look further into the influences and similarities between my theme music, and artistic graphic cultural movements that may have influenced not only graphic design but vinyl covers and how these designs have changed throughout time.
Having discussed the importance of music, from a universal perspective above and my reasons, I decided link a particular social context of 1950‟s music and 1950‟s artistic movement. I decided to do this as my theme for this project originally was music and I felt the artists I found out artists I had looked at such Andy Warhol came from this time period also. Therefore I looked into the stylistic influences of the music I listen to, and came across Doo-Wop Music. Like Graphic Design, Music and Art is always developing and changing, and the music I listen to now, is inspired through many musical genre‟s but currently it is inspired by 1950's music known as Doo-Wop music. Doo-Wop is a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music, which developed in African-American communities in the 1940's and which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950's and early 1960's.Similiarly to Doo-Wop music the stylistic influences of pop art. Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the late 1950's to late 1960's similar to Doo-Wop music that emerged in Britain and the United States. Pop Art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist‟s use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of Fine Art. Pop Art removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation. The concept of Pop Art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led it. Doo Wop music and pop art are both simplistic, yet effective. Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or Kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. I felt that Pop Art and Doo-Wop music had many movement interlinks, as well as being from the same area, and using similar concepts, for some music is seen as art. The reason I decided to widen my knowledge and look deeper and Interlink movements