Art Movements

Art Movements by James Pitts

CONTENTS Constructivism International Typographic Style Pop Art Surrealism Dadaism Cubism Impressionism Art Nouveau Fauvism Expressionism Abstract Expressionism Minimalism Conceptualism Primitivim Sensationalism Punk Psychedelia De Stijl Bauhaus Art Deco Futurism Weirner Werkstatte Plakastil Jugdenstil Arts & Crafts Movement New Typography

Constructivism (1917-1930s) is a radical Russian Art movemetn which developed shortyly after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

In an attempted to redifine the role of the artist and contribute to the “construction” of a new communist state, a group of artists rejected the “art for arts sake” concept underpinning suprematism. Their art for arts sake philosophy provided a direct counterpoint to the ulilitatin ethos of emergent constructivism and directed their energies to socially useful activities like industrial, graphic and theathre design, photography and film. The movement was lead by Vladamir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitsky, the movements non-figurative visual vocabulary relied upon brightly coloured shapes, often made from materials like glass, sheet metal and cardboard. Committed tp their work they brought it to the streets, they embraced collage, photomontage, bold lettering design and new printing techniques. The expressive quality of Constructive typography with its reliance on sans serif typefaces gave the revolution a potent identity. Constructivist ideas had a profound influence on The International typographic style, Dadaism and many others.

During the 1920s the Soviet goverment became increasingly concerned aboutthe movement, stressing the need for a pictorial art in the service of the state. The soviet union decided that constructivism was unsuitable as propaganda and in !934 Stalin, who lead the communist party from 1924, discreditied the movement. But the ideas continued to effect the development of art, design and architecture throughout the Western World.

I really like constructivism, it was a revolutionary movement that inspired so many other movements, most of the movements has constructivist elements in them. The whole movement in my opinion was based on Russian culture and the Industrial movemovement in Russia. It was all about architecture and straight lines. I can see why most art movements have similarites with constructivism, it’s a very inspirational movement.

International Typographic Style (1945-Present) developed out of the modernist aesthetic of simplifed layouts with the emphasis on text, negitive space and objective imagery. The style aslo adopted constructivist elements of geometric reduction, photmontage and a simplified palette. The design movement emerged from Switzerland and Germany hence the other name for this style “Swiss Style�. The style is free from the exaggerated claims of propaganda and commercial advertising. The style uses sans-serif typography set in a flush left, ragged right margin configuration.

One of the most important figures of the style was Ernst Keller, he is reffered to as the Godfather of Swiss graphic design. In 1918 he was a teacher at the school of arts and crafts in Zurich. He taught design should be adopted to content and began experimenting with grid systems. His students were influential in the International Style movement. His students include Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder and Josef Muller Brockmann.

I really like this art movement, its so minimal and simplistic, I think I like it because it’s more editorial based and that’s what I hope to go into after college. I really like the way that they use grids and text to make images and the simple use of blocks of colour make it even better. I’m going to try get more into this type of style because its so simple be effective at the same time.

Pop art (1958-1970) began in the 1950s and reached it’s peak in the mid 1960s.

It became one of the first creative expressions of Postmodernism. Pop artists wanted to brighten up the tarnished post-war world and to celebrate the future they also wanted to embrace popular commercial culture, challenge abstract art and mock the society that had brought about two world wars. It was a descendant of Dadaism in it’s condemnation of the traditional “stufy” art world and the society that encouraged it. Pop artists worked on a large scale, they highlighted the powerful relationship between the consumerand the artifacts of consumerism. The combination of flat, brash colours with super-enlargements of halftone screen dots established a rich new vein for graphic designers and illustrators. The first significant Pop Art image was a collage by Richard Hamilton, entitled “Just what is it tha makes today’s home so different, so appealing?”. By exploiting commercial images and objects such as comic strips, money, magazines, newspapers, celebrities, advertising, fast food, packaging, pop music, television and hollywood films, the artists were also sharing their fascination with contempory mass culture.

Cartoon Style: Lichtenstein was heavily influenced by both consumer advertising and comic book style and he exploited some of the techniques used by comic book artists, such as dramatic compositions, cropping and forshortening. In 1961 he began painting his own over-sized images, alos using techniques derived from commercial printing, particulary huge coloured cirlces to buikd uo colours and tones, resembling printing’s Benday Dots. Benday Dots are part of the comic printing process, similar to pointillism or pixels. In comics and newspapers images, tiny dots are placed close together ot far apart to create the apperance of colour and tone.

I really like Pop Art I think that it’s the one I like the most, I’ve based my whole 2nd year around pop art and I think that it’s the most dynamic of all art movements, because you can do anything with it from photography to scultures. I really think that Pop art hasn’t left us because we are still seeing mass production everywhere, when we walk down any aisle of a supermarket every product is lined up in a sequence similar to Andy Warhols work or repitition. Even the new pepsi ad which features beyonce is styled like pop art. I think that pop art is coming back and I hope it stays around for a lot longer.

Surrealism (1924-1945) was founded in Paris by Andre Breton. It emerged from the aftermath of Dada, it challenged accepted concepts of the normal and rational.

Attrachted to the imaginative poetentional of dreams and the unconscious, Surrelaists attached great significance to the theroies of the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.

Surrealist imagery was diverse and included the organic forms favored by Joan Miro and Hans Arp, the fantastic juxapositions perfected by Salvador Dali and Rene

Magritte, the collage designs of Max Ernst and the haunting photographs of Man Ray. The potency of Surrealist thinking has a positive and liberating effect on artists and writers; its fantasy and wit are evident in many current ad campaigns, book jacketsm record covers and animated films.

Surrealism in my opinion is a very weird and wonderful art movement, it allows the artist to look into there dreams and thoughts and put it down on paper, from what I understand it first started out as a literary movement and later became an art movement. From looking at all these images I can see that the artists were very strange and I do wonder what was going on in their heads. If someone was to tell me about a dream similar to one of these paintings I would think they are mad. But I think that this movement is brillant in the way it has so much freedom.

Dada (1916-1922) is a literary and visual art movement that developed in Switzerland during 1916. Responding to the futility of the First world war a group of poets and artists set out to ridicule established values and beliefs. The movement quickly spread to major cities like New York, Paris and Berlin. The need to shock required new forms of visual communication with bold typography, collage and photomontage emerging as favored techniques. Dada was a liberating influence which challenged and overturned many social artistic conventions. Ceasing to be effective after 1922, Dada was a forerunner of surrealism.

Dada is in my opinion a collage movement, everything that I found seems to be put together in an order that is quite surreal and I can see why surrealism emerged from Dadaism, because some of the collages are crazy.

Cubism (1906-1914) is an art movement that emerged in Frane between 1906 and 1909. It was developed by Picasso and Georges Braque. Analytic cubism abandoned traditional perspective, endeavouring to explore the multidimensional facets of an object rather than express it in a flat two dimensional manner. Synthetic cubism revived an interest in colour, texture and tactile quality. The introduction of ephemera, lettering and newsprint to explore the relationship between illusion and reality created a new visual language which has since been utilized by many designers and illustrators.

Cubism in my opinion is very strange in the way the artist wanted to show objects as one three dimensional object showing the viewer the object from all angles at once. It has become one of the most well known art movements and I can understand the reasoning behind the idea of cubism.

Impressionism (1870s-90s)Term generally applied to a movement in art in France in the late 19th century. The movement gave rise to such ancillaries as American Impressionism.

The primary use of the term Impressionist is for a group of French painters who worked between around 1860 and 1900, especially to describe their works of the later 1860s to mid1880s. These artists include Frédéric Bazille, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, as well as Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte (who was also an important early collector), Eva Gonzalès, Armand Guillaumin and Stanislas Lépine. The movement was antiacademic in its formal aspects and involved the establishment of venues other than the official Salon for showing and selling paintings.

The impressionists are quite interesting because they were painting their impression of the subject that they were painting, they would paint the same subject hundreds of times with slight differences in each painting. I like the textures of the paintings from this era, some are rough while others have interesting brush strokes.

Art Nouveau (1890-1910) Is a decorative style of the late 19th century and the early 20th that flourished principally in Europe and the USA. Although it influenced painting and sculpture, its chief manifestations were in architecture and the decorative and graphic arts, the aspects on which this survey concentrates. It is characterized by sinuous, asymmetrical lines based on organic forms; in a broader sense it encompasses the geometrical and more abstract patterns and rhythms that were evolved as part of the general reaction to 19thcentury historicism. There are wide variations in the style according to where it appeared and the materials that were employed.

Art Nouveau in my opinion is a very nice art movement the paintings and drawings look very delicate. The patterns that were used in this movement are very natural and nearly always floral. This movement reminds me of the type of drawings/sketches that fashions designers use when they are designing clothing.

Fauvism (1898-1906) Movement in French painting characterized by a violence of colours, often applied unmixed from commercially produced tubes of paint in broad flat areas, by a spontaneity and even roughness of execution and by a bold sense of surface design. It was the first of a succession of avant-garde movements in 20th-century art and was influential on near-contemporary and later trends such as Expressionism, Orphism and the development of abstract art.

I like Fauvism its very colourful, the colours mightn’t be correct in most cases but I think its the expression of the artist that makes the painting interesting, its like we’re looking at there expression on the world as they see it.

Expressionism is a movement from the 20th century, that emphasied significance and feeling at the expense of naturalistic form or perspectival space. The term is primarily associated with German art and the groups of the De Brucke and the Blaue Reiter a similar kind of expressionism can be seen in Gaugin and other Symnolists in Fauvism. Many other types of art can be expressionist.

Expressionism is a nice movement, I like the brush strokes that the artists use.

I think that the whole movement is about expression and what the artists are expressing themselves through their art.

Abstract Expressionism(1943-70) After the second world war, while Europe struggled to recover, America began to move into a position of political and economic power. Many European intellectuals and artists had emigrapted there to escape persecution. Once settled they created, taught and spread their artistic influences. Abstract expressionists were a small group of loosely associated artists who had work in various styles before the war, but by the 1940s began working in radical new directions, reflecting mood and moment. Abstract expressionism was more of a general attitude than a particular style. The artist all knew each other but they did not work as a group or plan to form an art movement.

Jackson Pollock first showed his action paintings in 1948. His radical innovation of laying huge canvases on the floor and dripping household paint onto them straight from the tin or with a stick or towel earned him the nick name “Jack the dripper”. he descirbed his paintings as “energy and motion made visible”. Yet his works are not as haphazard as theymight first appear. The act of painting for him was subjective and instictive, expressing his innermost feelings, resulting in a complex, densely textured mesh of colours and lines.

In my opinion abstract expressionism is very messy and I think its a bit strange how artist expressed themselves using lines of colour.

Minimalism(1960s) was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism. Minimalists aimed to replace the emotional subjectivity with reason and impartiality. In place of splatterings of paint, they worked with cool, mathematical accuracy. Minimalism extended the idea that art should not be an imitation of anything, but should have its own identity. It was also a reaction against what artists percieved as the extremes and self-importance of Abstract Expressionism.

Minimalists followed the Constructivist idea that art should be made of modern, industrial materials and so it was often composed of materials such as bricks, fluorescent lighting or metal sheeting.

I like minimalism and its simplicity, its a complete contrast to abstract expressionism which is very crowded and messy, minimalism is clean and simple.

I like minimal sculptures and interiors in homes which are conected to this art movement. It really hasn’t left because of interior design and modern houses which look like minimalist sculptures themselves.

Some of it doesnt make any sense but it looks nice.

Conceptualism (1970s-1980s) In the late 1960s the term Conceptual art began to be used to describe types of art that were appearing that did not take the from of conventional art objects. It was also often called idea art or information art, the principles of Conceptualism are ideas that take precedence over traditional materials, methods and skills usually used in production art. Conceptual art came to be used as an umbrella term, describing several different types of art. By its name conceptual art can be almost anything it is simply ways in which artists communicate their ideas. They think behond the limits of traditional media and present it in whatever form is suitable for their idea. The idea is always more important than the final result.

I like the freedom that conceptualism has, and the way the idea is far more important than the final result. To me conceptualism can be any type of art form from photography to poetry.

Primitivism the term used with reference to art that celebrates certain values or forms regarded as primal, ancestral, fertile and regenerative. While the term ‘primitive’ was used at one time to include the arts of all of Africa, Asia and Pre-Columbian America, it was later used mostly in relation to art from Africa and the Pacific Islands. By the late 20th century it had lost most of its currency: this was in part due to the fact that the interest that Western artists had taken in ethnic arts, particularly from c. 1905 to c. 1935, had itself led to the beginning of a more formalized study of this subject by both anthropologists and art historians; scholars’ research in this field allowed nonWestern arts to be seen and appreciated more easily within their own context, rather than in secondary relation to the arts of the West or as ‘primitive’.

Primitivism in my opinion is basically a better form of cave painting art. The artists are looking back at our primitive nature and they look at African and Islander traditions for inspiration because they still live primitive lives, they still hunt and gather and they still have to same rituals, nowadays there are less primitive cultures in the world becasue of globalisation.

Sensationalism(Late 1980’s-) the term sensationalism referes to the YBA’s or Young British Artists. They were influenced by conceptualism, their work is characterised by its irony, diverse materials and its exploration of comtemporary experience. Senationalists are known as exploiters of mass media and are closly identified with the collector Charles Saatchi. In the late 80’s the artists would all meet in Goldsmiths College in London, their first exhibition was called freeze and it established their reputation and began to draw attention to London as a vibrant centre of artistic innovation. The work of the YBA was prasied for its dark humour and determination to explore contemporary experience as well as the traditional big themes of art such as mortality and human identity. Although the YBA’s were influenced by conceptualism they never abandoned painting in favor of the ready-mades: both are prominent in their work. And despite their reputation fro self-promotion and media savvy images from contemporary media and advertising have not played a significant role in their work. Critics have attacked them for insincerity and obscruity, but these charges cannot detract from the fact that many works by the YBA have entered the popular imagination, weathered the hype and remained there.

I actually really like this art movement it remids me of another of my favorite art movements “Pop Art” in the way that the artists take popualar everyday objects and turn them into art. I actually thought that this movement was conceptualism but after research I found out that the artists were influenced by conceptualism. I like the simplicity of this movement and the way the artist portray their thoughts about humanity and the world.

Punk (1975-1982) Is a subversive street culture movement that originated in London in the mid-1970s. It embraced art, music and fashion. Followers of this scence were very recongnizable by their aggressive visual apperance and anarchic behaviour. Punk is antiestablishement in all it manifestations, it achieved notoriety through the Sex Pistols. The graphic style of punk was characterised by a throwaway collage technique with chaotic typography and shocking slogans. Around 1980 following the lead of London, punk emerged in a modifed form in the US and Europe. The punk scene ran out of steam in the early 80’s and the style innovations of Punk were quickly assimilated into the graphic imagery of PostModernism in the mid-80s.

Punk in my opinion has a very grungy feel. I like the style of art but I’m not very fond of the fashion scene that was associated with the movement. I like the whole anarchic approach to the art work, there was no real rules to the movement it was totally anti-establishment and the punks themselves didn’t care what anybody thought of them or there style. Even though the movement is dead its starting to come back around, like most art movements they all do a full circle.

Psychedlia(1965-1975) was an alternative art and design movement that emerged on the West coast of America during the social unrest of the mid1960s. The movement was associated with the rock music and hippy lifestyle. The psychedelic images endeavoured to recreate the visual sensations associated with the drug LSD. Distorted imagery and illegible lettering often reproduced in garish colours were applied to posters, magazones and record covers. Psychedlia was an important visual component of youth culture throughtout the US and Europe in the early 1970s. Many of the original artists and designers were self taught.

This movement just screams 1960s hippies to me.

When I see posters in this style I think of woodstock and the hippie culture. I think that everyone has seen or heard of this movement and I think that its a very colourful and interesting art movement. I can only imagine what it was like to take LSD or other types of mind drugs back then and I wonder if the way the drugs made the world look to the viewer are accurate in the way the posters were looked.

De Stijl (1917-1931) was a Dutch art movement and magazine originated by the painter and designer Theo Van Doesburg in 1917. It influenced the international avant-grade thoughtout the 1920s and was commited to a unity of the arts. The movement sought an abstract objectivity through the use of rectangle and the reliance on primary colours in assocation with black, white and grey. The graphic and typographic design of De Stijl was very disciplined, employing forms of sans serif typeface with straight lines, tight rectangular blocks and innovative asymmetrical layouts. The movement came to and end in 1931 when Doesburg died.

I really dislike the art movement to me it all looks the exacrt same all it is is square/ rectangles with think black line and blocks of colour. It really has no meaning to me and I really don’t know how this became an art movenment. Its not nice to look at theres nothing interesting about the look of it, thats just my opinion of De Stijl.

Bauhaus(1919-1933) was founded by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany in 1919. It was a descendant of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement in that it aimed to bring together fine art and the applied arts, but unlike the Arts and Crafts movement, Bauhaus acknowledged the usefulness of machines. Bauhaus is German for “building house� it was the most eduational enterpirse underpinning the development of the modern movement in architecture. The overriding commitment to architecture encouraged the exploration of new ideas associated with De Stijl and Constructivism. Designers worked towards the removal of conventional subject barriers. Graphic design was not specifically included in the curiculum althought elements like photography and typography were taught. Bauhaus existed in three German cities. It began in Weimar in 1919 and by 1925 it was forced to leave to the industrial city of Dessau which was deemed a more suitable location. In 1932 it moved to Berlin and was later closed by the Nazid in 1933. The ideas and the subsequent achievements of Bauhaus, particularly in the US have had a profound influence on architecture, design and educational developments. The emphasis on rationality, the reliance on the frid, the commitment to sans serif typefaces, and the link with contemporary art movements provided an important spring board for the new typography ant the later Internation Typographic style.

I like the Bauhaus art movement, its has apects of Russian constructivism and and bit of arts and crafts too, the pictures that I found relalted to the movement have a collage feel about them also a cubist feel because of the use of geometric shapes.

Art Deco (1918-1939) Is a luxurious, international style of decoration that flourished in fashion, interiors, architecture, ceramics and industrial design. It was named after the World’s Fair in Paris in 1925. Art deco utilized bright, vibrant colours along with a distinctive range of motifsfloral, figurative and geometric. Designers were searching for an alternative to the overwhelming influence of Art Nouveau and its reliance on curvilinear natural forms. In graphic design Art Deco was less ornate that in other fields but displayed a strong emphasis on stricking geometric shapes and patterns. The bold rectilinear typface of the period, which provided improved legibility were in stark contrast to the florid creations of Art Nouveau.

I like Art Deco, in my opinion it’s quite simple and it uses a lot of different geometric shapes it kind of reminds me of decorative technical drawings because everything isso geometric. The colours that are used are quite flat and they always seem to contrast each other. Its not my favorite art movement, I think that the furniture interiors of the style are horrible, but I like the poster designs and the use of colour and shape.

Futurism (1909-1915) was founded in 1909 by the Italian writer and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. It was a literary movement which subsequently embraced all the arts including painting, sculpture, music and architecture.

Futurism is a mix of Italian nationalism, mitlitarism and the new religion of speed as expressed through cars and aeroplanes. Futurism encouraged the emergence of the typographer/poet, challenging the tradition of the printed page and predictable sequence of typographic information.

Type elements and collage were used in a dynamic manner to create picture poems, early forerunners of concreate poetry. Futurism’s influence as a force for change declined rapidly after about 1915.

I like to look of futurism, some of the pictures that I put in are to do with movement and motion. I think that it has a sort of collage feel about it, it also has a slight cubist feel too.

Wiener Werkstatte (1903-1932) this movement began in Vienna in 1903.

It was endeavoured to improve the functioanal and aesthetic standards of every day objects. This style offered a graphic design service to private and industrial clients. It covered posters, advertisements, logotype design, monograms, bookplates, postcards, bookbinding and more. The distinctive logo was more than likely designed by Koloman Moser one of the founding members. The movement gradually disappeared in 1932 due to finacial problems.

This style is reminds me of the arts and crafts movement in the way that most of it is floral and I think that this movement would work well in wallpaper design, its quite colourful and I like the use of patterens in the designs.

Plakatstil (1890s-1930) this is a German poster movement that elevated the commercial advertising poster into an art form. The resulting Sachplakat (object poster) was characterised by a strong central image with bold but simple lettering and stricking colour. The monthly Berlin magazine Das Plakat was influential in showcasing Plakatstil art and featured the finest contemporary poster artists.

This movement is very similar to the type of work that Saul Bass does in my opinion. The posters are big and bold like his posters and film titles. They are quite similar in the way that they use very little colour. This is what this style reminds me off and I actually like the simplicity of it.

Jugendstil (1896-1910) is distinctly German and their equivalent of art nouveau. Jugenstil or youth style began in 1896 took its name from the popular arts weekly “Jugend” which was published in Munich. In addition to the curvilinear naturalistic motifs of Art Nouveau, Jugendstil acknowledged the German print making tradition and medieval letterforms, producing a style that was less florid, more hard edged.

I think that this style is very similar to Art Nouveau it has the same type of style and feel, the only way that I can tell the difference between the two is that most of the images have “Jugend” written on them. Other than that they are very close.

Arts and Crafts Movement (1870-1906) is a movement in the decorative arts and architecture that emerged from Britain during the 1870s in response to the dehumanizing working conditions and debased products of the industrial revolution. The movement embraced artists, architects, designers, craft workers and writers. The movement was in favor of the medievalist approach which revered fine craftsmanship, traditional techniques and the use of natural materials.

I think that this movement is very floral based all of the images that I kept seeing were of flowers or patterns of leafs. I think that the patterns would be best suited for wall paper of carpet design, this is what the pictures remind me of.

New typography (1920-1933) is a highly visable component of modernism in graphic design. The new typography combined elements of the work and writings of William Morris with aspects of cubism, futurism, dadaism, de stijl and constuctivism. It originated in Russia and Germany and attrached followers in Holland. The book “Die Neue Typographie” written by Jan Tschichold, the book developed many of the ideas evolved by constuctivists and Bauhaus teachers.

I think that new typography is very similar to the international typographic style or vice versa. I like this style it’s very minimal but in your face at the same time. From looking at these images it’s very clear to me that the movement was entirely type based. It barely used any images at all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10176 http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_ id=10959&texttype=2 http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_ id=10081&texttype=2 http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_ id=10054&texttype=2

Tutors Notes 50 Art Idea you really should know/ Susie Hodge