Summarries: 2nd Semester

THE MODERNIST ERA: SUMMARIES.

CHAPTER 13: THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN ART.

·         Motorcar- 1885

·         Airplane-1903

·         Motion picture- 1896

·         Wireless radio transmission -1895.

CUBISM:

·         Distorted reality

·         Design concept independent of nature.

·         New artistic tradition

·         Idealized versions and solid

·         400 hundred year renaissance tradition of pictorial art.

·         Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Ancient Iberian and Africa tribal art to human figure.

·         Boldly chiseled geometric planes of African sculpture, masks and fabrics were exciting revelation.

·         French Post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne (1839-1906). “Painter should treat nature in terms of cylinder, sphere and cone”.

·         New approach to handling space and expressing human emotions. Figures are abstracted into geometric planes; classical norms for human figure are broken.

·         Spatial illusions of perspective give way to ambiguous shifting of 2d planes.

·         Some figures are seen from more than one viewpoint.

·         Georges Braque (1881-1963) developed cubism as art movement that replaced rendering of appearances with endless possibilities of invented form.

·         Analytical cubism: work from 1910-1912. Analyzed planes of subject matter from several viewpoints and used these perceptions to construct painting composed of rhythmic geometric planes. Real subject= shapes, colors, textures and values used in spatial relationships. Pictorial structure in conflict with challenge of interpreting subject matter.

·         Cubism had strong relationship with process of human vision. The eyes shift and scan subject, minds combine these fragments as whole.

·         1913, synthetic cubism: forms invented that were signs rather than representations of subject matter. Essence of object and its basic characteristics, rather than outward appearance, were depicted.

·         Juan Gris (1887-1927), major painter in development of synthetic cubism. Had profound influence on development of geometric art and design.

·         Fernand Leger (1881-1955) moved cubism away from initial impulses of founders.  1910, Leger took Cezanne’s dictum about cylinder, sphere and cone very seriously. His style was more recognizable, accessible and populist.

·         Leger: flat planes of color, urban motifs and hard edged precision of machine forms helped define modern design sensibility after WW1.

·         More conceptual thought.

FUTURISM:

·         Launched when Italian poet Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944).

·         Manifesto voiced enthusiasm for war, machine age, speed and modern life.

·         Giovanni Papini (1881-1956) typographic design.

·         On a pg., 3 or 4 ink colors and 20 typefaces.

·         Italics for quick impressions, bold face for violent noises and sounds.

·         Free, dynamic, and piercing words could be given the velocity of stars, clouds, airplanes, trains, waves, explosives, molecules and atoms.

·         New painterly typographic design = parole in liberta =words in freedom.

·         2 dominant conditions in 20^th century: noise and speed.

·         Animated their pages with dynamic, nonlinear, composition achieved by pasting words and letters in place for reproduction from photoengraved printing plates.

·         Greek poet Simias of Rhodes (c. 33 B.C.). – Pattern poetry, verse that explored idea often took shape of objects or religious symbols.

·         German poet, Arno Holz (1863-1929) reinforced auditory effects by such devices as omitting capitalization and punctuation, varying word spacing to signify pauses and using multiple punctuation marks for emphasis.  French Symbolist poet- Stephane Mallarme (1842-98).

·         French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918).

·         Calligrammes = poems in which letterforms are arranged to forma visual design figure or pictograph.

·         Manifesto and futurist painters: Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Carlo Carra (1881-1966), Kuigi Russolo (1885-1947), Giacomo Balla (1871-1958)- dynamic motion, speed and energy to static, 2d surface and Gino Severini (1883-1966).

·         Antonio Sant’Elia (1888-1916).

·         Fortunato Depero (1892-1960): dynamic body of work in poster , typographic and advertising design.

DADA:

·         Absurdity

·         Craziness

·         Anti-art

·         Strong negative and destructive element.

·         Writers and artists concerned with shock, protest and nonsense.

·         Bitterly rebelled against horrors of WW1, decadence of European society, shallowness of blind faith in technological progress and inadequacy of religion and conventional moral codes in a continent in upheaval.

·         They rejected all tradition.

·         Poet Hugo Ball (1886-1927), Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, gathering place for independent young poets, painters and musicians.

·         Rumanian poet Tristan Tzara (1896-1963)

·         Jean Arp (1887-1966)

·         Richard Huelsenbeck (1892-1974)

·         Chance placement and absurd titles.

·         Dada= child’s hobbyhorse.

·         French Painter, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) – prominent visual artist. Ready-made sculpture, bicycle wheel mounted on wooden stool, and exhibit found objects such as urinal. Public was outraged when Duchamp painted a moustache on Mona Lisa. It was ingenious assault on tradition and public that had lost humanistic spirit of Renaissance.

·         Dadaists were not creating art but mocking and defaming a society gone insane.

·         Photomontage was invented: technique of manipulating found photographic images to create jarring juxtapositions and chance associations.

·         Raoul Hausmann (1886-1977)

·         Hannah Hoch (1889-1978)

·         Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) – Merz coined from Kommerz (commerce) = one man art movement. Poetry that played against nonsense. Action of elements (letters, syllables, words and sentences).

·         El Lissitzsky (1890-1941)

·         Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931)

·         Berlin Dadaists- John Heartfield (1891-1968), Wieland Herzefelde (b. 1896), George Grosz (1893-1959). All held vigorous revolutionary political beliefs and oriented artistic activities toward visual communications to raise public consciousness and promote social change.

·         Neue Jugend – NEW YOUTH.

·         French Writer and Poet –Andre Breton (1896 -1966).

·         Dadaists helped to strip typographic design of its traditional precepts.

·         Dada continued cubism’s concept of letterforms as concrete visual shapes, not just phonetic symbols.

SURREALISM:

·         Roots in Dada

·         Group of young French writers and poets associated with “Litterature”, surrealism entered Paris, 1924.

·         “more real than real world behind the real”.

·         Andre Breton –founder of surrealism.

·         Noun, masculine.

·         Pure psychic automatism which it is intended to express, verbally or in writing the true function of thought.

·         Tristan Tzara (1897-1982)

·         Paul Eluard (1895-1952)

·         Super-reality

·         Not a style or matter of aesthetics but rather way of thinking and knowing, way of feeling and way of life.

·          First Surrealist painter, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). Hauntingly empty vistas of Italian renaissance palaces and squares that possess intense melancholy.

·         Max Ernst (1891-1965), restless German Dadaist. Collage technique to create juxtapositions. Frottage technique: using rubbings to compose directly on paper. Decalcomania: transferring images from printed matter to a drawing or painting enabled him to incorporate a variety of images into his work.  This technique was used in illustration, painting and printmaking.

·         Belgian Surrealist, Rene Magritte (1898-1967) used jolting and ambiguous scale changes, defied laws of gravity and light, created unexpected juxtapositions and maintained poetic dialogue between reality, illusion, truth and fiction.

·         Theatrical Spanish painter, Salvador Dali (1904-1989), deep perspectives to bring vast depth to flat printed pg., naturalistic approach to simultaneity.

·         Visual automatism (intuitive stream of consciousness drawing and calligraphy).

·         Joan Miro (1893-1983) –Inner life.

·         Jean Arp- unplanned harmonies.

EXPRESSIONSM:

·         Early 20^th century art.

·         Tendency to depict not objective reality but subjective emotions and personal responses to subjects and events.

·         Organized movement, Germany, before WW1.

·         Color, drawing, proportion were exaggerated

·         Symbolic content was very important.

·         Woodcuts, lithographs and posters were important media for expressionists.

·         Deep empathy for poor and social outcasts = subjects.

·         Intense idealism fueled expressionist’s beliefs in art as beacon pointing toward new social order and improved human condition.

·         Expressionist groups: The Bridge (Die Brucke) and The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter).

·         Die Brucke artists declared independence in transforming subject matter until conveyed own unexpressed feelings.

·         Der Blaue Reiter redefined art as object without subject matter, but with perceptual properties that were able to convey feelings. Members include: Russian, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Swiss Artist Paul Klee (1879-1940).

·         Kathe Schmidt Kollwitz (1867-1945): documented plight in figurative works of great emotional power. Great empathy for suffering of women and children conveyed by posters.

·         Kandinsky and Klee were foundations for design especially at Bauhaus.

 CHAPTER 15: A NEW LANGUAGE OF FORM

During postwar years, when Kauffer and Cassandre applied synthetic cubism’s planes to poster in England and France. There was formal typographic approach to graphic design. Emerged in Holland and Russia, artists saw clear implications of cubism.  By end of WWI, graphic designers, architects and product designers were energetically prevailing notions about form and function.

RUSSIAN SUPREMATISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM:

·         Russia torn by turbulence of WWI, and then Russian Revolution in 2^nd decade of 20^th century.

·         Czar Nicholas II (1868-1918) overthrown and executed with his family.

·         Russia was ravaged by Civil war and Red Army of Bolsheviks, 1920.

·         Period of political trauma, brief flowering of creative art in Russia had international influence on 20^th century graphic design.

·         Marinetti’s lectures: Russian artists, absorb cubism and futurism.

·         Russian Avant-garde saw common traits in cubism and futurism = CUBO-FUTURISM.

·         Kasmir Malevich (1878-1935) founded painting style of basic forms and pure color = SUPREMATISM.  H e created elemental geometric abstraction which was new and totally nonobjective.  He made composition with Black Square on white background, 1913.

·         Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953) and Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956). Devoted to industrial design, visual communications and applied arts serving the new communist society.  “Art for art’s sake”.

·         Constructivist’s called on artist to stop producing useless things such as paintings and to turn to poster.

·         Early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology, 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by Aleksei Gan (1893-1942). Tectonics, texture and construction = 3 principles of constructivism.  TECTONICS=unification of communist ideology with visual form. TEXTURE=nature of materials and how they’re used in industrial production. CONSTRUCTION=Creative process and search for laws of visual organization.

·         Constructivist ideal realized by El Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, architect, painter and graphic designer.  Mathematical and structural properties of architecture formed basis of his art. Lissitzky was influenced by Malevich. He developed painting style called PROUNS: Projects for the establishment, (affirmation of a new art). In contrast to absolute flatness of Malevich’s picture plane, PROUNS had 3 dimensional illusions that receded (negative depth) behind picture plane (naught depth) and projected forward (positive depth). It was the interchange station between painting and architecture.  PROUNS pointed way to application of modern painting concepts of form and space to apllied design. His 1919, poster, “Beat the whites with the Red Wedge”: space is dynamically divided into white and black areas. Suprematist design elements transformed into political symbolism that’s even a semiliterate peasant can understand. Support for the “red” Bolshevik against the “white” forces of Kerenski symbolized by red wedge slashing into a white circle.

·         Lissitzky’s format for book:  3 column horizontal grid structure for title pg. 3 column vertical grid structure used for text. 2 column structure for contents pg = architectural framework for organizing 48 pg pictorially illustrated portfolio. Asymmetrical balance, silhouette halftones, skillful use of whitespace, large and bold san –serif numbers to link pictures to captions. The numbers become the compositional elements. Treatment of san-serif typography and bold rules =expression of modernistic aesthetic. He utilized montage and photomontage for complex communication messages.

·         Alexander Rodchenko – typography, photography and montage.

·         Mayakovsky Rodchenko created pg designs with strong geometric construction, large areas of pure color, concise and legible lettering.  Heavy San-serif hand lettering engendered bold San-serif types widely used in Soviet Union.  He did overprinting; precise registration and photomontage were regularly employed in Novyi leaf.

·         Mater of propaganda photomontage was Gustav Klutsis (1895-1944) – “the art of construction for socialism”.

·         Soviet artist: Vladmir Vasilevich Lebedev (1891-1967). Embraced Bolshevism, designed bold, flat, neoprimitivist agitational propaganda posters for ROSTA, Soviet telegraph agency.

DE STIJL:

·         Movement launched in Netherlands, late summer of 1917.

·         Theo Van Doesburg (founder and guiding spirit). He was joined by painter, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Bart Anthony van der Leck (1876-1958), Vilmos Huszar (1884-1960), Architect Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud (1890-1963) and others.

·         Abstract geometric style.

·         Sought universal laws of equilibrium and harmony for art, which could be prototype for new social order.

·         1911, Mondrian evolved from traditional landscape painting to symbolic style influenced by Van Gogh and expressing forces of nature.  Philosopher M.H.J Schoenmakers decisively influenced his thinking as well. Schoenmakers defined horizontal and vertical as two fundamental opposites shaping our world, called red, yellow and blue=3 principal colors.  Mondrian painted purely abstract paintings composed of horizontal and vertical lines. He believed “cubists had not accepted logical consequences of discoveries = evolution of abstraction toward ultimate goal, expression of pure reality. True reality in visual art is attainted through dynamic movement in equilibrium; this is through balance of unequal but equivalent oppositions. Clarification of equilibrium through plastic art is of great importance for humanity.  It’s the task of art to express clear vision of reality”.

·         De Stijl advocated absorption of pure art by applied art. Spirit of art could then permeate society through architectural, product and graphic design.

·         Under this system, art would not be subjugated to level of everyday object, everyday object (through it everyday life) would be elevated to level of art.

·         De Stijl became natural vehicle for expressing movement’s principles in graphic design.

·         Van Doesburg had phenomenal energy and wide-ranging creativity which was part of De Stijl. De Stijl was an organized movement. He died at age of 47. Other artists continued to use visual vocabulary. E.g. Bart Van Der Leck’s open compositions of forms constructed of horizontal , vertical and diagonal lines and shapes separated by spatial intervals are found in works from early posters, books designs and illustrations, 1940’s.

·         Wijdeveld, Dutch artist created magazine Wendingen.

THE SPREAD OF CONSTRUCTIVISM:

·         During WWI, Russian Suprematism and Dutch De Stijl movements were completely isolated from one another. Both groups pushed cubism to pure geometric art.

·         Ideas adopted by artists in Czechosovakia, Hungary and Poland. Polish Designer, Henryk Berlewi (1894-1967) influenced by Lissitzky. Mechano-faktura theory.  =modern art was filled with illusionistic pitfalls. He mechanized painting and graphic design into constructed abstraction abolished any illusion of 3 dimensions. Mathematical placement of simple geometric forms on ground. Mechanization of art was seen as expression of industrial society.

·         Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976) leading supporter and practitioner of functional design. He advocated constructivist ideal and application of design principles to every aspect of contemporary life. He was a Prague designer. Created toys, furniture, silverware, dishes and fabrics.

·         Karel Teige (1900-51), from Prague, painter, typography and photomontage.  Enthusiastic advocate of international modernism. Active participant in Devutsil (9 Forces). =group of Avant-garde poets, designers, architects, performance artists and musicians.  He created books and periodicals. He used expressive type, montage, collage and borrowed clips from silent films.

·         1919, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: nonrepresentational painting influenced by Malevich. He designer for Arthur Muller Lehning’s Amsterdam based Avant-garde publication i10 = purest example of De Stijl principles applied to typography, demonstrates collaboration of constructivism, De Stijl and Merz. 

·         Quest for pure art of visual relationships began in Netherlands and Russia remained major influence for visual disciplines throughout 20^th century. Dominant direction of graphic design= use of geometric construction in organizing printed pg.

·         Malevich and Mondrian used pure line, shape and color to create universe of harmoniously ordered and pure relationships. = visionary prototype for new world order.

·         Unification of social and human values, technology and visual form became goal for those who wanted new architecture and graphic design.  

CHAPTER 16: THE BAUHAUS AND THE NEW TYPOGRAPHY

·         All kinds of art disciplines to come together in one building.

·         Ideas from all advanced art and design movements were explored, combined, and applied to problems of functional design and machine production at German design school,= Bauhaus (1919-33).

·         20^th century furniture, architecture, product design and graphics shaped by work of faculty and students, and modern design aesthetic emerged.

·         Belgian art nouveau architect Henri Van De Velde resigned from Weimar Arts and Crafts School.

·         Walter Gropius (1883-1969) = 1 of 3 possible replacements to grand duke of Saxe-Weimar.

·         Weimar arts and crafts school- fine arts school and Weimar Art Academy.

·         Gropius was permitted to name new school Das Staatliche Bauhaus (The State Home For Building). -12 April 1919.

·         Germany was in state of severe ferment. Catastrophic defeat in “war to end all wars” led to economic, political and cultural strife.

·         Prewar world of Hohenzollern dynasty was over.

·         Quest to construct new social order pervaded all aspects of life.

·         Bauhaus manifesto published in German newspapers, established philosophy of new school.

·         Making mass production beautiful.

·         Bauhaus = logical consequence of German concern for design in industrial society began in opening years of century.

·         Duetche Werkbund – worked to elevate standards of design and public taste, attracting architects, artists, public, industry officials, educators, and critics to ranks. Attempted to unify artists and craftsmen with industry to elevate functional and aesthetic qualities of mass production, in low =cost consumer products.

·         Behrens advocacy of new objectivity and theories of proportion had impact on development of Gropius’s thinking.

·         Henri  Van De Velde = important influence.

·         During 1980s Van De Velde declared engineer to be new architect and called for logical design using new technologies, and materials of science: reinforced concrete, steel, aluminum and linoleum.

 THE BAUHAUS AT WEIMAR:

·         1919-24

·         Intensely visionary and drew inspiration from expressionism.

·         Characterized by Utopian desire to create new spiritual society, early Bauhaus sought new unity of artists and craftsmen to build for future.

·         Stained glass, wood and metal workshops were held, organized by medieval Bauhutte lines- master, journeyman and apprentice.

·         Gothic cathedral-realization of people’s longing for spiritual beauty that went beyond utility and need. Symbolized integration of architecture, sculpture, crafts and painting.

·         Gropius was deeply interested in architecture’s symbolic potential and possibility of universal design style as integrated aspect of society. 

·         Advanced ideas about form, color and space were combined into design vocabulary when Der Blauer Reiter (Expressionist Movement Painter) , painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky joined staff 1920 and 1922.

·         Klee integrated modern visual art with work of non-western cultures and children to create drawings and paintings that were charged with visual communication.

·         Kardinksy’s belief in autonomy and spiritual values of color and form led to courageous emancipation of his painting from motif and from representational elements.

·         Bauhaus – no distinction was made between fine and applied art.

·         Johannes Itten (1888-1967) established heart of Bauhaus education and preliminary course. His goals: release students creative abilities, to develop understanding of physical nature of materials, and to teach fundamental principles of design underling all visual art. He emphasized visual contrasts and analysis’s of old master paintings.

·         He sought to develop perceptual awareness, intellectual abilities and emotional experience.

·         Bauhaus was evolving from concern of medievalism, expressionism, and handicraft toward emphasis on rationalism and designing for machine.

·         Gropius began to consider Itten’s mysticism to be “other-worldliness” inconsistent with search for new objective design language capable of overcoming dangers of past styles and personal tastes.

·         Bauhaus teacher Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) learned about De Stijl and introduced to Bauhaus Community.

·         Bauhaus and De Stijl has similar aims.

·          Furniture design and typography were especially influenced by De Stijl.

·         Conflicts between Bauhaus and Thuringian government led authorities to insist Bauhaus mount a major exhibition to demonstrate its accomplishments.

·         1923- Exhibition took place. 15000 people attended and internationally acclaimed romantic medievalism and expressionism were replaced by applied-design emphasis causing Gropius to replace slogan “A Unity of Art and Handicraft” with “Art And Technology, a New Unity”.

·         Bauhaus symbol reflected this shift which was new.  Joos Schmidt’s poser for exhibition combined geometric and machine forms, reflecting reorientation occurring at Bauhaus.

THE IMPACT OF LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY:

·         Hungarian constructivist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, restless experimenter who studies law before art, he explored painting, photography, film, sculpture and graphic design. He marked influence on evolution of Bauhaus instruction and philosophy and he became Gropius’s “prime minister” at Bauhaus as director pushed for new unity of art and technology.

·         New materials, acrylic resin and plastic and new techniques: photomontage and photogram and visual Means: kinetic motion, light and transparency were encompassed in his investigations.

·         Tradition forms of creating art: Moholy-Nagy contributed important statement about typography, describing it as tool of communication. Communication must be in most intense form. Emphasis must be on absolute clarity, legibility- communication must never be impaired by priori esthetics.  Letters never be forced into preconceived framework for instance a square. Uninhibited use of all linear directions (not only horizontal articulation). We use all typefaces, type sizes, geometric forms, colors etc.  we want to create new language of typography whose elasticity, variability and freshness of typographical composition exclusively dictated by inner law of expression and optical effect.

·         Essence of art and design was concept not execution and 2 could be separated.  Moholy-Nagy acted on this belief from 1929.  He saw photography influencing poster design which demands instantaneous communication by techniques of enlargement, distortion, dropouts, double exposures and montage.  In typography he advocated emphatic contrasts and bold use of color. Absolute clarity of communication without preconceived aesthetic notions was stressed.

·         Normal viewpoints of camera was replaced by worm’s-eye, bird’s-eye, extreme close-up and angled viewpoints.

·         Application of new language of vision to forms seen in world characterizes his regular photographic work.

·         Texture, light and dark interplay, and repetition are qualities of works such as “Chairs at Margate”.

·         1922, Moholy- Nagy experimented with photogram’s and then next year photomontages = photoplastics.  Believed the photogram, because allowed artist to capture patterned interplay of light and dark on sheet of light sensitive paper without camera = essence of photography.

·         Photogram’s- light –modulating properties, reference to black and white and gray patterns or external world vanished in expression of abstract pattern.

·         Photoplastics – manifestations of process for arriving at new expression could be more creative and functional than straightforward imitative photography.  Could be humorous, visionary, moving, insightful and has drawn additions, complex associations and unexpected juxtapositions.

THE BAUHAUS AT DESSAU:

·         During Dessau period, Bauhaus identity and philosophy came to full fruition.

·         De Stijl and constructivist underpinnings were obvious. Bauhaus didn’t merely copy these movements. It developed clear understanding of formal principles that could be applied intelligently to design problems. Bauhaus Corporation, business organization, was created to handle sale of workshop prototypes to industry.

·         Abundant ideas flowed from Bauhaus to influence 20^th century life.  Designs for furniture, and other products, functional architecture, environmental spaces, and typography.

·         1926, Bauhaus renamed Hochschule fur Gestaltung (High School for Form).

·         Bauhaus magazine began publication. It was influential.

·         Moholy-Nagy designed jacket for book, 12 was printed on translucent tracing paper. It presented Gropius’s modular housing proposals for industrial fabrication to combine economy with social purpose and structural functionalism with aesthetic concerns. Photograph of typography was printed on glass whose shadow falls onto red plane for book 14s jacket.

·         Students who were masters: Josef Alber’s (1888-1976), taught systematic preliminary course investigating constructive qualities of materials, Marcel Breuer (1902-81), head of furniture shop and invented tubular-steel furniture and Herbet Bayer, who became professor of newly added typography and graphic design workshop. Bayer: flush-left, ragged-right typesetting without justification, = squaring or flushing of both left and right edges of a type column by adding word or lettering spacing.

·         Extreme contrasts of type size and weight were used to establish visual hierarchy of emphasis determined by objective assessment of relative importance of words. Bars, rules, points, squares used to subdivide space, unify diverse elements, lead viewer’s eye across pg and call attention to important elements. Elementary forms and use of black with one bright, pure hue were favored. 1 composition on an implied grid and system of sizes for type, rules, and pictorial images brought unity to designs. Dynamic composition with string horizontals and verticals and on occasion diagonals characterize Bayer’s Bauhaus period.

 FINAL YEARS OF BAUHAUS:

·         1928, Walter Gropius resigned to resume private architectural practice.

·         Bayer and Moholy-Nagy left for Berlin, graphic design and typography figured prominently in activities of each. Joos Schmidt (1893-1948) followed Bayer as master of typography and graphic design workshop. He brought unity to form through standardized panels and grid-system organization.

·         Hannes Meyer (1889-1954) assumed directorship of Bauhaus. Swiss architect with strong socialist beliefs, hired to set up architectural program, 1927.

·         Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), prominent Berlin architect, design dictum, “less is more”= major tenet of 20^th century design became director.

·         Modernist approach to visual education was developed. Visual theory was contributed. Dissolving of fine and applied art boundaries, Bauhaus tried to bring art into close relationship with life by way of design, seen as vehicle for social change and cultural revitalization.

JAN TSCHICHOLD AND DIE NEUE TYPOGRAPHIE (THE NEW TYPOGRAPHY):

·         Much of creative innovation in graphic design during 1^st decades of century occurred as part of modern-art movements and at Bauhaus but explorations toward new approach were seen and understood only by limited audience outside mainstream society.

·         Person who applied new design approaches to everyday design problems and explained them to wide audience of printers, typesetters and designers was Jan Tschichold (1902-74). Son of designer and sign painter, Leipzig, Germany, Tschichold developed interest in calligraphy, studied at Leipzig Academy, joined staff of Insel Verlag as traditional calligrapher. Rapidly assimilated new design concepts of Bauhaus and Russian Constructivists in his work. He became practitioner of new typography. He designed 24 pg insert – “Elementare Typographie”, explained and demonstrated asymmetrical typography to printers, typesetters and designers. Printed in red and black and featured avant-garde work along with Tschichold’s lucid commentary.

·         Disgusted with degenerate typefaces and arrangements, he went further to wipe slate clean and fine new asymmetrical typography to express spirit, life and visual sensibility of day. Objective was functional design by most straightforward means. He delivered message in shortest and most efficient manner.  His emphasizes nature of machine composition and impact on design process and product. His brochure for book illustrates radical new typography which rejected decoration in favor of rational design planned for communicative function.

·         Tschichold observed although plain utilitarianism and modern design had much in common, modern movement sought spiritual content and beauty more closely bound to materials used. He favored headlines flush to left margin, with uneven line lengths. He believed kinetic asymmetrical design of contrasting elements expressed new age of machine.  Types should be elementary in form without embellishment, san-serif type, range of weights (light, medium, bold, extra-bold, and italic) and proportions (condensed, normal, and expanded) declared to be modern type.  Wide range of value and texture in black and white scale allowed expressive, abstract image sought by modern design.  Spatial intervals were seen as important design elements, with white space given a new role as structural component. Rules, bars, and boxes often used for structure, balance and emphasis.  Precision and objectivity of photography were preferred for illustration. Accused of being “cultural Bolshevik” and creating “un-German” typography he was denied teaching position in Munich. After 6 weeks protective custody, he worked primarily as book designer. He turned away from new typography to use roman, Egyptian and script styles in his designs.  Reaction against chaos and anarchy in German and Swiss typography, 1923. Tschichold endorsed occasional use of ornamental typography as having refreshing effect like flower or rocky terrain. He saw value of new typography as attempt at purification, clarity and simplicity of means, able to bring typographic expression to fruition for 20^th century. Revival of classical typography restored humanist tradition of book design and made indelible mark on graphic design.