Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Russian Contructivism

Designing a Typographic Art Nouveau Poster

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Art Nouveau(1890-1924) vs. Art Deco(1910-39)

The Quick Trick: It all comes down to "flowery" vs. "streamlined." Art Nouveau is the decorative one. Art Deco is sleeker.

Both the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements emerged as reactions to major world events; the Industrial Revolution and World War I, respectively.

Art NouveauArt Nouveau (New Art) is a transitional style that bridged the aesthetic confusion of the Victorian era and Modernism. Art Nouveau thrived from about 1890 to 1910, and overlapped with the Arts and Crafts movement.

Art Nouveau is considered a "total" art style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewelry, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts.

Other names of Art Nouveau

Nieuwe Kunst In NetherlandJugendstil in GermanyArte Joven, in SpainSecession, in AustriaStile Liberty, in Italy

Art Nouveau was aimed at modernizing design, seeking to escape the eclectic historical styles that had previously been popular.

The movement was committed to abolishing the traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed so-called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture, as superior to craft-based decorative arts.

The practitioners of Art Nouveau sought to revive good workmanship, raise the status of craft, and produce genuinely modern design.

Inspirations

Arts and Crafts Movement

Japanese Art

• Led by William Morris

• Reaction against the cluttered designs and compositions ofVictorian-era decorativeart

• Handcraftsmanship

• Highly expressive paintings of post impressionist

• The flat perspective and strong colors of Japanese wood blockprints

• (Olive green, carnation pink and periwinkle blue)

• “Whiplash” curves were derived

•Japanese woodblock printing from Edo(Tokyo) during a great period of peace in Japan•Translates to “reflections of the passing world” or “pictures of the floating world”•Images from this art period are scenes from everyday life •Screen paintings depicting the entertainment districts of urban Japan.

Ukiyo-e

“Whiplash” curves

ArtNouveautypicallyemployed intricatecurvilinearpatternsofsinuousasymmetricallines,oftenbasedon plant-forms

Other Influences and prominentfeatures:

Rhythmic floral patterns, is often considered the first realization of Art Nouveau

2D imagery (Japan)

Nature illustrations of deep sea creatures and

plants were used as references

Characteristics

Moved away from imitation of real subjects and moved towards flowing and twisting lines of nature

Inspired by the lines and shapes of nature

united flowing, natural forms with more angular contours

Art Nouveau designers also believed that all the arts should work in harmony to create a "total work of art“

Art Nouveau was a short-lived movement whose brief incandescence was a precursor of modernism, which emphasized function over form and the elimination of superfluous ornament.

Art Nouveau embraced all forms of art anddesign:

• Architecture

• Furniture

• Glassware

• Graphic Design

• Jewelry

• Painting

• Pottery

• Metalwork

• Textile

French Art NouveauFrench Art Nouveau began in Paris in 1881, with Jules Chéret and Eugene Grasset, after a new French law that lifted censorship restrictions led to a booming poster industry.

Jules Cheret, considered the father of the modern poster, designed lithographic posters for music halls, the theatre, beverages, medicines, household products, entertainers and publications.

Jules Chéret,poster,L’aureole dumidi,PétroledeSureté,1893.

Jules Chéret, Palais de Glace, Champs-Èlysée(Ice Palace, Champs-Èlysée), 1893

Parisian elegance, a carefree grace, and astounding technical mastery are present. The figures create a lively play of angles, linking the top and bottom lettering. As with many of Chéret’s larger posters, it was necessary to print Palais de Glace in two sections.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec developed a journalistic, illustrative style that depicted the nightlife of Paris.

Shapes become symbols; in combination, these signify a place and an event.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, poster, “La Goulue au Moulin Rouge,” 1891

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

The influence of the Japanese print is clearly evident in the flat silhouette, unmodulated color, and stylized curvilinear drawing.

HenrideToulouse-Lautrec,posterforAristideBruant,1893.

Alphonse Mucha

Art nouveau found it’s most comprehensive statement from 1895 to 1900 in the work of young Czech artist Alphonse Mucha.

Mucha’s dominant theme was a central female figure surrounded by stylized forms derived from plants and flowers, Moravian folk art, Byzantine mosaics and even magic and the occult.

Thepensivefemalefigureseemsmesmerizedbytheplethoraofstylizedplantformssurroundingher.

AlphonseMucha,posterforJobcigarettepapers,1898

Alphonse Mucha

Mucha delighted in filling the total space with animated form and ornament.

Alphonse Mucha

Mucha’s women project an archetypical sense of unreality—exotic, sensuous, yet maidenlike.

They express no specific age, nationality, or historic period and their stylized hair patterns became a hallmark of the era.

ARCHITECTURE

Art Nouveau buildings have many of these features:

• Asymmetrical shapes• Extensive use of arches and curved forms• Curved glass• Curving, plant-like embellishments• Mosaics• Stained glass• Japanese motifs

Rationalist:

Mackintosh schoolGlasglow, Scotland 1897-1909-dependent on the straight line

Organic:

Gaudi houseBarcelona, Spain 1903-gives precedence to the curved line and floral shapes

1. An abstract, structural style with a strong symbolic and dynamic tendency (France & Belgium)(Horta, Guimard, Van de Velde)

Henry Van de Velde’s hous

2. A floral approach focusing on organic plant formsAquarium Pavillion (Galle, Majorelle, Vallin)

3. The linear, flat approach, with a heavy symbolic element (Glasglow group, Mackintosh)

GlasgowSchoolof Art byCharlesRennie Mackintosh

4. A structured, geometric style (Austria & Germany) (Wagner, Olbrich, Hoffmann, Loos)

Majolikahausin ViennabyOttoWagner

Paris Metro Entrance sParis, France1899 to 1905

FURNITURE

Henri Van De Velde

• Henri van de Velde was very influential in the birth of Belgian Art Nouveau Style.

• In 1896 he presented his furniture works in Samuel Bing's gallery "L'Art Nouveau" in Paris and became internationally known.

HenrivandeVelde,posterforTropon foodconcentrate,1899.

LAMPS

GLASSWARE, POTTERY

Fall of Art Nouveau & Birth of Art Deco

When Art Nouveau fell out of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s, it was replaced by the clean, simple geometries of Art Deco.

The extravagant curves of Art Nouveau were seen as old-fashioned and viewed with contempt.

Art Deco

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Art Deco

Art deco was a reaction to the Art Nouveau movement, an expression of the opposition to the disharmony. This style diverged significantly into the future, began to use mass production to create useful objects, however consistent their highest quality. Because of that they unfortunately were not available to the whole society.

After World War I, cubist ideas inspired a new direction in pictorial images, often referred to as art deco, a term used to identify popular geometric works of the 1920s and 1930s.

Streamlining, zigzag, and decorative geometry were used to express the modern era of the machine while still satisfying a passion for decoration that carried over from art nouveau.

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ArtDeco

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Art Deco

Growing impact of the machine can be seen in repeating and overlapping images from 1925 and in the 1930s, in streamlined forms derived from the principles of aerodynamics.

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Post-Cubist Pictorial ModernismA. M. Cassandre

Art Deco

Style highlights:• applying geometric shapes, sharp edges, but with rounded corners,• using materials such as chrome, glass, shiny fabrics, mirrors,ceramic tiles, bakelite and expensive, imported materials suchas ivory, bronze, precious stones,• shells, sunrises, flowers were recurring motifs,• bright colours,• architecture with large windows and doors, flat roofs, cornerwindows often appeared,• furniture in single copies, streamline shapes.

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Pre-Cubist Pictorial Modernism

The art deco idiom often conveyed unbridled optimism for machines and human progress, but here it turns darkly toward a future where robots replace people.

Heinz Schulz-Neudamm, cinema poster for Metropolis, 1926.

CONSTRUCTIVISM1919-1934

Beginnings

•Committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity•Themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional.•Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic elements.•In 1917 the group turned their energies to massive propaganda but by 1920 a deep ideological split developed.•Kandinsky and Malevich took the direction of the artist as a spiritual activity separated from the needs of society. They reject the social or political role

“Art for everyone, Art for the people!” Art was created to serve all people and be practical in its nature.

Evolution

The artists did not believe in abstract ideas, rather they tried to link art with concrete and tangible ideas.

It acted as a lightning rod for the hopes and ideas of many of the most advanced Russian artists who supported the revolution’s goals.

It borrowed ideas from Cubism, Suprematism and Futurism, but at its heart was an entirely new approach to making objects, one which sought to abolish the traditional artistic concern with composition, and replace it with ‘construction.’

COMPOSITION

CONSTRUCTION

Constructivism is marked by:

Stylistically,•Organization of abstract, geometrical elements to make dynamic or visually stable forms•Combinations of different sans serif typefaces for their visual and formal properties as well as their literal meanings •Simple, flat, symbolic colours•Extensive white space as part of the design •Photography (rather than drawn illustrations) and photomontage

TheStaircase (1930)Womanwithachildagainstthestern geometry

Cameraposition – innovative,yetbalancedandflowing composition

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dance.AnObjectlessComposition (1915)Norecognizabledancercanbeseen

Onlyadivinesparkofdancecomes across

FUTURIST PAINTING

Books (The Advertisement Poster for the Lengiz Publishing House) (1924)

He updated Russian advertising, using geometric compositions andstrident(harsh) colors to trumpet modernity

PHOTOMONTAGE

Maquette for the Advertisement of the Red October Bisquittes (1923)

Mayakovsky-Rodchenko: Advertising Constructors

ALEXANDER RODCHENKODESIGN(workforRussianindustry)

El Lissitzky

Believed that the artist could be an agent for change, which he summarized to “goal-oriented creation”•Lissitzky was of the most innovative and proficient designers of the constructivist ideal.•He developed a painting style he called PROUNS (an acronym for: Projects for the establishment of new art). •He developed visual ideas about balance, space, and form in his paintings, which became the basis for his graphic design and architecture.

El Lissitzky in a self-portrait (1914)

The Runner (1930)The segmented photo mimics the effect of perceiving objects in motion

Proun 99 (1925)An effort to create three-dimensional environments in which

two-dimensional shapes could exist in direct contrast to the space

El LissitzkySUPERMATISM PHOTOMONTAGE

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge(1919)

Red wedge – Bolsheviks White circle – Kerensky forces

El Lissitzky

USSR, The Russian exhibitionposter(1929)

Equality of the sexes

GRAPHICDESIGN LITHOGRAPHY

Vladimir Tatlin,Corner Counter-Relief (1914)

SculpturewithspatialqualitiesmadeofIron,copper,woodand strings

El LissitzskyProun Room (1923)

Geometric Proun compositions into a room environment

Other Important Art

Naum Gabo, Head No. 2 (1916)Stereometric construction – Form throughspace rather than mass

Lyubov Popova, Textile Design (1924)

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Agitprop poster(1924)"Want it? Join“

1.You want to overcome cold?2. You want to overcome hunger? 3. 3. You want to eat?4. You want to drink?

Other Important Artists

Other Important Artists

Vasilily Yermilov

Victor Pasmore

Lyubov Popova

Alexander Vesnin

Vladimir Mayakovsky

LEGACY

Russian Constructivism was in decline by the mid 1920s, partly a victim of the Bolshevik regime’s increasing hostility to avant-garde art.

A number of Constructivists would teach or lecture at the Bauhaus schools in Germany.

In the 1980s graphic designer Neville Brody used style based on Constructivist posters that initiated a revival of popular interest.

Also during the 1980s designer Ian Anderson founded The Designers Republic, a successful and influential design company with used constructivist principles.