Art Timeline
The Influence of Modern Art
The first decades of the 20th century saw changes in communication, transport, and media. Visual art and design were not left behind as the approaches to organizing space to represent external appearance no longer satisfied the visions and needs of the emerging Avant-grade Europeans. Ideas about color and form, expression of Freudian theories, and emotional states filled the mind of many artists (pg. 249).
Some of the movements that influenced modern art are cubism, futurism, fauvism, among others. Cubism introduced a design that was independent of nature, introducing a tradition of artistic design (pg. 248). Decades later, cubism evolved into synthetic cubism, which used forms that were signed and not a representation of the subject matter.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the pioneers of cubism. Picasso’s drawings and paintings expressed the new approach to handling space and showing human emotions. The figures in the work of art are abstracted in shapes of geometry and breaking down the classical norms of the human figure (pg. 248).
Nude c. 1906-07, by Picasso (Fig. 1), shows cubism by the fragmentation of the figure and background spaces by the use of geometric planes. The artwork uses tribal art from Africa and ancient Iberian to form the human figure.
Fig. 1 Nude by Pablo Picasso
Juan Gris (1887-1927) was one of the developers of synthetic cubism. His works are a combination of art based on perception and art born out of the relationship of geometric planes (pg. 250). Gris had a profound influence on developing geometric art.
One of Gris’ paintings was the Fruit Bowl (Fig. 2), which combined nature’s composition with independent structural design. The painting uses a golden section of architectural structure and a modular grid, then laying the subject matter on the design.
Fig. 2 Fruit Bowl by Juan Gris
Fernand Leger (1881-1955) moved cubism from the impulses of the founders. His art evolved to the art of pure color and shape relationships (pg. 250). His style was also more recognizable, popular, and accessible.
Fig. 3 La fin du monde by Fernand leger
Leger’s work is found in La fin du monde (Fig. 3), where a pinwheel of letters expresses a whirlwind tour of how the earth is recreated after man’s fall with the message “accelerated slow-motion camera.”
The Pictorial Modernism
The world war brought about a different communication need. Pictures were required in a poster to communicate persuasively with the public. Pictorial graphics became part of modern art, where communicative imagery combined with design form gave pictures the balance they needed.
The Beggerstaffs brothers, who were brothers-in-law, opened a design studio and used pictorial designs by making posters of colored shapes and silhouettes. One of their famous posters is Don Quixote (fig. 4), which they never painted because the owner of the painting, Sir Henry Irving, decided it was a bad likeness.
Fig. 4 Don Quixote by Beggerstaffs.
Dudley Hardy (1866-1922) was a British who introduced the French graphic picture qualities to the London billboards. His poster work was theatrical: letters and figures appeared against flat and simple backgrounds (pg. 270). The Gaiety Girl poster (Fig. 5) has the actor, and the title of the play stand out against a red background.
Fig 5. Gaiety Girl by Dudley Hardy
Meanwhile, in Germany, Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972), while still, a teenager was able to simplify and reduce the designs into a visual language of shape and sign. He pioneered the approach of using flat color shapes, product images, and names into graphics.
Fig 6. Priester by Bernhard
Bernhard’s first artwork is the Priester matches poster (Fig. 6). In the poster, color became the means of conveying the message, with little information. Communication was reduced to one word.
The Bauhaus and the New Typography
Bauhaus was a logical evolution of German’s concern for design in a society that was becoming industrialized. Bauhaus wanted unity between artists and craftsmen. Also, advanced ideas about color, space, and form were absorbed into the Bauhaus design.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy had joined Bauhaus as the head of the preliminary course. He used new materials such as plastic and acrylic resin and new techniques such as photograms and photomontage, and visual means such as light and motion.
Moholy-Nagy designed the interior of Staatliches of Bauhaus in Weimer (Fig. 7). The design is based on a rhythmic series of right angles. Applying stripes to two words led to the creation of the second spatial plane (pg. 312).
Fig. 7 Staatliches of Bauhaus in Weimer by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) was a Bauhaus student and influenced by the Dej Stijl to develop some Bauhaus designs. One of his works is the symbol of the Kraus stained-glass workshop (Fig. 8). In the figure, a horizontal line divides a square into two rectangles, with each rectangle divided by a vertical line to form a square and another small rectangle. Balance and proportion are achieved using minimal means and influence from Dej Stijl (pg. 315).
Fig 8. Kraus stained-glass workshop by Herbert Bayer
Joost Schmidt (1893-1948), a former student of Bauhaus, became the master of typography and graphic design at Bauhaus after Moholy-Nagy and Bayer left. He stopped leaning towards the strict constructivist ideas towards a variety of type fonts (pg. 317).
In 1929, the Bauhaus magazine cover had the design of Schmidt (Fig. 9), which uses different image sizes and shapes in the lower two-thirds of the cover.
Fig. 9 Bauhaus magazine cover by Joost Schmidt
International Typographic Style
Also called the swiss designs, the movement emerged in the 1950s from Switzerland and Germany. Swiss designs included objective copy and photography that present both verbal and visual information transparently without any exaggerated claims of advertising and propaganda, use of san-serif typography, and an asymmetric organization of design elements organized asymmetrically on a mathematical grid. In this era, personal expressions were rejected for a more scientific approach to design. The designers never saw themselves as artists but as conduits of spreading information to society.
Theo Ballmer (1902- 1965) was one of the followers of swiss design. He went to study at the Dessau Bauhaus and originally used the De Stijl principles. He used the mathematical grid of vertical and horizontal alignments. Ballmer’s designs had a high degree of harmony from the ordered grid he used to construct the visual forms. The Buro poster (Fig. 10) has black words reflected in red on a grid.
Fig. 10 Buro poster by Theo Ballmer
Max Bill (1908-1994) also studied at the Bauhaus and embraced Art Concert, based on mathematically exact visual elements of planes and colors. Since such elements have no meaning, the complete artwork becomes a purely abstract work of art. Bill’s work was mainly about architecture, engineering, sculpture, product, and graphic design.
One of Bill’s works was the American Exhibition poster (Fig. 11) that used a mathematical grid structure to contain the elements. Bill’s work was known for its modular grids, linear division of space, permutations and sequences, and mathematical progressions (author 358).
Fig. 11. USA Baut by Max Bill
Max Huber (1919-1992), also a student at Bauhaus, used photographs that were complex visual organizations and combined them with bright, pure hues. Such a combination made his work seem chaotic, but the work maintained balance and alignment (chap. 18 pg. 359).
One of Huber’s work is the Gran Premio dell Autodromo (Fig. 12), which takes advantage of the transparency of inks to layer different shapes on each other, with the result being an intricate graphic design expressing speed and movement (chap 18 pg. 359).
Fig. 12 Gran Premio dell Autodromo by Max Huber
American Approach
Modern designs in America were first imported from Europe. In the 1940s, America took the first steps towards its modern American designs. Their design was intuitive and less formal when organizing space, which was different from the European’s structured approach (pg. 415).
Paul Rand (1914-1996) was one of the pioneers of American design. Rand could manipulate visual forms such as shape, color, space, and line, to express communication, thereby reducing it to a symbolic essence (pg. 415).
One of Rand’s famous artworks is the 1946 Jazzways yearbook cover (Fig. 13), where he used collage and montage techniques to bring images, textures, and objects into a cohesive whole (pg. 415). The symbolic forms and dynamic composition in the cover were part of Rand’s signature style.
Fig. 13 Jazzways yearbook cover by Paul Rand
Alvin Lustig (1915-1955) was another American designer who used the originality of his visions and combined it with private symbols to form a graphic design (pg. 417). He worked on graphic design, interior design, and architectural design.
A Season in Hell book cover was designed by Lusting (Fig. 14). It has sharp black and white biomorphic figures on a red field showing the poet’s failure in love and art and descent into hell (pg. 417). lusting method was to use symbols to capture the contents of literary work, as shown in the cover.
Fig. 14 A Season in Hell book cover by Alvin Lustig.
Bradbury Thompson (1911-1995) was an influential graphic designer. He used 18th and 19th-century engravings as design resources and incorporated large, geometric, and bold shapes to graphic power and symbolism to a page.
The Westvaco Inspiration 210 is one of Thompson’s most famous designs (Fig. 15). He used typography from a photograph to achieve complex organization and visual flow.
Fig 15. Westvaco Inspiration no. 210 by Bradbury Thomson