Art Nouveau and Modernist Graphic Design
By replacing historicism - the almost servile use of past forms and styles instead of the invention of new forms to express the present - with innovation, Art Nouveau became the initial phase of the modern movement, preparing the way for the twentieth century by sweeping this backward-looking spirit from design.[1]The term 'modern' is always problematic, no less in the essentiallypragmatic world of graphic design than in fine art or architecture. It hasa tendency to obscure as much as to illuminate, applying an idea ofunidirectional progress to the many and various forms visual languagetakes, implying an overall evolutionary movement 'forwards' to modernitywhen the historical reality was more various and fragmented. Graphicdesign is typically a process of solving particular informational anddecorative problems in terms determined by the needs of particular clientsand audiences - not all of whom would necessarily have been concerned withconcepts of 'the modern' or 'modernism'. Both Art Nouveau and Bauhaus hada more multifaceted and complex relationship with the past than issuggested by the generalized use of the term 'modern movement' to describ
Art Nouveau did reject the dead hand of revivalism(the unthinking reproduction of the styles of previous eras) but it wasthoroughly historicist in its visual vocabulary, and showed itselfparticularly adept at reinterpreting past styles for the contemporaryworld, notably illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance typography andornament, and the visual vocabulary of medievalism. The implication is that the poster embodies ideas and concepts that aredistinctively 'modern' in sensibility: clarity, elemental forms, thefunctionally-determined organization of information, a breaking withhistoricism. Art Nouveau is characterized by a sinuous linearity, rich use ofornament and pattern, and appeal to the senses, and a delight in naturalforms treated with varying degrees of abstraction. In conclusion, this comparison suggests that it is not enough toplace examples of graphic design from different periods in a historicaltrajectory leading from the un-modern towards the modern. The clear typography, bold blocks of red, and almost documentary stylephotographic imagery lift this poster from the realm of therepresentational, aspiring to an abstract world of pure information,functionally presented . The posters ofAlphonse Mucha such as the 1898 advertisement for Job cigarette papers[2]are very much part of this phenomenon. The figure's head occupiesthe 'O' of 'Job' suggesting a halo, and emphasizing the strong centralizedcompositional structure that underlies the image. [3] Meggs, History of Graphic Design, p. Meggs supports this initial impression, arguingthat Bayer's poster embodies 'a functional and neutral sequence ofinformation'[4] with its hierarchically-organized typographic sequence. Furthermore, the Bauhaus philosophy was as much an ideologyas any other, and the aesthetic choices of simplicity, starkness and formalausterity reflected in Bauhaus graphics were just that, aesthetic choices,as much as were the floral borders and stylized decorativeness of ArtNouveau. It is far more concerned with providingdetailed information of a practical nature - dates, locations, times -whereas the advertisement for Job is performing a less tangible function -selling a lifestyle, making a product seem attractive through anassociation with desirable qualities of style, elegance, relaxation,enjoyment. In this paper two images, one from the period of Art Nouveau and onefrom the Bauhaus movement, will be compared in the light of this overallthesis. Below the surface, although first impressions might suggestotherwise, the two posters are equally rigidly designed. Bauhaus designs suchas the poster by Herbert Bayer for the Kandinsky exhibition[3] seem farmore redolent of the machine age than do those of Art Nouveau, although thelatter were deeply indebted to modern techniques of reproduction and massmanufacture.
Common topics in this essay:
Art Nouveau,
Nouveau Mucha's,
Herbert Bayer's,
Roman Islamic,
Nouveau Bauhaus,
Furthermore Bauhaus,
Graphic Design,
,
art nouveau,
Alphonse Mucha's,
Alphonse Mucha,
graphic design,
history graphic,
meggs history graphic,
history graphic design,
meggs history,
art nouveau bauhaus,
nouveau bauhaus,
graphic design 284,
aesthetic choices,
visual vocabulary,
art nouveau movement,
advertisement job,
nouveau movement,
job cigarette,
|
Acceptance Essays
