Contextual Studies 3/10/12
1922-1979 – Modernism
1880-1920 – Modern Art
1980 – onwards – Postmodernism
1851 saw The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.
Johnathan Barnbrook – contemporary designer – influenced by the styles of the past, but doesn’t think we should learn from them.
Ecclectisism of post modernist – the mixing of two or more styles in one piece of work.
Austerely Park – Robert Adam (architect)
Built in a classical style, which was the only style understood at the time. It was a balanced and symmetrical style.
Industrial Revolution – took place mainly in The West Midlands
Matthew Boulton, James Watt, The Wedgewoods
The Lunar Society in Handsworth.
Huge changes kick started design.
The late 18th/early 19th century saw Gothic influences come to light – Henry Warpoles’ Strawberry Hill.
Gothic became gothick – which was a parody on the real gothic style.
A new middle class was created, and the wealthy began to move into the Towns.
Areas of note
Delauthenburg – painting of Coalbrookdale.
Napoleonic war (end of 19th C) conquered most of Europe.
Goya – brought us Horror and Consumption. He was Spanish, which was controlled by Napoleons Mercenaries.
It was an expressive period.
Henry Fuselli – The Nightmare – introduced the Sublime.
Then there began the battle of the styles – Liverpool to Manchester Railway – 1816-1822
1820’s-1830’s saw a classical revival.
Peugin – a fundamental Christian
You can link the buildings design to the reaction of them. What an architect can do to the way people respond.
A Medieval style started to influence people.
Architecture became less balanced, and brought about more irregular architecture.
1840’s
Houses of Parliament burnt down. peugin got the job of creating the tower. Classical designer Barrie was appointed too.
The was a sudden interest in Gothic type.
Example- The Law courts in Birmingham.
There are no Gothic Banks.
The Railway companies became competitive – Euston was built in the Classical Style, St. Pancras was built in the Gothic Style.
The London Coal exchange was neither. It rung in a new era of Glass and Steel structures.
The Victorians now had steam powered printing machines.
The new emerging design was over excessive – see Punch Magazine Covers.
The Great Exhibition was to showcase Britain as the best.
It contained a lot of over embellishment.
‘Living furniture’ contained foliage.
There were no trained graphic designers or illustrators at the time.
Guild Hall in York.
William Morris was appalled by the great exhibition. He was a wealthy socialist and a failed architect and painter.
He began to draw natural forms
Was friends with Pre- Raphelites.
Philip Webb was also an architect, who built in a vernacular style (to overly decorative; made from local materials.)
The Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Red House – Morris’ house. It carried no embellishment and he called it ‘truth to materials.’
Burn Jones designed Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton.
Morris and Faulkner – a design company that created products that were considered functional and fit for purpose.
The old Wolverhampton School of Art and Design building was built in the vernacular style, and was part of the arts and crafts movement.
Morris founded a press, which naturally influenced illustration.
Chris Dresser (1880’s) brought about radical design.
Illustration took a while to catch up. There were not as many books at this time since a lot of people couldn’t read.
Kate Greenaway worked in a very Victorian, but natural style
William Caldecott dealt in Anthropomorphism and a natural feel.
The need to read began to grow, so that people could organise businesses.
Manuals had to be written to explain technical skills and machinery
Magazines and Newspapers began to be produced with illustrations.
Walter Crane
Aubrey Beardsley – worked in a flat and quite controversial style. Was influenced by Japanese art. He didn’t always use the same perspectives, and used differing line volumes to create a sense of space.
Jack Murdor – a Guildist, – curves and sways.
Charles Rennie Macintosh – studied at the Glasgow school of art, worked in no real style or decoration, but took a more industrial line.
Glass windows and doors, influenced by Morris, became more exaggerated.
Studio magazine became the first to be internationally published and distributed.
Macintosh’s work influenced European Design.
Alphonse Mucha – Art Nouveau and used further exaggeration.
Some art became highly controversial (Alan Moore)
Jules Cherie – designer from 1890-1910 had an expensive style
Peter Berens – an Architecht and was the first corporate designer (buildings, logos etc.)
Paul Cezanne – his paint took on a form of its own.
Braques – his work was angular and showed a breaking down of form.
Picasso – used Cubism, and existential art. It was considered more realistic.
Not much had an impact on Britain except Vorticism – Wyndham Lewis.
Reduction art – began to kill ‘art’ off.
The Russian Revolution – 1905-1917- was seen as a backward country.
The soviet communists introduced Russia to the Industrial Revolution.
Influential Russian Designers began to emerge.
Lissitzky – created graphical messages with shapes.
Bauhaus – 1919 – was seen as functional designs.
Gropius
Graphics were based on grids.
Bayer-Moholy Nage – ‘can’t use serifs; they are dated.’
Didn’t want historical references being used.
Kandinsky
Reductive Modernism
De Stijl (means The Style)
Schoder House
Mondrian painting
Le Corbuisier – Architect God.
Only used concrete – he named his designs, and believed that they were machines to be lived in.
Ocean liners influenced him.
His buildings were soulless
He was also responsible for early housing estates.
Before now there weren’t many female designers.
Designers were considered to be DWEMS – Dead White European Males.
Eileen Grey worked with Corbuisier.
Women didn’t get the vote until the 1920’s, and so women’s rights and equal rights for women were new.
During the war, women kept the industries going, and were then dropped when it was over.
Tamara Delempica – and Art Deco painter
Vogue Magazine covers.
Frank Lloyd Wright – American Designer.
Dudley Zoo is an example of contemporary (modernist) design.
Paper Scribbles Illustration 