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Home , Art Nouveau, Constructivism (art), Gino Severini, Hannes Meyer, Walter Dorwin Teague

De Stijl in the

Russian 26 Constructivism was an artistic and architectural movement that originated in from 1919 onward which rejected the idea of " for art's sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes and uses. Constructivism as an active force lasted until around 1934, having a great deal of effect on developments in the art of the Republic (post world war one ) and elsewhere, before being replaced by Socialist . Its motifs have sporadically recurred in other art movements since. It had a lasting impact on modern design through some of its members becoming involved with the group. Constructivism had a particularly lasting effect on and .

Constructivism art refers to the optimistic, non-representational construction, , kinetics and . The artists did not believe in abstract ideas, rather they tried to link art with concrete and tangible ideas. Early modern movements around WWI were idealistic, seeking a new order in art and that dealt with social and economic problems. They wanted to renew the idea that the apex of artwork does not revolve around "", but rather emphasized that the most priceless artwork can often be discovered in the nuances of "practical art" and through portraying man and mechanization into one aesthetic program. Constructivism was first created in Russia in 1913 when the Russian sculptor , during his journey to , discovered the works of Braque and Picasso. When Tatlin was back in Russia, he began producing sculptured out of assemblages, but he abandoned any reference to precise subjects or themes. Those works marked the appearance of Constructivism. The name Constructivism did not describe a specific movement but rather a trend within the fields of painting, sculpture and especially closely conjoined artists and their art with machine production, architecture and the applied .It shared similar ideals with the Movement in the Netherlands in its attempt to remove representation, , useless decoration and design for function and efficiency first and foremost.

Russian Constructivism 2727 De Stijl in the Netherlands

Gerhard Rietveld

28 De Stijl in the Netherlands Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only primary colours along with black and white. Indeed, according to the Tate Gallery's online article on neoplasticism, Mondrian himself sets forth these delimitations in his essay 'Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art'. He writes, "... this new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary, it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour." The Tate article further summarizes that this art allows "only primary colours and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical line."[3] The Guggenheim Museum's online article on De Stijl summarizes these traits in similar terms: "It [De Stijl] was posited on the fundamental principle of the geometry of the straight line, the square, and the rectangle, combined with a strong asymmetricality; the predominant use of pure primary colours with black and white; and the relationship between positive and negative elements in an arrangement of non-objective forms and lines.. All reference to , history and ornamentation were abandoned in favour of simplicity. Clarity, and non representational or traditional images or objects.

The name De Stijl is supposedly derived from Gottfried Semper's Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Ästhetik (1861–3), which Curl[2] suggests was mistakenly believed to advocate materialism and functionalism. In general, De Stijl proposed ultimate simplicity and abstraction, both in architecture and painting, by using only straight horizontal and vertical lines and rectangular forms. Furthermore, their formal vocabulary was limited to the primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, and the three primary values, black, white, and grey. The works avoided symmetry and attained aesthetic balance by the use of opposition. This element of the movement embodies the second meaning of stijl: “a post, jamb or support”; this is best exemplified by the construction of crossing joints, most commonly seen in . In many of the group's three-dimensional works, vertical and horizontal lines are positioned in layers or planes that do not intersect, thereby allowing each element to exist independently and unobstructed by other elements. This feature can be found in the Rietveld Schröder House and the Red and Blue Chair. De Stijl was influenced by Cubist painting as well as by the and the ideas about "ideal" geometric forms (such as the "perfect straight line") in the neoplatonic philosophy of mathematician M.H.J. Schoenmaekers. The works of De Stijl would influence the Bauhaus and the international style of architecture as well as clothing and . However, it did not follow the general guidelines of an “ism” (, , ), nor did it adhere to the principles of art schools like the Bauhaus; it was a collective project, a joint enterprise.

2929 Art and Design 3-D

Futurism 30 Art aandnd DDesignesign 3-D3-D Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in in the early . It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, , interior design, theatre, film, fashion, , literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy.

The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto, which he published for the first time on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia, an article then reproduced in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. He was soon joined by the painters , , , and the composer . Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political and artistic tradition. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote, "we the young and strong Futurists!" The Futurists admired speed, , youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation, praised originality, "however daring, however violent", bore proudly "the smear of madness", dismissed art critics as useless, rebelled against harmony and good taste, swept away all the themes and subjects of all previous art, and gloried in science. The futurists quickly allied themselves to the growing Fascist, ultra nationalism of Mussolini's Italy

Futurism 3131 Bauhaus32 The Bauhaus school was founded by in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first years of its existence. Nonetheless it was founded with the idea of creating a 'total' work of art in which all arts, including architecture would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.[1] The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography. The school existed in three German cities (Weimar from 1919 to 1925, from 1925 to 1932 and Berlin from 1932 to 1933), under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and from 1930 until 1933, when the school was closed by its own leadership under pressure from the Nazi regime. The changes of venue and leadership resulted in a constant shifting of focus, technique, instructors, and politics. For instance: the pottery shop was discontinued when the school moved from Weimar to Dessau, even though it had been an important revenue source; when Mies van der Rohe took over the school in 1930, he transformed it into a private school, and would not allow any supporters of Hannes Meyer to attend it. The Bauhaus exploited new materials and production methods such as chrome plated steel tube, treated and plywood fabrication methods. They were an idealistic group who sought to combine good, efficient design together with quality craftsmanship available to ordinary working people. They were progressive and looking to the future and not the past. Despite their persecution by the Nazis, many Bauhaus principles and ideas found their way into Nazi Germanys manufacturing ethos and design.

Bauhaus3333 Art and Design 3-D

Art Deco 34 ArtArt aandnd DDesignesign 3-D3-D was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, affecting the such as architecture, interior design and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the and film. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, glamorous, functional, modern, and decadent in its use of expensive materials and flamboyance especially in an age of great poverty. The movement was a mixture of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, , , and Futurism. It drew inspiration from Ancient Egyptian art following the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, African and tribal art combined with the futurists machine aesthetic. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties[2] and continued strongly in the through the 1930s.[3] Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative in the same way as Art Nouvea. It had no political, or social agenda. Art Deco experienced a decline in popularity during the late '30s and early '40s, but experienced a resurgence with the popularization of graphic design in the 1980s. Art Deco had a profound influence on many later artistic movements, such as Memphis and .

Art Deco 3535 1930’s Streamlining

36 1930’s Streamlining Most often associated with the aerodynamic forms of many products in the United States in the 1930s, streamlining reflected popular interest in speed records on land, sea, and in the air. However, although such forms were often equated with fast- moving objects, such as the Douglas DC-3 airliner of 1933, the Burlington Zephyr and Union Pacific M10,000 railway locomotives (See Century of Progress Exposition), and the Chrysler Airflow car (1933), they were also used to provide a symbolic link with technological progress through the appropriation of aerodynamic forms in static objects. These ranged from the flowing lines of Kem Weber's Airline chair (1934) and the rounded forms of Walter Dorwin 's Bantam enamelled metal camera (1936) for Eastman to the sculptural dynamism Raymond Loewy's Coldspot refrigerator (1935) for Sears Roebuck & Co. and Peter Müller-Munk's chrome-plated brass steamer funnel-like Normandie jug (1931). Such forms became the basis for countless vacuum cleaners, toasters, radios, pens, and items of . Indeed, many objects took on a number of explicit styling features that came to symbolize speed. ‘Speed whiskers’—thin horizontal strips, often of chrome, applied to the surface of objects—could be seen running in parallel lines on bona fide transportation designs such as Loewy's Silversides motor coach (1940) for Greyhound and his S-1 railway locomotive (1935) for the Pennsylvanian Railroad. Nonetheless they were applied to countless static situations, ranging from the entrance to the McGraw-Hill by and J. André Fouilhoux in New York to the ubiquitous roadside diners and the domestic, as in the streamlined earthenware refrigerator jug (1940) by J. Paulin Thorley for the Westinghouse Electric Co. The public appetite for the of speed and contemporaneity had been whetted by the almost science fiction-like renderings of the technological utopianism of industrial designer in his book Horizons (1932), as well as science fiction itself which in the same period saw the creation of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Superman. It was also a dynamic feature of the New York World's Fair of 1939-40. Although a streamlined aesthetic made some impact in European products, it was most apparent in transportation developments with the design of new locomotives by engineers such as Nigel Gresley and also in a number of cars such as the Burney Streamliner in Britain, the Tatra in Czechoslovakia, and Porsche's designs for the ‘Volkswagen’ in Germany. Its impact was greater in the 1950s when the appeal of American products symbolizing the rapidly changing world of technology became more alluring with increased levels of affluence.

373 War Production: Mass production and modern manufacturing . ( TOTAL WAR )

3838 War Production: Mass production and modern manufacturing . ( TOTAL WAR ) The requirements for armaments and ammunition lead to huge changes and developments in manufacturing and . Production line techniques designed by Henry Ford and others were refined to produce guns, tanks, artillery, ammunition and aircraft on a colossal scale during both world war one and two. For the first time, women entered the traditional work places of men leading to post war changes in their expectations and possible , future career roles. World war two was a conflict of industrial attrition in which the victor would be the one who could replace its losses of equipment and armaments the fastest. The Axis powers could not replace the losses inflicted by the allies through their combination of land assault and aerial bombing of enemy manufacturing facilities. In addition, The allies cut off the enemies supply of energy and raw materials.

Many of the techniques developed for modern large scale, or mass production were developed in the factories of world wars one and two. Facilities formerly used to make cars, domestic products and goods were converted to make war materials. The idea of “total war” went back to the American Civil war in which an entire nations economy is turned over to war production. World war two was different in that it involved the deaths of millions of non combatants. Those producing the weaponry were likely to be killed as well as the soldiers using them. The saturation bombing of cities devastated transport infrastructure, families, manufacturing facilities and remains a highly sensitive and controversial issue. Many say it had little impact on enemy moral or their capacity to produce war 3939 equipment. The 1940’s and utility design4040