Bruno Munari and the invention of modern graphic design in Italy, 1928 - 1945 Colizzi, A. Citation Colizzi, A. (2011, April 19). Bruno Munari and the invention of modern graphic design in Italy, 1928 - 1945. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/17647 Version: Corrected Publisher’s Version Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral License: thesis in the Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/17647 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Futurism, advertising, rationalism Illustration & photography The macroeconomic context 57 Milan as industrial and cultural capital 58 53 Campari 59 Magazine publishing 63 Stile meccanico, Mechanical style 65 Stile aeropittorico, Aereopictorial style 70 Futurist publishing 73 Lito-latte, Tin-litho books 75 Comic illustration 78 Comics, humour and literary newspapers 79 Realist style 86 From the cosmic style to photomontage 93 Influences 94 Bayer and Moholy-Nagy 97 Photography 100 Photomontage 102 L’Ala d’Italia 105 Almanacco Letterario Bompiani 107 Surrealist collage 111 Photomosaics 114 Photograms and other experiments 115 From propaganda to the documentary style 118 In addition to serving as a model of mass-communication tech- niques for Futurism’s self promotion, the advertising world had a profound influence on the nascent movement, forming a close relationship that operated on two levels: on the one hand it pro- vided elements of the advertising language which were incorpo- rated in the parolibere compositions, and on the other it led to the creation of artistic products conceived of as consumer prod- ucts.1 From another point of view, from a substantially subor- dinate relationship in which Futurist poetics took on the world of advertising, from the late 1920s on that relationship was reversed, or at least rebalanced, through the Futurists’ contribu- tions to advertising’s formal language and practice. For many of the movement’s proponents—Prampolini, Pannaggi, Paladini, Depero, Diulgheroff, and almost all the Milanese, Munari first and foremost—graphic design was not only their main activity 1 . Cf. Fanelli, Godoli the situation of artists in 1988: 119–21. On the other other European countries— hand, the fact that adver- read Marinetti’s desire to tising’s novelty struck the ‘fight Mallarmé’s static ideal’ Futurists as ‘an epi-phe- as the ‘position, tinged by a nomenon representative of perhaps legitimate envy, [of the new industrial and ur- a cultural worker who lives ban reality’ (ibidem: 119), in in] a backward situation, a country like Italy, which compared to other intellec- under Giolitti’s rule had tuals, who are instead or- just begun to experience ganically integrated into the such phenomena, is to a formulation and realization certain extent symptomatic of concrete marketing, pro- of the country’s backward- ductive, and cultural strate- ness: cf. Anceschi, who—in gies.’ (Anceschi 1981b: 6). a rather optimistic take on Futurism, advertising, rationalism and source of income, there was often a a refined sense of color as well as high substantial coherence between their ad- technical quality, resulted in some of the vertising work and their artistic work. This best specimens of striking belle époque continuous osmosis between the two areas elegance, ensuring its widespread popular- could be seen, for example, in their ten- ity.3 Paradoxically for a country like Italy, 54 dency to recycle iconographic themes; in which was still socially and geographically Munari’s case, his experimentation with so disjointed, the spread of advertising had artistic expression not only had natural created a sort of unifying visual koiné.4 repercussions, but also led to parallel pur- The advertising of the time, tied to a suits in the field of graphic design.2 consumer market that had yet to develop, After World War I Italian graphic de- had neither coordinated national cam- sign still reflected the situation that had paigns nor a significant number of adver- existed at the turn of the century, not only tisements in the press; above all, it lacked in stylistic terms, but also in terms of work integration between the various means of scope, and therefore the kind of work it- communication. While poster design, ad- self, which remained focused primarily on dressed to the widest public, was entrusted posters (linked to the development of ma- (with the mediation of printers and deal- jor colour-lithography printshops, such as ers) to renowned poster designers, com- Ricordi in Milan) and magazine publishing. mercial printed matter was instead left to Posters were a large part of the advertis- the printer. The former were painters or ing industry, heralding the first consumer other specialized artists with a background products targeting a middle-class public, in the fine arts (though in many cases such and on the cultural side covering opera studies were spiked with the artist’s per- and film. In publishing, literary and artis- sonal communicative intuitions), whereas tic magazines—and to a lesser extent chil- the latter were more technical laborers dren’s illustration—were the sectors most who dealt with the production of com- influenced by the work of commercial art- mercial printed matter, from letterheads ists. Although it was stylistically linked to to price lists, catalogues, and promotional European Art Nouveau, the Italian school announcements in the press. Munari of poster design—represented by Adolpho recalled: Hohenstein, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Aleardo Terzi, and Marcello Dudovich, among oth- At the time, publishers asked painters to do some sketches for book covers. Only a sketch, ers—had developed a visual language quite an illustration, not the graphic part, with different from the formulas of the French titles and everything else. That work was left affiche (typified by the work of Leonetto to the printers (…) The resulting product suffered from this design done by two peo- Cappiello) and the German Sachplakat. ple, neither of whom knew what the other This was largely thanks to its emphasis on would do. But that’s how it was done.5 realism and the strong symbolic connota- tions of representation, which, through 2 . Fanelli, Godoli 1988: ‘Grafica editoriale tra le due 129. Regarding Futurist guerre’ in Editoria e Cultura graphic design in advertis- a Milano tra le due guerre ing, see also Salaris 1986. (1920-1940). Milan, 19–21 3 . Baroni, Vitta 2003: February 1981. Conference 52, 54; Hollis 1994: 13–4. records. Milan: Fondazione 4 . Scudiero 1997: xvi. Arnoldo e Alberto Monda- 5 . Bruno Munari, dori, 1983: 163–4. Bruno Munari and the invention of modern graphic design in Italy, 1928–1945 This was an increasingly evident gap, and product, its diagonal composition, the in- in the 1930s it fueled a major debate about tegration of text and image, and the figu- a rethinking of the graphic arts; the field’s rative styles of mechanical art—gradually renewal took place in Italy as well, through established itself as the Italian version of 54 a dialogue with the more advanced visual modern aesthetics. This development typi- 55 arts.6 The Italian poster tradition, how- fied the work of artists like Araca, Nizzoli, ever—apart from formal postcubist sty- and Garretto who, although not part of listic elements (already widely accepted, the Futurist movement, adopted more than following the French example) and, in a few of its formal solutions.8 step with the regime’s iconographic It is also worth noting that the nascent choices, elements of the Novecento move- Italian graphic design owed its modern re- ment’s visual vocabulary—remained es- configuration—that is, the development of sentially unchanged by the innovations of an autonomous language in both the pic- modernism.7 torial poster and the typographic tradition, Compared to the reassuring iconog- which through its integration with imagery raphy of poster design, the graphic con- acquired an aesthetic value and became a tribution of Futurism—which had initially ‘spectacle’ in and of itself 9—not so much remained confined to the typographic to a shared aesthetic or social vision (as compositions of paroliberismo—from the in Germany and the USSR), but rather to late 1920s, coinciding with a new open- the initiative of individuals who, in lieu of ness toward the applied arts, sped up ad- adequate training, developed a personal vertising design’s gradual transition from sense of experimentation fueled by exam- an artisanal realm to a markedly technical ples from architecture and the visual arts.10 and vocational one, more up-to-date and The work of this first generation of Italian informed by European functionalism. Of course, in 1920s Italy the graphic arts in 6 . Fossati, Sambonet challenged the traditional 1974: 9–10, 13. Cf. Baroni, printer with new problems general did not much reflect the Futurist Vitta 2003: 130–1. Speaking (…) as illustration was innovations, whose most radical and in- about the conditions sur- coming to the fore, with its rounding the origins of a visual values, its suggestive novative printing solutions are found solely distinctly Italian approach power (…) graphic design in published material linked directly to the to graphic design, Antonio became spectacle’ (cit. in Boggeri recalls: ‘The reign of Cremaschi 1967: 16). movement. And it is equally true that, with the typesetter lived on—that 10 . As was shown by the of the typsetter who’d al- leaders of the time, espe- few exceptions (Campari for Depero, Cora ways, and quite comfortably, cially Boggeri, who felt the for Diulgheroff), an ongoing relationship set one line of lead next to best Italian graphic design another, to which he then was ‘initially carried out between Futurists working in advertising added the image, in a sort as an almost private type and any stable industrial patronage was of graphic declamatory that of experimentation, one ended up being a schematic not yet integrated into ad- generally lacking.