Introduction
After reading the history of art and design it really opened my eyes about what was going on in the world around them and how it effected their art and what their thought process was when they were creating. Once I read through the text I realized how far graphic design actually went back in time and that it wasn’t as modern as I thought. I also wonder how long it took some of them to create their pieces because of how detailed they were.
Constructivism (1919-1934)
After reading this section about constructivism I was intrigued because Valdimir Tatlin was the first name that popped up. I was intrigued because we talked about him and his work before in a high school class that I took. I find his work very interesting because he focuses on space, materials, and movement. When you look at his sculptures you can really see the movement in them, and you can see the simplistic take on materials, and he also captures space very well. His sculpture called, Monument to the Third International, really embodies the constructivism aesthetic, and this was stated in the reading. The reading also mentions how the purpose of constructivism is to take personal expression away, and to have it encompass machines more. This sits funny with me because when I created something my whole purpose is to express myself and how i’m feeling. Mentioned later in the reading was how constructivism can also be used in typography, after looking at some examples of typography I was confused but also really interested in what it said. One example of constructivism in typography is the Stenberg brothers, Man with a Movie Camera, poster, which can be seen below.
De Stijl (1917-1931)
De Stijl was really interesting to me because it is a very modern concept. This caught my attention because I really like the modern look of houses. I like how there are sharp edges, and how it is all 90 degree angles. I also liked how they used only primary colors to make it pop more. Piet Mondrian published De Stijl’s manifesto called, Neo-Plasticsm, and in this symmetry is rejected and the use of geometric shapes was praised. In the reading it mentioned this part of history playing a role in how people painted during this time period, and I found this very interesting because i feel like a lot of people now paint the same way. Overall I really like how modern and seemingly all over the place this seems, but there is really an art to how this is all put together because it looks like it is supposed to be there. When I think of this in graphic design terms currently I think this is the type I relate to most with my work. I am more of an abstract person myself.
Dada (1916-1923)
Dada was interesting to me because it was in response to the “world going mad.” This was around the time of World War I when there were people getting murdered and it was not a happy time at all. They were making art in this period because they wanted alternate perspectives than the world going mad. They wanted to create anything other than what was actually happening in the world during this time. This was more of a movement than anything else. I was also drawn to this because there is a purpose to this art type and there was a meaning behind each piece of work. I liked this because art can truly be anything that you want it to be as long as you have an imagination it can be art.
Surrealism (1924-1955)
Surrealism was at the end of the Dada period and it was made to shock the people who were viewing the art. While reading this section I kept looking over the left, the image was quite odd. I didn’t know what to think of the picture until I kept reading and then I understood that the point of surrealism is to shock the viewers. Man Ray was the artist who started the transition from Dada to Surrealism, his real name was, Emmanuel Radnitzky, and he changed it due to the prevalent anti-semitism in the United States at one time. He expanded the realm of photography because he created different shapes and shadows that could be seen as three dimensional. These really stood out to me because they seem so advanced for the time period and I really like the works that were produced during this time because I am into horror.
Final Thoughts
I would say without a doubt that surrealism is my favorite art movement because of the horror aspect. Overall, I really enjoyed researching these four art movements because I can really see how different art has been in the past and I can relate to pretty much all of the art movements I wrote about. After reading I can truly appreciate all art because it is all apart of our history and who we are today. I also think it is so interesting that you see parts of all of these movements in our modern art today.
