Texts . The below link will return back to course materials found on bb.cazenovia.edu
Further Readings:
MoMA Learning on Line FUTURISMThe Futurism Manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
The Guggenheim: Futurism, Reconstructing the Universe
Smithsonian Magazine: How Futurism art inspired the BMW
DeStijl The Style Overview + Influences
Constructivism overview
Constructivism Saylor Academy
Constructivism Metaphor for Modernity
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The Futurists 1909 - 1944
An Italian Avant Garde (The New Guard)
the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti(Italian) writes Manifesto of Futurism. February 20 1909 it is published on the front page of the Paris newspaper LeFigaro.
Movement dates begins in 1909 - 1914, then restarted by Marinetti following WWI (July 28 1914 - NOV 11 1918)
The name caught the imaginations of the progressive public and artists, alike.
" a roaring automobile is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace" - Marinetti
Marinetti was against conventional institutions; museums, academies, and boureois morality in general
He was thrilled with the young and their appetitie for cultural change
The movemet adopted the rush of modern life, speed was exhilarating and at the movement's core, the intensity of urbanization filled with potent energy, ideas and values of modernity, and technologies causing an emotional impact on the modern individual
The Movement's Focus:
Artists: Boccioni, Carra, Russolo, Severini, and Balla, others created works that portrayed the urban landscape and new technologies: the airplane, automobile, train.
Although predominately situated in Italy, the movement caught the imaginations of British artists, t/o Europe and eventually to the US, Japan and Russian Futurists
Futurism anticipated the aesthetics for many movements that followed including Constructivism, Art Deco, Dada, Surrealism and German Expressionism
Fashion:
Futurists embraced fashion and believed it to be an art form as it suited several of their ideals: promoting the new and discarding the old, blurring the line between art and industry and providing the opportunity to make both social and aesthetic statements. The Futurists did not envision clothes that would last for years, indeed the ideal Futurist fashion would be fleeting...
.... This built-in obsolescence would require constant creativity on the part of the designer, provide novelty to the wearer and help to stimulate the Italian economy. Futurist colors were bright, bold and clashing - joyful but at the same time agressive. Fabrics were sometimes metallic and shimmering, often with patterns juxtaposing geometric forms.
RE: Oxford Press, Futurism in Fashion
"The movement is regarded as extinct, having died out in 1944 with the death of its leader Marinetti."
Guggenheim Video 5:05 Reconstructing the Universe
DeStijl The Style 1917 - 1931
Artists including Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszar, Bart vand der Leck, architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van't Hoff and J.J.P. Oud.
Another painter/designer, poet, writer, and art critic Theo vanDoesburg publishes a journal simply called DeStijl in 1917. He introduced the movement as a reaction to the Modern Baroque. He looked for other Dutch artists to contribute to his journal and begin the movement.
Constructivism overview
Constructivism Saylor Academy
Constructivism Metaphor for Modernity
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Futurists 1909 - 1944
An Italian Avant Garde (The New Guard)
the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti(Italian) writes Manifesto of Futurism. February 20 1909 it is published on the front page of the Paris newspaper LeFigaro.
Movement dates begins in 1909 - 1914, then restarted by Marinetti following WWI (July 28 1914 - NOV 11 1918)
The name caught the imaginations of the progressive public and artists, alike.
" a roaring automobile is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace" - Marinetti
Hellenistic period, Greece, 2nd c, BCE
Marinetti was against conventional institutions; museums, academies, and boureois morality in general
He was thrilled with the young and their appetitie for cultural change
Severini, Dancer in Pigalle 1912
The movemet adopted the rush of modern life, speed was exhilarating and at the movement's core, the intensity of urbanization filled with potent energy, ideas and values of modernity, and technologies causing an emotional impact on the modern individual
Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912
Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo NY
Interventionist Demonstration, Carlo Carrà 1914
Collage - importance of media / urbanization / working class material
The Movement's Focus:
- change, progress, and modernity
- removal of traditional forms
- replace with energetic celebrations of the machine age
- speed, violence, and power of the working class
- the power and dynamism of the machine
- the vitality of restlessness modern life
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, bronze, 1913
Artists: Boccioni, Carra, Russolo, Severini, and Balla, others created works that portrayed the urban landscape and new technologies: the airplane, automobile, train.
Balla, Design for Living Room Furnishings, 1918
Although predominately situated in Italy, the movement caught the imaginations of British artists, t/o Europe and eventually to the US, Japan and Russian Futurists
Severini, Balerina in Blue, 1912
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The work is regarded as a Modernist classic and has become one of the most famous of its time. Before its first presentation at the 1912 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, it was rejected by the Cubists as being too Futurist.
Fashion:
Futurists embraced fashion and believed it to be an art form as it suited several of their ideals: promoting the new and discarding the old, blurring the line between art and industry and providing the opportunity to make both social and aesthetic statements. The Futurists did not envision clothes that would last for years, indeed the ideal Futurist fashion would be fleeting...
RE: Oxford Press, Futurism in Fashion
"The movement is regarded as extinct, having died out in 1944 with the death of its leader Marinetti."
Guggenheim Video 5:05 Reconstructing the Universe
DeStijl The Style 1917 - 1931
- Also known as NeoPlasticism = the New Plastic art
- A Dutch art movement founded in Leiden 1917
- Advocated for pure abstraction
- Strip visual works to their essential components
- Sought for universality in line (using strict verticals and horizontals) and color, the primaries + black + white
Following WWI 1914, the Dutch were not allowed to leave the country as the Netherlands remained neutral during the war.
Thus keeping the artists/designers/architects isolated from the rest of the world.
Thus keeping the artists/designers/architects isolated from the rest of the world.
Artists including Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszar, Bart vand der Leck, architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van't Hoff and J.J.P. Oud.
Another painter/designer, poet, writer, and art critic Theo vanDoesburg publishes a journal simply called DeStijl in 1917. He introduced the movement as a reaction to the Modern Baroque. He looked for other Dutch artists to contribute to his journal and begin the movement.
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| Theo van Doesburg, Composition VII (the three graces) 1917 |
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Gerrit Rietveld, The Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht, Holland 1924 - the only building completely realized according to DeStijl principles.
It is only a 41 minute train ride from Amsterdam!
Mrs. Schröder (the banker's wife) lived in it for 60 years. The house is now a museum and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The house has many similarities to the Bauhaus style, although it is asymmetrical, fit with Rietveld's furniture.
Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair 1917 - one of the first 3D explorations using DeStijl design principles
Note construction: planes not intersecting but rather stacking
In 3D works many of the V + H pieces are positioned in layers so they do not intersect with one and other, each plane, thus, working independently. A perfect example of this is Rietveld Schroder House and the Red/Blue Chair
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Piet Mondrian: "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". |
Piet Mondrian, The Red Tree, 1910
Post-Impressionism - Gemeentemuseum den Haag, Hague, Netherlands.
Post-Impressionism - Gemeentemuseum den Haag, Hague, Netherlands.
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| Mondrian, Composition C, 1935 |
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| Van Doesburg and Rietveld interior, c.1919, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
1924, Mondrian breaks from the group. After which van Doesburg proposed the theory of elementarism, suggesting that a diagonal line is more vital than horizontal and vertical ones.
Russian Constructivism 1913 - 1924
The Constructivist experiment was stopped in its tracks when government power struggles following the death of Lenin in 1924
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| Constructivist poster design - propogandistic |
It was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art
- Tatlin wanted 'to construct' art
- The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes
- Pure abstraction
- Influenced major trends in Modernist art t/o Europe and US
Tatlin's Tower or the project for the Monument to the Third International (1919–20)
never built
Stage set design
László Moholy-Nagy, Composition II, 1925
László Moholy-Nagy, Railway
- Non-objective works
- Group called "The Five", a circle of women who shared her belief in the importance of trying to make contact with "higher powers" often by way of séances
- visual representationsof spiritual ideas
- 1880 younger sister dies deeply affecting her
- Symbolist painter
- Involved in Spiritism, the occult, in vogue 19th and beginning of the 20th century
- Understood as Modernist works that searched for new artistic, spiritual, political and scientific systems at the beginning of the 20th century
"The beginning of abstract art was no accident. We uncover how early abstract art was built upon a careful philosophy based on the search for universal meaning in the human soul."
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The Standpoints of Judaism and Heathendom, No. 3b, 1920.
Hilma af Klint, Earl of Grain, 1922
Hilma af Klint’s imagery is full of symbols, letters, and words. Symbols are like doors into another dimension. For Hilma af Klint, her entire work was about conveying the messages she received, and to shed light on the great existential issues.
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| The Swan > represents the ethereal in many mythologies and religions and stands for 'completion' in the alchemical tradition > Medieval study in chemistry and transformation of matter < |
László Moholy-Nagy photography
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer, graphic designer and theorist. He was one of the founders of
Constructivism and Russian design
Zuev Workers' Club, Moscow, 1929
Malevich's The Reaper, 1912-13
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Kazimir Malevich, Head of a Peasant, 1920s |
Naum Gabo, Head No. 2, 1916 (The Tate)
Naum Gabo, Spiral Theme, 1941 experimentation with early plastics
El Lissitzky,
Proun 99 (1925)
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| Josef Albers, Graphic Tectonic, 1941 |