The Industrial Revolution changed everything. The shift from agriculture to industrial factory work and the move to cities, accompanied by the wide amount of new inventions and innovations were the basis that shaped the world we live in today. The invention of the camera allowed for the production of perfect and true images, which caused the beginning of the shift away from the rigid and static realism paintings of the time.
Gustave Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet
Japan beginning to trade with Europe ushered in a new a wave of of art work inspired by art work seen in Japan. Japonism introduced new possibilities with composition, line, colour and perspective, leading to a more illustrative style to many works being produced. The freedom and interpretation that Japonism allowed would set up the Impressionist and Art Nouveau movements. Vincent van Gogh was considered part of the Japonism movement which was particularly interesting to me, while I hadn’t considered it before, I can see now how his work was inspired by Japanese art through his use of brushstrokes and illustrative figures.
In response to the Industrial Revolution, the Arts and Craft movement (1860 - 1920) strived to move away from the machine and factory made products of the time. One of the leading practitioners of this movement was William Morris. Morris’ work explored forms found in nature, often using extremely detailed prints of winding vines and plants. The most well known usage of Morris’ work was in his wallpaper, which used the natural prints. Morris was also a typographer, using his nature imagery to produce typefaces and page borders which was a departure from the typography of the time. Morris’ work is really interesting to me, I’ve always and this idea that typography is supposed to conform grid systems with almost nothing outside of those grids, however Morris’ work has really showed me the effectiveness of using detailed and complex imagery around type to create beautiful works.
The Art Nouveau movement (1890-1920) explored similar natural imagery to the Arts and Craft movement, however tried to break the separation between fine and applied arts. Where the Arts and Crafts movement was largely producing work for design purposes, the Art Nouveau movement strived to use the style ini both art and design. One of my favourite examples of Art Nouveau is the Paris Metro signage by Hector Guimard. I had first seen the signs when in Paris and was fascinated by them, the natural shapes and typography on display feel almost alien compared to general assumption of metropolitan design. It has an otherworldly elegance which works well in standing out against the rest of the city. It’s really like nothing I’ve ever seen in todays society and just find such an interesting use of colour, typography and shape.
The Vienna Secession was a group of artist, led by Gustav Klimt, who wanted to free themselves of the city’s art venue and set their own place to display work. The Vienna Secession produced a magazine called “Ver Sacrum”, which contained works of the artists. The typography and design of the magazine still used curved and natural shapes, while introducing a lot of straight shapes to contrast. This is the same with a lot of the work produced as part of the movement, beginning the use of geometric design. It’s really interesting to see the transition from the Art Nouveau design to the more modern style we recognise as design today.
