The horrors of World War 1 led to the exploration of abstraction seen the Dutch “De Stijl” movement. De Stijl focussed on the restorative and transformative potential of art as a means to rebuild after the war. The movement utilised abstraction through primary colours and geometric shapes which was in contrast to the excessive Art Deco movement which it succeeded. Theo Van Doesburg was one of the most prominent members of the movement. What I find most interesting about Doesburg’s work is the evolution of his early impressionist work into the De Stijl movement. The incredible contrast between the work really shows the effect of the First World War on art. When looking at Doesburg’s work I noticed how timeless his work is, with a lot of the designs still being featured in today’s culture. There’s an irony that the work from the De Stijl movement is being used today for purely it’s aesthetic purpose and is devoid of meaning, which is the same purely aesthetic style that De Stijl sought to break away from in Art Deco.
.jpg)
Similar to De Stijl, Russian Constructivism was a response to the excessive and eccentric design that came before. Rather than the introspective work from De Stijl, Russian Contructivism used similar shapes and colours for a more industrial purpose. Russian Constructivism explored design which was more simple and approachable as to fit its’ new communist regime. A prominent member of Russian Constructivism was Alexander Rodchenko, who actually abandoned his routes in painting to pursue the more functional side of art and design as it was more useful for the newly communist country. Rodchenko’s work often feature’s photographs intertwined with type or shapes which creates a really bold and clear style which I really like. It’s a really interesting way of collaging as I’ve always associated collage with the type seen in post modern design but to see it using organised simple shapes and colours is a really interesting approach.
.jpg)
Bauhaus was a design school which opened in Germany in 1919 with the aim to unify all areas of art and design. Students of Bauhaus explored a variety of disciplines from typical graphic design, fine art, product design, and architecture, with the work produced being sold to fund the school. The work produced from Bauhaus has proven to be the one the most influential sources of work ever and the style and philosophy can still be seen today. It’s incredible to me to see the influence the Bauhaus had, particularly the fundamental changes it made to the art world such as rethinking “fine art” into “visual arts” which is a much more all encompassing name which helps to break down the elitism of art.
In 1933, the Bauhaus closed due to pressure from the Nazi party as the forward thinking nature of the work from Bauhaus was labelled as “degenerate art”. I touched on the influence of the bauhaus in the last paragraph but the closure in 1933 makes the Bauhaus more incredible as it still holds such an importance even though it was only open for 14 years.
Herbert Bayer was an Austrian and American graphic designer who was the last living member of the Bauhaus. As is typical of the Bauhaus style, Bayer’s work features geometric shapes, strong colours and clean typography. Most notably Bayer designed the Universal Alphabet typeface, a round geometric typeface that became synonymous with Bauhaus. I was really interested by Bayer’s use of perspective which is present in a lot of his work. He using angled lines to force a perspective to his pieces to create an almost 3-D effect which I really like.
It’s been interesting to see how similar styles are utilised by different cultures due to what was happening in each culture at the time. While De Stijl may not be my favourite movement I’ve looked at, I can appreciate it due to how interesting a reaction to war it is. I really like the work from Russian Constructivism, the boldness and strength it has is something I find amazing to look at and is definitely a movement I could see myself exploring. While I had been aware of the Bauhaus previously, this week has really highlighted the significance of it. It’s amazing to see how massive an influence Bauhaus has had on graphic design while having only lasted for 14 years.