Before Class, Chapter 14: Pictorial Modernism

Following the last chapter of the influence of modern art, we now have pictorial modernism. The second decade of the twentieth century was strongly influenced by the modern art movements and somewhat altered communication needs of world war. Cubism influenced many poster designs. Communication imagery and design form promoted the excitement and energy of pictorial graphics.

The Beggarstaffs (James Pryde and William Nicholson) made their mark in history during this time. They were painters that opened a designed studio. The two invented the new technique at the time, called the collage, that they used a lot throughout their compositions. The Beggarstaffs ignored floral art nouveau and produced colorful shapes and silhouettes instead. Unfortunately for these two, they were very creative designers and were a success but the finances hit them hard.

Plakatstil was a flat color design school that the talented Lucian Bernhard decided to enter. Plakatstil was a poster style and Bernhard "established the approach to the poster by using flat color shapes, the product name, and product image." German poster art was developing thanks to Bernhard and other artists. Bernhard also developed a sans-serif lettering style that was painted in brushstrokes during his poster design career. Simplicity was key for Bernhard and it anticipated the constructivist movement. Bernhard branched out to interior design rather than just poster design and he even tackled furniture design and construction which then led to architecture. All in all, he was one important figure in pictorial modernism and many artists were influenced by this young artist.

During World War I, printing technology increased and other forms of public communications advanced, such as the radio. Posters were important means in communicating too. Governments involved and not involved in the global war turned to posters for propaganda and a way to communicate to the public of what was going on. Simplified images that turned into shapes and patterns were popular on these posters along with integrated words and images. Many posters acted as advertisements to recruit people for the army and some acted as a form of patriotism. After the war, peoples faith in technology increased. "Cubist ideas about spatial organization and synthetic imagery inspired an important new direction in pictorial images." Many artists were influenced by cubist ideas and it is shown through compositions produced during pictorial modernism.

One thing that I found interesting after having read this chapter is Lucian Bernhard was only 15 years old when he started his design career!