Historic Context
March 10
New Vision
Historic Context
|
||
|
1889 - 1910 | Pictorialism |
| 1912 | Titanic sinks | |
| 1913 | Armory Show in New York | |
| 1913 - 1933 | German Weimar Republic | |
| 1914 - 1918 | World War I | |
| First wide-scale use of mechanized warfare | ||
| Over 20 milion people die | ||
| 1916 - 1923 | Dadaism | |
| 1917 - 1920 | Russian Revolution | |
| 1919 - 1933 | Bauhaus school sought the unity of all the visual and plastic arts from architecture and painting to weaving and stained glass | |
| 1922 | Formation of the Soviet Union | |
| Fascists under Benito Mussolini seize power in Italy | ||
| 1924 - 1940s | Surrealism | |
| 1926 - 1953 | Stalin gains control the Soviet Union | |
| 1929 | Great Depression begins | |
"Photography's long-acknowledged power to mirror the face of the world was by no means abandoned, but in the 1920s and '30s a host of unconventional forms and techniques suddenly flourished. Abstract photograms, photomontages composed of fragmented images, the combination of photographs with modern typography and graphic design in posters and magazine pages—all were facets of what artist and theorist László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) enthusiastically described as a "new vision" rooted in the technological culture of the twentieth century." - Metropolitan Museum |
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Moholy. Photogram. 1924. |
The Bauhaus
1919 - 1933
Walter Gropius. Bauhaus Building,
Dessau, Germany. 1925-26.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Bauhaus
Balconies. 1925.
20th Century Photography Museum Ludwig Cologne.
Taschen, Koln, 2005.
Laszlo Maholy-Nagy. Chairs at Margate. 1935.
New Vision
= a cool, reductive and straight approach to photography |
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Scandinavia. 1930.
http://www.geh.org/fm/amico99/htmlsrc2/moholy_sld00001.html
August Sander. High School Student. 1926.
Albert Renger-Patzsch. Echeoeria. 1922. |
Renger-Patzsch
believed in "photographic photography" |
New Vision
elements: |
|
Geometric
compositions that approach abstraction |
|
Use of the
close-up and oblique points of view |
|
Play with
reflective surfaces to alter perception |
|
Manipulation
of light |
|
Florence Henri. Abstract Composition.
1929.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Dadaism
1916
- 1923
"While
the thunder of guns rolled in the distance, we sang, painted, glued
and composed for all our worth. We are seeking an art that would heal
mankind from the madness of the age."- Jean Arp |
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Militarism.
1924. Photomontage. |
Marcel Duchamp. Fountain.
1917.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
Readymade
= an object from popular or material culture that has been (sometimes) modified by an artist and declared art |
Marcel Duchamp. L.H.O.O.Q. 1919/ 1930. Pencil on postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa.
Elger, Dietmar. Dadaism. Koln: Taschen, 2004.
the letters, L, H, O, O, Q, when pronounced in French sound like "Elle a chaud au cul" = "She has a hot ass" |
German Dadaists and Photomontage
John Heartfield. Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spits Out Junk. 1932.
http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~mdst322/heartfield_adolph.jpg
Photomontage
- a collage of separate photographs that is re-photographed so that the final
image is converted back into a seemless photographic print |
John Heartfield. Have No Fear- He's AVegetarian. 1936.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
Hannah Hoch
1889 - 1978
Hannah Hoch. Cut with a
Kitchen Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of
Germany. 1919-20.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of
Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Hannah Hoch. Cut with a
Kitchen Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of
Germany. 1919-20. |
Hannah Hoch organizes the photomontage into four quadrants: |
Upper right = Anti Dada world |
|
Lower right = The Great Dada World |
|
Upper left = "Dada" springs from Einstein's head |
|
Lower left = figure demands that the masses join Dada |
|
Hanah Hoch. Dada Dance. 1922. Photomontage.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
"The
excess of Hell falls into the coffers of Pastor Klatt for innocent
children of criminals." |
Surrealism
1924 - mid 1940s
1900 Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams |
Proposes that dreams reveal a person's unconscious desires |
Recognizing and understanding these desires can help make sense of that person |
Supported dream analysis, free association techniques and psychotherapy as methods for delving into the sub-conscious mind |
Mid 1920s Surrealist movement begins in Paris |
Surrealist approaches deeply indebted to Freudian theory |
Advocated the transformation of human perception through greater contact with the imagination |
Saw irrational thought and altered states as an anecdote to the reason that brought the horrors of WWI |
Many Ray. Kiki.
1926.
20th
Century Photography: Museum Ludwig Cologne.
Koln: Taschen, 2005.
Man Ray. Ingres'
Violin. 1924.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Large Odalisque. 1814.
Man Ray. Countess
Casati. c. 1928.
20th
Century Photography: Museum Ludwig Cologne.
Koln: Taschen, 2005.
George Hugnet. La septieme face du de, Poemes – decoupages. 1936.
Hans Bellmer
1902 -1975
Hans Bellmer. The Doll. c. 1934.
Hans Bellmer. La Poupee (The Doll).
c. 1934. Gelatin silver print.
http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/Bellmer.htm
Hans Bellmer. La Poupee (The Doll).
c. 1934. Gelatin silver print.
http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/Bellmer.htm
Hans Bellmer. La Poupee (The Doll).
c. 1934. Gelatin silver print.
http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/Bellmer.htm
Hans Bellmer. La Poupee. 1935.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
