Posters: A Concise History | Notes 3

Posters and Reality - Expressionism

pg. 135 - '...one of the principal art movements, already gaining momentum in the late nineteenth century, was to raise the level of painting to a shout. This was the movement known as Expressionism, a forceful and emotional statement in the arts, which formed an alternative the naturalism of much nineteenth-century work.'

Wozzeck (1964)
Jan Lenica

'...But the establishment of Expressionist methods of strong emotional forms and bright colours was to become a significant influence on posters.'

'For example, Jan Lenica's design for Wozzeck in 1964 descended directly from Munch's earlier design. The use of Expressionist techniques in advertising raised the shout (from which Walter Crane had recoiled) to a scream.'

pg. 143 - 'Expressionism also had its sources, and these became new influences added to the growing stylistic background of poster art. These sources included the woodcuts and prints of the Middle Ages, as well as the work of more recent artists who, though they lived and worked in Paris, had explored new avenues: Vallotton (Swiss), Van Gogh and Van Dongen (Dutch), Munch (Norwegian).

In addition, Gaughin's primitivism found a strong stylistic outlet through the work of the Die Brücke painters. '

Die Brücke (1910)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

'Kirchner's poster is simple but also dramatic. This sense of drama - the drama of each individual - turns the poster into something much more dynamic than anything that Art Nouveau decoration could inspire.'

Two aspects of Expressionism are distinguished by Paul Fechter in Der Expressionismus (1919): an intense Expressionism characterised by extreme individualism, and the experience of a painter like Pechstein 'whose creative impulse flows from a cosmic feeling which his will fashions and transforms.'

'In Poland posters have often showed a markedly Expressionist character'

The Trial (1964)
Roman Cieslewicz

pg. 146 - 'Expressionism has found its exponents in Roman Cieslewicz - for example, his poster for Kafka's The Trial (1964) - and Waldemar Swierzy, whose posters have strong colours edged in heavy black outline.'

'Technical Expressionist devices, such as the distorted gesture or the thick brush-mark and impasto, have also left their mark on posters.'

Realism

pg. 148 - 'Many critics...have felt that the poster sinks to the level of a catalogue illustration when the product as such is merely reproduced, and that instead poster art should be an exercise in sophisticated combinations of word and image.'

Poster for Dada recital in The Hague (1923)
Kurt Schwitters and Theo Van Doesburg

pg. 158 - 'Futurism, like Cubism, was based on reality, and had a direct effect on poster design through the experiments made in typography.'

'I am against what is known as the harmony of a setting', wrote Marinetti in 1909; 'when necessary we shall use three or four columns to a page and twenty different typefaces. We shall represent hasty perceptions in italics, and express a Scream in Bold type'

'In Futurist lettering we find aggressive, phonetic symbols conveying a message, such as Basta Basta Basta, VOOOooooo,  scrAbrrRaaNNG,    SIMULTANEITA,  ESPLOSIONE, using a variety of type.'

'Futurist art was concerned with restlessness and dynamism - qualities of great importance to advertising - and it was not, in any sense, a formal art movement. Nor was Dada - a movement quite opposed to the Futurist love of war; the Dadaists registered despair at a war-mad mechanical world.'

Adolf Hitler The Superman (1932)
John Heartfield

'The sensationalism of Kurt Schwitters' trash-images and much of the subject-matters of the photo-montages of John Heartfield derive from the street and the popular press.'

Surrealism

pg. 161 - 'The Dadaists' methods of juxtaposition and surprise - the shock derived from seeing an unlikely or unexpected association of realistic elements - were also used by the Surrealists'

'Surrealism may be defined as the revelation of a new dimension of reality, made possible when the logic of reason is removed and an arbitrary association of images of the real world is substituted. This produces a fresh experience.'

pg. 165 - 'The influence of Surrealism on posters may be seen in two distinct phases. The first lasted from the 1920s until the end of the Second World War. The second starts in the 1950s and is still alive in the '70s.'

The Beast is Loose (1966)
Karel Teissig

pg. 177 - 'In Poland, besides the work of Starowieyski and Cieslewicz, that of Lenica demonstrates that the unrest revealed in the visions of the twenties and thirties has become the generally accepted language of the period of uncertainty following the Second World War.'

'The work of Tomi Ungerer also reflects a 'sick' society and is connected with that of Saul Steinberg, who was one of the first artists to re-interpret the Surrealist language in terms of the post-war society.'

'The use of Surrealism in these terms is universal, from Push Pin Studios and Peter Max in the United States to Tadanori Yokoo and Shigeru Miwa in Japan, from Armando Paeltorres in Argentine to Brattinga in Holland and Teissig in Czechoslovakia.'