January 27, 2010 Victorian to Modernism

Key points

• Victorian period was from 1837– 1901
• The Victorian period focused on highly decorative and gothic forms.
• The beauty of the art in the Victorian period covered the reality of suffrage and child labor.
• The forerunner of modern printing was chromolithography, which made illustration dominant.
• Santa Claus was created in America during this period. (Louis Prang)
• Monotype gained popularity
• Thomas Nest was the father of political cartooning.
• Wood engravements led way to comic books.
• Modern movements, such as the arts and crafts movement, emerged.
• Morris was one of the first socialists, and developed the typefaces Golden, Troy, and Chaucer.
• Art Nouveau was “Art for Art’s sake”.
  
• The Japanese Ukiyo-e designs gained popularity along with Renaissance designs.
• The simplistic forms of Ukiyo-e and the development of photography gave way to modernism.
• Julies Cheret (French): Father of modern lithographic poster.
• Eugene Grasset (French): ‘coloring book’ style, influenced by Ukiyo-e.
• Alphonse Mucha (Czech): Created poster for Sarah Bernhart which was the first movie poster with focus on actors.
• Moulin Rouge posters predated cubism.
• low art = commercial art. Consumer oriented.
• America: Started putting letters in letters.
• Modernism decided to “eliminate all clutter”.
• Germany: Jugendstil
• Austria: Sezessionstil
• Poster for the first Secessionist Exhibition, 1898, was the start of art censorship. Lots of whitespace.
• Bauhaus: form follows design
• Harry Beck developed the first London underground map based on functionality and simpleness, rather than geographic correctness.

Today’s lecture running from the Victorian period to Modernist period is of use to my career as a graphic designer because it is important to see where the still in-tact ideals of “keep it simple, stupid (KISS)” developed, and how they developed. It helps one understand history and is important for determining the age and era of a design, or mimicking it. It also resolves questions regarding the typefaces created in this time, and why they were the way they were. Last but not least, it tells us how the disciplines of graphic design and illustration both gained weight, were at once identical, and how they broke apart, therefore provides a simple explanation when asked “how does graphic design and illustration differ?”.