The turn of the century was a turbulent time for the human race. There was great upheaval in the societal, social, political, and economic aspects of human life. It was a time of artistic experimentation as people sought a new way to express the emotional uproar that the events that unfolded around them had driven them into. Several artistic movements influenced by the time such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Expressionism.
Cubism was an intriguing movement that experimented with human perception of images and forms through the use of geometric planes, shapes, values, and colors.
Pablo Picaso was the originator of the movement and enthusiastically played with the classical norms for human figure, by rotating, abstracting, chopping up and redistributing viewpoints.
Futurism was a movement characterized by a violent love of war, the machine age, speed and modern life. To quote their manifesto, their intent was to "Destroy the cult of the past... Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation... Elevate all attempts at originality... Regarded art critics as useless and dangerous... Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects that have been used in the past... Support and glory in our day-to-day world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science."
What I found so interesting about this movement is the experimental use of type that was implemented by so many of the poet/painters that embodied the movement. Filippo Marinetti, founder of the Futurists used typography to express emotion and feeling that is typically lost when translated from spoken to written language as well as a particular iconography in how the capitals seem to create the landscape of mountains and valleys the poem describes.
Filippo Marinetti "Montagne+Vallate+Strade x Joffre" 1915
I find a similar aspect in the more modern art of kinetic typography of which I've provided a small example of in the video below. There is the same type of emotional expression in the presentation of the words but presented with speed and animation. I think the futurists at the beginning of the last century would have accepted this as a part of their own movement had it been possible at the time.
As an experiment, try watching video again, but without sound and see if it still evokes the same feeling.
Dadaism as a movement embodied much of the violence and drive of the Futurist movement and took it to more of an extreme. The Dadaist claimed to be anti-art and had a strong negative and destructive element. The rebelled against the horrors of war, the decadence of European society, the shallowness of blind faith in technological progress, and the inadequacy of religion and conventional moral codes. They took the Futurist rejection of tradition, but instead of an embracing an idealized version of the future, there was only the present and the need to change it.
"Whoever reads the bourgeois press turns deaf and blind. Away with these stupidity causing bandages!"-John Heartfield
Surrealism was the searching for the "more real than real world behind the real". As convoluted as that sounds, that quote sums up the movement quite succinctly. Art from this movement embodied the inner thoughts, intuition and feeling of the artists. It was at the same time deeply personal and yet could evoke a universal response from large numbers of people.
"Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man" by Salvador Dali
Expressionism was the tendency to not depict objective reality but rather subjective emotions and personal responses to subjects and events. Visually there was a heavy use of symbols, with pronounced lines and color and value contrasts were intensified. The controlled geometric patterning and constrictive rules of realism were abandoned for thick paint, loose brushwork, and bold contour drawing. Expressionist fostered a deep and intense idealism that bucked the authority of the military, education, and governmental rule. There was a deep empathy of the poor and social outcasts, these were often the subjects of expressionists.
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913
There was also a deep focus on pictorial art during this time period, as radio and other means of electronic communication were far from being widespread, the art of poster-making was being refined and used to advertise and support propaganda and war efforts.
This art movement shares a grapic style with graphic artist Sheperd Fairey, who I was recently made aware of by a colleague of mine
Shepard Fairey
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