Sachplakat, the First World War, and Dada
Sachplakat in Germany
- "object posters"
- had strong Japanese influence
Lucian Benhard and the Priester Breakthrough
- Lucian Benhard entered a poster contest for a matches advertisement with an incredibly simplistic design and his entry was thrown in the trash but then later fished out as the winner because his simplistic design did not distract from the item the poster was advertising
The Sachplakat Phenomenon
- Hollerbaum & Schmidt advertisment - Opel (Hans Rudi Erdt), very simplified design
Ludwig Holwein
- Ludwig was an architect from Munich but became a graphic designer in the Sachplakat style in 1911
- Participated in Vereinogte Werkestatten fur Kunst im Handwerk - Promoted the art of the poster
- Men's clothing company - Mermann Scherrer
- Marco Polo Tee poster - more akin to art Nouveau posters
- Hans Josef Sachs - most important graphic design journal in Berlin
- Germany debates between conforming to classic roman types or remaining with tradition blackletter style
- Friedrich Bauer designs Hamburger Druckschrift to intergrade the old and new styles
- Sackplakat artists embrace roman style type since it is considered to be more modern than the blackletter type
- Bernhard Antiqua typeface created in 1912 based off of Bernhard's original Priester matches poster
The First World War
The war had a greater impact on Europe's civilians to enlist than other wars in the past that had been fought by small professional armies and advertising was necessary to get people to enlist
Wartime Propaganda
- Posters were the one consistent form of government communication during the war but the content and style of the posters was tightly controlled by government agencies so messgages were just as likely to mislead as they were to enlighten
- Alfred Leete - Lord Kitchener wants you
- Eugene Delacroix 's lion hunt paintings possibly inspired Ernest Ibbeston's "At the Front!" poster which stressed the comradeship and excitemet of the life of a soldier
Emasculating Messages
- These types of ads were targeted towards those who were not incited by the excitement of romantic wartime adventure of Ibbeston's posters or the direct appeal of the Lord Kitchener posters
- Edward Kealey- Women of Britan Say "GO!"
- Savile Lumley - "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?"
- David Wilson - Red Cross or Iron Cross?
The United States
- Frederick Spear- Enlist (becomes the basis of the recruitment poster comes from the sinking of the Lusitania where 128 Americans were killed and depicts a mother clutching her child as they both sink in the water)
War Posters and James Montgomery Flagg
- Posters were on every surface available in New York City and the US created more enlistment posters than any other country despite its late involvement in the war
- Charles Dana Gibson and the "Gibson Girl" fashionaable and young "everywoman" and the most famous character in American illustration
- Poster contests for art school students- military provided props and uniforms for the students to study
- James Flagg bases his 1917 poster I want YOU for the U.S. Army off of Alfred Leete's poster of Kitchener. It was created for Leslie's magazine on the cover for July 16th 1917
Howard Chandler Christy
- The "Christy" girl, similar to the Gibson girl
- Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man (sexualizing, woman playing dress up in a navy uniform)
- I Want You for the Navy (more modest version of the Christy girl)
France
- Posters were made by fine artists rather than graphic designers
- Lucien Jonas - "Loan of the the Liberation: Subscribe"
- Abel Faiver - "For France Pour Forth you Gold"
The Central Powers
- Lucian Bernhard - "That is the Way to Peace" uses Sachplakat style but with a blackletter type
- Julius Klinger - "8th War Loan" irregular shape of serpent contrasts the clean shape of the number 8
Realism versus Abstraction
- Ludwig Holwein - "The Ludendorff Appeal for the War-Disabled" depicted severly injured soldier and was a reminder of the slaughter of war and also wounded soldiers being shunned by their fellow citizens
- There are limits to the effectiveness of abstraction as a vehicle of emotional manipulation
Dada
- Started in Zurich - Hugo Ball created a gathering space for artists and activists (Cabaret Voltaire)
- Germany- Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Richard Huelsenbeck
- France - Jean Arp
- Romania - Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco
- Irony, satire, to shock the public about the contridictions of European culture while people were dying in the war
- dance, poetry, music, hybrid performances (excentric)
Tristan Tzara
- was born as Sami Rosenstock
- published and edited the journal Dada
- sent the Dada movement to an international audience
- rejected convention of readable typography and logical composition
Dada in Paris
- Tzara and Arp influenced Andre Breton who later created the Surrealist movement in Paris after Dada ended
- Francis Picabia publishes 319 magazine (mocking Alfred Stieglitz's NYC modern art gallery nicknamed 219)
- Tristen Tzara "Salon Dada" 1921
Dada in Berlin
- Richard Huelsenbeck starts Club Dada in Berlin (Johannes Baader, Helmut Herzfelde, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann)
- First International Dada Fair
- Life and Activity in Universal City at 12:05 in the Afternoon
- Cut with a Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany
Kurt Schwitters and Merz
- Schwitters creates Merz in 1924 - kommerz = commerce in German
