Tuesday

Decades research asignment 1940-1949- Research/notes/links/images.PART 2 specific topic

Specific topic: Architecture


1940's




The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.

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Designed by architect George Bergstrom (1876 - 1955) and built by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania general contractor John McShain, the building was dedicated on January 15, 1943 after ground was broken for construction on September 11, 1941. It is the highest-capacity office building in the world and the fourth largest building in the world by floor area. It houses approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel. It has five sides, five floors above ground (plus two basement levels), and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 miles (28.2 kilometers) of corridors.





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Joseph Stalin





General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Although Stalin's formal position originally had little significant influence, his office being nominally but one of several Central Committee Secretariats, Stalin's increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to his becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country, in full control of the Soviet Union and its people. His crash programs of industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s and his campaigns of political repression cost the lives of millions of people. However it helped industrialize the Soviet Union making a Great power by 1931. By 1937 the Soviet Union had become the second largest industrial nation in the world.
Under Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union played the decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War (1939-45) more commonly known as The Great Patriotic War in Russia and post-Soviet republics and went on to achieve the status of superpower, expanding its territory to a size similar to that of the former Russian Empire excluding most of Finland, Poland and Alaska.

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Starlinist Architecture
Some Never Built, Some Standing Today. Many grandiose Stalinist architectural projects churned out from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s. However, the projects came at staggering costs such that most never got beyond the drawing board, at a time when the country was lying in ruins. Stalinist architecture is not, per se, an architectural style characterized by its distinct appearance. Instead it describes an architecture that resulted from the way the state communicated with the masses through its constructions, using them as an expression of state power.




Stalinist architecture (also referred to as Stalin's Empire style or Socialist Classicism) is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khruschev condemned "excesses" of the past decades and disbanded the Soviet Academy of Architecture.
Features
Stalinist architecture is not, per se, an architectural style characterized by its distinct appearance. Instead it describes an architecture that resulted from the way the state communicated with the masses through its constructions, using them as an expression of state power. The combination of striking parade monumentalism, patriotic art decoration and traditional motifs has become one of the most vivid examples of the Soviet contribution to architecture.

The ensemble that a Stalinist building will contain can be very broad, not only in the overall motif, but also in the technology that lies underneath the rich decorations.

In the Soviet policy of rationalisation of the country, all cities were built to a general development plan. Each was split into districts, with allotments drawn based on the city's geography. Projects would be drawn up for whole districts, visibly transforming a city's architectural image.

Every point in a design had to gain the approval of the state. Criticism of a project could vary from minor recommendations to total disapproval. As a result many had to be modeled and remodeled many times. This also had a direct effect on the architects themselves, many of whom would later describe this period not by what was actually built, but on what they were not allowed to include. For example, the floral motifs of Art Nouveau were never allowed.

The interaction of the state with the architects would prove to be one of the focal points of this time. The same building could be declared a formalist blasphemy and then receive the highest praise the next year.Authentic styles like Zholtovsky's Renaissance Revival, Ivan Fomin's St. Petersburg Neoclassical Revival and Art Deco adaptation by Alexey Dushkin and Vladimir Schuko coexisted with pale imitations and eclectics that became a symbol of that era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinist_architecture#Technology
http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/08/gothic-stalinist-soviet-skyscrapers.html

Legacy and Revival

In 1947, the Soviet government adopted a resolution concerning the construction of high-rise buildings in Moscow. By the early 1950s, tall buildings had been erected (see below). Albeit smaller than the projects above, nevertheless very impressive. Note the striking similarities between the style of architecture, especially the resemblance of current White House in Moscow to the Aeroflot Building project above.

Only the construction of a 32-floor administrative building in Zaryadye, which was envisaged as one of the salient features of the silhouette of the central city skyline, was not completed. Work on it was stopped after the 1955 resolution of the Central Committee, which condemned "excesses and over-ornamentation in architecture" and signalled a new era in Soviet architecture. The work which had been done was dismantled, and the hotel Rossiya was built on the foundations in 1967.




http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa090501k.htm

http://www.horn-ok-please.com/Imperial-Russia-and-Modern-Russia.htm

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Hallgrímskirkja


The Hallgrímskirkja (literally, the church of Hallgrímur) is a church in Reykjavík, Iceland. At 74.5 metres (244 ft), it is the third tallest building in Iceland after Longwave radio mast Hellissandur and Smáratorg tower. The church is named after the Icelandic poet and clergyman Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614 to 1674), author of the Passion Hymns.

State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson's design of the church was commissioned in 1937. It took 38 years to build the church. Construction work began in 1945 and ended in 1986, the landmark tower being completed long before the church's actual completion. The crypt beneath the choir was consecrated in 1948, the steeple and wings were completed in 1974. The nave was consecrated in 1986. It is situated in the centre of Reykjavík and is visible throughout the city. It has become one of city's best known landmarks.

The church houses a large pipe organ by the German organbuilder Johannes Klais of Bonn. It has mechanical action, four manuals and pedal, 102 ranks, 72 stops and 5275 pipes. It is 15 metres tall and weighs 25 tons. Its construction was finished in December 1992. It has been recorded by Christopher Herrick in his Organ Fireworks VII.

The church is also used as an observation tower. An observer can take a lift up to the viewing deck and view Reykjavík and the surrounding mountains.

There is a statue of the explorer Leifr Eiriksson in front of the church, predating its construction. It was a gift from the United States on the 1930 Althing Millennial Festival, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Iceland's parliament.





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Art deco
Art Deco was a popular design movement from 1920 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film. This movement was, in a sense, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked during the Roaring Twenties. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, functional, and ultra modern.
Art deco in the 1940's
Although Art Deco fell out of vogue in the 1940s, it has had small rebirths over subsequent decades. Its designs frequently appear in modern architecture, entertainment, and media when a "classic retro" look is sought. In media, such examples are obvious in Batman: The Animated Series from the early 1990s in which the show's creators used Art Deco styling fused with a deliberate darkness to create an Art Deco variant style often referred to as Dark Deco. Films such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Dick Tracy, and King Kong have various Art Deco elements as well. In Marilyn Manson's The Golden Age of Grotesque, he demonstrates an Art Deco style mixed with his Gothic trademark.




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Astakhovsky (Yauzsky) Bridge (1940)

Astakhovsky (Acтаховский) Bridge across Yauza was built in 1940 by I.N.Golbrodsky (structural engineering) and I.V.Tkachenko (architectural design) on the site of old Yauzsky Bridge (1804), 250 meters upstream from Yauza mouth. Total length 46.4 meters, width 36 meters (8 lanes), concrete lattice type



Sunday

Decades research asignment 1940-1949- Research/notes/links/images.PART 1

the 1940s was an eventful decade as we all know.

World war 2 continued until Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945, Hitler committed suicide in the same year.

The atomic bomb was created, and used by the US against japan in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, later the soviet union created there own atomic bomb.

The UN (united nations) and NATO were established, China became communist, the Deadsea scrolls were discovered, Polaroid camera invented as well as the state of isreal being formed. Quite an exciting decade. But what about art? creativity? design? what was going on through all the hustle and bustle, bullets and mid air battles of one of the biggest wars this world has ever seen? How did the war influence or change things, if it did?


CoBrA.


Cobra, the name taken from the 3 cities it came from: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.Brussels is the body, and Amsterdam is the tail, here illustrated by a drawing found in a book
written by Virtus Schade ' COBRA from head to tail' from 1971.

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It was in the Paris café Notre Dame that Asger Jorn (from Copenhagen), Joseph Noiret and Christian Dotremont (from Brussels) and Constant, Corneille and Karel Appel (from Amsterdam) signed the manifesto 'La Cause était entendue’ (The Case was Heard). This manifesto, drawn up by Dotremont, was a response to a statement by the French Surrealists entitled 'La Cause est entendue' (The Case is Heard). In it Dotremont makes it clear they are no longer in agreement with the French artists. The CoBrA painters wanted to break new ground, preferring to work spontaneously and with the emphasis more on fantastic imagery. In 1951 the CoBrA movement was officially disbanded, yet during its short existence CoBrA rejuvenated Dutch modern art.

The influence of Danish art was the key to this movement and stayed there through out the period and was important because of internal conflicts and the lack of acceptance by the art establishment, especially in paris. Cobra was simply to different.

The CoBrA style
The CoBrA artists painted directly and spontaneously. Just like children, they wanted to work expressively without a preconceived plan, using their fantasy and much colour.They rebelled against the rules of the art academies and aimed at a form of art without constraint. They also explored working with all kinds of materials: the experimental was paramount.

subject matter

Animals like birds, cats and dogs were favourite subjects, while fantasy animals and creatures were also much loved themes (some creatures were half-human, half-beast). Masks caught the CoBrA artists’ imagination and they further drew inspiration from mythology, children’s drawings, folklore, prehistory, eastern calligraphy, primitive art (non-western art from places like Africa and Oceania) and art by the mentally disabled.

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The theories of CoBrA

A few CoBrA artists were not only involved with making art works but also with theorising about art and the role of the artist in society. Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont and Constant Nieuwenhuys were very much preoccupied with this. They positioned themselves according to the communist theories of Karl Marx and supplemented his ideas with views on art. Their aim was to have art made for and by everyone, irrespective of class, race, intellect and educational level. Jorn, Dotremont and Constant aspired to an art form that spontaneously evolved out of the artist’s fantasy.

Jorn wrote about the relationship between art and architecture, seeing both inextricably linked. He used a photograph of a primitive hut decorated by its occupants to show how beautiful the combination could be. Jorn’s ideals were realised in several collaborative projects by the CoBrA artists.

useful links :
www.cobraart.dk
www.cobra-museum.nl
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_(mouvement)


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The Manhatten Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Formally designated as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), it refers specifically to the period of the project from 1941–1946 under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the administration of General Leslie R. Groves. The scientific research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.




en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
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Art Informel

French term describing a wide swathe of related types of abstract painting highly prevalent, even dominant, in the 1940s and 1950s, including tendencies such as Tachism, Matter Painting, and Lyrical Abstraction. Mainly refers to European art, but embraces American Abstract Expressionism. The term was used by the French critic Michel Tapié in his 1952 book Un Art Autre to describe types of art which had in common that they were based on highly improvisatory (ie informal) procedures and were often highly gestural. Tapié saw this art as 'other' because it appeared to him as a complete break with tradition. An important source of this kind of painting was the Surrealist doctrine of automatism. An exhibition titled Un Art Autre was organised in Paris the same year as Tapié's book and included Appel, Burri, De Kooning, Dubuffet, Fautrier, Mathieu, Riopelle, Wols. Other key figures were Henri Michaux, Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages. The term Art Autre, from the title of Tapié's book, is also used for this art, but Art Informel seems to have emerged as the preferred name.




http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=28

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Lettrism


Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totalling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and political theory. The movement has its theoretical roots in Dada and Surrealism. Isou viewed his fellow countryman, Tristan Tzara, as the greatest creator and rightful leader of the Dada movement, and dismissed most of the others as plagiarists and falsifiers.[1] Among the Surrealists, André Breton was a significant influence, but Isou was dissatisfied by what he saw as the stagnation and theoretical bankruptcy of the movement as it stood in the 1940s

1940s

* 1942–1944. Isou develops the principles of Letterism, and begins writing the books that he would subsequently publish after his relocation to Paris.
* 1945. Aged twenty, Isou arrives in Paris on August 23 after six weeks of clandestine travel. In November, he founds the Letterist movement with Gabriel Pomerand.
* 1946. Isou and Pomerand disrupt a performance of Tzara’s La Fuite at the Vieux-Colombier. Publication of La Dictature Lettriste: cahiers d’un nouveau régime artistique (The Letterist Dictatorship: notebooks of a new artistic regime). Although announced as the first in a series, only one such notebook would appear. A subtitle proudly boasts of Letterism that it is 'the only contemporary movement of the artistic avant-garde'.
* 1947. Isou’s first two books are published by Gallimard: Introduction à une nouvelle poésie et à une nouvelle musique (Introduction to a New Poetry and a New Music) and L'Agrégation d’un nom et d’un messie (Aggregation of a Name and a Messiah). The former sets out Isou’s theory of the 'amplic' and 'chiselling' phases, and, within this framework, presents his views on both the past history and the future direction of poetry and music. The latter is more biographical, discussing the genesis of Isou’s ideas, as well as exploring Judaism. Isou and Pomerand are joined by François Dufrêne.
* 1949. Isou publishes Isou, ou la mécanique des femmes (Isou, or the mechanics of women), the first of several works of erotology, wherein he claims to have bedded 375 women in the preceding four years, and offers to explain how (p. 9). The book is banned and Isou is briefly imprisoned. Also published, the first of several works on political theory, Isou’s Traité d’économie nucléaire: Le soulèvement de la jeunesse (Treatise of Nuclear Economics: Youth Uprising).

link:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettrism#1940s

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Neo-Romanticism

Term applied to the imaginative and often quite abstract landscape based painting of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and others in the late 1930s and 1940s. Their work often included figures, was generally sombre, reflecting the Second World War and its approach and aftermath, but rich, poetic and capable of a visionary intensity. It was partly inspired by the visionary landscapes of Samuel Palmer and the Ancients, partly by a more general emotional response to the British landscape and its history. Other major Neo-Romantics were Michael Ayrton, John Craxton, Ivon Hitchens, John Minton, John Piper, Keith Vaughan. The term sometimes embraces Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, and the early work of Lucian Freud. Also the graphic work of Henry Moore of the period, especially his drawings of war time air raid shelters. In the early 1920s in Paris a group of figurative painters emerged whose brooding often nostalgic work quickly became labelled Neo-Romantic. Chief among them were the Russian born trio of Eugène Berman and his brother Leonid, and Pavel Tchelitchew.





www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=192

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Surrealism


Movement launched in Paris in 1924 by French poet André Breton with publication of his Manifesto of Surrealism. Breton was strongly influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud identified a deep layer of the human mind where memories and our most basic instincts are stored. He called this the unconscious, since most of the time we are not aware of it. The aim of Surrealism was to reveal the unconscious and reconcile it with rational life. The Surrealists did this in literarature as well as art. Surrealism also aimed at social and political revolution and for a time was affiliated to the Communist party. There was no single style of Surrealist art but two broad types can be seen. These are the oneiric (dream-like) work of Dalí, early Ernst, and Magritte, and the automatism of later Ernst and Miró. Freud believed that dreams revealed the workings of the unconscious, and his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams was central to Surrealism. Automatism was the Surrealist term for Freud's technique of free association, which he also used to reveal the unconscious mind of his patients. Surrealism had a huge influence on art, literature and the cinema as well as on social attitudes and behaviour.
# 1942 - First Papers of Surrealism - New York - The Surrealists again called on Duchamp to design an exhibition. This time he wove a 3-dimensional web of string throughout the rooms of the space, in some cases making it almost impossible to see the works.[10] He made a secret arrangement with an associate's son to bring his friends to the opening of the show, so that when the finely dressed patrons arrived they found a dozen children in athletic clothes kicking and passing balls, and skipping rope. His design for the show's catalog included "found", rather than posed, photographs of the artists.[4]
# 1947 - International Surrealist Exhibition - Paris

http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=292





other links/info:
http://www.surrealism.org/
http://www.surrealist.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism
http://www.gosurreal.com/history.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/surrealism.html
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Abstract Impressionism
Abstract Impressionism is an art movement originating in New York City in the 1940’s. This was the first American movement to gain worldwide recognition, and put New York at the center of the art world; an achievement formerly awarded to Paris. Robert Coates coined the term ‘abstract impressionism’ in 1946 in one of his critiques of the new artwork. The most important predecessor of abstract impressionism is Surrealism, which also emphasizes spontaneous and subconscious creation. The name of this period reflects the combination of unique self expression with emotional intensity, and contrasts the ideas or Futurism and Cubism. Abstract Impressionism is a form of art where the artist expresses himself through the use of form and color, with no objective representations. The movement can be divided into two groups: the Action Painting expressed by artists like Pollock and De Kooning; and Color Field Painting practiced by Rothko and Noland. Famous artists of this movement include Pollock, Gorky, Riopelle, Rothko, de Kooning, Motherwell, and Kline; their works possess very different moods and subjects, yet share qualities such as sizable canvasses, flat compositions, and the fact that all areas of the piece are filled with movement and paint (instead of creating a focal point, or an area of the most interest).

In the 1940s there were not only few galleries (The Art of This Century) but also few critics who were willing to follow the work of the New York Vanguard. There were also a few artists with a literary background, among them Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman who functioned as critics as well.

http://www.arthistoryguide.com/Abstract_Impressionism.aspx


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links:
artists- http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Art_History/Periods_and_Movements/Abstract_Expressionism/Artists/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

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World War 2 Propaganda

World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, both by Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive.

Some historical revionists claim that the use of gas chambers in the Holocaust is an instance of an effective Allied propaganda campaign that could not be reined in after the war, much like the now discredited claim made during the Gulf War that Iraqi soldiers were ripping newborn babies out of incubators and throwing them to the ground.
http://www.world-war-2.info/propaganda/
http://www.teacheroz.com/WWIIpropaganda.htm
google images.








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Socialist Realism
Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style of realistic art which has as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. Although related, it should not be confused with social realism, a type of art that realistically depicts subjects of social concern.

The term, Socialist Realism, probably first occured in print in an article in the Literary Gazette in May 1932. It stated: "The masses demand of an artist honesty, truthfulness, and a revolutionary, socialist realism in the representation of the proletarian revolution." In 1933, Maksim Gorki published an important article, "On Socialist Realsim", talking of "a new direction essential to us - socialist realism, which can be created only from the data of socialist experience."

The Socialist Realism, an ideology enforced by the Soviet state as the official standard for art, literature etc., was defined in 1934 at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet writers. It was based on the principle that the arts should glorify political and social ideals of communism. Every artist had to join the "Union of Soviet Artists", which was controlled by the state. The paintings had to be idealisations of political leaders and communist ideas.

http://members.surfeu.at/horvath/realism.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism
http://www.socialistrealism.com/





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Modernism 1940s
Modernism's second generation (1930–1945)


Modernism after World War II

The Post war period left the capitals of Europe in upheaval with an urgency to economically and physically rebuild and to politically regroup. In Paris (the former center of European culture and the former capital of the art world) the climate for art was a disaster. Important collectors, dealers, and modernist artists, writers, and poets had fled Europe for New York and America. The Surrealists, and modern artists from every cultural center of Europe had fled the onslaught of the Nazis for safe haven in the United States. Many of those that didn't flee perished. A few artists notably Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Pierre Bonnard remained in France and survived.

The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American Abstract expressionism, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Surrealism, Joan Miró, Cubism, Fauvism, and early Modernism via great teachers in America like Hans Hofmann and John D. Graham. American artists benefited from the presence of Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, Max Ernst and the Andre Breton group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery The Art of This Century, as well as other factors.

During the late 1940s Pollock's radical approach to painting revolutionized the potential for all Contemporary art that followed him. To some extent Pollock realized that the journey toward making a work of art was as important as the work of art itself. Like Pablo Picasso's innovative reinventions of painting and sculpture near the turn of the century via Cubism and constructed sculpture, Pollock redefined the way art gets made at the mid-century point. Pollock's move - away from easel painting and conventionality - was a liberating signal to his contemporaneous artists and to all that came after. Artists realized that Jackson Pollock's process - working on the floor, unstretched raw canvas, from all four sides, using artist materials, industrial materials, imagery, non-imagery, throwing linear skeins of paint, dripping, drawing, staining, brushing, essentially blasted artmaking beyond any prior boundary. Abstract expressionism in general expanded and developed the definitions and possibilities that artists had available for the creation of new works of art.
The other Abstract expressionists followed Pollock's breakthrough with new breakthroughs of their own. In a sense the innovations of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt and others opened the floodgates to the diversity and scope of all the art that followed them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism

tate:
http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=174

artists:
Pablo Picasso
also see:
fauvism
cubism

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Possible influences pre 1940.


The Bauhaus
After looking in depth at the Bauhaus and the work produced there during my time at college and knowing it was having such a massive effect on the world of art and design at the time I cant help but wonder what would of happened if the Nazi party hadn't closed it down in 1933.
Or if it had closed later on in the 30's, would it of had a bigger effect and been a larger influence to the 40's. Would some of these movements in the 40's even happened?
To me the Bauhaus being forced to shut in 33 was a real shame and I firmly believe had it of stayed open the 1940s and onwards would of been very different.

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