March 15th

El Lissitzky moves onto constructivism. He begins to use his work to prove a point, applying it in practical ways such as his USSR photo montage poster. This is built above his base of cuprematism where he uses just simple shapes to express a new form of art. Photography is seen as a tool of the modern age; a tool of the new age... a machine. Its a new way to create art, and its wonderful.

Serge Eisenstein: Potempkin rules over all past films, and opens new doors with its violence, montages, and new tricks in cinema.

This is the iconic scene; the massacre on the steps of odessa literally sets the stage for many future movie scene ideas. This movie also obviously has the greatest soundtrack to ever have been featured in any movie since the dawn of time. I wish it was on iTunes. The untouchables has the same scene! It is extremely strange... in my highschool english class, we watched both of the same scenes from the untouchables and potempkin. Very strange but interesting Deja Vu.

Alexander Rodchenko: The key person of russian constructivism. He attends art school from 1910 onwards. He creates very non representational suprematist work in school, and builds on his style from there. Left front of the arts is a magazine that he works on. Using black bars as graphic elements as we do today! Very lissitzkyesque. In 1932, Stalin is in power, and artists are decimated. No-one wants to center their governmental direction around artists propaganda anymore.

De Stijl: "The style" A utopian approach to aesthetics. If you take a step back and look at suprematism and constructivism, they are creating something that is theory based, based on functionality or spirituality. De Stijl asks the question; what is the key to good art? How can everyone make good art? They use squares and ratios. Dorian is obsessed.

Mondrian, Theo VanDoesvurg. De Stijl dies with him.

De Stijl evolves. In 1921, there is a formal change that explores Asymmetrical composition (Dorian gets goosebumps) It is the foundation of modernism design and composition; very beautiful. There are implied rectangles of the elements, but the air moves around and flows. Theo VanDoesvurg publishes Dadaist poems in his magazine. It is curious to think that it took graphic designers so long to come up with these asymmetrical uses of rectangles and white space, as we take it for granted these days.

Everything keeps builind upon other things before, and moving towards what we are creating as designers today. It will be interesting to see how it came about that we create things exactly how we do today, as i can not pin an exact way that people are designing today. Not like in the past when you can tell exactly when they are from because of the style.