Modernism

Propaganda

                Constructivism was propaganda from Russia in 1917; the Soviet Union used propaganda to communicate with the masses as the radio wasn’t as big as it is today as a media. Posters were stuck up everywhere as visual aids to catch passers attention. The photographs on the posters showed hierarchy and 100% commitment from the leaders so the people would feel comfortable in following them and their beliefs. Gustav Klutniss was a creator of some of these posters; the scale he used showed Lenin had the most power as he would be the biggest image of the collage or montage, these would be printed images used by the Soviet Union for propaganda. Aleksander Mikhailo Rodchenko used the same technique of using scale to show authority but used an exaggerated perspective of looking up, by using this angle it enforces the difference between the power and weakness of the people who are looking up to the leaders. This style was called ‘Belly button photography’ as they can now use the camera in different ways and angles to show the feelings and dominance of the authoritative figure and collages do this well. El Lissitzky made ‘the constructor’ where he manipulated photographs and layered different images. The exhibition poster in Zurich had two young people sharing the same eye which showed they shared the same view for what was approaching as they were looking out of frame towards the right so are looking positively to the future. All of this set the scene for the 20^th century as a ‘grand narrative’ where people were coming together to the future in a Utopia; however, this is balanced by a Dystopia. Hannah Hoch was part of the Berlin Sada group; she created her piece called ‘cut with a kitchen knife’ in 1920. This montage shows how machines need cogs to work like imagery is a piece of visual conversation so needs all different concepts and images working together so it makes sense.

Decisive movement

                Photography was now being used to capture fleeting moments in time which hadn’t been photographed like this before. Henri Cartier-Bresson took opportunist photographs where he’d stay in one place waiting for somebody to pass by so he could capture the picture we was looking for or things would just happen and it would be a happy coincidence he was there to shoot it but his most famous photos are where all the elements are tied together. He used a Lucia camera which were cheap, light and easy to use but could still achieve his style and technique of a perfect decisive moment in time. Robert Capa’s piece ‘Loyalist Militanman at the moment of death’ was taken in 1936 but created many arguments to whether or not it was real or just a still of a moment in time; the man is in mi-fall and neither dead or alive but is always preserved in that moment.

Photography: the new object

                Photographers began to take photographs of objects that were machine made; by using light, contrast and shadow was fascinating and abstract. Paul Strand used this style in posters and this started commercial photography because of the use of textures, shapes, forms and lines which were modernist ideas and also changed to sculptural possibilities, for example, a toilet can look like a pepper and a pepper like a human body. Photography also became a means of documenting big things and as a tool to reform. There was a drought in South America and photographers like Walker Evens, part of ‘the farm security administration’, documented the poor travelling to the West away from poverty these are now used for records and other historical use.