COUNTING HAIRS

The Renaissance brought fresh excitement about the physical world.  Art awoke from its long medieval fixation on the afterlife, and began to study the details of nature with an almost fanatical obsession. 

Durer (detail)

Centuries later there are still artists who find meaning painting individual hairs with a fine brush.

Julie Bell

The Bible says "the very hairs of your head are numbered" but that doesn't mean artists must count each one. It's interesting to see how differently artists have summarized and abstracted fur, taking a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach.  Here are some artists I admire:

J.C. Leyendecker:

J.C. Leyendecker

Rather than paint individual hairs, Leyendecker uses his trademark diagonal slashing brush strokes.

Mort Drucker:

Rather than draw individual hairs, Drucker uses his trademark bouncing line:

George McManus:

Rather than trace individual hairs,  MacManus stylized different furs with his art deco designs:

Ronald Searle:

Searle uses a field of watercolor as a substitute for painting individual fine hairs, which allows him to  give greater emphasis to a few scraggly hairs with an ink pen.

Leonard Starr:

Mindful of the smaller size and lesser reproduction quality of newspaper comic strips, Leonard Starr creates a darker fur, feathering the hairs with drybrush 

Andre Francois:

There was a time during the Renaissance when following individual hairs from follicle to tip could be an exciting part of understanding the natural world.  No one had done what Durer did.  

However, today I find the artistic interpretations of fur far more interesting and rewarding.  

PIONEERS OF GERMAN GRAPHIC DESIGN

"The early twentieth century was the most significant period of all in the development of modern design....  The design profession was born, and with it came the beginnings of corporate and graphic design as we know it today."        

                                  -- Jens Müller,  Pioneers of German Graphic Design

                                                                         
The first few decades in 20th century Germany were tumultuous years, a veritable Cambrian explosion of innovation which shaped the world of visual communication that we now take for granted.

For example, they introduced the "object poster" which filled public spaces with large colorful images for the first time. They were fun and eye-catching, persuasive and entertaining.  Most of all, they were visually easy for strolling crowds to read.  The poor man's art museum, they transformed public boulevards into art galleries and revolutionized the worlds of advertising and design that followed. 

Then there was the new use of design to embody corporate identity, including the invention of the modern corporate logo. 

Modern typography was invented and the rapidly developing science of photography was applied in new ways, such as photomontages.

I've previously written on this blog about German designer Peter Behrens, the visionary who met the industrial revolution with comprehensive designs for the new man made environments. But I never appreciated the cumulative role that Behrens and his contemporaries in Germany played in transforming modern visual communication until I read the admirable new book by Jens Müller, Pioneers of German Graphic Design. (Callisto Publishers, 2017).

The 1,000+ high quality illustrations in this encyclopedic book speak for themselves, and make a highly persuasive argument.

This 1925 car ad could easily appear in a magazine today, nearly 100 years later.

But beyond the images, Müller's text is a well-written, thoughtful analysis of the ingredients that gave rise to an era of such artistic ferment.  He writes:

"To trace the history of modern visual communications and explore why such major innovations came from Germany requires a detailed understanding of the social and economic circumstances of the Epoque and order to identify the developments generated demand for modern commercial design in the first place."

Müller's exploration centers on fourteen pioneers of design, most of whom were previously unknown to me but all of whom I found deserving of attention.  I was particularly impressed by the work of Julius Klinger and Wilhelm Deffke.

He tracks how the industrial age changed production, transportation and distribution of goods, which contributed to vast social and economic change (and sharp divisions between social groups).  The new accessibility of printing helped to evade the constraints of previous far reaching government censorship of printed materials. These and other elements fused to transform advertising form and content, and amplify the role of graphic design.  Müller's expertise in discussing these issues is truly impressive.

Many of the readers of this blog are already familiar with the brilliant German graphic art publications of the era, Jugend and Simplicissimus, which were so influential on American illustrators.  Pioneers of German Graphic Design shows that those two publications were just the tip of the iceberg, and how German innovations in design later transformed the field.

FOUR THINGS THAT RALPH BARTON KNEW

Ralph Barton was one of the most prominent illustrators of the 1920s.  Most of his illustrations were done with a simple line, yet if you paid attention it soon became clear that Barton knew a few things.  Here are four of them: 

1.  Sometimes the best way to exaggerate legs is to contrast them with a normal arm: 

Those high-stepping legs seem even crazier because Barton gave us a baseline for normalcy.  By showing us he understands the bones and muscles of that arm; he emphasizes that he has detached the bones and added more joints to those legs.  That wonderful flowing tunic is like a magician's cape, concealing how he has sawed a lady in half.


2.  Sometimes the best way to draw a big subject is to obscure it in a small corner.

There were plenty of dramatic ways to draw the 1927 death of Isadora Duncan, the famous dancer whose trademark-- an enormous, flamboyant scarf-- became wrapped around the axle of her brand new convertible.  Duncan was pulled from her car and choked to death as she was dragged along a cobblestone road in France.  An artist could hardly ask for a more visual spectacle.  Yet, this is the wonderful, controlled way that Barton depicted it:       

I love Gertrude Stein's stoic reaction when she read the news of Duncan's death:  “Affectations can be dangerous."

3.  A mediocre subject can still be redeemed by a strong image.

The joke on this cover of Puck is not particularly funny or creative:

but man oh man, it is redeemed by Barton's strong graphic treatment.  He didn't get discouraged by his text, he redeemed it.

Today the practice is largely the opposite.  The dominant assumption is that crappy drawing will be redeemed by profound or moving content.

4.  Don't accept standard templates if you have a better idea.

Barton decided that the regular logo for Puck would not go very well with his cover drawing.  Rather than compromise his drawing or accept , Barton took the initiative to letter a whole new title and offer it to his client:

 

It appears from Barton's note that Puck neither requested nor paid for this extra effort.  It was something Barton volunteered because he cared about the least details surrounding his art and was not afraid to work.