Art and Architecture

art movements
 Key points
• Art, definition
• Classification of art
• Art movements
– Impressionism
– Post-Impressionism
– Arts and Crafts
– Art Nouveau
– Cubism
– Futurism
– Constructivism
– Bauhaus
– Art Deco
– Surrealism
– Abstract Expressionism
– The International Typographic Style
– Minimalism
– Postmodernism
Art and Architecture …

Art
• refers to the theory, human application and
physical expression of creativity found in human
cultures and societies through skills and
imagination in order to produce objects,
environments and experiences.

• From prehistoric cave paintings to modern-day

films , art serves as a vessel for storytelling and
conveying humankind's relationship with the
environment.
Art and Architecture …

The various classifications of art include:

- Fine art
- Visual art
- Plastic art
- Performance art
- Applied art
- Decorative art
 Classification of Art …
Fine art
• This category includes works
of art that are created
primarily for aesthetic
reasons.
• Includes: Drawing, Painting,
Printmaking, Sculpture,
Calligraphy
By Maitre Artist
Laureate Afewerk Tekle
visual art
• Include all the fine arts
including: digital art,
photography art,
environmental art,
contemporary forms of
expression – assemblage,
collage, installation.
By Ermias
Assefa
 Classification of Art …
Plastic Art
• art works that are molded
and not necessarily plastic
objects.
• Consists of three
dimensional works like clay,
plaster, stone, metals,
wood, paper (origami).
Performance Art
• Art in which artists use their
voices, bodies or inanimate
objects to convey artistic
expression.
• This consist of an art form
that refers to public
performance events which
occur mostly in the theater.
 Classification of Art …
Applied Art
• the application of aesthetic
designs to everyday
functional objects.
• Includes: architecture,
computer art, photography,
industrial design, graphics
design, fashion design,
interior design.
Decorative Art
• refers to functional but
ornamental art forms.
• Includes: such as jewelry,
ceramics, mosaic art and
also works in glass, clay,
wood, metal, textile
fabric, furniture, furnishings,
stained glass and tapestry
art.
Art movements

• Is style in art with a specific common philosophy or

goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific
period of time.
• Throughout history many art movements shaped
not only art but also had an impact on architecture
and inspired different architectural movements to
emerge.
Art movements…

Some of the prominent art movements that

influenced the art and architecture through out the
history include:
- Impressionism - Art Deco
- Post-Impressionism - Surrealism
- Arts and Crafts - Abstract Expressionism
- Art Nouveau - The International Typographic Style
- Cubism - Minimalism
- Futurism - Postmodernism
- Constructivism
- Bauhaus
 Impressionism
• Developing primarily
in France during the
late 19th century.
• Impressionism was a
fine art movement in
which a small group
of painters eschewed
the then-traditional
emphasis on historical
or mythological
subject matter in favor
of depicting visual
reality, and
particularly the
Sunset on the River at Lavacourt by
transient nature of Claude Monet
light, color and
texture.
 Impressionism…
• Seven painters were at the core of this hugely influential
movement: Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille
Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin and
Frédéric Bazille – and worked and exhibited together.

Claude Monet, Impression

Post-Impressionism
• Post-Impressionism embraced many of the tenets of its
predecessor movement (Impressionism), whilst also rejecting
some of its limitations.

Starry night by Vincent van Gogh

 Post-Impressionism…

• Painters such as Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin,

Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec used
similarly pure, brilliant color palettes and expressive, short
brush strokes, but also sought to elevate the work to
something less transient and experimental.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by

Georges Seurat
 Arts and Crafts

• A reaction to the rise

of mass production
(and corresponding
decline of artisan
craftsmanship)
during the Industrial
Revolution, there
was a resurgence of
interest in decorative
arts across Europe in
the second half of
the 19th century.
Strawberry Thief by William Morris
 Arts and Crafts…

• At the vanguard of this new movement was reformer, poet

and designer William Morris, who formed a collective of
collaborators in the 1860s to try to reawaken the handcrafted
quality of the medieval period.
• They produced beautiful metalwork, jewellery, wallpaper,
textiles and books.

- William
Morris's Red House,
by Philip Webb
and William Morris

- Often called the

first Arts & Crafts
building
 Art Nouveau

• Following on from the Arts

and Crafts movement, Art
Nouveau was a primarily
ornamental movement in
both Europe and the USA.
• One distinctive
characteristic of the style is
the use of organic,
asymmetrical line work
instead of solid, uniform
shapes – applied across
architecture, interiors and
jewellery, as well as posters
and illustration.
Details from a house in Glasgow by
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
 Art Nouveau…
• Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a
leading exponent of the Art Nouveau movement, as well as
Czech graphic artist Alphonse Mucha, and iconic Spanish
architect and sculptor Antonio Gaudí – whose magnum opus,
Barcelona's La Sagrada Família.

La Sagrada Família, Antonio Gaudí Casa Batlló, Antonio Gaudí

 Cubism

• Cubism was about

flat, two-dimensional,
distorted objects –
sacrificing accurate
perspective in favor of
surreal fragmentation.
• Two artists were
instrumental in
founding the Cubist
movement: Pablo
Picasso and Georges
Braque.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo

Picasso
 Cubism…
• The period from 1910-1912 is often
referred to as Analytical Cubism. A
distinctive palette of tan, brown,
grey, cream, green and blue
prevailed, and common subjects
included musical instruments,
bottles, newspapers, and the
human body.

• Post-1912 this evolved into Synthetic

Cubism, where multiple forms are
combined within the increasingly
colorful artworks, which made use
of collage techniques to explore
texture. The visual language
defined by Braque and Picasso was
later embraced by many other
painters, and also influenced
sculptors and architects such as Le
Corbusier. Pablo Picasso, 1910, Girl with a
Mandolin
 Futurism

• Founded in Italy in the

early 20th century
• Futurism attempted to
capture the pace,
vitality and restlessness
of modern life through
highly expressive artwork
that ultimately glorified
war, Fascism and the
machine age.
• The aesthetic style would
later spread across
Europe, and notably into
Russia. The laugh by Umberto Boccioni
 Futurism…

• The aesthetic expressed in modern architecture, as

visions of mechanized cities defined by towering
skyscrapers became a reality.

- The Futurist
architect Antonio
Sant'Elia expressed his ideas
of modernity in his drawings
for La Città Nuova (The New
City) (1912–1914).
- This project was never built
but his ideas influenced later
generations of architects
and artists.
 Constructivism

• Strongly influenced by
both Cubism and
Futurism.
• Constructivism was an
artistic and architectural
movement initiated by
Soviet painter and
architect Vladimir Tatlin,
who co-authored the so-
called 'Realist Manifesto'
in 1920 with sculptors
Antoine Pevsner and
Naum Gabo.
Beat the whites with the Red
Wedge, Soviet propaganda poster
by Lazar Markovich Lissitzky
Constructivism…

• Similar to Futurism,
Constructivism glorifies
technological and
industrial progress, with a
radical aesthetic that
places function over
form.
• As the name implies, the
aesthetic is literally about
'constructing' art from a
kit of component parts,
like a machine. Its
distinctive style was
widely used for Soviet
propaganda posters. Hammer and Sickle Architectural
• Had its influence on Fantasy by Yakov Chernikhov
deconstructivism.
 Bauhaus
• Founded by the architect
Walter Gropius
• The school sought to bridge
the gap between art and
technical craft – not unlike
the goal of the Arts and
Crafts movement
• the Bauhaus favored modern
mass-production over
individual artisan methods.
• It is simple, elegant geometric
shapes, combined with bold
primary colors – an aesthetic
that spread across graphic
design, products and
architecture long after the
school was closed down. The Bauhaus poster by
Herbert Bayer
 Art Deco

• A major international
movement across
western Europe and
the US.
• Art Deco takes many
of its cues from Art
Nouveau, as well as
elements of Bauhaus
and Cubism.
• Style, elegance and
sophistication are the
order of the day in an
Art Deco design, London underground posters by
Edward McKnight Kauffer
 Art Deco…

• communicated through simple,

streamlined shapes; stylized,
often geometric ornamentation
and elaborate use of expensive
materials, both natural and
synthetic.

• Spanning to architecture,
furniture, fashion, sculpture and
more, Art Deco encapsulates
the decadent spirit of the 1930s
– and the Rockefeller
Centre, Chrysler Building and
Empire State Building were all
designed in the style.

The Chrysler Building, New York

 Surrealism

• André Breton argued that

Surrealism was about
reuniting conscious and
unconscious experience;
bridging the gap
between a fantastical
dream world and rational
reality.
• Unlike the relatively rigid
visual language of
contemporary Cubist art,
Surrealist art was much
more organic and
freeform, putting the
emphasis on symbolism
and content rather than
form. The Persistence of Memory by
Salvador Dali
Surrealism…

• Leading Surrealist painters included Jean Arp, Max Ernst,

André Masson, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí,
Pierre Roy, Paul Delvaux and Joan Miró
• All had a uniquely personal twist on the movement, and how
art could express the sometimes bizarre, sometimes deeply
unsettling depths of the unconscious mind.

"Ceci n'est pas

une pipe" ("This is
not a pipe").

The Treachery of
Images, René
Magritte
 Abstract Expressionism

• Often filling huge

canvases with dynamic,
powerful applications of
paint that evoke
everything from violence
to sensuality
• Unlike its predecessors
Expressionism and Post-
Expressionism, Abstract
Expressionism didn't
attempt to depict the
observable world with any
Abstract Expressionism by Jackson
degree of realism, but Pollock
rather convey an
emotional response.
 Abstract Expressionism…

• While the free, spontaneous, totally abstract nature of the

work is a common factor, however, the movement
incorporated a broad range of styles and techniques.

Boon, James Brooks The Liver is the Cock's Comb, Arshile

Gorky
 The International Typographic
Style
• Following World War II,
graphic designers in
Switzerland and Germany
developed a cohesive,
unified Modernist
movement that became
known as Swiss Design, or
the International
Typographic Style.
• Building on the rational
approach of the Bauhaus,
this movement – still
embraced by many
Graphic posters by Josef Müller
graphic designers – is all
about functionality and
universality.
The International Typographic
Style…

• Logical, modular grid

systems provided a
structured framework to
align different elements,
something now considered
essential for most forms of
graphic design.
• One leading figure was Josef
Müller-Brockmann, whose
designs for posters,
publications and
advertisements helped
define the Swiss Design
aesthetic.
1959 poster
 Minimalism

• Characterized by
extreme simplicity
of form and a very
literal, objective
approach, Minimali
sm originated in
New York in the
late 1960s, driven
by dissatisfaction
with the
spontaneous,
messy subjectivity
of Action Painting
in Abstract
Expressionism.
Mediterranee by Ellsworth Kelly
 Minimalism…

• Minimalism was about

exploring the essential
elements of an art form,
stripping away extraneous
detail and emotional
expression in favor of
objective, purely visual
elements.
• For the Minimalists– they
believed art should be clean
and self-contained, without
external references.
• Hard edges, simple forms
and clean lines dominated Piet Mondrian
in primarily two-dimensional
graphic artworks.
 Postmodernism

• Many designers working in

the Modernist tradition felt it
had lost its innovative spirit,
• They introduced decorative,
subversive, and at times
eccentric design elements.
• One of the leading
exponent of the style was
William Longhauser, In one
particular poster, he built
the last name of
Postmodernist architect
Michael Graves out of
geometric forms that allude Architects Michael Graves’name
to the shapes, patterns and in poster by William Longhauser
textures found in Graves'
buildings.