History of Art and Design: Early Modernism and Constructivism

I was probably one of the many that believed that modern art began when Andy Warhol popped out of nowhere and started using stuff and making it into art to annoy people, I was almost surprised to find out that modern art was something that began a long time before that. It all began when people stopped caring about recreating art by the classics from the renaissance and instead looked towards the future, which was considerably wild back then. Modernism has a meta narrative and always questions itself as much as everyone else questions it.  and it has a timeline of influences and how those influences influence each other and create it's own influence baby. That baby is modernism. From modernism stems a lot of other branches from the cubists to what I'll be writing about today which is constructivism. 

Constructivism was developed in Russia, it revolutionised the idea of propaganda art and design. It was used in the beginning of communism, and it's probably one of the sole reasons we see red and probably think straight away about either Russia or communism. It's whole idea was to combine psychology and minimalism to sway the Russian people. It was anti-western and probably gave the people of Russia a sense of pride given the fact it is quite appealing, even now. 

The first image of constructivism I picked was one by El Lissitzky who was one of the leaders in the constructivism movement, he had a major influence and he still holds as one of the greats in graphic design revolutionising the use of simple colours. The reason why I chose this particular piece because something about it really did unnerve me. It was especially unnerving because of the fact it's also so appealing to look at. There's something so nice about bold shadows in a poster to really make it stand out, and the strong shadows on the building

shows how Lissitzky uses black and white print effectively. He also uses red in significant parts of the poster where it draws you in. I feel the face is what unnerves me the most. Way to make Russia look like an evil overlord that's always watching. Its possibly the eyes combining into one where the boy and the girl meet and on their forehead all it reads is USSR. You as a person belong to the USSR and that's it. Overall it's quite fascinating how a poster can make you feel so uneasy yet so compelled at the same time, the use of the text and the geometric shapes is so effective that you just want to stare at the poster for some strange reason. 

The second piece I decided to look at which was from the constructivism movement is this poster from the movie Man With a Movie Camera, the poster was created by the Stenberg brothers. Without knowing any context about the movie something about it made me think it was a horror. Perhaps it was the dismantled woman and the text which gives me the illusion of a spiral. The perspective of the buildings also add to this dizzying effect. I then realised that Man With a Movie Camera was in fact a documentary about soviet life and takes place in multiple cities across the then soviet state of Russia. The poster starts to make more sense when 

you consider it as a documentary as well as a revolutionary one which brought in many new techniques never seen before on cinematic screens. The buildings stand tall as if they're towering over you and yet it also reminds me of the first time I went to a big city like Liverpool and all I could do was look up in wonder, in the same way the drawing of the dismantled woman is spreading out her arms, her dainty little heels and legs make her look as if she's dancing and it all creates this sense of strange wonder.