Chapter 12

Chapter 12 is about the style that developed from art nouveau into a modern style. The style of the times was geometric abstract forms, sometimes combined with floral, curvilinear forms. "Total Design" was also a big philosophy that was generated by Frank Lloyd Wright and his works. He was an American architect that designed homes and other buildings based on the idea of "organic architecture" and space. He focused on opening up the living spaces of homes to suit people living in them. He also designed everything in each home he built, down to the cutlery. Wright was also a graphic artist, which few people know about. He used white space in his designs and thought of his pieces as unified wholes, like his architecture. "The Four", from the Glasgow School of Art, was inspired by his works and philosophies. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, J. Herbert McNair, Frances and Margaret Mcdonald were the group of collaborators from Scotland that designed with abstract human forms and symbols with bold lines and flat colors. They weren't quite so popular in their homeland becaue of their human figure abstractions, but did well for themselves in Germany and Austria. Besides just graphics, Mackintosh was also involved in architecture and designed and built the new Glasgow school building. He became the most famous out of the four. A movement in Austria, called the Vienna Secession, took great steps toward a different style as well. The members of this revolt wanted to start designing something less traditional and moved toward the abstract and symbolic. Gustav Klimt was the leader of this revolt and also founded "Ver Sacrum", which was the magazine of the Secession. It had an unusual square format and page layout with wide margins and very little detail and decoration. Though the page layout was cleaner and more refined the cover page was bold and elaborate with hand-lettered titles and color on color line drawings. Peter Behrens was a designer that used san-serif typography and a grid system in his design layouts. He was known as an "industrial designer" with his innovations on the teapot and electric lamp, among other things. He was also an innovator in typography with his Behrensschrift, causing some controversy.
I think that it was interesting to learn about the contributions Frank Lloyd Wright made towards the graphic design industry. I think it's important that we know this side of him as well since it isn't as well known as his architecture and his graphics were inspiring and beautiful even though they weren't always accepted.
Why were people so against the abstraction of the human figure in the posters by "The Four"?