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Symphony of a Big City Poster, Russian Constructivism, Redefining the…
Symphony of a Big City Poster
Created by
Stenburg Brothers:
Georgii Augustovich Stenberg (1899)
Vladimir Augustovich Stenberg (1900).
The posters by the brothers were realised within the nine-year period from 1924 to 1933
Georgii died in 1933 (independent art was being attacked under Stalin’s rule)
They became Russian citizens in 1933
They produced around some 300 posters
Born in Russia, they were Swedish citizens till 1933
Initially studied engineering, and were fond of sculpture
Father was a painter
Art Styles
Constructivism
Concept of designer as a constructor, not illustrator
Russian Constructivism
Artist-engineers were attracted to the functional arts by political ideology
Advertising as a morally superier occupation:
Attracting more than illustrators, but also sculptors architects and photographers etc
Productivism??
Alexander Rodchenko
Utilitarian purpose of art
Russian avant garde
Dadaism
Photomontage
Concept of taking pre-existing imagery and redefining it's meaning
Assemblage
Industrial Art
Malevich's Supramatism
Soviet Design
Global Context
Soviet Propaganda
Bolshevik promotion of propaganda to reform the peasant class
Communicate with a widely illiterate population
It rendered commercial graphic design and advertising a desirable and honourable practice
Interest in movies in Russia
Governments sanctioning of graphic design and cinema
Graphic Design and cinema flourished in the first 15 years of the Bolshevik rule
Movies + Graphic Design = Revolutionary poster
Illiteracy was an endemic so movies provided a good medium to "reform" the masses into the new order
Communist Society
What
Film poster for 1928 Moscow debut of the 1927 German silent film, Die Symphonie der Großstadt (Symphony of a Metropolis)
non narrative movie - usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment
Medium : Color Lithograph Poster - 106 x 70 cm. (41.7 x 27.6 in.)
Its medium is lithograph - which is a method of printing originally based on the mixture of oil and water. The printing is from a stone or a metal plate with a smooth surface. The lithograph was on an offwhite wove paper.
projected photographic images with a special projector and enlarge and distort images and turn them in any direction.
Representation and invention
philosophical, formal, and theoretical elements of what has become known as the Russian avant-garde
They rethought the content of the film poster
Introduction of implied movement
expressive use of typography and color
distortion of scale and perspective
attract the eye in the briefest interval
Yet serve the ultimate purpose
Semiotic Analysis
Slanted building
Face of a man with a cigarette
Camera on his eye
Gramophone on his ear
Watch around his neck
Low flying airplane
Typewriter as a body
Pens as hands
Analysis
Photomontage style in monotone
Muted colour palette
4 colours + monotone photo imagery
Russian Constructivism
Utilitarian purpose of art
Kinetic quality of geometric and linear form
constructed posters
Redefining the power of the film poster genre