Nice Essay

Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, died in 1973 at the age of 91. But I really think he was the world “youngest” artiest, it is because when he picked up palette and brushes pencil even was at his nineties, everything into his eyes, just like the first time he saw them, so we have always found his work very interesting and unique. He has a style all his own and, I believe that this was what made him so famous and at the same time controversial.

Among Picasso’s many contributions to the history of art, his most important include pioneering the modern art movement called cubism, inventing collage as an artistic technique, and developing assemblage (construction of various materials) in sculpture. All of these proofs that he is and has to be the most important artist of the 20th Century.

§Early life and work

Picasso was born Pablo Ruiz in Malaga, Spain. He later adopted his mother’s more distinguished maiden name-Picasso-as his own. Though Spanish by birth, Picasso lived most of his life in France.

Picasso’s father, who was an art teacher, quickly recognized that his child Pablo was a prodigy. Picasso studied at first privately with his father and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in a city of Spain, where his father taught. At the age of 10 he made his first paintings, his early drawings, such as Study of a Torso, After a Plaster Cast (1894-1895) demonstrate the high level of technical proficiency he had achieved when he was 14. In 1895 his family moved to Barcelona, Spain, after his father obtained a teaching post at that city’s Academy of Fine Arts. Picasso was admitted to advanced classes at the academy after he completed in a single day the entrance examination that applicants traditionally were given a month to finish. In 1897 Picasso left Barcelona to study at the Madrid Academy in the Spanish capital. Dissatisfied with the training, he quit and returned to Barcelona.

§The Blue Period

During his lifetime, the artist went through different periods of characteristic painting styles. Shortly after moving to Paris from Barcelona, Picasso began to produce works that were suffused in blue. This particular pigment is effective in conveying a somber tone. The psychological trigger for these depressing paintings was the suicide of Picasso’s friend Casagemas. Between Blue Period 1901 and 1902, Picasso made three trips to Paris, finally settling there in 1904. He depicted the world of the poor. He found the city’s bohemian street life fascinating, and his pictures of people in dance halls and cafés show how he learned the postimpressionism of the French painter Paul Gauguin and the symbolist painters called the Nabis. The Blue Period work is quite sentimental, but we must keep in mind that Picasso was still in his late teens, away from home for the first time, and living in very poor conditions. Picasso’s Blue Room (1901, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.) shows his evolution toward the Blue Period, so called because various shades of blue dominated his work for the next few years.

These melancholy paintings (such as The Old Guitarist, 1903; Art Inst. of Chicago) are among the most popular art works of the century.

§The Rose Period

Rose Period Shortly after settling in Paris in a shabby building known as the Bateau-Lavoir (”laundry barge,” which it resembled), Picasso met Fernande Olivier, the first of many companions to influence the theme, style, and mood of his work. With this happy relationship, Picasso changed his palette to pinks and reds; the years 1904 and 1905 are thus called the Rose Period. Many of his subjects were drawn from the circus, which he visited several times a week. His subjects are saltimbanques (circus people), harlequins, and clowns, all of whom seem to be mute and strangely inactive. At the time, Picasso’s Parisian studio attracted the major figures of the avant-garde at this time, including Matisse, Braque, Apollinaire, and Gertrude Stein. He had already produced numerous engravings of great power and began his work in sculpture during these years.

One such painting in this period is Family of Saltimbanques (1905, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.).

§Sculpture

Picasso discovered ancient Iberian sculpture from Spain, African art, and Gauguin’s sculptures. Slowly, he incorporated the simplified forms he found in these sources into a striking portrait of Gertrude Stein, finished in 1906 and given by her in her will to the Metropolitan Museum. She has a severe masklike face made up of emphatically hewn forms compressed inside a restricted space. (Stein is supposed to have complained, “I don’t look at all like that,” with Picasso replying, “You will, Gertrude, you will.”) This unique portrait comes as a crucial shift from what Picasso saw to what he was thinking and paves the way to Cubism.

§The Beginning of Cubism

In late 1906, Picasso started to paint in a truly revolutionary manner. Inspired by Cézanne’s flattened depiction of space, and African art, working alongside his friend Georges Braque, he began to express space in strongly geometrical terms. These initial efforts at developing this almost sculptural sense of space in painting are the beginnings of Cubism.

§The Cubism Period

We can see the change from his early paintings, he distorted real objects into flat planes and cubes. He wanted us to see all sides of an object in space. He used the elements of color, shape, and line, and repeated the cubes, lines, and colors with variations. Other painters used construction paper and oil pastels to construct their art. Picasso used oil paint and canvas to make his. People stared to cognize this kind of sculpture as a name “cubism”.

Cubism is broken down into two distinct styles: Analytical and Synthetic.

ØAnalytical Cubism (1907-1912)

By 1907,Picasso and Braque had developed Cubism into an entirely new means of pictorial expression. In the initial stage, known as Analytical Cubism, objects were deconstructed into their components. In some cases, this was a means to depict different viewpoints simultaneously; in other works, it was used more as a method of visually laying out the FACTS of the object, rather than providing a limited mimetic representation. The aim of Analytical Cubism was to produce a conceptual image of an object, as opposed to a perceptual one.

At its height, Analytical Cubism reached levels of expression that threatened to pass beyond the comprehension of the viewer. Staring into the abyss of abstraction, Picasso blinked…and began to start putting the pieces of the object back together

An example of this is Houses on the Hill , 1909.

ØSynthetic Cubism (1912-1914)

Picasso marked the change into the second stage of Cubism, Synthetic Cubism in 1912, he took the conceptual representation of Cubism to its logical conclusion by pasting an actual piece of oilcloth onto the canvas. This was a key watershed in Modern Art. By incorporating the real world into the canvas, Picasso and Braque opened up a century’s worth of exploration in the meaning of Art.

Some of the finest Synthetic Cubist work, both visually and conceptually, are the collages. These works were characterized by a wider usage of color and decoration, although shapes in the paintings remained flat and fragmented.

Creation of his first collage, Still Life with Clair Caning, 1912

In this period, Picasso also created several Cubist sculptures, like Head of a Woman, 1909, along with various constructions made from different materials.

The Cubist movement in painting became a major influence on Western art. Every progressive painter, whether French, German, Belgian, or American, soon took up Cubism, and the style became the dominant one of at least the first half of the 20th century. In 1913, in New York, the new style was introduced at an exhibition at the midtown armory - the famous Armory Show - which caused a sensation. The Cubist was a movement that transformed the history of twentieth-century art. And, as we say, Cubism — after Picasso — the world never looked the same again.

§During the war

The collaboration between Picasso and Braque was ended by the First World War. After the war, Picasso, reflecting society’s disillusionment and shock with the technological horrors of the war, reverted to a Classicist mode of representation. At the same time, however, he was continuing to push Cubism into new paths. During the ’30s Picasso became tangentially connected with the Surrealist movement.

§Picasso and Guernica

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Picasso was appointed the director of the Prado. In January, 1937, the Republican government asked him to paint a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the world exposition in Paris. Spurred on by a war atrocity, the total destruction by bombs of the town of Guernica in the Basque country, he painted the renowned oil painting in monochrome. With no doubut,this is the artist’s landmark painting Guernica, a protest against the barbaric air raid against a Basque village.Guernica. is composition was a grouping of human and animal forms being destroyed by bombs during the war. He was so outraged by the death of these innocents that he put his soul into this enormous work. People can look to this painting as an expression of sorrow for the tragic loss of life in all wars. In Guernica, Picasso used symbolic forms as well.

§Conclusion

Pablo Picasso created thousands of works in his lifetime. And he was not only a very prolific printmaker, but also a very diverse one in the use of a great variety of different techniques. He created lithographs, etchings, dry points, lino cuts, woodcuts and aquatints. Always on the search for something new, he experimented a lot with these techniques. Some of Picasso’s graphic works are combinations of several techniques.

Through out history, never have a painter has so many kinds of forms, from naturalism to expressionism, from classicism to romanticism, then turned back to realism; Never have a artist created so many kinds of art, sculpture, ceramic, lithography, play writing, and poetry. As a special honor to him, on his 90th birthday, many of Picasso’s works were displayed in the Louvre, Paris. This was the first time that a living artists works had been hung in the famous museum.

Pablo Picasso had backward view on life and people. He saw things out of order, or upside down. He painted this way and influenced people to paint, this type of influence could have only came from one person, Picasso. His paintings in every-day life to enrich our lives. We also use them to enjoy ourselves, and to see how this man’s imagination made art just that much better.

Picasso described himself as a poet who had gone wrong: “When I was a child, my mother said to me, become a soldier you’ll be a general. If you become a monk you’ll end up as the Pope. Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” But I think the last sentence should have changed and also the recognized truth is “I became a painter and would always to be the most important artist in 20th century as Picasso”.

References:

Brassai Conversations With Picasso

Patrick O’Brian Picasso: A Biography

Herbert Read A Concise History OF Modern Painting

www,webmuseum.com

Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. And when your parents show you a photo of them when they were your age and you can see that mostly the photo was black and white, and the close that they wore were nothing like what we were now. Have you ever watched a home video of when you were young and you see your mom and your dad with clothes on that you never pictured them wearing I no I have. I’ve seen my mom with big puffy hair and my dad with this slicked back hair, they told me that was the style then. Don’t you ever wonder what your kids are going to say when you show them a picture of yourself when you were younger, but I also think about what kind of fashion styles are going to begin when I turn to my early 40’s. As you can see the topic that I chose to write about is “Fashion”. When you here the word fashion what comes to your mind. I no when I here the word fashion I think about clothes. But did you no that fashion started bye art.

Here are some of the styles that I found that are in. Fur is hot again. Tweed is in. Bold colors are good. Stripes, too. But those bits of information don’t really help you decide what clothes to choose when you want a certain image a certain image really counts.

A working definition of Modernism was the rejection of Victorian ways. Victorian culture emphasized nationalism and cultural absolutism. Victorians placed humans over and outside of nature. They believed in a single way of looking at the world, and in absolute and clear-cut dichotomies between right and wrong, good and bad, and hero and villain. Further, they saw the world as being governed by God’s will, and that each person and thing in this world had a specific use. Finally, they saw the world as neatly divided between civilized and savage peoples. According to Victorians, the civilized were those from industrialized nations, cash-based economies, Protestant Christian traditions, and patriarchal societies; the savage were those from agrarian or hunter-gatherer tribes, barter-based economies, pagan or totemistic traditions, and matriarchal (or at least unmanly societies).

Modernists rebelled against Victorian ideals. Blaming Victorianism for such evils as slavery, racism, and imperialism–and later for World War I–Modernists emphasized humanism over nationalism, and argued for cultural relativism. Modernists emphasized the ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature. They argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred the Victorian dichotomies by presenting antiheroes, uncategorisable persons, and anti-art movements like Dada. Further, they challenged the idea that God played an active role in the world, which led them to challenge the Victorian assumption that there was meaning and purpose behind world events. Instead, Modernists argued that no thing or person was born for a specific use; instead, they found or made their own meaning in the world. Challenging the Victorian dichotomy between “civilized” and “savage,” Modernists reversed the values associated with each kind of culture. Modernists presented the Victorian “civilized” as greedy and warmongering (instead of being industrialized nations and cash-based economies), as hypocrites (rather than Christians), and as enemies of freedom and self-realization (instead of good patriarchs). Those that the Victorians had dismissed (and subjugated) as “savages” the Modernists saw as being the truly civilized–responsible users of their environments, unselfish and family-oriented, generous, creative, mystical and full of wonder, and egalitarian. These “savages,” post-WWI Modernists pointed out, did not kill millions with mustard gas, machine-guns, barbed wire, and genocidal starvation

During the period of the early 1900’s, from 1900-1930 an immense change in the way people looked at the world at the turn of the century led to a change in the way artists represented the world. The figurative tradition, in which artists based art on the human figure and daily routines, was taken to another level by two major artists, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. A second style of art also immerged during this time period, in which artists completely rejected the visual world and instead, communicated through the purity of their materials and paintings. This is a style common to Wassily Kandinsky of the Blue Rider Group and Piet Mondrian. And then there exploded a vast array of other modernism movements.

Other than the Blue Rider Group and Cubism there existed a number of other prominent modernist movements; Futurism, Orphism, Neo-Plasticists, Dadaism and Surrealism. Italian Futurism originated from poet Marinetti in Le Figaro on February 22, 1899. It was an absolute opposition to art of the past and a complete glorification of the the upcoming art of the future. “The gesture we are seeking to represent on canvas is no longer that of any specific moment in the dynamism of the universe, but simply the dynamic sensation itself.” To create this future look, this moment in time, everything was in the midst of a state of motion, so the art necessarily had to become distorted. This attempted to show a change in our stream of consciousness. The Futurists rebelled against intellectual concepts of art, but used Cubism’s analytical procedures. This allowed them to have an almost total freedom in regards to the object. Among these artists was: Gino Severini, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo D. Carra, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo.

Orphism was started by ROBERT DELAUNAY in 1911. This group included the artists: Kupka, Bruce, Morgan Russel, Macdonald Wright, and Sonia Terk. Orphism was based on Delaunay’s passion for color which he had previously held back. His first major painting of this orphic stage was Simultaneous Window (1911). He used color to communicate his instincts. He loved geometrical order, circles especially, and anything bright and free from black.

Neo-plasticists involved work with plastic and any other artificial material. Mondrian considered himself a Neo-Plasticist. He was the extreme in abstraction, with a mathematical approach to art. He believed he was expressing the ‘constant equilibrium’ which if fully implemented, the world would gain a new harmony through. His extremely simplistic works often admitted only horizontal and vertical line and used only the three primary colors plus black and white. This created a flat, two-dimensional surface. Being an extreme purist, he often broke with those who were against his formulation of art. He had a great concentration of form and was inflexible in his painting ideals. Piet Mondrian was also a prominent Neo-plasticist.

Dadaism In Zurich in 1917, the Dadaists produced the only genuine art of the twentieth century. They believed the previous forms of deliverance of ideals had only brought destruction. Their proof was World War I. They also believed that present day art was made from the academic upperclass, so they tried to break with traditional art theories. The literary element that instigated the Dadaist movement was led by the Schwitters, Anna Blume, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, and Richard Hulsenbeck. Using literature and writing on art helped change the direction and style of paintings. Dadaists also included photography, something that no other art movement had accepted. Their influence on the collage created a lasting impression on artists everywhere. In the Schwitters house, for example, a plaster sculpture inhabited one room –through the friends and family, the sculpture was constantly changing. This made the art into a living art form.

Surrealism; The term Surrealism was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, and created into a movement by poet Andre Breton in 1924. “Surrealism: pure, psychic automatism, through which one seeks to express the real course of one’s thinking orally, on paper or in any other way. Instinctive thinking without any control by reason and outside all aesthetic or ethical considerations.” This has a lot in common with Sigmund Freud’s philosophy in that it deals with dreams and depth psychology. The most famous Surrealists were Max Ernst and Salvador Dali.

The Blue Rider was an association of artists located in and around Munich. The group was founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc in 1911. Together with another group of artists, The Bridge, centered around Berlin, they represented the movement of German Expressionism.

The Blue Rider had a short life and a tragic end. At the outbreak of World War I, the group practically ceased to exist. Two of its founding members, Franz Marc and August Macke were called to the military and died in a senseless and barbaric war of unprecedented dimensions. After World War I, the German art scene was a different one - shell-shocked by the experience of war. The members of this group refused to allow rules to hinder their painting. Emotion was supreme in all their artwork.

After Marc encountered the kindred spirits who would later form the core of the Blue Rider group–including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Alexej Jawlensky–his style matured into a broader artistic philosophy. The Blue Rider was not a formal group with a manifesto and strict membership, but rather a changing network of artists who exhibited together and shared ideas. One of the most radical notions they proposed was the integration of all the arts across media boundaries, and they actively recruited not only painters and sculptors but also musicians, composers, writers, architects, and designers to their ranks. The artificial separation of form and idea, they argued, could not truthfully express the inner rhythm of the spirit. In their anthology of 1911, the Blue Rider Almanac, they included articles and essays on contemporary visual arts as well as music, theater, low arts, and ancient and non-Western cultures that embraced a wide range of conceptions about the place of art and the spiritual in the modern world. Which was of course in stark contrast to the Victorian values which preceded them. Of the many artists involved in the Blue Rider Group there was perhaps most prominently Wassily Kandinsky.

Wassily Kandinsky was the founder of the Blue Rider group. His affection for color led him to blend forms into abstract compositions. He used this abstract quality in order not to falsify his art through feelings associated with objects. Kandinsky believed this was the purest form of art. He said: ‘ The true subject of the picture is…. painting.’ He published many books on art theory including The Art of Spiritual Harmony and On Problem of Form. ‘I like every form that comes of necessity from the spirit, that has been created by the spirit, as I detest any form that has not. I think that the Philosophy of Art will in the future study with particular attention the spirit of things as well as their physical existence. And so an atmosphere will be created which will enable the human race to feel this Spirit in the same way that is now appreciates external appearances– which explains the public taste for representational painting. And through this the spirit of matter, and finally the spirit of the abstract will become quite evident to humanity. From this new faculty will spring the joy of pure abstract art.’ –Kandinsky.

Kandinsky was fascinated by music’s emotional power. Because music expresses itself through sound and time, it allows the listener a freedom of imagination, interpretation, and emotional response that is not based on the literal or the descriptive, but rather on the abstract quality that painting, still dependent on representing the visible world, could not provide. Wagner’s Lohengrin, which had stirred Kandinsky to devote his life to art, had convinced him of the emotional powers of music. The performance conjured for him visions of a certain time in Moscow that he associated with specific colors and emotions. It inspired in him a sense of a fairy-tale hour of Moscow, which always remained the beloved city of his childhood. His recollection of the Wagner performance attests to how it had retrieved a vivid and complex network of emotions and memories from his past: The violins, the deep tones of the basses, and especially the wind instruments at that time embodied for me all the power of that pre-nocturnal hour. I saw all my colors in my mind; they stood before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me. I did not dare use the expression that Wagnet had painted ‘my hour’ musically.

Kandinsky’s conviction that music is a superior art to painting due to its inherent abstract language came out forcefully in the artist’s admiration for the music of the Viennese composer Arnold SchÖnberg, with whom he initiated a longstanding friendship and correspondence and whose Theory of Harmony (1911) coincided with Kandinsky’s On the Spiritual in Art. Kandinsky’s complex relationship to SchÖnberg’s music is central to his concept of Composition, since SchÖnberg’s most important contribution to the development of music, after all, occurred in the area of composition.

SchÖnberg’s innovations, such as discarding chromaticism and abandoning tonal and harmonic conventions, unleashed a new future for musical explorations and formed an important turning point for compositional practice. In particular, two of the composer’s innovations radically opened musical compositional structures. Beginning with his First String Quartet in 1905, SchÖnberg introduced a chromatic structure that he defined as a developing variation, in which there was a continual evolution and transformation of the thematic substance of the musical piece, rejecting thematic repetition. This inspired the constant unfolding of an unbroken musical argument without recourse to the symmetrical balances of equal phrases or sections and their corresponding thematic content. As a result of this practice, SchÖnberg achieved a musical continuum that was richly structured, densely polyphonic, and in which all parts were equally developmental.

These new compositional structures led him toward free chromaticism, which emphasized nonharmonic tones and emancipation of dissonance (i.e., unresolved dissonance), one of the principal features of atonal music. Having such constant transformations, rather than the repetition of melodic pattern, endowed the work with a totally unconventional psychological depth, evocative power, and emotional strength. SchÖnberg’s innovations, which permitted any pitch configuration, ruptured traditional conventions of musical composition.

The magnitude of this revolutionary change can be compared to the fundamental transformation in Kandinsky’s painting from a figurative idiom to free, expressive, abstract work. The kinship between Kandinsky and SchÖnberg (who was also influenced by the philosophy of Schopenhauer) is a special example of the intellectual affinity of artists in search of new vehicles for expressing their inner emotions. These diverse artistic and philosophical influences were all important for the conception of Kandinsky’s first seven Compositions before World War I. And clearly separate him from the Victorian art and somewhat even specializes him amongst modernists as a particular rarity.

Kandinsky’s composition Komposition Mit Schachbrettstreifen. Using the subjective frame I find that Initially I am given the impression of a discord in the painting, a subtle chaos of meaningless shapes all vying for position and focus, the colours, black white orange green gray, add no feeling of continuity or harmony, no shape based in reality can be found, let alone relationship to reality. However after an extending piece of time staring at the painting patterns can be observed, and a relationship between the shapes can also be seen. As each shape is layered on top of another shape and some share the same dimensional plane as another shape whilst other are individual and merely sit on top or beneath the other shapes. It reminds me of a confused memory, one which is trying to being in utterances of memories all together only separated by miniscule moments of time, until it would seem that the eventual result was a collection of utterances with no specific relation, but together which make up a whole memory, though perhaps still not one that is in order. Under the structural frame Upon close inspection it appears there is some of a hammer in the painting, perhaps in relationship to the hammer and sickle, which Russia is famous for and a country to which Kandinsky is native. The chequered stretch at the bottom right appears almost to be a road leading to the circle, whilst beside the chequered stretch I see grass and objects relative to fish, perhaps representative of the journey to or from the circle to the outside. And of course the black circle underlying everything else, quite possibly a symbol for a portal, or the area which encapsulates the important aspect of his memory, whilst the other objects which are slightly superimposed over and around it represent the feelings of the place at the time, which could further give rise to the impression of the hammer. Look at the painting through the cultural frame we can see the reflection of modernism, As I mentioned before the hammer seems important, especially as Russia had just left the war 4 years previously and Bolsheviks communist party was now spreading their influence across the nation, perhaps communism is symbolised in the colours, with a lack of vibrant colour contrast, similar to the contrast of social classes in Russia, now things are becoming less contrasted and those which are still contrasted are now duller, less vibrant. The postmodern frame The painting challenges the role of coherence in art, as the audience may choose to find whatever meaning they desire from this painting, nothing about this can actually be based in reality as there are no natural constructs in reality which are similar to this, and certainly none which are this contorted and chaotic. It is a totally individual piece of art, an abstract painting. All of these things make it a definite modernist painting, given the context of the artist, the audience, the type of painting and the symbols.

Murnau painted in 1909 by Wassily Kandinsky. The subjective frame find me noticing The painting conjuring up feelings of a childlike delight in looking at the world for me. Bright vibrant colours abound and contrast, giving every individual detail the feeling of being brilliant and spectacular, so much so that things become blurred as you try to take in every aspect of the scene. The structural frame finds the close relation to the tree at the front of the painting being important, as a child trees are sources of entertainment for climbing and admiring, also, the offer shade, this can be related to a child’s instinctive attraction to maternal things, the shade is the protection against the sun, which, though enjoyable, can be painful after a while. The town in the background gives a warm feeling of home, an entirely welcoming place. The Post Modern Frame The expressionist nature of the painting sets it apart from others at the time. Kandinsky’s affection for color led him to blend forms into abstract compositions. He used this abstract quality in order not to falsify his art through feelings associated with objects. It is a totally unique painting reflecting modernist traits and values special to Kandinsky and his movement of the Blue Rider Group.

Cubism an early 20th-century school of painting and sculpture in which the subject matter is portrayed by geometric forms without realistic detail, stressing abstract form at the expense of other pictorial elements largely by use of intersecting often transparent cubes and cones.

Cubism, highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created principally by the painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro and refuting time-honoured theories of art as the imitation of nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects, whose several sides were seen simultaneously. Perhaps the essential Modernist Movement which has survived and certainly the one that flourished the most. And in it comprised the most famous artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Picasso born in Spain, was a child prodigy who was recognized as such by his art-teacher father, who ably led him along. The small Museo de Picasso in Barcelona is devoted primarily to his early works, which include strikingly realistic renderings of casts of ancient sculpture. Before he struck upon Cubism, Picasso went through a prodigious number of styles - realism, caricature, the Blue Period, and the Rose Period. The Blue Period dates from 1901 to 1904 and is characterized by a predominantly blue palette and subjects focusing on outcasts, beggars, and prostitutes. This was when he also produced his first sculptures. The most poignant work of the style is in Cleveland’s Museum of Art, La Vie (1903), which was created in memory of a great childhood friend, the Spanish poet Casagemas, who had committed suicide. The painting started as a self-portrait, but Picasso’s features became those of his lost friend. The composition is stilted, the space compressed, the gestures stiff, and the tones predominantly blue. Another outstanding Blue Period work, of 1903, is in the Metropolitan, The Blind Man’s Meal. Yet another example, perhaps the most lyrical and mysterious ever, is in the Toledo Museum of Art, the haunting Woman with a Crow (1903). Picasso discovered ancient Iberian sculpture from Spain, African art (for he haunted the African collections in the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris), and Gauguin’s sculptures. Slowly, he incorporated the simplified forms he found in these sources into a striking portrait of Gertrude Stein, finished in 1906 and given by her in her will to the Metropolitan Museum. She has a severe mask like face made up of emphatically hewn forms compressed inside a restricted space. (Stein is supposed to have complained, I don’t look at all like that, with Picasso replying, You will, Gertrude, you will.) This unique portrait comes as a crucial shift from what Picasso saw to what he was thinking and paves the way to Cubism. Then came the awesome Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907, the shaker of the art world (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Picasso was a little afraid of the painting and didn’t show it except to a small circle of friends until 1916, long after he had completed his early Cubist pictures. Cubism is essentially the fragmenting of three-dimensional forms into flat areas of pattern and color, overlapping and intertwining so that shapes and parts of the human anatomy are seen from the front and back at the same time. The style was created by Picasso in tandem with his great friend Georges Braque, and at times, the works were so alike it was hard for each artist quickly to identify their own. The two were so close for several years that Picasso took to calling Braque, ma femme or my wife, described the relationship as one of two mountaineers roped together, and in some correspondence they refer to each other as Orville and Wilbur for they knew how profound their invention of Cubism was. Every progressive painter, whether French, German, Belgian, or American, soon took up Cubism, and the style became the dominant one of at least the first half of the 20th century. In 1913, in New York, the new style was introduced at an exhibition at the midtown armory - the famous Armory Show - which caused a sensation. Picasso would create a host of Cubist styles throughout his long career. After painting still-lifes that employed lettering, trompe l’oeil effects, color, and textured paint surfaces, in 1912 Picasso produced Still-Life with Chair-Caning, in the Picasso Museum in Paris, which is an oval picture that is, in effect, a cafe table in perspective surrounded by a rope frame - the first collage, or a work of art that incorporates preexisting materials or objects as part of the ensemble. Elements glued to the surface contrasting with painted versions of the same material provided a sort of sophisticated double take on the part of the observer. A good example of this, dubbed Synthetic Cubism, is in the Picasso Museum, Paris, the witty Geometric Composition: The Guitar (1913). The most accomplished pictures of the fully developed Synthetic Cubist style are two complex and highly colorful works representing musicians (in Philadelphia and the Museum of Modern Art, New York). He produced fascinating theatrical sets and costumes for the Ballet Russe from 1914 on, turned, in the 1920s, to a rich classical style, creating some breathtaking line drawings, dabbled with Surrealism between 1925 and 1935, and returned to Classicism. Of his many paintings I have chosen Guernica and Aficionado.

Guernica painted in 1937 by Pablo Picasso, using the subjective frame My initial impression is that I receive the images of a scene of great pain, nearly, morbid and terrifying, the disturbing images and contorted bodies, as well as the severed limbs, broken swords, and dead bodies, and the truly ominous bulls head make this a wholly disturbing picture. The Black and white colours create a strange balance, and the contrast of images seems natural, lacking a contrived nature. It has a strong emotional impact, I feel disturbed, and worried and intrigued. Pablo Picasso I believe made this in relation to the Guernica bombing by Germany on Spain. Looking at the painting through the structural frame I find that the most obvious visual image is the bulls head, a disturbed contortion of a normal one. The shapes of the objects are all askew, and the position of objects seem intentionally peculiar, as though they were merely turned on their sides. The black and white of the painting offer no distractions, focus goes entirely to the imagery and no needless concern with anything else. The visual language is very strong, giving a very definite feeling about the painting. The cultural frame helps better to represent the modernist nature of this painting, as it concerns itself with world events and rejects them as cruel, needless and disturbing, the attack on Guernica sparked Picasso’s interest in creating this. The Spanish people are represented in the dead bodies and severed limbs. War has occurred. The disturbing tragedy of this occurrence is represented in this painting. Finally of the Post Modern Frame, Guernica is unique to the Picasso style. It is challenging the fascism at the time of its creation. This was an unusual occurrence as rarely if ever had an artist been asked to portray in his own manner the nature of war as he cared to see it, this was not a beautiful rendition of glory nor of social understanding and especially not propaganda, it maintains itself as painting of something tragic as the tragic see it.

Aficionado painted in 1912 by Pablo Picasso, evaluating the painting through the Subjective Frame I find there is a certain abstraction to this form of Cubism. It is almost incomprehensible, lacking any logical continuity or pattern, it is a mass of shapes, represented and the original object is not represented in the form of itself. The particular dull colours make the white standout. Sharp shapes, and images of newspapers almost occur, even a facial expression can be observed, as I choose to see it. By the Structural Frame I see that the symbols create no continuity, and even interpreting the symbols is a decidedly complex and hard thing to do. The images however, may be intentionally cryptic, not purely for the intensive purpose of perceiving the object from as many different angles at the same time but for the absolution of an analytical form of cubism, make it so that, all the person can do is analyse, without ever achieving any form of mental ends to the proposed analysis. That is to say, analysing for the sake of analysing. Some contrast does exist, but it is minimal, fluid chaos would be an apt summary of this as far as I am concerned. The tone is a strange one, you might almost say depressed. And finally the Post Modern frame, being a cubist painting, it is unconventional, at no stage before had a painter tried to depict different viewpoints simultaneously; in other works, it was used more as a method of visually laying out the facts of the object, rather than providing a limited mimetic representation. The aim of Analytical Cubism was to produce a conceptual image of an object, as opposed to a perceptual one. This said the painting challenged all normal perceptions of what a painting should contain, and how it should present itself to the audience as well as how the audience should prepare itself to interpret the painting. This was created in what was undoubtedly the most complex stage of cubism.

From Manet’s initial rejection of tradition in painting, beginning the modernist movement, the modernism scene exploded in a diverse array of movements which belonged to modernism, artists now free to express their true artistic intentions helped found an economy of intellectual wealth and prosperity. Modernists emphasized the ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature. They argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred the Victorian dichotomies by presenting antiheroes, uncategorisable persons, and anti-art movements like Dada. Further, they challenged the idea that God played an active role in the world, which led them to challenge the Victorian assumption that there was meaning and purpose behind world events. Instead, Modernists argued that no thing or person was born for a specific use; instead, they found or made their own meaning in the world.

Introduction

Over the past few decades, the expansion of design principles has dramatically changed the way design concepts are viewed by people. The strong influences of principles towards good design have driven evolutions in many design artifacts. This document will represents a compilation of what should good design have as its principles, which have been compiled from many resources on design, as well as my own experience and from a comprehensive literature gathered from multiple resources. Moreover, most of these principles can be applied to any kind of design either in fashion, product or graphical.

If there is such a thing as beauty, we need to be able to recognize it. We need a good sense to be able to design good things. Instead of indulging beauty as a concept, to be either non-sense about or avoided depending on how one feels about fresh concept, it is best to try considering it as a practical question: How do you make good design? This document is expected to be systematically developed a set of general and supporting good design principles.

Design

The term design is defined as the act of planning a form of idea, a decorative or an artistic work, a sketch used to indicate the plan for something, an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides actions planned. Design indicates to an idea, which is aimed at. Objectives points to the feelings or desire with which an idea is required. The purposes of design are that it has indication to a complete choice or purpose for its success.

The life cycle cost of a design artifact is, to a large extent, influenced by its maintainability. Besides being a statistical concept, maintainability is a design factor whose achievement is influenced by known elements and attributes. However, these elements and attributes appear far and beyond in literary sources.

One can assume that all good design principles are varies in physical, intellectual / psychological aspects and properties. Until now, a common difficulty in creating and designing new products, or modifying existing ones, is to know to what these design should be, that is, whether it will be acceptable to the public or just simply for the pleasure of the designer.

All products, old and new, can be described in functional terms relating to the level in which they assist people to handle materials physically and/or to use information in their work. For example, an electric toothbrush has changed the way people cleans the tooth easily, it has been recommended by dentist all over the world; a pocket calculator can assist every businessman with tedious arithmetic. Products can thus be described as ‘physical’ and ‘intellectual’ capabilities, and a typical example is Microsoft Word that takes both the physical and intellectual dullness out of productive writing.

The definition of a desirable product depends entirely on the point taken such as: technological, commercial, ecological, cultural and social. However, any design using new technology will incorporate the existing and will include new design elements. The probability in acceptance of society towards a new product designed is enhanced by maintaining a balance between imaginative and a creative new form, and also that with people are familiarize with and preferable, a new design may be rejected if it is too original and unfamiliar design shape, or it is consider as too traditional.

Principles

Universal good design principles should be usable by all people to the greatest extent as possible without the need for adaptation or specialized design. These principles may be applied to evaluate an existing design, and also a guideline to the design process and their impact towards the environment and society.

1. User Profiling

The first step to consider when designing a product is to obtain information of who will be using the design. A design that is good quality for a technically skilled user might not benefit for a non-technical person or an artist. When all information is gathered, the designer can then proceed to start designing the interface of the product to achieve the goals of the product design. A physical interaction to the user is appropriate to understand the purpose of the design it self.

The following questions are conflicting values. How much uniqueness is good and how much consistency is good? How do our design decisions reflect both? Mass produced items have a tendency to show conformity in our culture in spite of the fact that individual freedom of choice is highly valued in our tradition. In many tribal cultures hand crafted artifact show individuality.

2. Reasonable Use

Design should be useful and accepted to the society with perfect functionality. Ideas about the usefulness of the design should be carefully thought before starting any of the design process.

For examples: a typical house stove has four burners arranged in a square, and a dial to control each. How should the dials be arranged? The answer is to put them in a row. But this is a simple answer to the wrong question. The dials are meant to be use, but if the dials are put in a row, the user will have to stop and think each time about which dial are used to ignite the burner. It will be better to arrange the dials in a square like the burners or even maybe next to the burner.

A lot of bad design is industrious, but misleading with the purpose of it is being designed. In middle of the twentieth century there was a trend for setting text in sans-serif fonts. These fonts are closer to the pure, underlying letterforms. But in reality that is not the problem we are trying to solve. It is much more important that letters are easy to tell apart and read from a distance.

Product for adults has been designed as efficiently as possible to give pleasure for the people that will use it. Some people consider this as taboo and not appropriate for the market. Nevertheless, there are more and more demands for these kinds of products to be placed in the market. Beside the uniquely design concept suitable for any person, this design product also prevents other transmitted disease. In a matter of speaking this product design has decrease the sexual disease among societies.

Problems can be improved as well as solutions. In software, an intractable problem can usually be replaced by an equivalent one that’s easy to solve. Sometimes updates or patches are being distributed with no charge to solve the setback.

3. Aesthetics

It’s not necessary that each design have to be visually attractive. But it is important not to have an unattractive shape. There are a number of simple principles from a graphical design principle that can easily be learned. From the Gospels, we have a beautiful example of how aesthetic is important compared to functions. This happens when Mary broke the expensive perfume in Christ’s honor. It was an aesthetic experience unappreciated as a waste of resources by the disciples, but clearly endorsed and blessed by Christ. It is clear that all our needs are not met by practical things and function alone. Appreciation is often expressed through aesthetic means.

Beauty itself cannot make bad people into a better person, but it is one of the positive influences on us. These includes, where public housing projects being demolished which first buy their own inhabitants, and finally by contractor in planning explosives and ruined a designed work of others.

Ethically speaking, a design should need to reflect hope, and not merely an existence. An aspect of art can give a measurement of sense of worth, identity, and hope, even where it is existed just a little.

To deny aesthetics for economic reasons or for practical considerations does not make the world into a better place. Perhaps those of us learning design must observe, listen, respond, and question about what is bad while we can, but we must not enforce such understanding.

4. Flexibility in Use

With the term flexibility, we introduce a new design concept of a particular products quantitatively characterizes. It is important when designing a product that alternatively may be used for other purposes. An example of multipurpose design is the Swiss army knife, where a single knife has a multipurpose uses and the size is small and handy, which makes it easier to be carried around daily.

Once you get familiar with the concepts, producing a flexible design is probably not too difficult compared to producing a fixed design. A flexible design requires less maintenance and which is easier to do. Furthermore, it is also cheaper when one considers maintenance over the life-time of a design product.

A designer should not be static with their design concept and he/she should not also be constantly attached with a lot of principles in designing an artwork. By being flexible, it does not mean artists breaking the set rules of a principle. Most of the principles can sometimes be appropriate for some events, but ethically speaking the moral can determined by what is being right and wrong. None the less, a flexible design has some issues in regards of the consistency. Since a consistency exist when a design is not flexible, but then a flexible design can’t be a consistent.

5. Simple and Intuitive Use

The design aim is clearly stated, regardless the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, income levels and user ethic background. You hear this from math to painting. In math it means that shorter evidence tends to be a better one. For architects and designers it means that beauty should depend on a few carefully chosen structural elements rather than a profusion of enhancement. Enhancement is not entirely bad, only when it is hidden on colorless design. Similarly, in painting, a still life of a few carefully observed and solidly modeled objects will tend to be more interesting than a stretch of flashy but mindlessly repetitive painting.

It seems strange to have to emphasize simplicity. However, something seems to come over people when they try to be creative. Beginner designers have adopted a trend that doesn’t sound anything like the way they speak. Their artwork has expressed their feeling toward a specific genre.

6. Honesty

Honesty is not the common word we most hear during this time of year, where the worlds are in the terror of terrorist. But none the less, we as designers should implement honesty into our design.

No matter how humble the material, honesty should always be considered more beautiful than deception. On the other hand, there are products made from plastic that are honest in the sense that they could not be made from any other product. IMac computer housing makes no attempt to look like another material, but many people find it very attractive. With the help of capable designers, plastic as plastic can be aesthetically pleasing and appealing. With honest concept reflect toward, the use of plastic in IMac computer housing enables it to be recycles and friendly to the environment.

7. Consistency

A consistent look and feel will relieve the user towards product design, Example: In a newspaper where the fonts and the size are being used for the body will have the same typefaces throughout the entire newspaper. This reflects a consistency being used by the graphic designer. Magazines, newspapers, and television gives a lot of attention to a recognizable style layout uses to attract people. It will be shown if you browse through any magazine. The longer you look, the more you often a kind of uniformity is shown. In page layout, fonts, writing style, use of color, titles, headers, lines, images etc. Newspapers are often distinguishable just by font and column width. This all serves just one purpose and that is recognizable. You know where to expect certain thing; you don’t have to look for it anymore.

A television set can be an example. When you intended to turn on the TV you simply press the button that says on/off. What if the on/off button being press instead turning on the television changes the channel? Wonder about what would happen if the buttons would change places every time you press one. Quite annoying, don’t you think?

This approach has some added advantages. When you are designing a new concept on a new design, you can limit the efforts to its content. Also other people can work more easily on the product, when a re-design is required. Furthermore, a consistent design reflects its product identity towards the public. A consistent appearance will have a unity to its craftsmanship. Consistent material being used by Macintosh Apple has appealing and also familiarization of the product toward the society. That can be recognized by noticing part of the design.

8. Enduring

Design can be used efficiently as possible with a comfortably and minimum weariness from time to time. A static design will eventually be outdated and resulting in the down of revenues.

We value permanence and tradition, but we also value creativity, changes, improvements, and relevance to the time in which we live. If a design can stand the test of time, is it better than a new design that rejects old appearances because better materials and processes have been discovered or invented.

For a new designed technology to be successful, it has to come at the right time. Developing something too early may mean that it will be forgotten by the time it is needed, or worse, it cannot be used, and it is because the intermediate steps have turned out to be different than what was expected. But what is the right time? It is hard to say, however some of the symptoms of its arrival are that people start asking for something, that there are people available with ideas, and especially that the obvious solution appeared.

Aiming at a timeless design is also a way to avoid the grip of fashion. Fashion, by definition, almost change time to time, therefore if you can make something that will still looks good far into the future, then its appeal must derive more from merit and less from fashion. An example of a timeless design in fashion can be shown by Louis Vuitton timeless design product. From first being introduced to the market until now has reached their market for the superior class and prestige design craftsmanship.

Strangely enough, if you want to make an idea that will appeal to future generations, a way to do this is by trying to appeal to past generations. It is hard to guess what the future will be like, but we can be sure it will be like the past in caring nothing for present fashions.

9. Minimal

Minimal design is one of the most significant design principles, in order to emphasize the important. The starting point of a good design is by identifying the essential aspect(s) of the problem. It is about understanding the design problem, and focusing on the essentials. It is not about being able to justify inclusion because anything can be justified.

Minimal design involves a paring down to only the essential elements required to provide maximal function and aesthetic appeal reflected on the entire design artifact. Example of a minimalist design product is the IKEA furniture, after it is unwise to describe a design artifact as being low-priced considering the cost of material used, there can be no doubt that many artifacts are burdened with an excess of material being over the years.

The simplest designs can make a good design, that are characterized by simplicity, elegance, details, materials quality and a concern with functionality in both the physical and psychological sense for user. By achieving a convincing, highly-functional simplicity and harmony, it is an approach that has little to do with the economy or convenience. Better minimal design artwork should come as a result in the creation of a relatively simple, elegant, and functional and processes that, each provides the maximal purposes for intellectual development and achievement of the designer.

10. Ecologically friendly

Ecological Design describes how making natural systems the basis for design makes more efficient, less toxic, healthier, and more sustainable buildings, landscapes, cities, and technologies. (Van der Ryn & Cowan 1995.)

We know that it requires resources to meet human needs, but we also value caring for resources. How can we show care about resources as not something we use up but something we borrow from future users. Design are met in optimizing the use of resource (time, people and content), it would minimize waste (time, energy, materials). It would be sensitive to the local environment, and also being adaptable successfully to a dynamic environment.

Un-recycled product does not mean clutter and messy boxes in hallways, or whether there any beautifully designed solutions to encourage even the most un-recycled material to be recycled product. Many recycle material are produced in the market to be used by designer. The complexity is to find out whether the designer is willing to utilize the use of ecological material as a part of their design artifact.

As a designer, we should be conditioned to find the pleasure in preservation of resources, in consuming of the resources efficiently. Consequently, the ecological approach demands that we explicitly analyze constraints that are endangered the environment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a good design contributes more value than costs. It is also a profitable design. Furthermore, it is not sufficient for a design to contribute to the performance requirements. It must not cost more than the value of the level of performance it reflects. A designer must be able to estimate the cost impacts of a given design on all critical resource dimensions, in order to justify it. The failure of correctly estimating the design cost impacts can cause budget overrun or schedule overrun.

Design as practiced today is too often failing to systematically address the multiple needs to the society. Since most design principles are connected to each other. Designers have to understand the right principles to be applied for the purpose functionality and its user.

Practically, it is easier to see unattractiveness than to imagine beauty. Most people who have made beautiful things seem to achieve it by fixing things that they thought unattractive. Great work usually seems to happen because of the thought of “they could do better than that” as well as perceiving something good.

There are many other points that could be made, but the general principle is that a good design should also have a well purpose defined and need to be evaluated for their effects on social interaction and nature.

Bibliography:

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* Robertson, A, et al., Research & its Assessment in Art, Design & the Performing Arts, Working Party Report, De Montfort University, Leicester. England Feb. 1993.

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The historical process which led to the creation of rationalism in architecture had none of its biological inevitability, and had no clear beginnings which can be pinpointed with precision. There were a number of predisposing causes and strands of ideas, each with its own pedigree.1 Rationalism, in general, started in the eighteenth century with the birth of progressive ideals and the Industrial Revolution. As factors evolved from both conditions, the architecture of the era was inevitably affected. The idealists wanted to come up with the idealistic city, obsessed with the Utopian thought of changing a materialistic city to one which is more humane and harmonious. Several styles evolved and in particular, Traditionalism stood out. Many people believed that tradition was to inspire invention and at the same time invention keeps tradition alive. However, it was only when Marc Antoine Laugier came up with the concept of the primitive hut did the theory of how the best forms were rooted in functional or structural demands was developed and that was how Rationalism started. It was with this, that the Rationalist doctrine re-emerged many years after in Italy.

After the war, Mussolini felt no constraints to use Rome as his play set and had the plan to renovate the place with a blend of theatricality, functionalism and propaganda.2 By the time Mussolini took control, Fascism was already well established. Thus there was minimal suspicion with reference to socialist ideology. There was a wide span of possibilities to play up various architectural styles with the focus on the concern for the consciousness of history. That opened up the new possibilities for modern tradition. That was also how a Rationalist doctrine re-emerged, under Gruppo 7.

Gruppo 7 was made up of 7 young architectural students. They started the third major movement in Italy, Rationalism, after Futurism and Novecentism. The members of the group were Guiseppe Terragni, Carlo Enrico Rava, Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, Guido Frette, Ubaldo Castagnoli (later replaced by Adalberto Libera) and Sebastiano Larco, with the former three being the key players. During the First World War, architecture in Italy was influenced mostly by Novecentism and they were forced to bear with the current movement. After the war, with their personal maturity, architectural educations and political awareness, the Rationalists attempted to fix the post-war social, economic and political situations, through the introduction of Rationalism in the Italian architectural realm. Little do they know, at that point, they had actually failed to see the social needs of Traditionalism in Italy.

The Rationalists opened its discussion by declaring that there was a “new spirit” existing in Europe and a fresh, vital interrelationship of all the arts manifested this new spirit. In an effort to strengthen their point, they criticized Futurism and Novecentism for lacking in this aspect. They described Futurism as an “artificial impulse”, “empty, destructive fury that confuses the good and the bad” and conveyed their disillusionment. Novecentism was perceived by them as a movement who were too concerned with ornamentation, thereby leading to degeneration in an unsophisticated and sterile formula unrelated to structure or material.

On December 1926, the Rationalists came out with a four part series of articles in a cultural review, Rassegna Italiana, to understand an architecture response fittingly to twentieth century that was Rationalism.3———————————————————————————————————————1 Modern Architecture since 1900 by William J.R. Curtis, Pg 212 Modern Architecture since 1900 by William J.R. Curtis, Pg 3603 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 45 – 52Central to the writings of Gruppo 7 was the belief that the ‘universal’ achievements of the Modern Movement were not incompatible with a national character. Indeed, the manifesto embraced a nationalist programme consistent with the cultural policies of the fascist regime.

Echoing Le Corbusier, their manifesto announced the advent in Europe of the new spirit; it was distinguished by strict adherence to logic and rationality, a concern for rhythm and classical proportions and a sense of history as faith in the spirit of the age.

The first installment discussed their concept of true modern architecture and how it should be progressively approached by identifying logical solutions. They believed that architects gain experience with new materials and they should sensitize themselves in the new merging spirit. They never related architecture with machines or to compromise design due to calculation of mechanical formulas. They also assumed that with the awareness of national traditions, a new architecture would certainly surface.

The second and third installments of the manifesto discussed the architectural scene in Europe, particularly in Italy, deploring the poor quality of architectural education and the general public’s lack of comprehension, while the last part characterized that period as ‘a new archaic era’ in which architects were confronted with the promising beginnings of a new style. It served to amplify points made in the preceding installments. Gruppo 7 drew parallel between the contemporary situations with earlier history of architecture. According to them, to develop fulfillment in architecture, patient and thoughtful development is necessary whereby architects have to cultivate a sense of unselfishness in the disciplines.

Throughout the movement, the Rationalists fought to move architecture away from neo-classical and neo-baroque revivalism so as to embrace both Rationalist principles and aspects of modernist aesthetics. They wanted to provide design solutions in harmony with the new forms of living and working in an industrial society.

It was the sincerity; the strict adherence to the manifesto; and the sense of history that the Rationalists were looking for in architecture. They wanted to create functional architecture through the articulation of form based either on the precise study of structures or from the juxtaposition of horizontal and vertical components such as strip windows or protruding edges of slabs. 4Some other common features in which the Rationalists incorporated into their designs were the smooth surfaces, the clear arrangement of the volumes, the embodiment of Nature and the logical relationship between architecture and sculpture.

These architectural elements were evident in Terragni’s works, particularly the most important commission of his career: the Casa Del Fascio in Como, in 1932.The building had four symmetrical facades which contained radically different messages. The facades and details followed a strict system of geometric proportion. This aspect corresponded to the first installment in the manifesto – that architectural design should be about identifying the logic solution of programmatic requirement.5———————————————————————————————————————4 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 535 Giuseppe Terragni by Bruno ZeviThe strict system of geometric proportion portrayed the logical and orderly thinking that was supposed to be instilled in the architecture of Italian Rationalism.6 The facades were completely free of applied ornament. This further affirmed the second installment of the non-existence of ornamental themes or abstract ideologies in Rationalism architecture.

Other than being a physical realization of modern architecture, Casa Del Fascio was also a symbolic statement about the nature of Fascism. There were many openings allowing a maximum amount of light and air through the extensive use of glass. This “house of glass” represented an openness that discarded any barriers, hindrances and obstacles between the Fascist leaders and the people. From this building, we can also see an intransigent inspiration towards perfection, and this has a political connotation too – the antithesis of the fascist reality. Not forgetting the fourth installment, the use of glass as a new material provided new opportunities for architects during that period.7Another major project as a result of the movement was Casa Elettrica. The house measured 8m by 16m in plan which formed a half-cube similar to Terragni’s Casa Del Fascio. The planning for it was rigorously functional and logical. Figini and Pollini designed the Casa Elettrica in this way so that it integrated industrial and architectural procedures for harmonious domestic inhabitation within an industrialized environment, achievable by the extensive use of glass.

Casa Elettrica was the first of its kind which created a novel kind of domestic landscape filled with new objects and experiences. Driven by the desire of logic and order; and the technological advancement during industrialization, Bottoni worked on the kitchen installation where he planned the layout and inserted a rotating section in the counter top. This rational approach reflected the theme of the pavilion: increased comfort and efficiency through the introduction of labor-saving electrical devices.8Figini and Pollini also embodied Nature within their architecture by enhancing the relationship between the interior and the surrounding environment. They designed panoramic broad windows in order to enjoy the views of the outdoors. The main living room had one huge glazed wall providing a panoramic view into the garden. 9Mussolini’s influence by Fascism was shown in the Palazzo dell’ Esposizione, a temporary structure built for Mostra Della Rivoluzione Fascista, marking the tenth anniversary of the fascist March on Rome. The entire new façade was a huge central blood red cube with rectangular wings as the background, and four huge, freestanding metallic fasci littori (symbol of the Fascist party) standing in front. The symmetrical properties of this façade yet again reflected the emphasis of logic in Rationalism. The use of steel also accentuated the fourth installment, where different constructive possibilities have emerged. This fascist political emblem, after being transformed into a giant architectural element, not only changed the whole outlook of the Palazzo dell’ Esposizione in an extremely dramatic fashion, but its striking facade also adjusted the whole street-scape of the Via Nazionale, a major traffic artery of Rome.10 This architectural design thus asserted a sense of priority and importance of the political considerations in the lives of the people of the nation.

———————————————————————————————————————6 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, Pg 4397 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, Pg 4458 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 609 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 6110 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 132Shortly after in 1943, the mysterious death of Terragni and Cattaneo brought Italian Rationalism movement to an abrupt close.11It was questionable how the movement came to an end so easily. Evidently, despite all their efforts, Rationalism was not widely accepted. The Rationalists were accused of reducing architecture to engineering, of eliminating the spiritual content of art. The Functionalism has removed the obligation of sensibility, emotion, and ideas and has transported it outside the category of art, reducing it to the condition of pure practicality.12 Many had felt that the “spiritual needs” were left unaccounted in Rationalists’ architecture.13In addition, the Italian Rationalists were also provoked of introducing a foreign style, in particular a German style, into Italy which caused many critics fear of losing Italy’s traditional culture and identity.14As the manifesto was uncertain and misleading in nature of the relationship between internationalist and nationalist principles, it was criticized as a weak point in the definition of Italian Rationalism.15 At the same time, the Rationalists development of architecture with recognizable national characteristics had been interpreted as an obstacle to the effective modernization of Italian architectural practice.16 This distinctive national identity within the context of European design was criticized as a reflection of a narrow interpretation of modern architecture.

Marcello Piacentini, one of the commanding figures of Italian architecture during the 1920s, also criticized that the Rationalists’ formula was inadequate for Italy, both technically and aesthetically.17 He viewed the functionalist credo of the Rationalists too simplistic and climatically inappropriate, thus irrational. The architecture had large glass windows that let in too much light, and there were no cornice to protect the walls from rains and no attics to protect the upper floors from heat or cold. Thus it was not a truly rational architecture but rather a style which is a type of décor.18 In addition, he also argued that the Rationalists had left out the importance of appreciating typological hierarchy in their architecture. Thus he expressed fear that Rationalist buildings would be out of character in the historical fabric of Italian cities.

In our personal opinion, one of the reasons Rationalism failed was because the Rationalists failed to translate Traditionalism into Italian context. The Italians are known for their relatively strong culture and Roman spirituality, in comparison to other cities in Europe. As a result, it was a near impossible feat to imbue them with the logic and sensibility in buildings. The people of Italy feel that their culture should reflect upon the architecture, yet the rational buildings stripped the streets of Rome completely of their identity.

———————————————————————————————————————————11 Modern architecture: a critical history by Kenneth Frampton, pg 20912 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, pg 32213 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, pg 32514 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, pg 32215 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 5216 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 7217 Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 by Dennis P. Doordan, pg 7318 Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940 by Richard A. Etlin, pg 324In 1942, the Rationalists collaborated with Marcello Piacentini, a critic of Italian Rationalism, on the plan for the E42 Exposition, in spite of their different beliefs and architectural styles. We felt that this led to a loss of faith among the Rationalism supporters within Italy, as the integrity of Rationalism architecture appeared to be so readily compromised. Evidently, over the years, the devotees of Roman spirituality proved that their belief for their tradition was stronger than that of the Rationalists’ beliefs in their own movement. This inevitably pushed the scale towards the death of Italian Rationalism.

There was undeniable disunity among the advocators of Italian Rationalism. The structures of their organizations were not constituted, and as a result, it caused disputes within the groups. Piacentini’s criticisms on the architecture of Rationalism in publications also proved to have weakened their unity, when it should have strengthened their conviction.

Moreover, the public was blatantly criticizing the Rationalists’ for ‘copying’ works by other architects built in other parts of Europe. While they were defended by a few parties, with the claim that it was in an effort to improve on their designs, it was clear from the buildings built that the similarities were uncanny. Eg. Novoconum by Terragni took the strip windows, roof and the structural system direct from Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.

Due to these contributing factors, when Terragni and Cattaneo died, the opposition took it as an opportunity to end the movement, and there were no strong advocators succeeding. The dissenting architects went underground.

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Frampton, Kenneth. (2003). Modern Architecture – A Critical History (3rd ed.). Chapter 23: Giuseppe Terragni and the architecture of Italian Rationalism 1926-1943. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.