The first machine age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The first machine age - Essay Example In addition, the development of the printing press technology meant that the public had a variety of sources to get information from, apart from the church – all these changes brought a lot of inspiration especially on the arena of aesthetic (Banham, 1980). Just like the Machine Age, the architects and other designers had an assortment of materials to choose from, unlike in the ancient times when this was limited. Designers started to adopt things that they could call their own, and this led to the development of various artistic movements such as purism, Nouveau, De Stijl, Constructivism, Bauhaus, and Scandinavian. All these movements brought about a lot of impacts on different fields of visual worlds including architecture, furniture, graphic designs, art, life style, and so on (Banham, 1980). This paper will briefly discuss each of these movements and then delve into some of the symbolic examples from these movements, which have made a key impact on different kinds of conte mporary designs. Purism Purism was an alternative of Cubism, and was an inspiration of mechanization. During the machine age, two French artists (Amedee Ozenfant [1886-1966] and Edouard Jeanneret [1886-1965]) provided a response to the fascination and perplexity of pure functionality. The two artists expressed their belief in the significance of artistic rigour, impersonality and precision under the label of Purism. The two French artists who were later known as Le Corbusier sought a more rational elucidation of Cubism, beyond its symbolic and literary baggage and decorative or dynamic motivation. The aim of purist theory was to reinstate painting to an archaic purity in which case representation would be logical, geometrical and patently obvious. The aesthetic of industrial technology and machines was used to model this ideal of essentiality and efficiency in art, which Le Corbusier suggested as a possible repertory of plastic forms (Matteson Art, n.d). : Figure 1: Le Corbusier,  oil on canvas,  1926 The major objective of their work was to provide an illustration of collective values such as asceticism, order and lucidity. Part of their manifesto stated that the utmost pleasure of the human spirit was the recognition of order and the utmost fulfillment of humans was to be experienced in assisting in production, or being an essential part of this order. As shown in figure 1, their paintings were somewhat completely still life representations of domestic components including pipes, jugs, and glasses. Evidently described against a straightforward perspectives level surface, their works complied with a ‘a general grammar of sensibility’ that standardized creative relationships, simplified forms, and drew away emotivity and accident in replacement with chromatic fields and a synthesis of lines. In October 1920, Le Corbusier together with the poet Paul Dermee introduced a review in order to publish their purist and rational principles. This led to publishing of L'Esprit Nouveau magazine for 5 years on a regular basis, until 1925. This publication, perhaps, succeeded in making an original contribution to the avant-garde European movements, which worked better than the earlier repetitive paintings that were produced by Le Corbusier (Marshall, 2008). Art Nouveau Art Nouveau was a movement that was associated with decorative architecture and arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe. This movement, which

Historical Documentary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Historical Documentary - Essay Example But one form of documentary was on an upwards curve even into the new millennium - the history documentary" Documentary films are non-fiction films which portray the events which have already happened and which are happening at the moment. This developed in time to be the historical documentaries which have entered a golden age in the literal sense of the word. This boom is attributed to many factors like the political changes, the crucial event in a country, the anxious arrival of the millennium, the unpredicted development of technology, and the accessibility of information. It is also due to freedom of information, favourable political and economical factors, the establishments of film archives, the regular transformation of the filmgoers and producers, prevailing nostalgia of what we left behind and the demand for more real historical events. Over and above these causes, the other noteworthy change was the co productions of history documentaries and political and economical conditions which added to the flourishing of these types of documentaries. "The documentary--whether it is a written account, a photograph, or a film--has long served as one of the primary sources for historians writing about the past as well as one of the key forms, historians use to communicate their stories about the past." (Professor Jill Watts -History 300B, spring 2007) Documentary film was actually born of the written and photographic tradition Initially, documentary films were just current events which had certain significance for the people living at that particular period of time. This created a genre of films which have a say not for the universal time but for only a period. This type of documentary would have had its heyday only when certain pulverizing events such as wars and political controversies took place. When the heat of the debate wears off, there is no more interest on the specific documentary anymore. History Documentary films have reflected attitudes and internal changes in British society for a century. British documentary as a notable movie genre surfaced around 1906. From then on documentary films began establishing a theme. The theme usually focused on the way of life of British working class and rarely touched on other types as well. An apt example of this is 'The Drifters' by Grierson The growth of Documentaries It is essential to note that the government and national agencies funded the production and distribution of such documentaries in the 1920s and 1930s. Popular agencies which got involved in this type of film making are the Ministries of Transport, Trade, Information, the General Post Office and Empire Marketing Board. The British documentary directors were all socialists and their documentaries such as Workers for Jobs by Arthur Elton in 1934, and then by Edgar Anstey in 1935 to devastating effect in Housing Problems for the Gas Light and Coal Company were technically advanced, using the latest film equipment in novel and exciting ways. They used synchronized sound-recording on location. Another important factor to note is that the 16mm film became standardized by Eastman and Bell & Howell in 1923 and the films were exhibited at cinemas as a