Production/Art History

*

George Orwell makes few references to the visual arts, yet he moved in an environment steeped in them via Cyril Connolly, Sonia Brownell and Horizon magazine. Orwell Society member Michael O’Sullivan reflects on an early twentieth-century art movement, perhaps like the one that led Orwell in 1940 to talk of the ‘sense in which, twenty years ago, a vegetarian meal or a Cubist picture used to be referred to as “Bolshevism”’.

*

The Dutch De Stijl group influenced the development of the 1915 Russian Constructivism movement. The De Stijl movement, promoting the development of a visual language appropriate to a modern era, allied to a utopian vision of art and its transformative potential, was originally founded in the form of a magazine by Piet Mondrian and Theo Doesburg in 1911. The Constructivism movement created by Ukrainian born artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, was a development of the Russian Futurism movement which had adopted earlier principles detailed within the Italian ‘Manifesto del Futurismo’ from 1909. The Italian, Dutch and Russian movements promoted social change through the transformation of society. The term Constructivism was created by sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum (Pevsner) Gabo. Gabo had developed an angular style of structural design, while the pursuit of geometric abstraction owed something to the painter Kazimir Malevich, a contemporary in geometric style to Kandinsky. The De Stijl and Russian Constructivism movements influenced the later post-war 1919 Bauhaus movement in Germany. Constructivism promoted spatial ideas related to construction and industrial design influencing architecture and the manufacture of commercial product. Russian and German artists and designers worked collaboratively post WW1.

The idea of ‘art’ became anathema to Constructivists who wanted direct participation in industry, their pursuit of influence culminated in the ‘Theory of Productivism.’ In support, the artist Alexander Rodchenko developed modern forms of graphic design promoting industrial process. Italian Futurism predated all of the above being created as an arts and cultural movement in 1909 by Filippo Marinetti. There were three principles within Futurism, modernity, the aesthetic of movement and industrial development. Italy developed rapidly, technologically, in light of the Futurism principle, progress occurring before the ideological disaster of fascism. Futurism became synonymous with Italian fascism and political ideology, but the lesson of ideology may, hopefully, have been learned from history.

The point of these observations is to recognise that national productivity and industrial development have always been the concern of nation state societies, concern being expressed notionally, as an idea, through art. The UK, recognised as having a debatable industrial strategy due to globalisation, should take note of history, where concerns regarding production, security and wealth creation have been aired, historically, through cultural representation. Art history, as an informative medium, tells us that societies need to be protected through imaginative process and societal effort; history also informs of the possible consequence to society of political ideology. An appreciation for change underpinned Futurism based art movements in early twentieth century Europe. Is there a similar movement for future development in Britain; how will art history record the current social and economic situation in the UK? If we have learned from history in Britain, shouldn’t we move to develop a more coherent industrial strategy to benefit and safeguard society.

Democratisation of the Image

The print as a representation of an original image may be seen as a way of democratising the image. The German art critic Walter Benjamin’s appreciation was that an original work possessed an ‘aura’, defined, by him, as its presence in time and space. The aura may relate to an emotional response to the creativity and uniqueness lying behind an original work in its singular presence. The viewing of original works before the development of forms of reproduction would have been limited to the few who could freely access these works, or to those who could commission or purchase original work.

I have been interested in image reproduction for many years and have long practiced reproducing original work for exhibition. Personally, my experience of an image can be as strong through its viewing as a print as that of seeing the original; or more likely, never seeing the original. Benjamin’s alternative view, in regard to the accessibility and value of an image, was that the print democratised the original allowing for greater public viewing, benefiting society through the nature of visual perception. The question arising here might be, ‘where within a library might art direct you’.

The image, as the interactive purveyor of ideas and information, able to engender an emotional response, can now be engaged in many ways, the question being, as always, ‘what can engagement lead to’? A pragmatist might argue that subjective consideration would need to be allied to practical application: thought without application achieving little other than creating exasperation.

The most fundamental form of democratisation expressed visually is created through symbolism recognised as written language; writing possibly evolving from pictorial representation, ideas and information being expressed and developed through forms of visual symbolism. This form of visual representation and medium can express complex ideas through the intelligible clarity of language, which itself can conjure imagery.

*

Michael O’Sullivan MA IA(Eng) FRSA is a member of the Orwell Society. The views in this article are his own.