The Bridge, Part Two (Module 5)

During the past few weeks, each reading has had an element that piqued my interest for further research.  Alas, this week I found difficulty getting interested in any of the topics covered.  As a result, I decided to dive into a bit of a silly topic.  In today's society, we are inundated with internet memes, particularly of the cat.  Don't worry, I'm not going to fill this blog with pictures of "grumpy cat" or "ceiling cat," but I thought a discussion of contemporary cat art might be interesting.  However, my initial research led me to an artist that is not be considered contemporary, but whose works were created a few decades after the art nouveau movement. The discussion of Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen's "mania for cats" (Meggs & Purvis, 2012, p. 211) was the inspiration.  In the end I decided to settle for a comparison of the cat works of Steinlen and Balthus (birth name: Balthasar Klossowski).

It seems the most iconic of Steinlen's cat works, are the various incarnations of Chat Noir.

Chat Noir/Ce Soir, 1896 (artnet)

However, Steinlen's cat images were not limited to poster illustrations.  He work also included from simple sketching to detailed drawings.  Furthermore, he produced cats in multiple medias, as he created sculptures of cats as well.

Sketches: Playful Cats (Steinlen)

Detailed Drawings: Seated Siamese (Steinlen)

Sculpture: Cat #1 (Steinlen)

When I firs aimed began to research contemporary cat artists, I feared it would be difficult to narrow that subject sufficiently for a blog.  However, I soon realized that Balthus one artist was prevalent in the 20th century.  In fact, his prominence is best exemplified by a self portrait titled, The King of Cats.  Throughout my research of his work, I could not find any pieces related to cats that did not contain humans.  Below is a sampling of his work:

The King of Cats, 1935 (anothermag)

The Drawing Room II, 1942 (anothermag)

The Quays, 1929 (anothermag)

Thérèse Dreaming, 1938 (anothermag)

The works of these two artist would never be confused, although they each demonstrated such a strong interest in cats, their approaches were distinctive.  The most notable contrast was the composition of these images.  Steinlen made the cat the central aspect of each image and work of art.  However, Balthus made the cat almost a sidekick character.  In fact, many of Balthus's creations show the humans practically ignoring the presence of the cat(s).  Upon further research, I was able to locate some works by Steinlen that contain humans with cats.  However, these are fundamentally different Balthus's works, as the humans are always attending to the cats in Steinlen's works.

Lait Pur Sterilise (artrepublic) 

The contrasts between these artists do not end with the composition of space, but also the types of drawings.  Balthus demonstrates a sense of realism with the use of various tones to indicate shadow.  Even the simplistic The Quays includes a treatment of the shadows.  Steinlen's style varies, with some images employing shading for depth and texture.  However, other works of Steinlen (Lait Pur Sterilise and Chat Noir) are consistent with the art nouveau movement, where contour lines are used to demonstrate shape and depth with flat blocks of color (Meggs & Purvis, 2012).

These artists also differed in the public's reception of their cat works. Steinlen's cat works resulted in multiple commissions, and were even called "remarkably tender" by contemporary writes Meggs and Purvis (2012).  In contrast, Balthus's cat works were criticized for the nature in which they depicted female children.  Contemporary writer Farago (2013) refers to Balthus's pictures as "erotic images of children," and implies that Balthus had to fight accusations of pedophilia during his lifetime.

Both Balthus and Steinlen drew their inspirations, at least initially, from real life.  Balthus's interest in cats appeared to come from the early experience of a losing a stray he had befriended.  Steinlen, in contrast, used his own cats as his inspiration.  At just age eleven, he put together a forty image series dedicated to his lost cat, Mitsou (Farago, 2013).  Throughout his career, Steinlen used his own cats as muses for depicting cats in his works (Weyman, 2010).

Drawing depicting Balthus's sadness over the loss of his cat, Mitsou Series, 1919 (Farago, 2013)

As for contemporary cat muses, well I promised this would not be a blog filled with Grumpy Cat.  However, considering I accidentally wrote the bulk of this blog on the supposed National Cat Day, I figured I'd include just one.

Tardar Sauce (Mahdawi, 2013)

Works Cited

Bruder, G. (1896). Chat Noir/Ce Soir. Retrieved from http://www.artnet.com/artists/theophile alexandre-steinlen/

Farago, J. (2013, October 21). Bizarre Balthus show reveals artist's fixation with cats and young girls. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/21/balthus-cats-girls-paintings-provocations-metropolitan-review

Gallery Administrator. (2008). Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923). Retrieved from http://www.steinlen.net/main.php

Mahdawi, A. (2013, October 29). It's National Cat Day … every day. The Guardian. Retrieved from
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/29/national-cat-day-internet-devotion

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Pellerin, A. (2013, October 8). Balthus and Cats. Another. Retrieved from
http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/3088/Balthus_and_Cats

Steinlen, T. (n.d.). Lait Pur Sterilise. Retrieved from www.artrepublic.com/

Weyman, T. (Appraiser). (2010, January 4). 1909 Theophile Steinlen "Summer Cat" Color Lithograph [Raleigh #1401]. The Antiques Roadshow. Video transcript retrieved from http://http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200902A20.html

The Bridge, Part One (Module 4)

The discussion of the industrial revolution presented a problem that reaches into the present day.  It mentioned John Walter's concern regarding "sabotage that sometimes destroyed new machinery when workers felt their jobs were endangered" (Meggs & Purvis, 2012, p. 151).  Sometimes, we think of the industrial revolution in terms of the creation of factory jobs, but often the jobs lost are somewhat forgotten.  Many activities that took place in the industrial revolution were already present in the pre-industrial, they were just performed by humans, rather than mechanized.

Below are images of some jobs that have nearly disappeared.

Gas Station Attendant

Mail Carrier

Telephone Operator (my mother was a telephone operator for
23 years, and lost her job when the last AT&T office
closed in 1998)

Hand press operators, scribes, and chromolithographers were positions that were fading or had disappeared by the advent of the twentieth century.  Each of these professions were previously booming, prior to technological advances or changing public opinion (Meggs & Purvis, 2012).

What of today's visual artist and designer jobs? When I looked over several lists of disappearing jobs, I surprised to see few art related jobs.  This was surprising considering how often society is bombarded with information about the reduction of funding for the arts.  A look at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) indicates that design employment is not booming (no professions were growing faster than average), but also that few areas are in decline.   The chart below (developed from BLS information) demonstrates the growth of the following professions:

Profession	Projected Job Growth 2010-2020
Art Directors	9%
Crafts and Fine Artists	5%
Fashion Designers	0%
Floral Designers	-9%
Graphic Designers	13%
Industrial Designers	10%
Multimedia Artists and Designers	19%
Set and Exhibit Designers	10%



Red indicates decline, pink indicates slower than average, and blue indicates average

 

 However, despite the stability of these professions, there is a continued decline of the more production, rather than design, based professions.  According to the BLS, hand sewers, printing press operators, prepress technicians, pattern makers (metal and plastic), model makers (metal and plastic), desktop publishers, and jewelers/precious stone/metal workers are all positions that are declining in terms of job growth.  The contrast between design job outlook and production based job outlook parallels the difference between the trajectory of hand press operators compared to illustrators.  Both professions saw encroachment in their field from technological advances, via steam powered presses and the invention of photography, respectively.  Hand press operators saw their profession become obsolete, while illustrators adjusted to addressing fiction and fantasy over recording and reporting events.  Illustrators also provide an example of how keeping up with technological advances is important to maintaining employment, as demonstrated by Howard Pyle (Meggs & Purvis, 2012).  I surmise the same is true for today's designers, there is a constant need to adjust with technology, such as moving from being a pen and paper designer to being comfortable with digital tools.

Works Cited

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012).  Arts and Design Occupations. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/home.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012). Occupation Finder Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-finder.htm

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Myers, G. (2013, March 20). 10 Iconic Professions That Have Almost Vanished. Listverse. Retrieved from http://listverse.com/2013/03/20/10-iconic-professions-that-have-almost-vanished/ 

Renaissance (Module 3)

Initially, it was difficult to tie the posts of this field journal together.  It's a daunting task to try to tie together a history that covers from prehistory to the present day.  However, I keep finding myself drawn to parallels with the present, and it seems this might be my uniting thread within this blog.

In recently covered chapters, the number of individuals indicated by name seemed to increase exponentially.  This was not surprising, considering the subject matter at hand was the increase in the availability of printed information.  The recognition of the work of individual printers also created the important need for trademarks to distinguish the work of each printer, however, trademarks were only briefly discussed within part II.   Which was similar to the treatment of cylinder seals (for early identification of documents) in chapter one.

The origins of my interest in trademarks, was actually erroneous.  I presumed their prevalence increased as a result of written history identifying individuals, but archeologists indicate that this thinking was flawed.  Archeologists theorize even cave paintings had markings that were meant to specific individual artist ("U.S. Trademark History Timeline", n.d.), though any names are obviously lost in history.

 A cave drawing of a bison

A close-up of the same cave showing a marking indicating authorship

(found to the right of the bison's front feet)

It was also interesting how markings for ownership appeared in surprising places. Indentations that seemed like they were just part of the design in early ceramic work, may have actually been used as markings to indicate the designer/maker.  Additionally, some markings on Roman buildings that I assumed were simply inscriptions about the rulers of the time, also included information regarding the builder ("U.S. Trademark History Timeline", n.d.).  The way these marks of ownership blend into the design actually reminds me of many current trends in trademarks.  In today's trademark bombarded world, common words are often trademark.  While we as consumers maybe aware of the trademarks of well known companies, I sometimes require that tiny TM symbol in order to realize that a word or phrase is a trademark.  Once again, trademarks hide in plain sight.

Ancient stamped pottery indicating ownership

Roman inscription indicating the builder

My naivety regarding the subject was further revealed upon looking into information regarding the advent of trademark laws.  My interest in the subject was only piqued when looking at the textbook images from the late fifteenth century (Meggs & Purvis, 2012, p. 99).  However, trademark law actually predates those images.  Such laws included the Bakers Marking Law (1266), by 1373 one group of designers (bottle makers) were actually required to make their bottles identified with a trademark.  Finally, the printers' trademarks in the text did not even precede the initial legal battle regarding trademarks (1452), where a widow argued for the use of her deceased husband's trademark (U.S. Trademark History Timeline, n.d).

Trademarks are so common place, I rarely find myself thinking about them in terms of authorship and intellectual property.  However, the design of the Renaissance trademarks (Meggs & Purvis, 2012 p. 99)  reminded me of how each of us frequently uses a mark to indicate authorship or agreement, our initials.  To emphasize the connection between the initials of today and the trademarks of the past, I engage in a brief exercise.  While taking 2D Design in Spring of 2012, we had an early assignment requiring us to create a monogram.  I decided to combine elements of my original design with some of the stylistic elements from the trademarks presented in the text.

                                                Similar to the monogram created for the class project

Altered version of the monogram

I followed the pattern of the negative space from the Renaissance designs, along with the inclusion of an orb and cross design (Meggs & Purvis, 2012, p. 99).  However, I kept the diagonal and ribbon-like lines from my design, as well as more curved initials.  Ultimately, the exercise made the rationale for using simple initials and monograms very clear.  The simple initials are faster to create.  Perhaps this is why the trademarks that appeared during the emergence of printing, were more complex than earlier hand drawn marks of ownership.  Per Marina's comment regarding the complexity of cylinder seals, I feel my statement deserves further consideration.  There is a parallel between the relief trademarks and cylinder seals, both were created to use over and over.  So, this indicates to me that the complexity of symbol of authorship may be related to the ability of the symbol to be reused without having to draw/carve it again.

Lastly, as mentioned earlier, the book glosses over trademarks and seals, but even today these are important aspects to our society.  Not just the actual letters or words of the trademark, but the design itself.  The anecdote of the University of California's attempt to change its logo illustrates this point.  The UC Regents attempted to unveil a more modern design as an everyday logo, but the strong backlash from students and alumni over the redesign led to the suspension of its use.  The opponents felt the new logo did not embody the "prestige and elegance"(Nguyen, 2013) of the older seal.  This reveals a simple lesson in the power of trademarks and logos.

Left: Older logo, Right: newer logo

Works Cited

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.).  Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

Menendez-Pidal, M. (2013, October 16). Re:Module 03: Field Journals [Pg 3, Msg 3]. Message posted to https://myetudes.org/portal/site/bdf36633-c2b6-4907-80f7-5d8893bb6a6e/page/d68ff819-9d11-47a0-804a-24140d080b13

Nguyen, S. B. (2013, January 7). UC suspends new logo in face of system-wide opposition. The California Aggie. Retrieved from http://www.theaggie.org/2013/01/07/uc-suspends-new-logo-in-face-of-system-wide-opposition/

U.S. Trademark History Timeline (n.d.). McKinney Engineering Library. Retrieved from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/engin/trademark/timeline/tmindex.html 

 

Prologue (Module 2)

Early in the first chapter, I was struck by the statements that discussed early drawings for communication. Here, ancient cave drawings were indicated as "the dawning of visual communication" (Meggs and Purvis, 2012, p. 7).  This reminds me of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which is an important area of my field.  AAC is communication through means other than the voice (alternative communication).  For those who have some speech capability, but who are still difficult to understand in certain situations, AAC can be used to supplement the spoken word (augmentative communication). For many reading, their exposure to the subject may be rather limited; however, most people have at least heard of Stephen Hawking.  The famous physicist is perhaps the most well known AAC user in the world.

Stephen Hawking

Now, Hawking's communication device is not particularly related to the use of pictures for visual communication.  His device is simply a form of text-to-speech, where he uses a switch (a button or sensor that allows him to type with a body part other than his fingers) to write out the message that will be spoken by his computer (Hawking, n.d.).  I mention him, only to give the reader a point of reference for the concept of AAC.  Hawking's system would be considered high-tech AAC, as it includes the use of speech output and electronics.  Systems that do not use electronics are often referred to as low-tech.  The aforementioned quotation from the book reminded me of low-tech AAC  users, who often rely on the exchange of pictures or pointing to pictures in order to communicate (Communication Matters, 2013).  The centrality of pictures as a form of permanent communication in the ancient world relates to the centrality of picture use in symbolic communication for many AAC users.  Additionally, the history of pictures  as a springboard to the development of writing, parallels the way picture communication systems can facilitate the development of spoken language in children who exhibit speech delays (McDaniel, 2012).  Below, I used a common special education program, Boardmaker with Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), to demonstrate the progression of a child's growth in language complexity through picture communication.

Those of us who are very familiar with PCS symbols could usually interpret the meaning even without the word printed on the icon/picture.  However, the words are there so that communication partners who are unfamiliar with the system, and its symbols, are still able to understand the child's message (Communication Matters, 2013).  This is akin to our need, as new graphic design history students, for captions in order to understand the ancient examples of visual communication.  For both picture exchange systems and textbook examples, these printed explanations becoms more important as the symbols become more abstract. Someone unfamiliar with PCS symbols might easily interpret the "bird" symbol without the word, while demonstrating difficulty with "is" symbol without the printed word.  In the same sense, I easily identified the concrete examples of the fish and deer carved into the antler (Meggs and Purvis, 2012, p. 7-8, fig. 1-4).  However, without the captions as a guide, I certainly would have been unable to interpret the abstract symbols for the words "sheep" and "goat" in the early pictographs (Meggs and Purvis, 2012, p. 9, fig. 1-6).  Perhaps more parallels between ancient visual communication and present visual communication will be apparent as the text moves closer to modern times.

Works Cited

Communication Matters (2013). Low-tech Ways to use Symbol Systems. Retrieved from http://www.communicationmatters.org.uk/page/low-tech-aac

Hawking, S.W. (n.d).  The Computer. Retrieved from http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html 

Mayer-Johnson (2009). Boardmaker Plus! (v.6) [computer software]. Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh.

McDaniel, J. (2012, April). No-Tech and Low-Tech AAC for Children with ASD. Retrieved from http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/kennedy_files/AACChildrenwithASD-April12.pdf

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.).  Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.