This essay will discuss the life of Lázló Maholy-Nagy in the first part, and the rest of the essay will be more focused on his art of painting and on comparison with constructivism and dadaism movement.
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The earliest works comprehend mainly postcards, some of them are drawn only with black pencil, but many of them were in colours as well (image 2). Even though he was creating these postcards during war and he saw a lot of pain around him "these drawings are lively and often humorous" as The Maholy-Nagy Foundation (2004) asserts. In my opinion, some of these postcards have something in common with expressionism. It could be the mood of the moment, the colour palette or the whole composition of the image. But in his works we can see either influences by Dadaism, which he was experimeting with around 1919, or influences by Russian constructivism.
First and foremost Maholy considered he himself a painter, so this is the reason why this essay will be focused more on the comparing between Maholy-Nagy and different movements, which influenced him during his career.
At first I'd like to focus on comparing between Maholy's work (image 4) with Dadaism (image 3). Dadaism is a movement which is based on a random. To prove this statement, we can compare the composition of these two artworks. There is no order, or the aim, which should show these atrworks. For me, it looks messy, too many things are going around the canvas, and I don't see any message from it. On the other hand, these things are giving wide chances to the artist- for example explain himself, or try to express his feelings and opinions.
Next comparison I would like to point out is similarities between Maholy-Nagy's work (image 6) and Russian Constructivism (image 5). In my point of view, there are a lot of similarities we can see on these two artworks. The first which I would like to mention is the composition, you can see, that the rule of thirds, one of main principles of design, is here shown. The main (highest) element is situated in the middle of the image, and the headline and the rest of typography is situated on the bottom of the work, in the last third. The next thing is the similarity in the shapes. As the Art History Archive (no date) points out "Russian constructivist's themes are quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic elements." This remark we can see in Maholy's works on the image 6. The most basic elements are here rectangles, half circles or circles, basic lines and sometimes triangles (image 5). Very interesting is also the middle part of these artworks, because there is kind of diagonal line through the whole composition.My conclusion is, that Maholy-Nagy, as one of the main-leaders and teachers of the Bauhaus school, had to try as many different styles and movements he saw around him as it was possible, because of his important post. This is also the reason, why we see in his artworks many influences by different styles of his age.
References:
Art History Archive (no date) Russian constructivism [Online]. Available at: http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/constructivism/ (Accessed: 17 March 2011).Beazley, M. (2001) A century of graphic design. London: Octopus publishing group.
Encyclopædia Britannica (2010) Lázló Maholy-Nagy [Online]. Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/387685/Laszlo-Moholy-Nagy (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
The Maholy-Nagy Foundation (2004) Biographical Sketch [Online]. Available at: http://www.moholy-nagy.com/Biography_1.html (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
The Maholy-Nagy Foundation (2004) Chronology [Online]. Available at: http://www.moholy-nagy.com/Chronology_1.html (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
The Maholy-Nagy Foundation (2004) Chronology [Online]. Available at: http://www.moholy-nagy.com/Chronology_1.html (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
List of visuals:
- Images:
Image 1: Nagy, L. M. (1944) Selbstportrait László Moholy-Nagy [Online]. Available at: http://www.culturecuts.net/shortlist/ccsfe0_nagy.htmature/ccsf1l (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
Image 2: Nagy, L. M. (1895-1919) On paper [Online]. Available at: http://www.moholy-nagy.com/_OnPaper%201895-1919/A.OnPaper06.gif (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
Image 3: Yan, L. (2003) Leonyan [Online]. Available at: http://leonyan.com/images/dadaism.jpg (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
Image 4: Nagy, L. M. (1895-1946) In mehr auf [Online]. Available at: http://www.ricci-art.net/img003/171.jpg (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
Image 5: Levine, D. (2001) Travel brochure graphics [Online]. Available at: http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/Images_All/design_images/nepszavanapstar2.jpg (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
Image 6: McFadden, M. (2007) History Hungarian Graphic Design. Flickr[Online]. Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20745656@N00/1367143462 (Accessed: 17 March 2011).
- Videos:
Research:
- 1895 - 1946
- Hungarian painter, photographer, professor in Bauhaus school
- highly influenced by constructivism
- attended gymnasium in Szeged
- one of his main focuses was on photography
- father of Light art
The primary goals of the Foundation are to produce a complete catalogue-raisonne of Moholy-Nagy's art and photography, record and conserve works in the Foundation's collection, augment and catalogue the Foundation's archive and library and make them available to interested researchers, provide an interface between scholars and the public through our Web site, exhibitions, and other events, and provide authentication of works attributed to Moholy-Nagy.
László Moholy-Nagy, one of the leading figures in the Bauhaus, arrived to work in England in 1935, two years after that experimental school of art and design was closed down by the Nazis. His English was not fluent. Taken to a party in London by John Betjeman, he said smilingly to his hostess: "Thank you for your hostilities."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/mar/18/art.modernismLászló Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), American, born in Austria-Hungary (in Bacsborsod). He moved to Vienna in late 1919 after serving in the Austro-Hungarian army. He was wounded and at this time he decided to pursue art. In 1919 he and his wife Lucia Moholy began experimenting with the process of making photograms, and Lucia Moholy (Czechoslovakia) developed a technique they called the photogram, which is the term generally used today. This term was used as a direct comparison with the rapid direct communication of the telegram. He later moved to Berlin, where he became associated with the avante-garde and Dadaists and created metal sculptures and paintings. In 1921 he met El Lissitsky and traveled to Paris.
http://www.photograms.org/chapter03.html
László Moholy-Nagy was born in Hungary in 1895. He started painting while recuperating from wounds suffered in World War I. He earned a degree in law, joined a poetry circle, and became a full-time artist in 1918. Gropius invited him to join the Bauhaus staff in 1923. He would remain until 1928, heading the metal workshop, developing techniques of painting with light, and editing Bauhaus publications. Moholy then went to Berlin, where he designed stage sets for the state opera and did experimental film work until the ominous political climate forced him to leave. After two years in London, where he began his series of colored constructs in translucent materials, which he called Space Modulators, he came to the United States in 1937. He brought the Bauhaus with him. Moholy founded a school, The New Bauhaus, in Chicago. It failed, but he then opened the Institute of Design, which became recognized as one of the finest in the world in design, architecture, photography, and sculpture. The death of Moholy-Nagy, only seven years after he began the Institute, was a severe loss. He died at 51, of leukemia. But the same year that Moholy's Institute started, Gropius was appointed chairman of the Harvard School of Architecture. The following year, Mies van der Rohe (who had succeeded Gropius as head of the Dessau Bauhaus) moved to Chicago to establish the department of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Josef Albers joined the staff of Black Mountain College in North Carolina. And so Moholy and the Bauhaus would continue to put out new roots and reach new flowerings. As important as anything the man and the movement achieved was this cross-pollination among artists, spanning continents and oceans.
http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/1975/?id=285
By the time László Moholy-Nagy turned towards painting after graduating from law school and developed his own abstract style influenced by Malewitsch and El Lissitzky, it was inevitable that he would become one of the most important artists of Constructivism. He soon exposed himself in Hungary as the founder of the artist group "Ma", but left his home country after the failure of the revolution.
http://www.moholy-nagy.eu/
"The reality of our century is technology: the invention, construction and maintenance of machines. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of this century. Machines have replaced the transcendental spiritualism of past eras."-László Moholy-Nagy
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2016
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's (July 20, 1895 - November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism. He was a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry in to the arts.
http://www.squidoo.com/moholy-nagy
Thanks to his experiments with photography and the photogram, László Moholy Nagy was one of the first typographers of the 1920s to recognize the new possibilities offered by the combination of typeface, surface design, and pictorial signs with recent photographic techniques. As a Bauhaus teacher for typography, he designed almost all of the 14 Bauhaus books published between 1925 and 1929 and – besides co-editing them with Walter Gropius – took care of the entire presentation of the books’ contents and the organization of their production. With its dynamic cycles and bars and concentration on a few, clear colors, their design resembled the Constructivist artists’ paintings and drawings. While Moholy-Nagy’s early typographic works are frequently still characterized by hand-drawn typefaces, he later strove for a “mechanized graphic design” also suited for commercial advertising through their systematization and standardization. After he had left the Bauhaus in 1928, he founded his own office in Berlin, where he, among other things, developed advertising solutions for Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s designs for the Jena Glassworks. Faced with the Nazis’ seizure of power, Moholy-Nagy emigrated to the United States via Amsterdam and Great Britain and founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937 and, after it had been closed, the Chicago School (and later Institute) of Design in 1939, where he continued to champion an integration of art, science, and technology. László Moholy-Nagy died of leukemia in Chicago on 24 November 1946.
http://artblart.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/exhibition-laszlo-moholy-nagy-%E2%80%A8retrospective-at-schirn-kunsthalle-frankfurt/
The Bauhaus, founded in 1919, was close to expressionism and handicraft. In 1923, upon the arrival of Moholy-Nagy, it redefined itself as a meeting-place for the arts and the industry. With Moholy-Nagy entered his passion for the avant-garde, his interest in typographical material, his knowledge of constructivism and an exceptional talent for photography and photomontage.*
http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Laszlo-Moholy-Nagy/
"He was certainly a leftist, but not in an absolute political sense. Also later, when he thought it was possible to transform society through modern technology and culture, in fact, he was a rather an utopian than a proponent of political realism. He was more gifted for creation than for destruction." - Krisztina Passuth
http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Laszlo-Moholy-Nagy/
For Moholy-Nagy was always a theoretician and practitioner in equal measure, always wanting to be a holistic artist. He approaches his work – painting, photography, commercial and industrial design, film, sculpture, scenography – from a wide variety of aspects and practises it as a radical, extreme experiment, by refusing to place his hugely differing works in any sort of aesthetic hierarchy. He also attaches enormous importance to education, which is why, at the request of Walter Gropius, he workes in this field for the Bauhaus in Weimar (1923-1925) and Dessau (1925-1928). In Chicago, where he settles in 1937, he again assumes teaching duties and founds the “New Bauhaus”, which sought to realise the programmes of the German Bauhaus in the United States.
http://museumpublicity.com/2010/11/08/martin-gropius-bau-presents-laszlo-moholy-nagy/
Known for his versatility and the fundamentals of design which he taught his students, Laszlo replaced Johannes Itten as director of the Bauhaus in 1923. He experimented in many different fields including photography, typography, sculpture, painting, industrial design and printmaking. His experimentation across multiple mediums led to graphic design work characterized by bold typography in combination with striking photography.
Key ideas:
1. Moholy-Nagy believed that humanity could only defeat the fracturing experience of modernity - only feel whole again - if it harnessed the potential of new technologies. Artists should transform into designers, and through specialization and experiment find the means to answer humanity's needs.
2. His interest in photography encouraged his belief that artists' understanding of vision had to specialize and modernize. Artists used to be dependant on the tools of perspective drawing, but with the advent of the camera they had to learn to see again. They had to renounce the classical training of previous centuries, which encouraged them to think about the history of art and to reproduce old formulas, and move on to experimenting with vision and thus stretching human capacity to make it adequate to new tasks.
3. Moholy-Nagy's interest in qualities of space, time, and light endured throughout his career and transcended the very different media he employed. Whether he was painting, or creating "photograms" (photographs made without the use of a camera or negative), or crafting sculptures made of transparent plexiglass, he was ultimately interested in studying how all these basic elements interact.
1. Moholy-Nagy believed that humanity could only defeat the fracturing experience of modernity - only feel whole again - if it harnessed the potential of new technologies. Artists should transform into designers, and through specialization and experiment find the means to answer humanity's needs.
2. His interest in photography encouraged his belief that artists' understanding of vision had to specialize and modernize. Artists used to be dependant on the tools of perspective drawing, but with the advent of the camera they had to learn to see again. They had to renounce the classical training of previous centuries, which encouraged them to think about the history of art and to reproduce old formulas, and move on to experimenting with vision and thus stretching human capacity to make it adequate to new tasks.
3. Moholy-Nagy's interest in qualities of space, time, and light endured throughout his career and transcended the very different media he employed. Whether he was painting, or creating "photograms" (photographs made without the use of a camera or negative), or crafting sculptures made of transparent plexiglass, he was ultimately interested in studying how all these basic elements interact.
Books:
Lupton, Phillips, E., Cole, J. (2008) Graphic Design : The New Basics. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10343588&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Anker, Peder (2010) From Bauhaus to Eco-house : A History of Ecological Design. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10355481&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Sadler, Simon (2005) Archigram : Architecture Without Architecture. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10173594&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Drew, Sternberger, N., Paul (2005) By its Cover : Modern American Book Cover Design. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10176217&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Katz, Mark (2004) Capturing Sound : How Technology Has Changed Music. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10068606&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Boyer, Christine, M. (1996) CyberCities. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=2004755&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
Meikle, Jeffrey, L. (2005) Design in the USA. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10233615&p00=l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3%20moholy-nagy (Accessed: 10 March 2011)
http://books.google.cz/books?id=RM54O7RzPYsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3+Moholy-Nagy&source=bl&ots=Yk3-o7wm6I&sig=vuwtcTZ-trd-46f5Za9xAY0Vyrk&hl=cs&ei=vDF_TcXYN5Htsgb37sDoBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
Videos:
Notes:
Book: A century of graphic design (Beazley, 2001)
- hungarian theorist of graphic design and visual communication
- Pre-eminent pioneer of "new typography"
- teacher at bauhaus
- he wrote important books on graphic design
- emigrated from Germany 1934 and took ideas to Amsterodam, London, Chicago
- strongly influenced by Soviet Constructivism
- contemporaries: El Lessitzky, Herbert Bayer, Jan Tschichold, Kurt Schwitters
- " His design philisophy was a curious combination of technological determinism, a belief in the social role of design and a mystical preoccupation with the properties of light."
- he was interested in extending the possibilities of combining typography with photography in what he called "Typophoto"
- he experimented with photograms, photomontages, which were applied in design for posters, book covers and exhibitions
- 1937- director of the Bauhaus in Chicago
- "Maholy-Nagy was one of the seminal figures in the transmission of modern design of this time.
Citations:
"The reality of our century is technology: the invention, construction and maintenance of machines. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of this century. Machines have replaced the transcendental spiritualism of past eras." - László Moholy-Nagy
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2016
"He was an idealist. He believed that through good art, good design, good environment one could become a better human being." - Hattula Moholy-Nagy (video- GalileoRedaktion)
"Even though Maholy is gone, we feel an obligation to try enrich people's lifes by conveying this relationship of no matter what they are doing." (video- GalileoRedaktion)
"The art of our century must be elementary, presized and all in comparsing. Art cristelizes the motion of a century. Art is reflection and voice." - László Moholy-Nagy (video- GalileoRedaktion)
Images:
http://artobserved.com/2009/12/go-see-frankfurt-laszlo-maholy-nagy-at-schirn-kunsthalle-through-feb-7-2010/
http://www.whattoseeinberlin.com/es/page/4/
http://www.museenkoeln.de/museum-ludwig/default.asp?s=1834
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20745656@N00/1367143462
http://digitaldesign-fa3415.blogspot.com/2009/02/laszo-moholy-nagy.html
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/2008/03/lszl-moholy-nagy.html
http://www.co-operationblog.com/2009/12/562/
http://www.anneserdesign.com/Bauhaus.html
http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/metrov.htm
http://books.google.cz/books?id=RM54O7RzPYsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3+Moholy-Nagy&source=bl&ots=Yk3-o7wm6I&sig=vuwtcTZ-trd-46f5Za9xAY0Vyrk&hl=cs&ei=vDF_TcXYN5Htsgb37sDoBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
Videos:
Notes:
Book: A century of graphic design (Beazley, 2001)
- hungarian theorist of graphic design and visual communication
- Pre-eminent pioneer of "new typography"
- teacher at bauhaus
- he wrote important books on graphic design
- emigrated from Germany 1934 and took ideas to Amsterodam, London, Chicago
- strongly influenced by Soviet Constructivism
- contemporaries: El Lessitzky, Herbert Bayer, Jan Tschichold, Kurt Schwitters
- " His design philisophy was a curious combination of technological determinism, a belief in the social role of design and a mystical preoccupation with the properties of light."
- he was interested in extending the possibilities of combining typography with photography in what he called "Typophoto"
- he experimented with photograms, photomontages, which were applied in design for posters, book covers and exhibitions
- 1937- director of the Bauhaus in Chicago
- "Maholy-Nagy was one of the seminal figures in the transmission of modern design of this time.
Citations:
"The reality of our century is technology: the invention, construction and maintenance of machines. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of this century. Machines have replaced the transcendental spiritualism of past eras." - László Moholy-Nagy
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2016
"He was an idealist. He believed that through good art, good design, good environment one could become a better human being." - Hattula Moholy-Nagy (video- GalileoRedaktion)
"Even though Maholy is gone, we feel an obligation to try enrich people's lifes by conveying this relationship of no matter what they are doing." (video- GalileoRedaktion)
"The art of our century must be elementary, presized and all in comparsing. Art cristelizes the motion of a century. Art is reflection and voice." - László Moholy-Nagy (video- GalileoRedaktion)
Images:
http://artobserved.com/2009/12/go-see-frankfurt-laszlo-maholy-nagy-at-schirn-kunsthalle-through-feb-7-2010/
http://www.whattoseeinberlin.com/es/page/4/
http://www.museenkoeln.de/museum-ludwig/default.asp?s=1834
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20745656@N00/1367143462
http://digitaldesign-fa3415.blogspot.com/2009/02/laszo-moholy-nagy.html
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/2008/03/lszl-moholy-nagy.html
http://www.co-operationblog.com/2009/12/562/
http://www.anneserdesign.com/Bauhaus.html
http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/metrov.htm