Prints and Prints making

From the 1860s to the end of the century, the Japanese print exerted an enormous influence on the art and artists of the time. According to tradition, the Parisian artist Félix Braquemond received a set of porcelain from Japan and found that the plates had been wrapped with the prints of Hokusai. Braquemond enthusiastically showed the prints to his impressionist artist friends, who were intrigued by their flat, bold, asymmetrical composition. The lithographic scenes by Edgar Degas of women bathing and dressing are reminiscent of the Japanese style. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was perhaps the most striking and original exponent of japonisme. Employing the subtle to brilliant coloration and the cropping of images characteristic of Japanese prints, he designed posters that capture the essence of charm and elegance. Through the influence of the poster artist Jules Chéret, color lithography grew in popularity. The beautiful color lithographs of Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard portray Parisian scenes as well as the intimacies of family life. Along with Chéret's work, that of Théophile Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec made posters powerful mediums for advertising. The Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, in his stylish posters, emphasized the sensuous line and the decorative quality that was characteristic of the turn-of-the-century art nouveau movement. The passionate and masterly Norwegian artist Edvard Munch created woodcuts and lithographs marked by powerful, highly personal imagery. His women are often lush and sensuous, while other images, including his men, are fraught with anxieties and inner tension.

Three-dimensional image

The development of the Polaroid system of filming by American inventor Edwin Herbert Land made color 3-D movies a reality. Films made using this method are shot with two cameras or a special camera with two lenses. In the theater, the two films are projected simultaneously. A polarizing filter in front of the left projector lens orients random light waves into one plane, while a different filter in front of the right projector lens orients light waves into a perpendicular plane. Filmgoers wear glasses with gray polarizing lenses that orient light waves in the same way as the filters on the projectors. This causes the viewer’s left eye to see only the image from the left projector and the viewer’s right eye to see only the image from the right projector. The brain receives these two separate images and fuses them into one 3-D image. The first polarized film was demonstrated in 1939 at the New York World’s Fair. In the 1950s, attendance at polarized 3-D movies soared. Between 1952 and 1955, over 110 features, shorts, and cartoons were produced in 3-D. These included ; The classics House of Wax (1953) It Came From Outer Space (1953) Kiss Me, Kate (1953) Hondo (1953) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Revenge of the Creature (1955). The 1950s also marked a high point for 3-D still images. In addition to films, 3-D images appeared ; comic books newspapers and magazines posters jigsaw puzzles greeting cards. The polarized film process lives on in today’s state-of-the-art 3-D movies in theme parks, as well as some IMAX 3-D theaters. IMAX 3-D movies project giant images on screens seven stories tall, giving viewers the impression that they are submersed in the scenes projected on the screen.

Commercial Arts

Commercial Art, artwork in a variety of forms created to foster the sale of a product, service, or idea. Commercial art is used in many fields: advertising packaging publishing cinema television fashion textile interior industrial design. Commercial artists use: painting drawing calligraphy photography typography graphic-arts techniques Their work is often reproduced in print, and many commercial artists are trained in printing techniques. Commercial art is as old as recorded history; signs and painted walls that advertised shops and inns, for example, have been unearthed in the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. In the centuries before the development of printing, the vast majority of the public could not read; hence, unmistakable images were created to indicate the nature of the services offered. For example, a pig in effigy adorned a pork-butcher's shop, and three gilded balls (derived from the escutcheon of the Florentine Medici banking family) denoted a pawnbroker. As commerce increased under the stimulus of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries, commercial art followed suit, especially in printed matter. Advertising illustration in copperplate and wood engraving appeared on coach posters, tradesmen's cards, flyers, and newspaper advertisements. The constant developments and improvements in lithography and photoengraving produced a flood of advertising—calendars, billboard posters, and catalogs. Late in the 19th century improved color reproduction and other advances increased the importance of commercial art and raised its standards. Advertising posters achieved the status of fine art at the hands of such art nouveau artists as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. In the 20th century, commercial art proliferated at an enormous rate. Specialists emerged in all fields; advertising agencies were established, offering an infinite variety of commercial art services. The results range from high art to unrelieved vulgarity. In industrial design and the graphic arts, however, commercial art has had its finest accomplishments in bringing outstanding design to the attention of the public. In fact, in the last half of the 20th century, commercial art has not followed established styles as in the past, but rather has often created and popularized new styles.