The Problem Of Meaning

The aim: To understand that the relation between word and image and how the meaning is complex and problematic. 

Magritte standing in front of his
painting "The Pilgrim"

Renee Magritte (1898 - 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. His work is known for challenging the observers perceptions of reality. He frequently displays different ordinary objects in an very unusual context, changing the meaning of thing that is familiar.  The treachery of images in which he painted a pipe and painted below it "this is not a pipe" is a good example of this. The painting of a pipe is not a pipe, it is only an image of a pipe. Magritte have also used this approach in other work.

The death of his mother highly influenced his life as an artist. His mother was supposedly found with her dress covering her face. In his art he has produced many paintings with obscured faces. Other influences in his life was him setting up and starting an Advertising agency called Studio Dongo to make a living. In 1920´s he became friends with surrealists in Paris which lead to him having some success as an artist. WW1 also had an influence on his work as an artist.

Magritte used many different techniques in his surrealistic art:

1. Isolation

2. Juxtaposition

3. Substitution

4. Ersatz: Replacement of substitution

5. Metamorphosis: One object becomes another

6. Displacement: Often occurs in dreams

7. Displacement/ Defacement: Covering faces 

You can find many examples in how Margritte´s art and surrealism have been taken forward and is well used in todays advertising world. 

Focusing on one object, strawberries. 

This is not a pipe.
This is not a bra, this is a wonder bra. 

Metamorphosis: One object becomes another.
A hand becomes an animal.

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Political Photomontage

Photomontage is a type of photography that includes different images and text that you cut out, layer and collage to create something that is your own reality. You take an image and turn it into something different. Photomontage is easy and something anyone can do, and that is one of the reasons why photomontage has been used as Punk posters, war propaganda and protests. Why was photomontage used for this? Photomontage is direct, bold and as said anyone can make it, and anyone can create their own existing reality. 

With the Russian revolution starting in 1917 a new sense of empowerment led different russian artists to explore new and different ways to create art. They looked at construction, cubism and and questioned the purpose of art in a communist society. Many of these new artists was an artist as a worker, and they focused on making sure that their art had a function, that it was useful for the masses rather than the elite or hung in a gallery serving no benefit to the society. El Lissitzky (1880 - 1941) was an artist from the communist party that made art like this. He used symbolic colours like red and white that signified the oppositional sides.

El Lissitzky "Beat The Whites With The Red Wedge" 1919

Alexander Rodchenko (1891- 1951) was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. In 1920 he was promoted to director to help develop and create new government propaganda posters and he also helped create the female labour posters for trade union. "She shouts books" is a poster he made in 1924 to get more people to start reading. He wanted to get out a clear message as the advert was for educational purposes. Due to issues in Russia people where uneducated and many could not read, this poster promoted learning and education.

Alexander Rodchenko "She Shouts Books" 1924

This type of propaganda styled posters became popular to use in WW1 and WW2. Block colour and text is what really gave them their own style. America, Britain and Germany all used propaganda posters of this style to get people to support and join the war. 

In 1917 a movement called Dada formed in Zurich. It was formed by writers, artists and poets that got together to create art that objected against the horror of the first world war. They focused on producing work that would challenge the conventions of normality. They experimented with text, imagery, caos and used this idea to create work that opened up a different reality. As they did not want to be established, the movement over time disappeared. One of Dadas members Raoul Houseman believed the art Dada created helped to display what was really happening in the war.

Raoul Houseman " The Art Critic" 1919-20

John Heartfeld (1891 - 1968) was an German artist, he later changed his name so it sounded more british. Heartfeld created anti Hitler propaganda that put his life in danger. His life was so much at risk that he left the country and got small children and elderly people to smuggle it in to Germany due to it being difficult to do it himself. Heartfeld inspired from his work more people to do photomontage. This later lead to advertising using imagery and short, bold text to promote and sell products. That is also what we see a lot of today. An iconic artist that use photomontage in our time is Kennard Phillips. He used photomontage to create the 2005 campaign on anti George Bush to set a stop for the US coalition war. 

Kennard Phillips "Adolf, The Superman, Swallows Gold And Spouts Tin" 1932

Kennard Phillips "Photo Op"

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Innovations

Photography started with something called the camera Obscura in the 1830´s. The obscurer worked by projecting an image on a surface allowing the artist to trace the over the image. Chemicals was later used by scientists to create a direct copy of the image that was projected. British scientist Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877) is known as the very first photographer. He developed the calotype process where he used paper coated with silver iodide that allowed him to create a negative image. Later on cameras developed to become smaller, compact and marketed towards a rather larger audience. Brownie was the name of the camera created by Eastman Kodak. The brownie camera introduced low-cost photography to the masses. Adverts showed even children using the camera, that is how easy it was to use.

Advert for "The Brownie" Kodak camera

The camera Obscura 

One of the biggest developments in photography was the invention of ThomasEdison´s lightbulb in 1879. This new technology was very exiting and lit up the bigger cities at night. This also led to the development of flash photography. It started out as a single controlled explosion that created light to capture the image. It became easier for photographers to carry light with them and shoot in dark surroundings. Jacob Riis is one photographer who benefit from this technology. He documented the slums of New York  and without light (flash) he would not be able to capture images due to the poorer part of the population could not afford light.

Harold Edgerton (1903 - 1990) created the high speed stroboscopic flash. This revealed a lot of things that the human eye does not have the capacity to see. It is used by photographers to capture a sequence of images of a moving subject. This is an example of one photography technique that is now often seen in the advertising world.

Halftone printing:
what is printed - how it appears

Photography slowly made its way into advertising and the newspapers it did not properly sett off until the 1920´s due to it being a lot cheaper to produce illustrated images. Economical growth in the 1920´s led to an increase in consumerism. This led to competition competition in the advertising world. More companies wanted to market their product in the best and modern way possible and therefore they wanted to use photography. Printing developed from halftone printing which is a technique that simulates imagery with the use of different sized dots varying either in size of spacing.

To sum up, how has the development of camera technology changed advertising?Well, Advertising have gone from being illustrations to become printed photographs with the use of halftone printing to then becoming high quality images as we know today. From this advertising also made its way to television with moving image, then online.


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