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Modernism and Scottish school

In this week’s lecture we covered seven of the major art movements in the 20th Century, Scottish School, Art Nouveau, Modernism, Art Deco, Surrealism, Cold War Design and Postmodernism. In the essay I look closer at Scottish school and modernism using their most iconic chairs.

Scottish school

Scottish school was fashionable between 1885 and 1915, formed in glasgow and edinburgh it aimed to produce work which improved contemporary cosmopolitan life (Victoria, Museum, 2013b). One of the most prominent artists of the time was Charles Rennie Mackintosh whose chair is pictured on the right.

Scottish school is famous for geometric shapes and combining straight lines with curves (Victoria, Museum, 2013b). This can be seen in the back of this chair which has a rectangular footprint but is framed by two legs which start of square but elegantly taper to circular. The back also has an interesting symmetry between the oval head rest and the oval curve of the support at the bottom.circ.130-1958_chair_1000px.jpg

Modernism

Modernism is a post second world war movement notable for the philosophical mindset that technology and design could change society. They believed in design for the masses and this is seen in the style, which is often minimal and geometric (Victoria, Museum, 2013a).

Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer was the obvious choice for c to construct a folding and none folding chair. The use of industrial materials and the relatively ma modernist chair. Inspired by the design of his motorbike Breuer used chrome plated steel tubes and minimal design mean it can be manufactured at scale (La Fonda del Sol 2012).

Mackintosh’s chair like Breuer’s uses simple geometric shapes, the main and key difference is in the choice of materials. Mackintosh’s chair would be much harder to produce at scale it also lacks in my eyes the aesthetic balance the Breuer’s has.B3Wassily_Breuer_02.jpg

References

La Fonda del Sol – exhibition tour & dinner / SPECIAL (DE) (2012) Available at: http://www.design-museum.de/en/collection/100-masterpieces/detailseiten/b3wassily-marcel-breuer.html (Accessed: 5 December 2016).

Victoria, Museum, A. and webmaster, D.M. (2013a) Modernism - Victoria and Albert Museum. Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/m/modernism/ (Accessed: 5 December 2016).

Victoria, Museum, A. and webmaster, D.M. (2013b) Style guide: Scottish school - Victoria and Albert Museum. Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/style-guide-scottish-school/ (Accessed: 5 December 2016).

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    "Mackintosh’s chair like Breuer’s uses simple geometric shapes, the main and key difference is in the choice of materials."
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