Hannah Höch

A German Dadaist photomontage artist who created work inspired by feminism and beauty, based on her job working for a women’s magazine in Berlin. She was belittled by other Dadaist artists for being a woman, and described as her contributions being the food and drink she provided the artists, despite being a pioneer in the development of the movement. She would create art that subverted womens’ status as second-class citizens, including making brides into mannequins and creating androgynous characters.

Her powerful photomontages and use of collage to incite social change were why I chose to research this based on my current (loose) theme – german expressionism and collage. 

Johannes Itten

Itten was a teacher at the bauhaus and introduced a foundation course, where he would encourage students to nurture their creative process before starting studies in their chosen art. They would learn his colour theories and create work out of mundane and geometrical objects, not unlike Schwitters' collages. Itten is credited with introducing the idea of a foundation course for all art students, something still used now. He used progressive and experimental teaching methods, including refusing to correct mistakes and playing music to begin a class, based on his previous job as an elementary school teacher. This caused him to be scolded by his colleagues in the bauhaus and he left in spring 1923. He went back to teach children.

"on the whole there is nothing wrong and nothing right, it simple lives and materializes through the interplay of forces..."
- Paul Klee

refs
"bauhaus" arranged by Wurttembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (book accompanied a gallery exhibition of bauhaus work)

Mark Hearld

A printmaker I found in an illustration journal. His work is beautiful and I will be buying one of his books.

A Softer World

A Softer World is a collaborative webcomic between novelist Joey Comeau and photographer Emily Horne. It's a very dark comic, and is presented in a collage-like style. The photographs and the text aren't always obviously connected, and often appear as if they're from the perspective of the person the text is from, looking from one thing to another (as the images often repeat, zoomed in/out or panned.
While the comic is usually very sombre and depressing, this is often mixed with humour to make the reader feel uncomfortable. Each narrative in each comic is completely disconnected and out of context. It reminds me of Joseph Cornell's boxes - each comic is its own little world. The characters in the comic are usually creepy, criminal, (often referring to murder and stalking) and secretive. At the same time, it can be twistedly romantic.

Joseph Cornell & Kurt Schwitters

Joseph Cornell was a surrealist artist who had no formal art education and worked primarily by filling boxes. 

He would go to new york thrift shops, and various other places, and collect items he liked. Much of this was victorian bric-a-brac and was collated in his boxes, often with a glass pane on the front. They often gave their own narrative, and the items used in a box were carefully selected (for example, untitled (pink ballet case) consisted of small fake rose petals, a strand of glitter, sea shells, lace, and pot pourri (I am only guessing this from an image). The items are all connected by fragility and simple beauty, much like a ballet dancer. 

Kurt Schwitters was a german artist who began collage when he went to berlin and became involved with the dadaists. He picked up rubbish such as bus tickets and newspapers and created collages with them. He also created poems from overheard conversations. He began the Merz movement, which he said meant "reject" or "refuse". He said that waste materials had just as much validity as paint as artistic tools. 

These two artists take the idea of collage and subvert it, Cornell creating 3D collages and Schwitters creating philosophically driven collages, from the idea that all items are art materials. The student who I interviewed created a collage from items he found in his late Grandfather's house. 

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

I watched this film earlier, and immediately, the visual style caught my attention. The jagged buildings and wonky sets show that nothing is as it seems, and that reality is warped, which makes perfect sense at the end when the twist is revealed. I particularly liked the shot of the fairground, with the crowds of people and the diagonal merry-go-round.

It's clear from how the shots are set up that this is made right at the start of the genre being established, as it was like a theatrical play had been filmed from the perspective of the audience for many of the scenes, breaking this pattern by zooming in to characters' faces. The makeup is also interesting, as it's like the big, black smudges under Cesare's eyes and Caligari's nose are there to emphasise certain facial characteristics and expressions. Cesare has big black smudges under his eyes to show that he has problems with sleep, for example.

Next, I'll watch Nosferatu, which I thought would be appropriate for halloween next week.

Sophie Scholl

I've been reading about Sophie Scholl, a german student and political activist during the holocaust. She and her friends from the University of Munich, a group known as White Rose, were caught distributing their anti-nazi leaflets in 1943 and were executed by beheading. She kept up her political dissent to the end, and bravely walked to the executioner, believing she and her friends had taken the first step to bringing down the nazi government.

I shall be taking inspiration from Sophie Scholl's short life for my own work, particularly the character I am working on in class. To be so boldly outspoken against something you know you will be killed for disagreeing with is incredibly brave and noble.

Scholl was also interested in the arts, particularly degenerate art (what the nazis labelled anything they didn't approve of, such as post-impressionism, expressionism and dada). I will be picking up a book about 20th century german art in the library, and I will look to watch The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.

WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?

An incredibly interesting creepy unsolved mystery from my area, the midlands. 

I'd like to create some art based on it, particularly in light of halloween.

Hvass & Hannibal

Hvass & Hannibal (Nan Na Hvass and Sofie Hannibal) work from a studio in Copenhagen, Denmark, where they have created illustrations since 2006. Their use of colour and their compositions are very playful yet neat and organised. The piece I saw in the Making Great Illustration exhibition is an album cover, which is incredibly bright and colourful and looks very tapestry-like. If I remember our tour correctly, it is made of fabric stitched together. It is amazingly intricate and, after learning the basics of composition in the studio the other day, breaks the rules fantastically.

What even is this blog

I'm a first year illustration student at Plymouth, and instead of having a research journal made of paper, this is one made of pixels. It saves the trees.