In the 19th century, the art of posters was introduced to the western world as one of its first forms of advertisement. It is an effective form of visual communication and it continues to evolve with time. Typography was a crucial element of poster design, as they were meant to be read from a distance and they were made to convey a clear message to the targetted audience. Each poster made itself bold and flashy to attract the attention of the public, and the freeform of type played a huge role for them.

Technological advancements in moveable type with metal and wood type allowed for companies to have an easier time creating advertisements for themselves. In the early 19th century, posters consisted of huge fonts and a whole lot of information, which was hard to read at a glance and could not convey all the information well enough. This was due to companies having the printers design the posters instead of hiring artists. But by the late 19th century, the European poster designing game had changed completely with the birth of the lithographic poster.

Although lithography was invented in the late 18th century, it continued to be too slow and expensive for producing large posters. That was until French poster artist Jules Chéret produced the first colour lithograph poster with his breakthrough of the 3 stone lithographic process. With this breakthrough, poster designers insisted on using their own, freeform and hand-drawn type instead of sticking to one specific typeface, or continued utilizing the typefaces invented in the early 19th century for posters such as the Slab Serif (Egyptian) or my personal favourite, the Fat Face, which is “fundamentally Didones on steroids” (A Brief History of Type – Part 5). Fat Face type was essentially a Modern type with more weighted strokes and triangulated serifs.

With the innovation of Chéret’s 3 stone lithographic process, designers were not bound to typefaces when it came to posters. This was a period of poster design with one of the most creative hand-drawn fonts ever. Even today, we can find many examples of copied typeface styles from the late 19th century. The designs were captivating and now, nostalgic, and can be seen used in many posters today.

http://www.designishistory.com/1850/poster https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/a-short-history-of-the-poster https://www.internationalposter.com/a-brief-history-of-the-poster/

A Brief History of Type—Part 5

     

    

     

While Europe was starting to flourish in its industrial revolution, another important period in world history was going down in the East. More specifically, in Japan. During this period, Japan was under the rule of a military dictatorship, historically referred to as the Tokugawa Shogunate or the Edo period. 

      During the Edo period (1603CE – 1867CE) the Tokugawa Shogunate finally unified all of Japan. With that, there were no more civil wars among Japanese clans. This lead to a period of internal peace, political stability, and economic growth that grew Japan’s culture to the next level. Business increased, schools and roads were built, everyone learned to read, and many books were published. There was poetry, puppet shows and even Dutch studies. During this period, Japan had cut off the majority of its external relations and trade with other countries out of fear for being invaded by outside forces, with the exception of the Dutch. The trade between the Dutch and the Japanese allowed for people of Japan to study European works of Physics and Astronomy. Only after a couple of centuries, in the early 1800s, Japan opened its trade relations again, allowing for the very influential style of traditional Japanese artworks called ukiyo-e to travel over to Europe. 

Ukiyo-e, meaning “the floating world”, was the style of art popularized within the Edo period. Its characteristics were not focused on realism, but more so on the beauty and the essence of the natural world. It originated from the various depictions of the red-light districts across Japan at the time. With the abundance of prostitution in feudal Japan, the government decided to push all of them into one area. The lives of these prostitutes, both male and female, were incredibly depressing. The majority of them were sold to brothels by their own family and worked in a never-ending cycle of debt until their death. They were not allowed to step outside of the walls of the brothel, unless if it were to visit a dying relative or once a year for hanami, the viewing of cherry blossoms. The only escape was to marry a client, to be taken in as a concubine, or in death, commonly due to sexually transmitted infections, failed abortions or sexual abuse. In rare instances, some were able to pay off their debts and live a normal life, but it was near impossible to achieve this as the financial outcome was in the brothel’s favour.

Though the dark history of sex trafficking may make the Edo period seem gloom, the red light district lead to the flourishing of art and culture across the country. The members of the shogunate being wealthy alongside a booming consumerism culture, patrons of arts, music and literature grew the art history of Japan and pushed their limits. And like every cultural advancement, life wasn’t perfect, but it allowed Japanese art to bloom.

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-tragic-life-of-the-courtesan-in-japans-floating-world/

https://ukiyo-e.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiwara

The world starts to shift as the inventive minds bring new light into it. Methods of type improve the way of living and enlighten the population. We learned just how much type evolves through this time period, moving from simple text to being able to print detailed illustrations and developing different fonts was a fascinating growth to learn about.

The Witch Hunt

In the lives of early modern Europeans and colonial North Americans were wild as they were without the threat of “witches”. Most accusations took place in Germany, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. These “witches” were considered to be using magic to influence people for their own benefit. What people considered “witchcraft” though, was not something scientifically proven nor support by factual evidence that it makes a person a witch. The qualifications of a “witch” would usually be a single woman past her prime age for marriage, one who reads a lot, the ones who seem knowledgable (for women), ones who own cats, especially black ones, people who practiced medicine, and often cases scientists.

The people of this time could not possibly prove dark powers of magic that they would use to influence others. But from the religious bigotry and medieval ignorance, it has been found that over 40,000 people were executed all over the world for their accusations of being a witch.

Instead of scientific accuracy, people ran practical tests based on their beliefs to test an individual accused of being a witch. One of the most infamous tests is the “swimming” test. Since the Catholic Church believed the witches were not baptized, they also believed that any body of water would reject their presence. So these “witches” were tested through being tossed into the nearest body of water, stripped of their clothes. The theory was that if the accused were a “witch” then the water would reject them and they would float, while a regular human being would start to sink. This process did not last a long time due to its uncertainty and not to mention the “accidental” drownings that often occurred.

With many tests to prove their innocence, the people at the time were not satisfied with any defiance of God. Many of the accused “witches” were even Christian, yet the Church overlooked some facts to take control of the public. Eventually, by the 1730s, the witch-trials and executions ended for the time being on the fact that by this point, most people thought of witch-hunting to be fraudulent. There are occurrences of the rise of witch-hunting throughout modern times, but none were as severe as the witch-hunts during this time. As unfortunate as these circumstances were for the poor innocent, the phenomenon did spark modern cultural interpretations of witches in literary culture and has effected a lot of pop culture. To look into the positive, without these witches being executed, we wouldn’t have grown up with “The Wizard of Oz”.

Andrews, Evan. “7 Bizarre Witch Trial Tests.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 18 Mar. 2014, https://www.history.com/news/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests.

Lewis, Jone Johnson. “A Timeline of Witch Hunts in Europe.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 13 Mar. 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/european-witch-hunts-timeline-3530786.

User, Super. “Who Burned the Witches?” Catholic Education Resource Center, https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/who-burned-the-witches.html.

By the mid-1100s, Europeans across the continent developed a higher understanding of art. The Church provided commissions for works of art depicting biblical elements. This let art in many forms started to flourish. From frescoes, panel paintings, manuscript illuminations and stained glass, the painting world became a whole lot broader.

Art in the gothic period predominantly featured biblical elements. Painting of any form hadn’t been commercialized and was very expensive, so without patrons from the Church it was impossible to pursue a future in art. 

The use of colour in gothic art was vibrant and was used with a purpose in mind. The reason might be because of the lack of understanding of visual depictions or that there were limitations to the medium compared to the later periods in art, as painting techniques and resources were not developed as much. The main source of colour in frescoes was from minerals and plants. Frescoes consisted of plastering powder into a mixture of lime and water to implant it into the wall, and colourful materials could be found all over nature. 

Colour was utilized as more than just decorations, but more so as symbols. There was a reason why Jesus Christ was depicted in blue and red clothes. Blue symbolized his royalty, his Godly heritage, and the red symbolized the blood and passion of Christ. Like this, European artists of the gothic period started to have a greater understanding of colour beyond what can be seen. By bringing an emotional connection to the colours used in artwork allowed the viewers to feel the ideas presented. This was a great promotion for the Church since many people were illiterate and could not fully read or understand the teachings of the Bible. The help of visual communication advanced the ways the Church could teach and at the same time, art commissions became profitable, allowing for more people to pursue art and eventually blossom into the renaissance.

“Gothic Art (C.1150-1375).” Gothic Art: Characteristics, History, http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/gothic.htm.  Wiley, Lucia, et al. The Art of Fresco: Color, http://www.muralist.org/fresco/color.html. The Meaning of Colors Symbols in Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance Painting, http://www.historyofpainters.com/colors.htm.