blue masksI have a habit of saving 9gag (and other interesting site’s) quotes on my phone so I can scroll the favourite part of my favourite site offline in hopes of using them the future. It’s a wonderful news that this project enables me to use my saves since it doesn’t specified the types of poems and rhymes. That means I can use modern poems which seems to be more relevant to our lives today.

 

I like the three poems on the sides as they are interesting enough to stand out equally with the modern song which are rhymes that is widely appreciated nowadays. Among all the choices, I’ll be using The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. It’s beautiful and inspiring, but long enough for me to have the other two as just-in-case.

the road not taken<Click picture for full size.>The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, illustrated by ZEN PENCILS.

 

Opinions aside, back to the topic– my searching on the reference artists and styles recommended by the notes given. The first impression I got from the styles I searched — Surrealism and Dadaism is visually impact and attract. In my opinion, The two styles sort of work in similar ways. They capture your curiosity with the images, collages, dingbats, forms, and photos we can resemble to, then the art hold them all together regardless of their habitat (where they supposed to belong.) forming something that what we (in the absence of knowledge of art) called abstraction. Similar to how impressionism is to renaissance art, surrealism and dadaism stood out of the crowd of expressive art.(Non-depicting and recording art.) To me, surrealism is more in the expressive side, but dadaism is more in a form of mockery. (what the artists said.)

The_Ghost_of_Vermeer

I don’t think Salvador Dalí wanted to mock Johannes Vermeer but probably to express his admiration to the artist in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table.

Surrealism usually was explained as expressing the artists’ dream or non-reality on the canvas or just to express a purpose in an unconventional but still showing their skills in making art. (Modern art probably ditched the latter.)

Hannah Höch. German, 1889-1978 Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands). 1919-1920 Photomontage and collage with watercolor, 44 7/8 x 35 7/16” (114 x 90 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie © 2006 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, © 2006 Hannah Höch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, photo: Jörg P. Anders, Berlin

Hannah Höch. German, 1889-1978
Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands). 1919-1920
Photomontage and collage with watercolor, 44 7/8 x 35 7/16” (114 x 90 cm)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
© 2006 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin,
© 2006 Hannah Höch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, photo: Jörg P. Anders, Berlin

Hannah Hoch, on the other hand, created her art with collage of images from paper publications. Seemingly this style of art appears to be closer to what we’re going to do in this project. Her art, instead of being symbolic in the components, portraits her ideas and criticize in the whole picture, like Cut with a Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (1919). (A really long name though.)

This artwork is said to be referring to the decadence of pre-war German culture, metaphorically criticizing humankind’s lack of humanity. (theartstory.org) The mockery component of dadaism and Hannah Hoch can be seen by reproducing art with produced images.

russian constructismLater came Russian Constructivism. Which style was depicted by the google image results above.

First word popped into my head, communism. The soviet union used this style for so long that people from other parts of the world used as a style of art/ poster. Russian Constructivism attracts my eyes with sharp colors and lines, simple figures and dingbats, as well as the standardized font. The attraction is a success and can be continued with presenting their message. (Whether indirect or not.) Probably it is what sparks the idea of this poster.the-interview-movie-poster

In conclusion, what the reference artist helped in my creation:

  1. The images I construct don’t have to be direct or literal. The presentation in the structure don’t have to be conventional. (As shown in the student’s work.) It doesn’t  have to be like Dr. Seuss illustrations. My orientation is yet to be decided and attempted.
  2. Any dingbats from anyone can be used as long as it’s coherent to what I need to express the lines of my poem.
  3. Since it’s in black and white, so color of Constructivism can’t be imitated. However, its striking image structure is impressive.