ANTONIO SANT'ELIA

 

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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Antonio Sant'Elia, (1888-1916), was an Italian architect. He studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (1909-11), and then graduated in architecture at Bologna (1912). He began to produce architectural images from 1911 onwards. 

At that point of time, the scene in Europe was live with classicism and art nouveau. Sant’Elia was first influenced by Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Renzo Picasso, and the Viennese Secession movement. But, he began to develop his own style, through learning about modern materials, technologies and new trends in architecture.

Sant’Elia became an influential member of the Futurist movement in architecture. He was instrumental in composing The Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (published in 1914). The futurists believed, traditional architectural styles were outdated and inadequate for the new realities.

Sant'Elia's vision consisted of an industrialized and mechanized city of the future. This was perceived not as a conglomerate of buildings, but as a large integrated urban entity. His designs have oblique lines, elliptical forms, towers, multi-level movement areas, stepped walls, etc.

His life was interrupted by the outbreak of the war, in which he participated as a volunteer, and died. His only completed work, is the Villa Elisi in San Maurizio.

A considerable number of schematic drawings were produced during the years, 1913-14. These are villas, towers, bridges, lighthouses, workshops, railway stations, power plants and high-rise apartments. 

 

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1 Industrial Age ART

 

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -ASSORTS -by Gautam Shah  

Post 330

1 Industrial Age ART

Industrial age marks a period from later half of 18^th C to first half of 19^th. It was a period of significant innovations and social upheaval. This included migration from rural areas, fast urbanization and degradation of social life.

Art, branched in to two major streams. 1 The artists of the period went on to country life, coastal, uncharted territories for tracing fresh scenes. First it was plein-air, but followed by Impressionism and Expressionism. 2 At another extreme, the artists stayed in own urban localities, capturing industrial buildings, production areas, construction sites, poor condition of workers and the evolving city scapes. In both the cases, the common characteristic was truthful depiction without any personal bias. But both Arts, were subtly experimenting with the form and composition, which ultimately led, to cubism, abstraction and surrealism, etc.

Some used, plein-air sketching, whereas, others began to use camera for the first capture. This was also the period when artists’ colours, in many pre-mixed shades, began to be available in collapsible tubes. Black colour was a taboo for centuries, now, Auguste Renoir believed it to be ‘the king of all colours’ and Vincent Van Gogh, said ‘whoever tries to suppress the black, has nothing to do (with art?)’.

There were few distinct classes of Industrial Age Art. Urban Landscape showing street architecture and Industrial plants, Complexities of construction sites and technical buildings, like cranes, silos, bridges, towers, scaffolding, degradation of living environments, urban level twilight and night street scenes, modern life-style (fashion), and new modes of entertainments.

 

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ALEXANDER KANOLDT

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

Post -329 (originally published on Face Book on Dec 9 2018, but now no trace of it, so republished on my Blog site.)

Alexander Kanoldt (1881-1939), was a German Painter. In the early phase, he worked as a realist, drawing potted plants, angular tins, fruit and mugs on tabletops. His portraits were also in the same ‘statuary style’. During the stay in Munich in 1908, he met several of the modernists such as, Alexei Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. He was involved with several German Expressionists movements.

He evolved a style of own, over a period of thirty years, often labelled as ‘magic realism’. It was, unlike the Surrealism that presented cerebral, psychological, and subconscious reality, whereas the Magic realism was about material-objects and ordinary-subjects, with a distance and detachment.

Kanoldt, during his stay in Italy (1924), produced ‘multi-perspective architectural landscapes and serene interiors’. Kanoldt 's architectural landscapes are bound in geometry and the solidity of the cubists, but more emphatically through the colour compared to Paul Cezanne. During the Nazi period in 1933, he attempted to accommodate the political situation, by painting in a romantic style, but many of his works were seized in 1937, as the degenerate art. 

 

 

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