Graphic Design History. La Belle Époque

Graphic Design History

 La Belle Époque

I Lead in.

a) Take 1 minute to write your associations with the phrase La Belle Époque (French phrase that means ‘the beautiful era’). Compare your list with the words noted by other students.

b) Try to image life during the period called La Belle Époque: how did people spend their time? What did they do in their free time? What trends in art and design were popular?

c) Look at the images below. What kind of artwork are they (if any): paintings, sculptures, etc.? What do you see in these images? What elements of art and design (lines, shapes, colour etc.) seem unusual for you? What time period do the images belong to in your opinion?

II Pronunciation focus. Look at the phonetic symbols [s], [ʃ], [ʒ], [z]. How do you pronounce them? Put the words in the list in the correct column based on the way you pronounce the underlined letters. Listen or watch and check.

Paris; century, optimism, peace, leisure, expansion, revolution, advertising, luxury, limitations

[s]	[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[z]
ice	delicious	vision	noise

III Match the words to their definitions. Use three words in your sentences.

ordinary; leisure; advertising; prosperity; advances; luxury goods; expansion; limitation

1.    the state of being successful and having a lot of money

2.    the time when you are not working 

3.    the increase of something in size or number

4.    not different or special 

5.    the business of trying to influence  people to buy products or services

6.    expensive things

7.    a restriction

8.    improvements or progress

IV Complete the text below with the words in italics from task III. Watch the video and check.

Paris in the late 19th century was full of optimism and excitement. Peace and 1)_____ gave people more 2)_____ time and allowed for the 3)_____ of all the Arts. The Industrial Revolution produced thousands of 4)_____ products that needed advertising. This and the new prosperity created new 5)_____   _____ and multiple forms of entertainment to enjoy, and these also required a new form of 6)_____. We call this period la Belle Époque or the Golden Age. The 7)_____ of printing technologies created the look of the wood type poster. By the 1860s new 8)_____ in printing provided the opportunity to use colour and imagery with higher quality.

V Pronunciation focus. Look at the phonetic symbols [ʃ], [ʒ], [dʒ]. How do you pronounce them? Put the words in the list in the correct column based on the way you pronounce the underlined letters. Listen or watch and check.

 solutions; illustrations; images, exaggerated, energetic, pleasure, illusion, artificial, stage, depictions, machines

[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[dʒ]
delicious	vision	age

VI Match the words to their definitions. Use three words in your sentences.

 holy; convey; solution; exaggerated; artificial; depiction; excitement; x-axis;

1.    the answer to a problem

2.    to express

3.    seeming larger than it really is

4.    strong feeling of happiness

5.    horizontal axis of a system of coordinates

6.    made by people, not natural

7.    way of showing something

8.    related to religion

VII Watch the video and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.

Jules Chéret expanded on the typographic wood type painters/posters/posted and is considered a father of the modern/modem/modernity poster. He moved away from type-only solutions and introduced stations/illustrations/illustrated and a more painterly approach. The imagine/imagined/images convey a sense of frivolity and funny/fun/fan. He used exaggerated lighting and energy/energetically/energetic movement to communicate excitement and pleasure. Many of the posters use a strong x-axis to maintain harmony/harmonious/harmonica. The colours are careless/careful/carefully chosen to give the elusive/allusion/illusion of artificial or stage lighting. For example a Sarah Bernhardt poster uses hue/few/blue on her face to simulate a stage-lit shadow. And Chéret integrated the photographer/phonography/typography into the image with hand drawn and painted platter/later/letter forms. Chéret presented men/women/womanize in a new and modern way. Previous depictions in posters and art were of prostitutes or holy figures/figurative/figure out. His women were called Cherettes and showed the few/now/new attitudes. Women in Paris in the 1890s had a less restricted role/sole/dole. Chéret showed this with lower cut dresses, making/smoker/smoking, energetic dancing, and even operating new machines like an electric lamp.

 VIII Match the words to their definitions. Use three words in your sentences.

 negative space; blank; loose; tight; flat; implied form; fluid; solid shape; refined; expanse

1.    having a smooth level surface

2.    improved

3.    not fixed in place

4.    large open area

5.    the space around and between the subjects of an image

6.    form which is an illusion

7.    empty or clear

8.    a three-dimensional figure that has width, depth and height

9.    fixed and hard to move

10.able to flow easily

IX Watch the video above and fill in the gaps with the adjectives from the list. You need to use all the words.

refined; high; flat; large; simpler; flatter; implied; solid; tighter; dynamic; negative; fluid; large; same; looser

In the 1)______ time period the 2)______ forms and simplicity of Japanese woodblock prints influenced Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He took Chéret’s approach of an image-based poster but moved toward a 3)______ and 4)______ form. His posters also use theatrical lighting and 5)______ movement to create excitement for the entertainment events he promoted. Lautrec’s posters integrated the typography as well, but the style was less 6)______ than Chéret’s following a 7)______ approach. Lautrec also used 8)______ expanses of 9)______ space and 10)______ form as Japanese woodblock prints did. He doesn’t paint the detail of May Milton’s dress, we are only shown a 11)______ area of white. The viewer is forced to fill in the blanks to complete the elements in his or her head. Other artists such as Théophile Alexandre Steinlen shared Lautrec’s passion for Japanese woodblock art and Impressionism. His poster Le Chat Noir mixes the 12)______ shapes and 13)______ contrast of Lautrec’s work with a 14)______ and less 15)______ form.

X Put the sentences into logical order. Watch the video and check.

A.   Otherwise it’s just a sign.

B.   The idea of an energetic image-driven design replaced the informational and static posters from before.

C.   Over a hundred years later we assume a poster will be dynamic and exciting.

D.   The excitement and energy of this period in Paris allowed for the explosion of creativity and innovation.

E.    The posters reflect the vitality of the era and the place.

XI Watch all parts of the video and answer the questions.

1. What time period is called la Belle Époque or the Golden Age?

2. What changes in people’s lives did this period of time reflect? What were people’s feelings and emotions like at that time?

3. Why was  a new form of advertising important for the period?  

4. How did  Jules Chéret change posters? What images, composition principles and design elements did he use?

5. How was Chéret’s representation of women different from the earlier stages in design history? What women did he show on his posters?

 6. What techniques influenced Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec?

7. What are the characteristics of  Lautrec’s posters?

8. Did Lautrec include very detailed images into his posters? Why or why not?

 9. What art and design elements (lines, shapes, colour etc.) did Alexandre Steinlen use in his posters?

10. What did energetic image-driven design of la Belle Époque replace? Why cannot posters be static?  

XII OVER TO YOU. Find an ad or a poster from the time period described in the video (it should be in English or French). Get ready to describe what the ad or poster shows and what new elements and techniques of la Belle Époque it uses. Show your ad to other students and discuss what you see and what images mean.