A lot happened during the 1920’s, it was known for the
Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, The start of the rise of Hitler and the
Nazi party, the Surrealist, Art Deco, and the Expressionist art movements, the
Jazz Age and the founding of Disney. While America is celebrating winning World
War One in the early 1920’s and Germany in debt, to America struggling with
Great Depression in 1929 and Germany being the one’s economically stable.
Walt and Roy O. Disney founded Disney Brothers Animation
Studios in Los Angeles in 1923. Their first animation(s) were a series of
silent shorts featuring a live action little girl in an animated world. The
shorts were named ‘Alice Comedies’ (who was originally played by Virginia
Davis). The first in the series was named Alice’s Wonderland and was created by
Ub Iwerks and his team of Disney animators in Kansas City, Missouri. In Alice’s
Wonderland she falls asleep after seeing the Disney animators working and dreams
she is in an animated world.
Later that year in October 1923, due their success with
their animated shorts they moved into a small office on Kingswell Avenue in Los
Feliz, Los Angeles. In 1925, Disney put down a deposit on a new location on
Hyperion Avenue in the nearby Siler Lake neighbourhood, which became known as
the Hyperion Studio to avoid confusion with their studio’s other locations. The
studio moved there in 1926 and took on the name ‘Walt Disney Studio.’
Steamboat Willie was a black and white animated short film
directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1928. It is said to be the first
feature appearance of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie, although they had
both appeared months earlier in a test screening of their short ‘Plane Crazy.’ It
was the third of Mickey Mouse’s films to be produce but the first to be
produced, because after seeing ‘The Jazz Singer’ he decided to commit to
producing the first fully synchronised sound animation. Walt quickly realised
that synchronised sound animations are the future for film and animation. The
music for the animation was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, which
included the songs ‘Steamboat Bill’ and ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ Steamboat Willie
became one of the most popular cartoons of its time and received wide critical
acclaim, for both its introduction of possibly the world’s most popular cartoon
characters and its technical innovation. The animation was produced by
Celebrity Productions; premiered in New York City on November 18th
1928 and lasted around 2 weeks. The success of Steamboat Willie led to the fame
of Walt Disney and his character ‘Mickey Mouse’
The 1920’s was widely known as either the Roaring Twenties,
The Golden Age (for Europe) or known for the fall of the Weimar Republic, rise
of the Nazi party in Germany or The Great Depression in America. During the
‘Roaring Twenties’ in America, Jazz and Swing music had become a massive hit
and music became a larger part of everyday life when the first commercial radio
stations aired in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Britain and most of
Europe (excluding Germany) were experiencing a boom in technological advances,
social trends and money flow. With more money around it allowed the average
person to afford a car, a mobile phone, electricity and trips to the newly
built cinemas.
Jazz Music was the latest ‘hip’ music in the 1920’s, with
artists such as Benny Goodman - ‘The King of Swing,’ Bessie Smith – ‘The
Empress of the Blues’ and ‘The New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Before the Jazz age a
lot of music and artists were controlled by their record companies, however
after the early 1920’s the music industry became a lot more free and available
and allowed artists to write and play whatever they wanted.
However, things weren’t great all the time for America, as
in 1929 the Wall Street Stock Market in New York city crashed to a record low
and America was quickly plummeted into massive debt and depression. Which came
to be known as The Great Depression. This crash didn’t just effect America however.
The economic depression effected most of the world, with stock prices all
around the world ‘crashing’ to an all-time low. With this drop in stocks, came
the drop in the worth of the dollar and unemployment was at an all-time high.
The Great Depression had massive effects on both the poor and rich communities
with Personal income dropping, tax rising and prices dropped rapidly. Cities
all around the world were effected badly, especially those relying on heavy
industry and production. Construction was halted and farming communities and
industries suffered as crop prices dropped massively. Sales of common household
items and luxury items had dropped way lower than they were during the war.
There are many theories as to how and why the crash happened, but the most
commonly accepted theory is that there was a large scale loss of confidence in
the stock market which led to a sudden reduction in investments and
consumption, meaning less money were going into the banks.
For most countries, the recovery process of The Great
Depression began in early 1933, however, America was still suffering to as late
as the 1940’s. Many people believe the start of World War Two helped America
recover from the crisis as America turned focus away from the depression to
boost morale in troops, meaning people started spending money again and raising
the amount of money flowing in the country, which was going into funding the
government and the equipment for the war. Rearmament policies in Europe allowed
people to easily sign up for the army and this reduced unemployment rates,
again increasing the amount of money flowing. Also, with the war approaching,
women were advised to work, again furthering the money flow in both America and
Europe.
In Germany things weren’t so great, even from the end of
World War One. With the loss of the war and the Weimar Republic being forced to
sign the Treaty of Versailles, Germany fell into a lot of debt, and the
government was to blame. With a lot of social unrest and riots happening, the
Nazi party used this to their advantage to be voted in and scrap the Weimar
Government and start Hitler’s Dictatorship.
This all started in September 1919 when Hitler joined the
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or the ‘DAP’ {German Workers’ Party) for short. Which
was changed to the Nationsozialistche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or the NSDAP
(National Socialist German Workers’ Party) for short, but more commonly known
as the Nazi Party. This political party was formed during the end of World War
One and opposed the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles, which is why
so many people were behind their policies and supported this party. Hitler’s
rise to power was considered to have ended in March 1933, once the Reichstag
(government) had adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 earlier that month allowing
Hitler complete power over Germany.
Hitler did help Germany out of its debt that was blamed upon
the Weimar Republic after World War One. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933,
one of his first aims was introducing policies to improve the economy of ‘Nazi
Germany’ and combat the hyperinflation happing at the time. He did this by
cutting off a lot of trade to keep resources within Germany, increase wages by
10% on average. However, cutting trade meant rationing key resources like
fruit, clothing and general consumption within Germany.
There were many Art Movements happening within the 1920’s
with countries celebrating or grieving the war, art flourished. With surrealism
developing largely in France and a lot of Europe. Art Deco in America,
Expressionism and DADA too being popular.
Art Deco was seen as the dominant style of design in the
1920’s, especially in America; although it originated in Europe just before
World War One. With an ‘assertively modern style’ which represented luxury, glamour
and technological progression. It was said to be influenced by Futurism,
Constructism and Cubism, which is where it gets it’s bold and simple style
from. It is also said to be highly influenced from the discoveries of Ancient
Egyptian, Roman and Greek civilisations and art at the time. Art Deco itself
influenced a lot of common objects at the time. From jukeboxes to graphic
design. World War Two marked the decline of Art Deco as it was perceived as
‘too luxurious’ for propaganda. However, Art Deco still inspires and influences
many designers and artists today.
Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that began in the
early 1920’s and is best known for its dreamlike imagery and visuals. With many
widely known artists like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte being known for using
this style, it quickly became a large influence in the art world. Artists
painted ‘illogical’ scenes with photographic precision and created strange
creatures as like something out of an odd dream. A lot of surrealist artists worked
with juxtapositions and unexpected features. Surrealism developed largely out
of DADA which was large during World War One. From the mid 1920’s is had spread
around the world from its origin in Paris, effecting literature film and the
music industry too.
Salvador Dali was widely known for his surrealist pieces of
‘dreamscapes,’ featuring clocks, people and many distorted objects of daily
life. The Spanish painter was most commonly known for his painting ‘The
Persistence of Memory’ which featured clocks melting on a barren wasteland with
a single dead tree and a table in the foreground and a seaside/mountain scape
in the background. Dali’s portfolio includes works in film, painting,
sculpture, photography and a series of mixed media pieces. Dali was seen as
highly imaginative and enjoyed indulging in strange and unusual behaviour. He
passed away on the morning of January 23rd 1989 at the age of 84.
I feel a lot of my illustrations are inspired by the
simplistic style of the Art Deco movement. For my illustration I use a style
where I only use one skin tone and then one shadow tone for the skin, then same
for fabrics, landscapes, and etcetera. This gives my illustrations a bold and
sleek look, whilst still keeping details and depth in my work. I also used a
surrealist-like style for my art propaganda poster, with a warped frame while
still having relevant information aligned with the frame and my imagery aligned
straight, so you can tell the frame and text is warped.
