is everybody HAPPY?

fear, again. it's as taboo as, say, sadness or homosexual love. all as natural as can be -- just let nobody see. there's only one emotion that's permissible to show (unless it's the first week after a funeral): HAPPY!

what do they say when they point a camera at you? SMILE! (or its artificial alternative, 'say cheese.' even an artificial happy is better than a real something else.)

we are forced into a theater of our own making. create a scrim to shield reality (it from you, you from it), and a backdrop so the farce maintains a context. "i'm cool."

if you show your fear it might belie a marginal confidence. learn from the politicians and the oil executives: sound strong (and caring) and there'll be few who'll guess that you are neither.

Gray skies are gonna clear up,

Put on a happy face;
Brush off the clouds and cheer up,
Put on a happy face.
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!

Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now honey that's quite a different subject

But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression
'Cause really I'm sad, Oh I'm sadder than sad
Well I'm hurt and I want you so bad
Like a clown I appear to be glad ooh yeah

but isn't it there for all of us? is it not our whole emotional cornucopia that makes us such thrilling creatures? yes. like i said yesterday, fear all the time -- why? where does it come from? it's survival instinct. it's your mother telling you to look both ways. it's every ad in the book telling you you're doing it wrong.

'no, i ain't scared, now pass the bottle.' and we might spend entire lifetimes certain that 'nah, i ain't scared' because what do you think that scrim is made of?

so many ways to not show fear (even to yourself): alcohol, drugs (legal and otherwise), smoking, developing a rigid world view (including a religious one); some tell jokes, some have somebody new in their bed every night. some shoplift, some go into therapy. but most won't tell you. most might not even tell themselves.

What if i say something wrong? what if i have a piece of spinach caught in my teeth? what if i'm dressed wrong? what if i look like an idiot? what if, and of course this is the big one, what if i'm doing it all wrong. what if i've been down so long it looks like up to me? what if everything i know is wrong? is anybody HAPPY?!

well, actually, yes. not every smile is phony and our hearts can hold bounteous joy. i somehow like to think of it as polar bears at eternal war, one fear ('animal,'body'), one love ('human,' 'spirit'). if you do nothing to mask it from yourself or anybody else, you know that already. i guess the bottom line is that FDR was right: all we have to fear... is fear itself.

charade • (halloween suite)

When we played our charade
We were like children posing

Playing at games, acting out names
Guessing the parts we played

Oh what a hit we made
We came on next to closing

Best on the bill, lovers until
Love left the masquerade

Fate seemed to pull the strings
I turned and you were gone

While from the darkened wings
The music box played on

Sad little serenade
Song of my heart's composing

I hear it still, I always will
Best on the bill
Charade

Mercer & Mancini

war, part 1

this has been a fascinating and disturbing direction my brain has led me into. we've talked about the strong influence of the japanese prints (particularly those of kabuki actors) on the new generation of german poster artists. simplification of image and space, outlines, and a hand-lettered style to the words. (and i only now just have realized that the handlettering blossomed so widely in germany because they already had a whole calligraphy in use in the early part of the century!)

then came world war one. countries around the world utilized the talents of the best illustrators, designers, and poster artists to send whatever message that government wanted to send to its people.

The absence of public unity was a primary concern when America entered the war on April 6, 1917. In Washington, unwavering public support was considered to be crucial to the entire wartime effort. On April 13, 1917, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to promote the war domestically while publicizing American war aims abroad. Under the leadership of a muckraking journalist named George Creel, the CPI recruited heavily from business, media, academia, and the art world. The CPI blended advertising techniques with a sophisticated understanding of human psychology, and its efforts represent the first time that a modern government disseminated propaganda on such a large scale. It is fascinating that this phenomenon, often linked with totalitarian regimes, emerged in a democratic state.

The CPI did not limit its promotional efforts to the written word. The Division of Pictorial Publicity "had at its disposal many of the most talented advertising illustrators and cartoonists of the time," and these artists worked closely with publicity experts in the Advertising Division. Newspapers and magazines eagerly donated advertising space, and it was almost impossible to pick up a periodical without encountering CPI material. Powerful posters, painted in patriotic colors, were plastered on billboards across the country. Even from the cynical vantage point of the mid 1990s, there is something compelling about these images that leaps across the decades and stirs a deep yearning to buy liberty bonds or enlist in the navy. 1

it didn't take very long for something to smack me in the face. these "very american" posters, designed by the likes of edward penfield, cole phillips, and cb falls, looked more like those posters of "our enemy" in this war: germany!

and of course some of the artists enlisted there for this are just those we've discussed so often. we've got lucian bernhard, julius klinger, and julius engelhard, along with others. we'll see more, from all sides, in further posts.

it's all there -- the flat planes of color, the outlines, the lettering, the elongated shapes, and the black. war posters were designed to catch the eye and to deliver an important message quickly, just like a poster advertising anything else. if the powers that be want you to use certain products and not others, if they wanted to employ you to fight, or if they wanted you to make you feel personally liable for your family's very lives, here was their tool.

the things i can never get used to are the tragic ironies. it's ironic if not tragic, that we in the US borrowed for our advantage the very tool of the other side, and often pictured them in a rather unflattering light.

and then there are the tragic. "Julius Klinger was a German artist of Jewish descent who worked for Jugend for several years, from 1896 to 1903, at the beginning of his artistic career. He later went on to be a formative force in advertising art, and ultimately died during World War II, probably at the hands of the Nazis."2

and of lucian bernhard -- his influential style brought him invitations from the united states. "Urban areas became hotbeds of advertising: bold, reductive graphic imagery was necessary to capture the viewer's attention on crowded poster hoardings. Bernhard's Sachplakat epitomized his new form, which also included other kinds of imagery in which unusually bright, yet aesthetically pleasing colors replace more subtle hues. Text was pared to a minimum."

in the early 1920s hitler was substantially increasing his power, so when bernhard, also of jewish descent) received an invitation to teach and work in new york, he made the move. "Bernhard was shuttled around the country to promote his own work and perhaps convince American art directors to consider modern design as an alternative to the overly rendered, often saccharine, painted illustration that represented American practice." 3

apparently, though, the word had already gotten through. artists in america were using the tools of the germans to fight the germans who went on to banish the ones that made the tools in the first place. now just how ironic is that.

picture this

without the middle class we'd have nothing to talk about. without the need for sources and sales potentials, we would never invaded, er..., engaged in trade practices with japan. the japanese artists themselves would not have created the prints since there would have been nobody to buy them.

and then as the prints
arrived to (accidentally) inspire all of europe and the world, shopkeepers with a savvy eye imported them to sell them to another middle-class population. and other shopkeepers saw the potential of these bright posters for wider commercial use, and contests were held to find talented young artists to create them for their goods. priester matches awarded their first prize to lucian bernhard and the rest is history.

off on the other side of the atlantic a new young art student arrived from italy, where he had been exposed to all of the new trends in arts and typo- graphy. it was the early 1920s and in upstate new york the photography magnate george eastman was about to open a theater. since the invention of threadable film, movies were booming and he thought he might even show them in his new space.

no poorly executed mass produced movie poster would satisfy him, however, and he too held a contest. yes, you guessed it; our new resident won.



batiste madalena was a genius. he did one of each pair here, and many many more. despite the fact that he is clearly utilizing styles and techniques the european (german, british) artists were, his creations were entirely distinct. with their brilliant and unique use of color, of contrasting out- lines, and of a truly rich flatness, his look was, and still is, entirely his own.

after four years of his creating on average one poster a day, the theater was sold to paramount; they thought differently about hand-done, painted posters. one rainy night, bicycling home for the day, madalena rode along the alley behind the theater and stopped in his tracks. overflowing in the large trash can he saw his posters, paint running and spattering to the ground.

how he must have felt as he gathered as many of them as he could; reports vary widely but approximately 25% of the originals were salvaged. he and his wife cleaned them, pressed them, restored them, and put them in the attic for the next 50 years.

when they were to be discovered, displayed, and given back, to some extent, to the middle class. there are two books, now playing, and movie posters, a hollywood library database, and tales told. i haven't seen this one, but find the other two limited in what they offer.

but not limited in the satisfaction they provide.

plakatstil & hand-lettering

in order to understand the evolution of japonisme into what was called plakatstil in germany (and which occurred, as a look, mainly in germany, england, and the united states), we need not think image, we need to think calligraphy.

we have seen the numerous art nouveau lettering styles that so closely imitated the japanese brush-made letters. the important thing was that, in the flurry of the industrial age, this stress on hand-lettering.

one of the first to take the hand- lettering beyond the purely japanese- brush look was toulouse- lautrec. his hand-lettering is a bit awkward at times (look at the 'd' in aristide's name) but always quite charming, and maintains the feel of the japanese calligraphy. there is just nothing hard-edged about it. an itc font has been created to honor it, and you've been looking at it at the top of this page for a year and a half now; it's called 'le petit trottin' after a sketch lautrec made of a trottin, a shop-girl.

note also in the lautrec posters the blocks of color, the flat surfaces, diagonal structures, and the asymmetry in their layouts -- all things we have compared with japanese prints in the past.



the next steps the hand- drawn characters took were to still less stylized but no less charming forms. credited as leading this movement were the beggarstaff brothers (the name william nicholson and james pryde took to do commercial work so as nobody would think they were not serious artistes).

while they still borrowed many of the design elements of the japanese prints, they took the lettering to its next step.





and following closely on their tails were edward penfield in the us, and the artists of plakatstil: german advertising posters which are said to have revolutionized advertising (while still richly inspired by the japanese).


among these were lucian bernhard (the instigator), ludwig hohlstein, paul schuerich, emil paul rumpf, julius gipkens, and many more. note additionally, of course, the use of outline, blocks of color, simplicity and solitary focus, and the diagonal lines of their inspiration.

otto heim codified the wonderful fonts, and in our own time, nick curtis has reinvigorated them. to me, they are the most charming fonts available.



why did the rest of europe never adopt this lettering? i'll let you know when i find out.