Figurative Constructivism is an art movement that arose principally in Germany. The term was introduced by
Franz Seiwert in 1929 using the phrase "gegenständlichen constructive", and this was subsequently taken up by
Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz (11 December 1900, in Remscheid – 4 December 1988, in The Hague) was a German Modernist artist renowned for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives, he was also a council communist. The Cologne Progres ...
and then by art historians more generally.
[Benus B. (2013) 'Figurative Constructivism and sociological graphics' in ''Isotype: Design and Contexts 1925-71'' London: Hyphen Press, pp.216-248] It is closely related to the development of the
Isotype. As Seiwert wrote "From the expressionist-cubist art-form abstract constructivism was developed, which in turn led into Figurative Constructivism".
''a bis z''
In October 1929 Seiwert,
Heinrich Hoerle
Heinrich Hoerle (1 September 1895 – 7 July 1936) was a German constructivist artist of the New Objectivity movement.
Hoerle was born in Cologne. He studied at the Cologne School of Arts and Crafts but was mostly self-taught as an artist. Afte ...
and
Walter Stern produced the first issue of ''A bis Z'', subtitled "organ of the progressive artists group". It featured five artists from four towns: Seiwert and Hoerle (
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
),
Augustin Tschinkel (
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
),
Peter Alma (
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
) and Arntz (
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
).
[ Tschinkel and Alma were both colleagues of Arntz at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum run by ]Otto Neurath
Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath (; 10 December 1882 – 22 December 1945) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. He was also the inventor of the ISOTYPE method of pictorial statistics and an innovator in mu ...
in Vienna.[
]
Isostat
The Figurative constructivist approach was adopted by Ivan Ivanitsky of Lenizogiz in Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
.
See also
*Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract ...
*Figurative construction
Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
*Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally accepted meanings or denotation.
* ...
References
{{art-movement-stub
German art movements