history of the poster

I read the book 'History of the Poster' by ..... it gave me an overview of the changing styles within poster art and the different influences from within history which effected it. It doesn't relate that strongly to my theme of propaganda but I think it is good to have this sort of background information. I gathered some quotes I thought might be useful for my essay.
‘posters are barometers of social, economic, political and cultural events, as well as mirrors of our everyday lives’ pg12

Posters used to be the main way to get information around so they were very influential; the composition and content of posters had to keep very much in time with what was going on in society.

‘according to Max Bense, posters – their objects and arguments – are ‘nets’ in which the wishes of the people are to be caught’
‘the poster glorifies things in trying to manipulate our behaviour’… [it] ‘solves out problems for us but also confronts us with new ones’ pg12

the poster illustrates what people want to see - they were used, very successfully, for advertising and a lot of political posters took design elements from advertising posters to sell their campaign. They were effective in manipulating people. 

‘the idea of its design is to awaken interest and hold it long enough for the message to get across’ pg12

The posters had to catch peoples attention, especially when there were so many about, there would be no point if people didn't notice them

‘already by 1539, Frances I of France found it necessary to issue an order controlling the putting up of posters. In 1653 it was forbidden, under threat of the death penalty, to print or display posters without official permission. The spread of the use of posters, and more especially their attacks on the state and the church, could only be controlled in this way’ pg26 – posters started about 1400s.

even in such an early stage of design they became so effective in manipulating peoples behaviour so much so that they almost became a weapon against those in charge. 

‘with the discovery of photography in the last century, this means of artistic designing has had a belated success. The first photograph to appear on a poster did so only after the technique had been available for eighty years. During the 1920s, the first photo-posters appeared in Russia and Germany and they were excellent. El Lissitzky, Kluziss etc. designed posters primarily with photographic elements.

Since then, the photographic illustrative poster, with its unlimited possibilities of application, has conquered all continents’ pg42

After France, Russia became the next front runner in poster design as they came up with these very bold, graphic prints that were completely different to everything seen before (constructivism) and influenced a lot of design after that.

‘only Constructivism in Russia, De Stijl in Holland and the German Bauhaus demanded a form of composition for posters in accordance with their manifestos’ pg157

the poster design became part of whole art movements - the posters, art, film, theatre all had to link in with their concepts, which is probably why all the designs created were so strong

‘Russia profoundly influenced the art of the west with the manifestos of suprematism and constructivism’

Malevich – ‘suprematism forced the whole of art into a black square on a white canvas.’ ‘[he] emphasised the importance of pictorial elements as the direct bearers of sensation’

‘his constructions are correspondingly dynamic: conceptions full of energy, consisting of straight lines and curves…weightless arrangement which bursts all bounds. El lissitzky’s influence on the Bauhaus and on visual design in general was lasting’ pg157

the design work was incredibly new and gripping as it was so different to all the traditional illustration seen on posters before. The Japanese had a similar idea with the bold, simple woodcuts, the constructivists used simple colour palettes and shapes to create ideas.

‘whether these creative experiments were the expression of radical unwillingness to reach a political compromise (Futurism, Dadaism) or of Constructive manifestations (Constructivism), these new ideas and forms, with their brutal unfamiliarity and unconcern, were far more of a surprise than the works of earlier constructors of new principles of arrangement, such as De Stijl or German Bauhaus.’ Pg 207

the movements were created out of a reaction to what was going on at the time - Constructivism was in line with the Russian Revolution - which illustrates how much what is going on in the period of time has an effect on the artwork being created. Everything is in relation to each other.