We woke up to two hour school delays due to ice. The trees are all bent over, laden with ice which can really damage them…so I hope the forty degree weather they are promising for later will take the burden off these poor things. Shady Grove is begging to have another cone thrown out into this mess—with her back legs scrambling to keep upright and not totally wipe out. R. has the tundrabus as the wonderbus is still at Winks, so I am landlocked with a nonfunctioning internet (power outage last night)…and I have done all the amelioration that normally works—so it may actually be a service interruption. The phone works. And I am canceling my haircut as I really value my limbs functioning—and shorter hair is not the beginning and end of this equation. I need to get the home team moving despite the later wake up. They are going to have a tough day with lots of work, play practices and finally basketball tournaments in Elmira (in the evening!!). I have the first of “get ready, here comes the college freight train” discussions later this p.m. Urg. And then there is summer to plan and pay for as well as taxes (everyone’s favorite), and committing to spring break.
Sorry for the caterwauling…I feel a bit better. Oh, and here is A. saying that school has now been cancelled. He is networking with his pals to validate that –and I think a call from me to the school secretary might be in line. A. is psyched. A day of movie classics here. I might as well start popping corn, ordering pizza and planning the teen party that will happen.
Ludwig Hohlwein
Compiled and Edited by Professor H.K. Frenzel
with an introdution by Dr. Walter F. Schubert
Translated by Herman George Scheffauer
Berlin 1926
Phonix Illustrationsdruck Un Verlag G.M.B.H.
Got the Ludwig Hohlwein book. It is a class on Hohlwein filled with colored plates, monochrome plates and copy (one side is german, the other English) referring to Hohlwein as a genius (as this book celebrates his 50th anniversary) who produced “kleingraphik” or small graphics/posters, and was best known for his involvement and inroads he made as a “Gebrachsgraphik” Or the author modestly refers to Hohlwein as the “most important Gebrauchsgraphiker of present day Gemany.” Here is what is said about “Gebrachsgraphik”:
“Gebrauchsgraphik”– even in German this word stumbles clumsilyover the tongue. The treasure-house of German speech will certainly not be enriched by it to any edifying degree. And yet this term expresses, objectively and technically, its inward and essential significance much more clearly than other designations such as “Reklame” or “Webekunst” (Advertising or the Art of Canvassing). For the second half of the word precludes all those auxiliary means of canvassing or advertising which do not originate in the graphic arts – such as the printed or spoken word, the film and whatever else may serve as a vehicle for commercial solicitation. And the first half of the compound word clearly defines its relation to the graphic arts themselves. "Gebrauchsgraphik" is not free "graphik" whose purpose is bound to a purpose, it is an artistic means for the expression of a definite intention towards commercial propaganda."
I am going to read and scan and share with you. I was stumped with the picture of a horse I was whaling on yesterday. I cracked open this book and I am back on track. Monochrome. Simpler but not as bare bones as Hohlwein...though I want to try that. I love the different lettering styles, his amazing sense of design and simplicity and his pared back narrative--in some cases little snapshots of Germany in 1920s (prewar energy) with domestic scenes that mirror some of the dutch still lives and personal lives imaged by Vermeer. i am not comparing the artists--just the way they capture domestic moments of making tea, looking in mirrors, quietly reading. An individual moment in a frame. A flicker of time.
Onward to horses.