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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 6
Lesson 2: Bauhaus- The Bauhaus, an Introduction
- The Bauhaus and Bau
- The Bauhaus: Marcel Breuer
- The Bauhaus: Marianne Brandt
- Feininger, Cathedral for the Bauhaus
- Klee, Twittering Machine
- László Moholy-Nagy, Photogram
- Moholy-Nagy, EM1, EM2, and EM3 (Telephone Pictures)
- Moholy-Nagy, Composition A.XX
- Moholy-Nagy, Climbing the Mast
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Moholy-Nagy, Climbing the Mast
László Moholy-Nagy, Climbing the Mast, 1928, gelatin silver print, 5.4 x 28 cm or 13 15/16 x 11 inches (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Speakers: Dr. Juliana Kreinik and Dr. Vanessa Rocco View this on Smarthistory.org: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/laszlo-moholy-nagy-climbing-the-mast.html. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I do not understand how this "worms eye view" is making a political statement. Can anyone clarify this?(4 votes)
- Actually at @2:50the speaker says that with Moholy a lot of times the subject matter is RARELY overtly political. For the most part for him it was more about expanding the perception of the viewers. This image is not political, the worms eye view just shows a different point of view and dramatic perspective, which was uncommon at the time. László Mololy-Nagy's work was all about graphic principles and perception, which probably isn't so interesting to the average viewer, but for a practicing artists these are all invaluable tools to be able to communicate visually.(4 votes)
- Did this photographer belong to an art movement? I am studying visual art and culture and am currently reading about representation and its relationship to expressionist art.(3 votes)
- They was look at the human butt and that's nasty(1 vote)
- In a case like this, would Moholy-Nagy have carefully planned in advance and staged the photograph or would it have been more of a "snapshot"?(2 votes)
- Based on what I observed, I would assume that he staged the photograph. His work took a lot of detail and craftsmanship in them (including paintings and other photographs.) I feel like Moholy-Nagy is not a very "spontaneous" kind of person.(2 votes)
- Why is the human figure put in this particular angle ?(1 vote)
- The main focus of this image is the foreshortening, perspective, to make us feel how high the person is climbing. If he were to take the picture from the side, most of the mast wold have been cut off and the image wouldn't be this dramatic.(3 votes)
- Is it possible to remove the overlaid text from the videos?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(soft piano music) Female 1: We're in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and we're lookin at Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's,
Climbing the Mast from 1928. It's a gelatin silver print,
and it's pretty amazing. Female 2: It is amazing
and shows one of the things that he was known for with
his new vision photography over the use worm's-eye
and bird's-eye views. This is a classic way
to see what he meant by worm's-eye view. This
unexpected angle that you get of the climber on the
mast. It's kind of jarring and makes you stop in your
tracks because it's not the kind of positioning
that you would normal expect with a straight photograph. Female 1: He's taken
the worm's-eye view very literally and ends up
ending our expectation. Female 2: He was always
hoping that by giving us these unexpected or what
was often called oblique angles that would lead
us to think deeply about what were looking at. You
have a figure, a human figure. I actually can't tell
if it's male or female. Can you? Female 1: Not really. I mean,
it's just not important. Female 2: It's just an
athletic body climbing up to rig up a sail boat,
and you get this also interesting shadow of
the rope ladder and the figure reflected on the
sail that's been rigged. You see it from directly
underneath these almost disembodied looking legs
and the bottoms of the feet staring at you right in the face. Female 1: It's a totally
shortened figure, and it takes a moment and you
finally see this head peeking through the legs
kind of looking at him making eye contact. Female 2: Then you have
the wonderful wooden mast of the ship slicing
through the center of the composition. You can also
see that he has great eye for compositional elements. Female 1: I think there's
really a strong sense of geometry as well.
Everything is divided into sections. If you wanted
to you could take apart the entire thing and kind
of piece it back together. There's also a rhythm he sets
up visually between textures, between light and dark,
between shadows, between fabric and wood, and
especially the legs, which are really smooth, and
the smoothness of the wood that travels all
the way up. Everything is just sort of lifting us up into this. Female 2: It creates the
dynamism of motion and movement swooping you
into the composition. We became very convinced
that photography was going to be the new
language of the masses. He actually started to refer
to things like photo-literacy, that if you didn't know how to read images you were going to be the new illiterate. Female 1: Photography was
a definite weapon for them in terms of communication,
in terms of revolutionary messages, in terms of art.
Here it's Moholy playing with perspective, and
playing with perception, and playing with our
vision, and really forcing us to look at things from
a different point of view. Female 2: Yes, absolutely.
With Moholy a lot of times, the subject matter, it's
rarely overtly political. For the most part for
him it was more about expanding the perception
of the viewers that would allow them to engage
with those new modern language. It was for the masses. It was
political but not overtly so. Some like [Rachanko]
would use these oblique jarring angles, but he
would almost always have subject matter that was also
political, demonstrations, you know, Little Pioneer Girl, with Moholy it was more this general formulation still very modern life materiel.
Especially, the athleticism of the figure, a real
symbol of modernity that he's injected that aspect of modern life. Female 1: A temporary figure
that we're looking at. Female 2: Yes, inarguable contemporary. (soft piano music)