The Diary of Queen Mothy |
Avant-Garde written @ 11:53 PM on April 04, 2005 He [Tschichold] continued to feel that the new typography was suitable for publicizing industrial products and communication about contemporary painting and architecture, but also believed it was folly to use it for a book of Baroque poetry, for example, and he called reading long pages of sans serif "genuine torture." From page 289 of The History of Graphic Design, which is also composed entirely out of sans serif type and is equally tortorous to read. And then, there was this (background info: de Stijl is a Dutch design style that claims horizontal and vertical lines are the most superior visual elements in all design): Mondrian stopped contributing articles to the journal [De Stijl] in 1924, after van Doesberg developed his theory of elementarism, which declared the diagonal to be a more dynamic compositional principle than horizontal and vertical construction. -- From . . . the same damned book. And now, an Avant-Garde Play by Queen Mothy [Scene: the editing room of De Stijl journal... sparsely furnished... all right angles, perspective skewed... black, white, red, blue, and yellow furniture (thank God for #2 pencils)-- all other colors FORBIDDEN. VAN DOESBERG is seated at his desk fervently working on the latest cover of the journal. MONDRIAN enters from stage right with a carpet bag suitcase in one hand and a box of ratty paintbrushes in the other. HE slams the door and sniffs dejectedly, a ploy to both get VAN DOESBERG'S attention and to suppress a sob.] MONDRIAN: [sounds like Nathan Lane a la The Birdcage] Theo, I'm leaving you. VAN DOESBERG: [Think Joe Pesci] It's not five o'clock yet, darlin', come check out the latest postah! I think you'll spontaneously combust when you see the typography! [Seeing that MONDRIAN is serious] Hey, hey, baby, where's the fiah? MONDRIAN: The fire is out, Theo, it's out! And so is baby. [Stamps foot] VAN DOESBERG: W-wait, baby! Don't go! Was it the green on page fifteen in the last issue? Or--or-- shoot-- I forgot to put those black outlines around the white type on the back cover. MONDRIAN: [summoning up every shred of dignity] It wasn't the green, Theo, we both know that. And I felt the lack of black outline around the white text was very Russian constructivist of you. Goodbye, Theo. VAN DOESBERG: Is it Lissitzky? Do you want me to fire old El, Piet, is that what you want me to do? Fire the man who has contributed so much to our way of life, our style-- MONDRIAN: Oh, it's always about style with you! Style and no regard for the rules! Tell me, does she have style? VAN DOESBERG: . . . What the fuck are you talking about? MONDRIAN: You know precisely what I'm talking about! That two-bit floozy! Oh, she think's she's straight-talkin', she thinks she's got what it takes to communicate with ya, don't she? VAN DOESBERG: [Realizing what MONDRIAN means] Awe Christ, sweetheart, it ain't like that between us at all! MONDRIAN: Oh sure, Theo, because I haven't seen those crooked positions she's put you in, the way she spreads on a page-- VAN DOESBERG: [Suddenly gets up and slaps MONDRIAN] Don't you talk like that. I thought you had more class than that. And Diagonal Line is a lady. MONDRIAN: She's impure! When we first met it was just going to be us! Us, damn it! Horizontal as female and vertical as male, like Bonny and Clyde, Hitler and Eva, Cher and Sonny, Bush and Hussein! But now she's in the picture plain. She's callin' the compositional shots, and now you're in a spatial relationship, but you ain't even dynamic enough to hold a typographic ligature to the Bauhaus. VAN DOESBERG: Awe, you and the goddamned Bauhaus, you're always bringing up the muther-f-ing Bauhaus. MONDRIAN: You're no Gropius, you don't hold a flame to Bayer, and Picasso was a much better lover. VAN DOESBERG: Then why don't you go bloody shack up with him, him and that Braque character. MONDRIAN: Because they don't think outside the box, cherie. You were the one I loved best. But now I see what you're doing. You swing both ways now don't you? You go between Horizontal and Vertical now-- gasp! You're bi-linear, you and your Miss Diagonal. Well! Good riddance to you, Theo. I'm headed to America, me and Squares. VAN DOESBERG: [snorting] Ha! You and the Squares indeed, you stupid hoes. Take care you don't get stopped by the Nazi on the corner. MONDRIAN: It's 1932, you asshole, and the Nazis have yet to get to Amsterdamm. Get a new visual reality, dumb schmuck. [Mondrian exits; camera pans to bunnies mating beside a brook, symbolic of life struggles and the will to slide over trouble like water on pebbles. Black and white shot of a cloud. Random shot of a blonde girl, staring at nothing in the distance.} End scene. And this is how I study.
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
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