Artists: week 4 one

I have looked at the work of László Moholy-Nagy he was born in Hungary,  and began to study law before joining the Austro-Hungarian army at the outbreak of World War 1. Although he had already begun to draw, it was during the war that  he turned to it in a serious manner producing hundreds of sketches in 1917 he was wounded and had a long convalescence he then began thinking seriously about becoming an artist. He worked with many different techniques and media, such as painting, photography, sculpture, film and graphics and explored the relationships between light and colour  In his abstract paintings,  gaining his inspiration  from the Russian avant-garde: Constructivism, the Suprematists Malevich and Lissitzky. Moholy-Nagy became  interested in photography after meeting Lucia Schultz, a talented photographer who he later married. 

He was interested in painting with light, and the techniques used to create an image. He was one of the first artists to experiment with photograms, these were images made without using a camera. He placed every day objects between a sheet of light-sensitive paper and a light source to create abstract shadow images. He also worked with photomontage,  cutting images out of  newspapers and magazines to create a new picture. He would draw and paint  these montages, and then photograph them joining the components into an image that could be reproduced from a negative. He called these photomontages “photoplastics”* to emphasise that it is the light that shaped the image. 

Moholy-Nagy  used a portable miniature camera to explore how photography through its ability to record forms can change and renew our perception of the everyday. Lines, patterns and shapes dominate his black-and-white photographs of the world and make us perceive reality afresh. He liked to use unusual camera angles – often taking the pictures from a bird’s or a worm’s eye view – as well as shadows and negative photos – in which the photographic negative is itself presented as the photograph.He made a number of documentary films between 1930 and 1946 giving life and movement to his photography.he died i 1946  at the age of 51

Here  is some of the work by Moholy-Nagy that I enjoyed viewing

 I love the angle of view along with the angles and lines, that has a great use of light and shape shown in the reflection.

 

I have spent the past couple of weeks looking for lines and curves as part of my assignment, so was fascinated to see the amount of detail in this image with all the lines, curves and added atmosphere created by the use of light