The History
of Visual
Communication
Decades of Contradictions
Decades of Contradictions
Decades of Contradictions
The Thirty Glorious Years
The Post War Boom
While the memory of immediate postwar rationing and penury was still fresh, fueled by coordinated government action and Marshall Plan loans the Western European countries were able to vault to higher and higher levels of wealth and productivity less than a decade after the end of the war. Real Wages grew in England by 80% from 1950 to 1970, French industrial output doubled between 1938 and 1959, and West Germany’s exports grew by 600% in one decade: the 1950s. The years between 1945 and 1975 were described by a French economist as the trente glorieuses: The Thirty Glorious Years. It was a time in which regular working people experienced an enormous, ongoing growth in their buying power and standard of living.
With the welfare state in place, many people were willing to spend on non-essentials, buying on credit and indulging in the host of new consumer items like cars, appliances, and fashion. In short, the postwar boom represented the birth of the modern consumer society in Europe, the parallel of that of the United States at the same time. Increasingly, only the very poor were not able to buy consumer goods that they did not need for survival. Most people were able to buy clothes that followed fashion trends, middle-class families could afford creature comforts like electric appliances and televisions, and increasingly working families could even afford a car, something that would have been unheard of before World War II.
Part of this phenomenon was the baby boom. While not as extreme in Europe as in the US, the generation of children born in the first ten years after WWII was very large, pushing Europe’s population from 264 million in 1940 to 320 million by the early 1970s.. A child born in 1946 was a teenager by the early 1960s, in turn fueling the massive explosion of popular music that resulted in the most iconic musical expression of youth culture: rock n’ roll. The “boomers” were eager consumers as well, fueling the demand for fashion, music, and leisure activities.
Meanwhile, the sciences saw breakthroughs of comparable importance to those of the second half of the nineteenth century. Scientists identified the basic structure of DNA in 1953. Vaccines were put into usage for the first time en masse. Organ transplants became a reality in the 1950s. Thus, life itself could be extended in ways hitherto unimaginable. Along with the growth of consumer society, postwar Europeans and Americans alike had cause to believe in the possibility of indefinite, ongoing progress and improvement.
The Cold War
"Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery... [ ] that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours."
___ George Orwell, 1945
The Cold War was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. It was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.”
The New Look
Christian Dior's reputation as one of the most important couturiers of the twentieth century was launched in 1947 with his very first collection, in which he introduced the "New Look." Featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, a very full skirt, the "New Look" celebrated ultra-femininity and opulence in women's fashion. After years of military and civilian uniforms, sartorial restrictions and shortages, Dior offered not merely a new look, but a new outlook.
And more cars...
The 1950s American automobile culture has had an enduring influence on the culture of not only the United States but on the world at large in following decades, as reflected in popular music, major trends from the 1950s and mainstream acceptance of the "hot rod" culture. The American manufacturing economy switched from producing war-related items to consumer goods at the end of World War II, and by the end of the 1950s, one in six working Americans were employed either directly or indirectly in the automotive industry. The United States became the world's largest manufacturer of automobiles, and Henry Ford's goal of 30 years earlier—that any man with a good job should be able to afford an automobile—was achieved, briniging with it new socio-cultural phenomena such as fast food, drive in movies, and shopping malls.
High Culture: The New York School
The New York School is the name given to poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. They drew inspiration from the avant-garde art movements of the first half of the 20th century, however extended these into action painting, abstract expressionism, jazz, performance art, improvisational theater, experimental music, and the interaction of friends in the New York City art world's vanguard circle.
Abstract Expressionism
Never a formal association, the artists known as “Abstract Expressionists” or “The New York School” shared some common assumptions, utilizing formal inventions in a search for significant content. Breaking away from accepted conventions in both technique and subject matter, the artists made huge works that stood as reflections of their individual psyches—and in doing so, attempted to tap into universal inner sources.
Music: "Cool" Jazz
"Cool" is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than that used in the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that of contemporaneous jazz idioms. The term cool started being applied to this music around 1953, when Capitol Records released the album Classics in Jazz: Cool and Quiet.
Although the times of "Cool" are generally held to be the 1950s and early 1960s, in the video gallery below I have extended this period to the late 1970s since as a big fan of "Cool" I see the decade and a half following the height of the genre as an extension of it.
Music historian Ted Gioia describes the attributes of "Cool" as "clarity of expression; subtlety of meaning; a willingness to depart from the standard rhythms of hot jazz and learn from other genres of music; a preference for emotion rather than mere emoting; progressive ambitions and a tendency to experiment; above all, a dislike for bombast."
Music: John Cage
John Cage (1912 – 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.
Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″, a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance.
The Rebel Poets of the 1950s
The 1950s are stereotypically represented as a time of conformity and unclouded prosperity--a mixture of Ozzie and Harriet, hula hoops, suburban tract homes, and shopping malls--along with the political anxiety imposed by McCarthyism. During such a period of apparent hegemony, a generation of poets and writers became a collective force that stood outside of these larger societal trends. The writers most frequently associated with what is also called "the Beat Generation" are Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.
At the time, many of these writers were called anti-intellectuals, "destroyers of language," and literary juvenile delinquents. These writers actually read voraciously--both classical and modern literature--and pursued the perennial avant-garde imperative to reinvigorate literary culture by destroying the hackneyed and moribund. Ironically, the reigning tradition that now seemed ripe for attack was modernism, along with the strictly formalist New Criticism that had become entrenched in the universities and in literary journals. In an attempt to widen the range of modern poetry, the rebel poets of the 1950s emphasized many elements that were new or had been previously excised: the bardic spoken voice, links to jazz and spontaneous composition, open verse forms and rhythms, derangement of the senses as a stimulus to creativity, confessional candor, and content that embraced political issues, Buddhism, and the natural environment.
Enter Mass Propaganda Extraordinaire - The Television
Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions.
During the 1950s, television was used overtly in influencing public opinion; and in a concealed (and therefore far more insidious) manner it continues to be utilized to the same ends onto today, given the enormous influence that TV broadcasting has on shaping human perception and behavior.
1950s Pop Culture
While the memory of immediate postwar rationing and penury was still fresh, fueled by coordinated government action and Marshall Plan loans the Western European countries were able to vault to higher and higher levels of wealth and productivity less than a decade after the end of the war. Real Wages grew in England by 80% from 1950 to 1970, French industrial output doubled between 1938 and 1959, and West Germany’s exports grew by 600% in one decade: the 1950s. The years between 1945 and 1975 were described by a French economist as the trente glorieuses: The Thirty Glorious Years. It was a time in which regular working people experienced an enormous, ongoing growth in their buying power and standard of living.
Rock n Roll
Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music.
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Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive. Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.
Rock’n’Roll as a dance dance comes from the lindy hop which was modified around 1940 to become the boogie woogie and danced to music with a faster tempo. American soldiers introduced dances like the Jitterbug, the Boogie-woogie and the Jive to Europe. From there on both styles evolved in different directions. Jive was added to the Latin ballroom repertoire, leaving out the acrobatics. The Boogie-woogie became what most people today would call 50’s style Rock n’ Roll dancing.
Universal interest in the dance style followed the success of the film 'Rock around the Clock' in 1956. Needless to say the popularity of Rock and Roll soon gained a 'bad boy' image.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977), also known mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and initial controversy.
Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of white American youth.
Rock and Roll was thought to be both the result and the cause of youthful rebellion against the nation's social problems at the time. As a result of parents' complaints, the Rock and Roll industry was told to clean up its act and provide better role models for the youth of the time.
Fear of association with delinquency, the North Americans tried at first to change the name of the genre. However, Europeans continued to use the term Rock and Roll and by the 60s, Rock ‘n’ Roll was rediscovered in the US with the English invasion of the 1960s since starting from the early 1960s, Britain replaced th United States as a hotbed of rock 'n' roll activity.
Pinups
A pin-up model is a model whose mass-produced pictures and photographs came to have wide appeal within the popular culture of WW2 as well as Post WW2 societies. Pin-up models were usually glamour models, actresses, and fashion models whose pictures were intended for informal, aesthetic display, such as being pinned onto a wall.
Female supporters of early pin-up content considered these to be a "positive post-Victorian rejection of bodily shame and a healthy respect for female beauty." It has further been argued by some critics that in the early 20th century, these drawings of women helped define certain body images—such as being clean, healthy, and wholesome—and were enjoyed by both men and women.
Conversely, female protesters argued that these images were corrupting societal morality and saw these public sexual displays of women as lowering the standards of womanhood, destroying their dignity, reducing them to mere objects to pleasure men and therefore harmful to both women and young adolescents.
Although pin-up modeling is associated with World War II and the 1950s, it developed into a subculture which can be seen represented in the styles of some celebrities and public figures invested in promoting positive body images and a love for one's sexuality, "pin-up would also find ways to... encourage the erotic self-awareness and self expression of real women".
Haute Couture
Fashion
As the 1950s began, the initial resistance to the extravagance of the New Look had died down and the silhouette was entrenched in both women’s daywear and eveningwear. Dior himself continued to produce designs that followed the feminine line even while incorporating new elements. The idea of choice rather than following one specific style was relatively new in the 1950s. As the decade continued, these choices became varied as new designers such as Cristobal Balenciaga, Charles James, and Hubert de Givenchy introduced different silhouettes.
“One particularly striking aspect of the decade was the emergence of stylish options. Two ladies could walk down the street in different outfits, yet appear equally modish, be their skirts full and narrow, or one in a form-fitting sheath and the other in a loose sack dress.”
___ Daniel Milford-Cottam
Rockabilly
Rockabilly Fashion Dolls created by Chris Stoeckel.
Rockabilly style is a combination of rock n roll music and pin-up fashion. Rockabilly style enthusiasts pushed the boundaries of fashion and experimented with edgy new looks, with huge skirts, tight bodices, bold patterns and especially with polka dots that were particularly effective while doing acrobatic rock n roll dance routines.
The "Dream" Home
"These were optimistic houses that embraced the possibilities of their building materials, reassessed how rooms were located and connected, and were outward-looking and joyful."
___ Madeleine Blanchfield.
Many societies embraced a wave of modernism during this time and this reflected itself in home decoration. Contemporary style embodied everything that was new, current and developing in the world. Open-plan living was really embraced during the 1950s to encourage easy flow of people and conversation. Homes were often well-oriented and featured expansive windows, low-pitched gable roofs with corrugated iron or steel decking, vertical weatherboards, light colored brick or cement sheet exterior walls. Minimalist design was embraced for its clean sleek lines and pastel, Scandinavian, and modern color schemes utilized.
Things...
Technology had a major impact on lives in the 1950s. The television became a household item during this time and became the most effective way of receiving information. Vacuums, washing machines, toasters, and fridges were beginning to become well-known and fairly common in households.
Screen Icons
There was a lot of diversity amongst female star images in 1950s Hollywood. While Marilyn Monroe was highly sexualised, Audrey Hepburn characterized a new breed of sophistication. John Wayne portrayed the image of the "strong man", while James Dean, as the "Rebel Without a Cause" gained immense popularity among the uğcoming generation. The 1950s also saw European movie stars such as Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor exert considerable dominance, not only in their home countries but across the globe.
