BLAST
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The art between the two issues of "Blast" helps define the emotions of Lewis from the effects of the war. "Blast"1 has a more flamboyant aesthetic look resembling a vortex, which follows the Vorticism movement. You can see how it reflects the time and care Lewis spent working on it. The standard, two column nightmare of the second issue makes that one a lot easier to follow then the first, keeping the reader focused on the actual content. Even thought the actual art is more abstract, this style is almost depressing to look at, but it makes sense because "Blast" 2 came out about a year into the war. Reading ''BLAST'' 1 is more pleasing compared to ''BLAST'' 2, but the second allows the reader to get a sense of the conflict the war has caused. | The art between the two issues of "Blast" helps define the emotions of Lewis from the effects of the war. "Blast"1 has a more flamboyant aesthetic look resembling a vortex, which follows the Vorticism movement. You can see how it reflects the time and care Lewis spent working on it. The standard, two column nightmare of the second issue makes that one a lot easier to follow then the first, keeping the reader focused on the actual content. Even thought the actual art is more abstract, this style is almost depressing to look at, but it makes sense because "Blast" 2 came out about a year into the war. Reading ''BLAST'' 1 is more pleasing compared to ''BLAST'' 2, but the second allows the reader to get a sense of the conflict the war has caused. | ||
| + | We decided to compare the first full articles of BLAST I and BLAST II in order to assess some of the differences in the magazines. This was decided based on the assumption that the authors, as artists, chose their introductory pieces to set up the tone and themes of the works. The very first full article in BLAST I is the Preliminary Vortex, which will not be considered as the first BLAST article, because it is almost an introduction to the Vorticist movement, rather than the journal and it has a different aesthetic than the majority of the other articles in the work. It is formatted in a rather straightforward manner with minimal use of excessive capitals or rearranging of space - something that is arguably the focus of BLAST I. | ||
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| + | The article that will be examined as the first BLAST I article is delineated with a square box and the number 1 in it on page 11. Visually, the article closely resembles the one that follows it, as seen here. The designers used different sizes of a stark font in bold, ranging from all capitals to lowercase across the page while playing with the words to create an overall image that resembles the vortex. Portions of the writing are also set up without following a full sentence structure, for example, “THE CURATE of “Eltham” BRITANNIC AESTHETE WILD NATURE CRANK DOMESTICATED POLICEMAN LONDON COLISEUM SOCIALIST-PLAYWRIGHT DALY’S MUSICAL COMEDY GAIETY CHORUS GIRL TONKS” (11). This string of words, in this context, makes little to no sense. Some of this is clarified a little bit in BLAST because of the way that the designers played with the space of the page. This is more the focus of the first publication meaning that, although there is featured vorticist art, the writing and the displays they are presented in are the art of much of BLAST. Although each page like this is different, almost every single page that uses this display method features an overall pattern indicative of a vortex or whirlwind shape that is created by manipulating the font size and orientation on the page as you can see with the example. This seems to be the artistic focal point, or uniqueness of BLAST, although there are plenty of other featured literary works that are not presented in the same manner and are important to the vorticist movement. | ||
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<img style="border:5px solid black" src="http://library.brown.edu/jpegs/114320987715639.jpg" width="400" > | <img style="border:5px solid black" src="http://library.brown.edu/jpegs/114320987715639.jpg" width="400" > | ||
