Contenido

El conjunto de imágenes -en su mayoría diseños con propósitos de difusión, comercio y propaganda- pertenecientes al archivo del arquitecto italiano Ernesto Puppo, conforma un repositorio para el estudio del diseño gráfico de la primera mitad del siglo . Marcado en lo político por la consolidación fascista en el poder y la hegemonía plástica de una experiencia futurista aún no agotada, este conjunto iconográfico contiene una fuerte unidad expresiva y formal, a pesa de la amplia variedad de temas y técnicas utilizadas. Se trata de un cuerpo de 55 piezas realizadas, en su gran mayoría entres 1928 y 1933.

Disciplinary convergences

During the period in which Puppo produced this varied iconography, he also developed different architectural projects, largely linked to this plastic exercise. Certain thematic convergences are observed between poster graphics and architectural projects, with their specific programs. The fascination with the machinist experience and the changes it produces in the perception of the contemporary landscape - rural or urban - as well as in the space-time relationships determined by a technological dynamic of high renewal is present at all times.

The beauty of flight

Puppo's designs are definitely marked by the futuristic aegis and its idea of ​​movement, but, very particularly, it is the aeronautical dynamism that most profoundly affects or impacts its visual constructions, always resulting from intense and intelligent graphic research. The plane is then the protagonist in its posters and advertising signs. In general, its expressive force focuses on the geometric treatment and the dominant diagonal arrangement, caused by large planes of color and the arrangement of letters and images that underline that direction. But at the same time it is necessary to specify that the airplane is present even when it is not drawn, this is verified in the perspective of some posters such as the The Four Seasons series, where the landscape is perceived from a very high horizon, under a certain general inclination, suggesting that its observation occurs from the cockpit of an airplane. The latter is representative of a profound change that is taking place in the visual culture of the first half of the century, and particularly in the Italian context of those years. In this change, some graphic designers, certain painters and some European photographers will play a decisive role, among whom is Lázló Moholy Nagy, who will establish the term new vision to identify such transformation produced in the field of photography and the direct results operated on architecture.

Towards a new visual rhetoric

The historical time to which the posters designed by Ernesto Puppo correspond is, without a doubt, a time of changes for visual discourse. New points of view, with high horizons and high degrees of abstraction, are incorporated into painting and graphics, renewing its rhetorical corpus. Within these changes, the relationship between text and image stands out. Unlike what happened in the modernist poster of the first decade of the century, typography can achieve greater significance than the image, in terms of design and communication. Its visual importance underlines the semantic value of writing, based on precise messages, close to the slogan..

The use of rhetorical figures and their metaphorical dimension are materialized in Puppo's graphic design based on a clear interaction between composition logic, adopted point of view, typography and image. On the other hand, the use of antinomies often reinforces the semantic power and meaning of the given message. Images such as the letters that escape from a typewriter and become words or the beam of fascism that combines the destructive nature of war with the constructive nature of the honeycomb produced by bees, are examples of this contrasting handling of concepts and images.

Ernesto Puppo's beginnings in scenography came through Virgilio Marchi, the famous set designer and architect who was a member of the second futurism. In 1928 Ernesto Puppo exhibited at the 94 Mostra degli Amatori e Cultori d'Arte, in the section dedicated to Scenic Architecture, curated by Marchi himself.

Puppo collaborated frequently with Marchi as a draftsman during his university years and later as a designer. Many of those who knew them consider that they maintained a close, almost family friendship. Puppo being one of the protagonists of the Artistic Association of via Margutta, it is very likely that he played an important role in the creation of the small theater, designed by Marchi, that operated at the association's headquarters.

In 1940 Puppo worked with his brother Giulio on the set design for Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot at the Teatro dell'Università in Rome. The set designed by Puppo is the most mature of his entire career. He proved to have perfectly learned the futuristic lesson regarding public participation. He designed two large arches that encompassed the small audience, creating the feeling that one was inside the cathedral in which the characters performed. Darkness played an important role and was a fundamental element in the design of the space, an allusion to the typical darkness of English Gothic cathedrals.

In questo solo mondo, written and directed by Stefano Pirandello, Luigi's youngest son and known as Stefano Landi, was another of Puppo's stage projects. The spaces designed for this work are those that best capture the presence of true architecture according to Puppo. In one of the sketches there is a glass greenhouse, against the wall of a house: thin steel profiles, very high glass panels, crowned by a flat roof of the same material. For the time, these panels were in themselves a challenge. In the other space of the work there is a building with stylized rationalist lines. The furniture has a modern style that brings it closer to the sixties than to 1939, the year it was designed.

It is worth highlighting the enormous versatility of Ernesto Puppo, a marked quality in the field of scenography. In his works he demonstrates a deep knowledge of historical architecture, which he refuses to reproduce literally, as demonstrated in the wonderful interpretation of the Gothic style of Murder in the Cathedral[2]..

Contenido

El conjunto de imágenes -en su mayoría diseños con propósitos de difusión, comercio y propaganda- pertenecientes al archivo del arquitecto italiano Ernesto Puppo, conforma un repositorio para el estudio del diseño gráfico de la primera mitad del siglo . Marcado en lo político por la consolidación fascista en el poder y la hegemonía plástica de una experiencia futurista aún no agotada, este conjunto iconográfico contiene una fuerte unidad expresiva y formal, a pesa de la amplia variedad de temas y técnicas utilizadas. Se trata de un cuerpo de 55 piezas realizadas, en su gran mayoría entres 1928 y 1933.

Disciplinary convergences

During the period in which Puppo produced this varied iconography, he also developed different architectural projects, largely linked to this plastic exercise. Certain thematic convergences are observed between poster graphics and architectural projects, with their specific programs. The fascination with the machinist experience and the changes it produces in the perception of the contemporary landscape - rural or urban - as well as in the space-time relationships determined by a technological dynamic of high renewal is present at all times.

The beauty of flight

Puppo's designs are definitely marked by the futuristic aegis and its idea of ​​movement, but, very particularly, it is the aeronautical dynamism that most profoundly affects or impacts its visual constructions, always resulting from intense and intelligent graphic research. The plane is then the protagonist in its posters and advertising signs. In general, its expressive force focuses on the geometric treatment and the dominant diagonal arrangement, caused by large planes of color and the arrangement of letters and images that underline that direction. But at the same time it is necessary to specify that the airplane is present even when it is not drawn, this is verified in the perspective of some posters such as the The Four Seasons series, where the landscape is perceived from a very high horizon, under a certain general inclination, suggesting that its observation occurs from the cockpit of an airplane. The latter is representative of a profound change that is taking place in the visual culture of the first half of the century, and particularly in the Italian context of those years. In this change, some graphic designers, certain painters and some European photographers will play a decisive role, among whom is Lázló Moholy Nagy, who will establish the term new vision to identify such transformation produced in the field of photography and the direct results operated on architecture.

Towards a new visual rhetoric

The historical time to which the posters designed by Ernesto Puppo correspond is, without a doubt, a time of changes for visual discourse. New points of view, with high horizons and high degrees of abstraction, are incorporated into painting and graphics, renewing its rhetorical corpus. Within these changes, the relationship between text and image stands out. Unlike what happened in the modernist poster of the first decade of the century, typography can achieve greater significance than the image, in terms of design and communication. Its visual importance underlines the semantic value of writing, based on precise messages, close to the slogan..

The use of rhetorical figures and their metaphorical dimension are materialized in Puppo's graphic design based on a clear interaction between composition logic, adopted point of view, typography and image. On the other hand, the use of antinomies often reinforces the semantic power and meaning of the given message. Images such as the letters that escape from a typewriter and become words or the beam of fascism that combines the destructive nature of war with the constructive nature of the honeycomb produced by bees, are examples of this contrasting handling of concepts and images.