Art movements as posters

Twenty-one movements, each written as a poster the movement might have printed.

Most of these movements never made event posters. That is what makes them useful: ask for a poster a Futurist or a Dadaist would have printed and the model has to build something rather than copy something. The trick is to name the mechanics, not just the movement, so the result is a poster in that style rather than a painting with a title typed on it.

Before the break

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The nineteenth century, when a poster was either a wall of wood type or a lithograph of a beautiful person holding a product.

Japonisme: Western subject arranged the Japanese way: flat colour, a high viewpoint and asymmetric empty space.

Western subject arranged the Japanese way: flat colour, a high viewpoint and asymmetric empty space.

Victorian Broadside: A wall of wood type: every line a different face, every line a different size.

Victorian Broadside

A wall of wood type: every line a different face, every line a different size.

Belle Epoque Lithograph: A joyful figure mid-movement, flat lithographic colour, and the title hand-drawn around her.

Belle Epoque Lithograph

A joyful figure mid-movement, flat lithographic colour, and the title hand-drawn around her.

Pre-Raphaelite Illustration: Jewel colour, medieval dress, and a figure looking somewhere sad and specific.

Pre-Raphaelite Illustration

Jewel colour, medieval dress, and a figure looking somewhere sad and specific.

The avant-garde shouts

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1909 to 1925. Machines, war and revolution, and a generation that thought a poster should attack the reader.

Futurist: Words thrown across the sheet at speed, with force lines and no baseline.

Words thrown across the sheet at speed, with force lines and no baseline.

Vorticism: Hard angular planes driving into a vortex, and enormous block capitals.

Hard angular planes driving into a vortex, and enormous block capitals.

Suprematism: Flat geometric shapes floating on white, tilted, with nothing behind them.

Flat geometric shapes floating on white, tilted, with nothing behind them.

Dada Collage: Cut newspaper, mismatched photographs and type at every angle, glued into nonsense.

Cut newspaper, mismatched photographs and type at every angle, glued into nonsense.

Cubist Exhibition Poster: One subject broken into facets and shown from several angles at once.

Cubist Exhibition Poster

One subject broken into facets and shown from several angles at once.

Between the wars

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Europe after 1918: a woodcut that shouts, a portrait that accuses, a dream painted flat, and colour treated as a subject in itself.

Expressionist Woodcut: Gouged black lines, angular distorted figures, and white where the knife took the block away.

Expressionist Woodcut

Gouged black lines, angular distorted figures, and white where the knife took the block away.

Neue Sachlichkeit: Cold hard-edged realism, an unflattering portrait, and a flat airless light.

Neue Sachlichkeit

Cold hard-edged realism, an unflattering portrait, and a flat airless light.

Surrealist: One impossible object in an ordinary place, painted as though it were completely normal.

One impossible object in an ordinary place, painted as though it were completely normal.

Orphism: Overlapping colour discs and arcs, saturated, with the colour doing all the work.

Overlapping colour discs and arcs, saturated, with the colour doing all the work.

Postwar abstraction

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After 1945: systems instead of feelings, children's drawing as a serious method, and art made out of what the eye gets wrong.

Concrete Art: A visible mathematical system: a grid of shapes built by a rule you can work out.

A visible mathematical system: a grid of shapes built by a rule you can work out.

CoBrA: Thick raw brushwork, bright colour and figures drawn like a child would draw them.

Thick raw brushwork, bright colour and figures drawn like a child would draw them.

Minimalism: One element, placed exactly, on a very large empty field.

One element, placed exactly, on a very large empty field.

Op Art: Black and white patterns precise enough to make the flat sheet appear to move.

Black and white patterns precise enough to make the flat sheet appear to move.

Pop and the street

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Art made out of what was already printed: adverts, comics, rock bills and spray paint.

Pop Art: Commercial imagery blown up: Ben-Day dots, thick black outlines and flat primaries.

Commercial imagery blown up: Ben-Day dots, thick black outlines and flat primaries.

Psychedelic Sixties: Melting hand lettering that fills every gap, in colours that vibrate against each other.

Psychedelic Sixties

Melting hand lettering that fills every gap, in colours that vibrate against each other.

Big Eyes: A large-eyed melancholy child, painted in murky colour against a bleak background.

A large-eyed melancholy child, painted in murky colour against a bleak background.

Graffiti and Street Art: Spray paint on a real wall: interlocking letterforms, drips, overspray and paste-up edges.

Graffiti and Street Art

Spray paint on a real wall: interlocking letterforms, drips, overspray and paste-up edges.

Make one of them

Copy a prompt into an image model and pay for that one run. No subscription.

Open an image model

Other style groups

Graphic design movementsEighteen movements, and the wording that gets the look of each one.18 design movements Print and reproduction looksEleven printing processes, and the wording that gets what each one does to ink.11 print processes Handmade and folkNine ways to make a poster that looks like a person made it, not a studio.9 handmade looks Place and eraFourteen national and period styles, each with the rules that made it local.14 regional styles Propaganda and protestSeven political traditions, and the visual rules each one used to move people.7 political traditions Music scenesTen scenes, and the graphic rules each one used to say who the night was for.10 music scenes Screen and digitalTen looks that came from a screen, and the wording that gets each one.10 digital looks

Cinematic techniquesShooting a video rather than printing a poster? The same reference, for the camera.

Most of these movements never printed event posters, so the model cannot copy an existing template. It has to apply the rules of the movement to your content, and the result is far less generic than asking for a poster.