Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire
To listen to the real voice of Apollinaire while telling his poem click here. 

Graphics are the process of expressing thoughts, emotions and sensations into illustrations. It is done either by drawing, painting, poetry, or sculpture making. It is linked to the human’s creation and imagination as well as the way they look at things around them in order to convey a specific massage to the public. Graphics represent lines, shapes, geometric figures, symbols, and everything that falls in between. In theory, graphic design is the art of putting words and pictures together to produce visual representations.

Guillaume Apollinaire was known for leaving a huge impact on modern design and poetry. Apollinaire was a French poet, novelist and art critic who was a great exponent of avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. He published a book called Calligrammes, which was noted for how the typeface, arrangement and letter stream play a role in giving a tangible meaning to the poem. The purpose of the essay is to briefly present the first foot steps to what lead to the modern graphic design by Apollinaire.

Visee

One of Apollinaire's works, however, is called "the visee". It is defined by a series of independent lines placed to interrupt any linear description of the theme and replace it with overlapping verbal images. The pieces of the poet’s wording are combined to create a reflection on the understanding of war. The title of the poem essentially refers to a machine used to aim artillery shells. Furthermore, Apollinaire states vaguely in his second line “Machine guns of gold are croaking legends”. These patterns are the basis for the structural composition which defines the orientation of the machine gun fire. Moreover, the triangle shape provided in the design represents the targets for bombardment. The destruction implied in Cubist aesthetics is a perfect means of expression for Apollinaire’s reflection on life and death at the front. (Eskilson, 2007).

Il pleut
Il pleut type in motion (video)

Il pleut (it’s raining), is the most influential concept in graphic design later on. The falling lines in the ‘Ill pleut’ concept represents rain on a window pain, while reinforcing the rhythmic beats of the poet’s voice. The first line of the poem reads: ‘it’s raining women’s voices as if they were dead even in memory’. This line determines the lyrical tone of the poem as it induces the desire contained in the poet’s memories. The words appear like falling raindrops that are indicative of Apollinaire’s state of mind. The words also act as independent structure which has its own natural beauty a part from its symbolic character. (Eskilson, 2007).

La cravate et la montre

The poem, La cravate et la montre, was written “when  Apollinaire took off his tie in the offices off Soirees de Paris, putting it on a table beside Serge Ferat’s watch” (Apollinaire, 1913).The poem demonstrates the way people look at time and how it plays a role in approaching their destinies.The lines illustrated in the form of a tie demonstrate the overwhelming outcome of the civilized society, forming the conclusion that if every moment of a human’s life was enjoyed to the fullest, a better life will be waiting for them. On the other hand, those who excessively oversee time and never get their eyes off their watches usually end up missing a lot of pleasurable moments. So therefore, there is a clear tension between the way the way the text is represented and the poem’s words. Without representing the poem in this visual way, the comparison between the two types of people wont be as expressive.

Coeur couronne et miroir

Coeur couronne et miroir, or heart crown and mirror, gives the depiction of reflection, memory and transformation. The bold capital letters at the heart-shaped poem “indicate that one should read in a clock-wise direction.” (Apollinaire, 1913).

Apollinaire loved endowing himself with royal roots and felt affiliated to many kings who died during his time. His poem used oversized capitals that downward read “ Quia” (because) marks the certainly of a flow kingship to poet.

The text in the mirror is represented in a three dimensional manner to give the illusion of depth to the poem. The mirror wreath represent a radiant cycle or loop and the words forming the loop represent delicate, cheerful memories.

Madeleine

The poem, Madeleine, combines both verbal text and graphical images. The poet, however, decided to give it a more sense of personality by writing it by hand. To show his true feelings to Madeleine, he used love language that is gentle and appropriate. Not only he included the two shapes (the heart and the star) for decorative purposes, but also to reveal a strong hint of intimacy. (Apollinaire, 1913).

Paysage

Paysage is considered one of Guillaume’s most outstanding calligrams because it is represented as a whole rather than a sequence of dissimilar elements.  The poem speaks about lovers affection and how they are lying together, “but if the word members is taken to be grammatically in opposition to amants, the further implication is that the lovers are the poet’s own limbs and that they will be separated” (Apollinaire, 1913). This, however, gives the indication of the breakdown of affection and love.

Though, one of the negative aspects of this poem is the way the sentence “amants couches ensemble” is represented. It gives a false illusion of a figurative form of a human being than to reveal the actual meaning which could be a bit misleading to the reader. (Shattuck, 1955).

Voyage

The main theme of the poem is the loss of love and a sense of transience represented by the train disappearing into the distance. The setting of a landscape at dusk, the graceful phrasing, the sad coloring of the language all flow from there complementary themes and create the mood of dreams touched with sadness which is typical of many early poems during that epoch. The big values of a landscape setting that do to enhance the themes in the poem are suggested by graphic means. Furthermore, the typographical overview strictly depicts the schematic of landscape. The normal direction of reading and the typing size forces the reader to put the cloud and the train into the forefront. Furthermore, by coming to the sky only at the bottom of the page which introduces depth and perspective. (Apollinaire,1913).

In conclusion, Guillaume Apollinaire was the first to initiate a more rhythmical and symbolic type of poems. In his book calligrammes he did not focus on one method of representing emotions, but rather, his compositions were mainly demonstrative as well as spontaneous.

Bibliography:

1. Apollinaire, G. (1913). Calligrammes. London: University of California Press.

2. Eskilson, J.S. (2007). Graphic Design: A new history. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

3. Shattuck, R. (1955). The Banquet Years. Canada: Random House of Canada Limited.

External Links:

http://lccmagd.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/les-calligrammes-by-apollinaire/

http://bubuina.wordpress.com/2008/11/

http://www.educationdigitalmedia.com/view/8

http://www.filedby.com/classic_author/guillaume_apollinaire/221630/

http://art-bin.com/art/aguillaumee.html

http://wordsandeggs.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/apollinaires-calligrammes/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guillaume_Apollinaire_Voyage.jpg

http://mustekala.kaapeli.fi/artikkelit/1070380027/index_html

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/guide-whatisgraphicdesign

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painting

http://www.mcwdn.org/Geometry/Lines.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern