Goodbye To Berlin.

Berlin in the 1920s was considered pivotal in the emerging artistic scene.

Brothels, dance clubs, strip bars and caberet were erupting, The physical act of love between people of the same gender, and everybody else, was indulged, as were drugs of all kinds.

Experimentation was cool and anything that pleased the senses was permitted.

Pleasure was everything. The Expressionists were the first to ingest cocaine, morphine and heroin and to represent the experience in their artwork.

 Artist who were influential around this time include Otto Dix, John Heartfield and George Grosz who were involved in the Dadaism, The dadaism movement started wen world war 1 was goin on, it was an artistic movement that emphasized surrealism and irrationality. Developing from cubism, dadaism consisted of collage, photo montage, assemblage and readymades

Dix

Grosz

Heartfeild

This is a photomontage/collage i created representing life today. 

Another movement in the 20s was the Bauhaus movement
Bauhaus was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught

Over the years the Bauhaus attracted one of the most remarkable art faculties in history. Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Georg Muche, and Oskar Schlemmer were among those who taught painting, graphic arts, and stage design.

Schlemmer

Kandinsky

Feininger

Muche

Klee

I personally love abstract art and i really like each of the images above especially Kandinsky, he is a favourite artist of mine, I love the colourings, shapes and patterns he uses in his work, I came across this make up (below) and thought it was cool.

The Bauhaus movement – The first proclamation of the Bauhaus declared: "Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew the composite character of a building as an entity... Art is not a 'profession.' There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman... Together let us conceive and create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith."

Here is a image of a make up i did having a play around, it was art inspired to get a feel for bold colours, layering of colours and texture. 

Anita Berber, a symbol of the excesses of the 20s, was a star that burned brightly and briefly. She died at the age of 29.

By the age of 16 she was a caberet dancer, by 1919 she was dancing nude and working in film, she was also writer and prostitute, she wore heavy make up, in black and white photos and films this came across as jet black lipstick painted across the heart-shaped part of her skinny lips, and charcoaled eyes, Her style was erotic and edgy

Josephine baker

One of the things she is known for was wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco".

So heres an awesome little video i found of her, some of her facial expressions and her moves are amazing.

 

So i read 'Goodbye to Berlin' and watched the film cabaret and decided the character i wanted to create myself was 'Sally bowles' rather than 'Emcee'. I personally found her more of an interesting character and the i like way the use of make up make people portray her in different ways. Also i liked the styling of Sally and how dramatic it was, always wearing something outstanding.

Cabaret was directed by Bob Fosse in 1972 and it was based on several chapters of Christopher Isherwoods 'Goodbye to Berlin'. The two lead roles in the 1972 version were Liza Minnelli playing the glamerous yet some what scatty Sally Bowles and Joel Grey who playes Emcee the circuslike story teller. I enjoyed watching the film and reading the book doing this gave me a good understanding of Sally Bowles as a character. The clip above is from Cabaret (1972), and one of my favourite parts of the film. 

Emcee - Joel Grey

Sally Bowles - Liza Minnelli

Part of my inspiration for this look came from the Illamasqua collection 'Theatre of the nameless'. Below are a few of the pictures from the collection, The first top image is awsome, so simple, i love just the use of black illustration almost on the face.

Moodboard

 Above is my digital moodboard of ideas i created for my sally bowles.

Facechart

The make up i used to create this look was and MAC primer, a pale illamasqua foundation mixed with the white rich illamasqua foundation, MAC finishing powder, Green and gold from the Illamasqua  liquid pallette on the eyes with MAC eye liner, Queen of hearts and mudslide lipsticks, topped with a touch of gold also from the Illamasqua liquid palette.

I was pleased with my overall image. If i were to do this shoot again i would elaberate on the eyebrows maybe using some sort of material to bring them out of the face to give a more interesing surreal look, i regret not including the hands in this shot as i found researching nails really interesting.

Nailphilia

Alex Box

 

For my Alex box look initially I picked this image, but I was not happy with the outcome, at the time I thought I had applied a lot of pink base but clearly this did not photograph well so I changed images only slightly as you an see it’s the same make up but with more colour added to the second one. Personally I am a lot happier with my second shoot.

                      

 

 Here is a face chart i created for my Alex Box look for this make up i used the illamasqua white rich liquid foundation mixed with a little bit of mac studio fix and pink eyeshadow to create my base colour i then powdered this down with mac finshing powder and then used green yellow and black aquacolour to create the bold paintlike lines and then shaded and highlighted with pink and white eyeshadow.