Poetism
ポエティスム / 1923–1934 / Style / Czech Avant-garde
The programme of the Czech avant-garde group Devětsil, extending poetry onto the page and into life itself. Its 'picture poems' combining photomontage with type, its compositions of circles and diagonals, and its vivid two-colour printing turned poetry books, magazines and posters into one continuous field of experiment.
Photomontage juxtaposed with type / Compositions of circles and diagonals / Two vivid, restricted colours / Typography as poetry
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Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Poetry collections and cultural programmes set as typographic picture poems · Two-colour risograph posters where circles, rules and photographs rhyme
- Type
- Constructivist grotesques mixed across playful sizes; letters allowed to behave as images
- Composition
- Circles, diagonals and rules choreographing photomontage fragments across the page
- Material
- Two vivid inks—typically red with black or blue—on warm book paper
- Caution
- Avoid pure constructivist severity—without lyric play between word and image, the page is engineering, not a poem.
- Further study
- Karel Teige's theory and book designs / The page layouts of the magazine ReD / The picture poem as a form