WE SAW THE SHIPS
Design

WE SAW THE SHIPS

In advertising, images of ships and cars were often neighboring.

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Advertising has not always been the same as today's - obsessive and unquestioning. In the recent past, posters and posters have drawn into the clouds and stirred the imagination. In advertising, images of ships and cars often neighbored. I'd hate to learn to dream...

At the very beginning of the twentieth century, the car is feverishly looking for itself. It is no longer a miracle of wealthy, this lightly ended forever. It requires a new support, a solid, convincing identification. To be accepted and divided by potential buyers, people of considerable, directly, say, wealth. After all it is today cars were shredded to plastic, and then... In a word, the poster artists had an unexpected task. To compare it with a locomotive? An insignificant metaphor for movement. «Yellow and blue were silent, crying and singing»in green. In the tail of the noisy and dirty train the cars of the second and third classes were shaking with ordinary people.

On the contrary, the image of a sailor and a ship attracted not only bright metaphors. It appeared as an alien from an unknown country, synonymous with novelty, anticipation, a mystery. So from this point of view, the maritime story in the commercial was unusually advantageous. True, there was one tiny obstacle to the development of the topic - it's the driver. Those who bought a car, rarely themselves sat behind the wheel. And even doing so, never went down to service. The reason is not only the financial possibility to put technical troubles on the shoulders of a hired worker. The car of that time - as the present computer - remained beyond the limits of understanding of the formed generation. And the chauffeur, to be more exact, "chauffeur" (in translation from French - stoker), shamelessly used dependence on himself, cheated, led and cheated. In short, represented a personality unattractive. All that English literature of the beginning of the XX century could be made of him - put, as well as advertising, in the service of consumer society - is a grotesque, half-hearted image. And if in the novel the presence of such a character is still allowed, in advertising - certainly not. What is the chauffeur! Imagine if you write out a figure next to a yacht like a bosun Zhdanov from the stories of Stanyukovich - who did not like and "cowardly" the sea. Whereas our hero is a desperate little man, woven exclusively from the merits.

The ship, the locomotive, the car, the aeroplane have extremely strict aesthetics. Not to generalize and not to disguise. But how much power, how much flight...

Actually, what else is there to depict a car with - such a bright symbol of personal freedom - as not with a majestic ocean liner or a luxurious white yacht? Or against the background of a submarine - a mysterious and formidable weapon of the coming war of motors? The twentieth century entered its most fateful decades with a light gait, as the captain rushes down the stairs under the eyes of the team lined up in the front. «Hardly dressed, all in white, slender and well-built blonde of thirty years, beautiful, with a confident face, with a silky light-red mustache and sideburns - and, exactly as described in the same Stanyukovich, «triumphant triumphant smile played on his face». And even if this image appeared on advertising posters thanks to the efforts of the American poster boy Joseph Christian Leidendeker, who was suspected of writing off the features of his characters from objects of his hobbies. The hidden homoeroticism of Leidendecker's men came at a surprising time.

This service was adopted not only by the brethren in the workshop, but also by a wonderful master of neo-realism, Rockwell Kent, whose canvases, as he himself remembers, were so admired in Soviet times ... Usually the opposite happened: the creators of posters borrowed pictorial techniques from Gustav Klimt, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Kazimir Malevich. However, painting in the era of motors had to shake off sleepy contemplation or grand pompousness. There came a time of art, consonant with the pragmatic interests of commodity consumption society. It is the art of the advertising poster that has its utmost specificity. You can't pull a story here. Co-brazil, steam locomotive, car, airplane have extremely strict aesthetics. Not to generalize and not to disguise. But how much power, how much flight... Marinistry... Which of us hasn't been read out with the works of Stanyukovich, Novikov-Priboy, Konetsky, and Pokrovsky, finally...

It's an amazing thing. In this area, of course, requires the utmost knowledge of the subject - the work of marinist writers bribe the absence of fake. On the other hand, there is a demand for marine stories from those who sometimes have not seen the sea close, not to mention rest on a 100-foot yacht or cruise on an ocean liner. Advertising performs the same tasks, forming an image as remote as it is in demand. The twentieth century began with the roar of engines. The engine was born of elements. Recall that the sign of factories Mercedes was a three-ray star, symbolizing the presence of the brand in the three elements - on earth, in the sky and at sea. "Cielo, Terra, Mare", echoed German rivals Fiat lines of his advertising motto. Today, this Italian company is relegated to the level of budget small cars, and back in the 30s of last century, it built ceremonial carriages for kings. Was it only advertising that brought the car and the yacht closer? The four-wheeled world was covered by the ocean wave of ship terminology, all these boattail, flagship, torpedo, stuurwiel, mascot... The «pointed radiator is like a stem, the wings are like boils diverging from the keel, air intakes are like open cannon ports.

The memory of the former greatness of the Kaiser fleet» ... - in such expressions in 1936 was presented one of the most chic models Mercedes-Benz. And by the way, about the nose figures... It's a relic from the days of Francis Drake. «What other pirates are there nowadays? The sea is cleaner now than Piccadilly». This is from Bernard Shaw, Captain Brassbaound»'s «Address. Ships used to decorate the forts with figures. They played the role of talismans, guardians of sailors. And so the patron saint Christopher of all the countries of the nicks moved to the radiator cap. In the car, mascots had not only a sacral, but also a practical meaning. The water in the radiator had to be refilled. One thing to grab a burning cork, and quite another - the fruit of a rich imagination of Charles Sykes, Frederick Bazen or Rene Lalique. In addition, a brass figure helped to guide the car, or rather to feel the size at a time when cars, by the precise definition of Viktor Shklovsky, «disguised as a hood». Shklovsky's fiction reigns in complete love with the car. And literally afterwards: I have not seen a «transatlantic steamer. But I love it and I understand»it. And times have changed, and the mighty energy of marinism helped to promote on the market now and available models like a million circulations of «fordikas». Gradually there was a spicy situation, when even the most expensive cars no longer reached the cost of more or less decent boats. A chasm between buyers of one and the other opened up. That, however, didn't prevent Chrysler Corporation from operating with slogans like «Boats, but they both drive Plymouth». Sometimes this kind of advertising took the form of a frank flirtation with the client. It wasn't always that straightforward.

On the Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible poster, boats and marinas were not shown at all. And the feeling of regatta can be felt! Even if you don't know that the blue ribbon»won in this commercial is the legendary Blue riband prize,«which is still awarded to ships in record time across the Atlantic. Gradually, the blue ribbon has become synonymous with leadership and quality. And so it coincided that the field of the familiar to many Chevrolet emblem is also blue! Moreover, the emblem had nothing to do with the Atlantic races, as it had nothing to do with the roots of the company's founder, Swiss racer Louis Chevrolet. This financier William Durant, who eventually took over the Chevrolet factory, looked at some vignette in the newspaper, which accidentally fell into his hands during a trip to Paris ... One of the virtuososos of American painted advertising Frederick Ludekens placed in the background of this poster of quite recognizable competitors.

As if by accident Rolls-Royce was drawn into their ranks ... «Ribbon», by the way, reminiscent of another prominent Russian philosopher of technology Peter Klementyevich Engelmeyer, the author of the 1908 in St. Petersburg work «Car, motorcycle and motorboat». In the construction of boats and motorboats draw «fish», that is, lines characterizing the contours of the hull. The word «fish», explains Engelmeyer, comes from the English ribbon, which means «ribbon». How sometimes everything is closely intertwined in our world... Modern cars continue to be captured against the backdrop of yachts. Novelties of international automobile exhibitions flaunt elements of ship decor, and the largest boat shows are honored to raise the flag and prestigious car brands. Because all ships sooner or later hitchhike to the berth. Leaving their hearts in the sea, captains deserve to find a worthy replacement on shore. This is how applied marinistry works.

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