Art, Science, Words, and IMRAD

Abstract

In the 1920s, the visual arts expanded beyond painting and sculpture. Most interesting was that they moved closer to texts. The development of the publishing industry, typography, and advertising during this decade coincided with the Dadaists' approach, which defined art much wider than before. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) started using “found” and industrially manufactured objects and referred extensively to mass culture (1–3). Thus, text became increasingly included in art works and, in some instances, became a piece of art itself. For example, the Bauhaus artists worked with, and invented, new fonts. Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) created collages that contained text and newsprint (4). With time, text gained even greater importance. The issue of language and meaning was taken up by Rene Magritte, a surrealist. Abstract art, such as the works of abstract expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s, customarily included extensive textual explanations. Still later in the 20th century, verbal or textual descriptions of ideas became central to conceptual art. The …