Weiner Werkstatte (Vienna Workshop) and the Glasgow School, whose
products were imported through Danish retailers. Jensen was a proponent
of neither the modern nor the moderne: he did not believe in functionalism
as an end in itself. Utility is what designers begin with, he said. “The useful
tools of civilization come first and then beauty is added. If a thing is to
satisfy modern man, it must be beautiful as well as useful.” But for Jensen,
beauty could be separated from function and simply please the mind and all
its mysterious senses. Advertising, he suggested, is only useful when it is
beautiful, and Jensen took great pains to see that the many small newspaper
ads he designed were eye-catching in the most provocative ways. This
aesthetic requirement was apparent in much of his work, even everyday
packaging, as exemplified by the Golden Blossom Honey container with its
typographic purity and decorative personality.
Jensen based his process on elimination; it was simple but
exhaustive.PMmagazine noted that “he does not make one sketch only, he
makes hundreds.” Jensen’s individuality was expressed as much in the visible
style of his wares as in his overall approach. One friend wrote about him
this way: “Gustav Jensen has a grand vision. He is a man who has the
courage of his own convictions. A lover of everything in nature, he is
impatient with fakes, fads, and fashions; he is extremely sensitive to beauty
that is noble and poetic; and he is a master of design.”
In the 1930 s his packaging filled the annuals. But during the war,
owing in part to a cessation in the manufacture of nonessential goods, he
was underutilized. Nevertheless he continued as a one-man studio, making
design and sculpture until he died in the early 1940 s.
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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