Art Deco derived
its name from the World's fair held in Paris in 1925, formally titled
the Exposition
Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which
showcased French luxury goods and reassured the world that Paris remained the
international center of style after World War I. Art Deco did not originate
with the Exposition; it was a major style in Europe from the
early 1920s,
though it did not catch on in the U.S.
until about 1928,
when it quickly modulated into the Streamline Moderne during the 1930s, the decade
with which Americanized Art Deco is most strongly associated today.
Paris
remained the center of the high end of Art Deco design, epitomized in furniture
by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann,
the best-known of Art Deco furniture designers and perhaps the last of the
traditional Parisian ébénistes,
and Jean-Jacques Rateau,
the firm of Süe et Mare,
the screens of Eileen Gray, wrought iron of Edgar Brandt, metalwork
and lacquer of Jean Dunand, the glass
of René
Lalique and Maurice Marinot,
clocks and jewelry by Cartier.
There are
Fathers of Art Deco: Wiener Werkstätte; functional
industrial design, Léon Bakst's sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets
Russes, Fractionated, crystalline, facetted form of decorative Cubism and Futurism,
Fauve color
palette, Severe forms of Neoclassicism: Boullée, Schinkel, Everything
associated with Jazz, Jazz Age or "jazzy, Animal motifs and forms; tropical
foliage; ziggurats;
crystals; "sunbursts"; stylized fountain motifs, "Machine
age" technology such as the radio and skyscraper.
The most famous Art Deco in U.S. are:
Asheville, North Carolina City Hall,
19261928 epitomizes the American Art Deco style.
Corresponding
to these influences, the Art Deco is characterised by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless
steel, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin, and zebraskin. The bold use of
zigzag and stepped forms, and sweeping curves (unlike the sinuous curves of the
Art
nouveau), chevron
patterns, and the sunburst motif. Some of these motifs were ubiquitous- for
example the sunburst motif was used in such varied contexts as a lady's shoe, a
radiator grille, the auditorium of the Radio City Music Hall and the spire of the Chrysler
Building. Art Deco was an opulent style and this opulence is attributed as
a reaction to the forced austerity during the years of World War I. Art Deco
was a popular style for interiors of cinema theatres and ocean
liners such as the Ile de France
and Normandie.
A
parallel movement following close behind, the Streamline
or Streamline Moderne, was influenced by
manufacturing and streamlining techniques arising from science and mass
production- shape of bullet, liners, etc., where aerodynamics are involved.
Once the Chrysler Air-Flo design of 1933 (date)
was successful, "streamlined" forms began to be used even for objects
such as pencil sharpeners and refrigerators. In architecture, this style was
characterised by rounded corners, used predominantly for buildings at road
junctions.
Some
historians see Art Deco as a type of or early form of Modernism.
Art Deco
slowly lost patronage in the West after reaching mass production, where it
began to be derided as gaudy and presenting a false image of luxury. Eventually
the style was cut short by the austerities of World War
II. In colonial countries such as India, it became a gateway for Modernism
and continued to be used well into the 1960s. A resurgence of interest in Art
Deco came with graphic design in the 1980s, where its association with film noir
and 1930s glamour led to its use in ads for jewelry and fashion.
http://www.adsw.org
- Art Deco
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