Art Deco

The Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building, built 1928-1930, commemorated on a US stamp

Art Deco (French: Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes) was an early twentieth century movement in the decorative arts, that also grew in influence to affect architecture, fashion and the visual arts.

Overview

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 Swiss-Jewish Jean Dunand, the glass of René Lalique and Maurice Marinot, clocks and jewelry by Cartier.

The term Art Deco was coined during the Exposition of 1925 but did not receive wider usage until it was re-evaluated in the 1960s. Its practitioners were not working as a coherent community. It is considered to be eclectic, being influenced by a variety of sources, to name a few:

  • Early work from the Wiener Werkstätte; functional industrial design
  • "Primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, or Aztec Mexico
  • Ancient Greek sculpture and pottery design of the less naturalistic "archaic period"
  • 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
  • Lithe athletic "modern" female forms; flappers' bobbed haircuts
  • "Machine age" technology such as the radio and skyscraper.
Asheville, North Carolina City Hall, 1926–1928 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 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. This is still the image of Art Deco held in the minds of most Americans.

Noted Art Deco artists and designers

  • Adolphe Mouron Cassandre
  • Jean Dunand
  • Jean Dupas
  • Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) (1892-1990)
  • Alexandra Exter
  • Eileen Gray
  • Georg Jensen
  • René Lalique
  • Jules Leleu
  • Tamara de Lempicka
  • Paul Manship
  • Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann
  • Sue et Mar
  • Walter Dorwin Teague
  • Carl Paul Jennewein

Noted Art Deco architects

  • Pablo Antonio
  • George Coles
  • Ernest Cormier
  • Banister Flight Fletcher
  • Oliver Hill
  • Charles Holden
  • Raymond Hood
  • Ely Jacques Kahn
  • Henry Vaughan Lanchester
  • Edwin Lutyens
  • James McKissack
  • George Val Myer
  • William van Alen
  • Wirt C. Rowland
  • Giles Gilbert Scott
  • Clifford Strange
  • Joseph Sunlight
  • Ralph Walker
  • Thomas Wallis
  • Ernest A. Williams
  • Owen Williams

Noted Art Deco designs

Chicago's Carbon and Carbide Building The Supreme Court Building in Ottawa, Canada Far Eastern University Campus in downtown Manila, Philippines The North Building of the Peace Hotel in Shanghai, China
  • The Argyle Hotel in Los Angeles, California
  • The Bullock's Wilshire Building in Los Angeles, California (now home to Southwestern University School of Law)
  • Empire State Building
  • Chrysler Building
  • Dallas Fair Park Hall of State
  • Golden Gate Bridge
  • Fisher Building in Detroit
  • Guardian Building in Detroit
  • The Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada
  • Peace Hotel in Shanghai
  • Buffalo City Hall in Buffalo, New York
  • Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea
  • The ocean liners Ile de France, Normandie and RMS Queen Mary
  • The Montreal Eaton 9th floor restaurant is a copy of the huge SS Ile de France first class dining room
  • Napier, New Zealand - In 1931 the city of Napier was levelled by the Napier earthquake and ensuing fires. The city was rebuilt in the Art Deco style.
  • The Hoover Building, Perivale, London
  • The former Byrant and May match factory in Speke, Liverpool.
  • The India of Inchinnan office block, Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, Scotland
  • Anzac War Memorial, Sydney built 1929-34 designed C Bruce Dellit (1900-1942), Sculptor: Rayner Hoff.
  • Radio City Music Hall
  • Université de Montréal central building
  • Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa
  • Marine Building in Vancouver
  • The East and West Stands at Arsenal Stadium in London
  • Eltham Palace extension, south-east London
  • The Colleen Moore Dollhouse at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
  • Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Designed by Bruce Goff.
  • The city hall of Asheville, North Carolina, built 1926 - 28 [1].
  • The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Ohio.
  • Waterman Phileas fountain pen
  • Chicago, Illinois
    • Chicago Board of Trade Building
    • Carbon and Carbide Building
  • 720 and 730 Fort Washington Avenue, in the Hudson Heights area of Manhattan in New York City, New York.
  • South Beach in Miami Beach, Florida.
  • Former Pennsylvania Railroad 30th Street Station and Suburban Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Far Eastern University Campus in the City of Manila, Philippines

Jean Gardner's book Houses of the Art Deco Years ISBN 1898030715 looks at the influence of art deco upon suburban housing styles in England. She considers each architectural feature, chapter by chapter, to reveal how various art deco styles influenced British domestic architecture in 1920s and 1930s.


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She considers each architectural feature, chapter by chapter, to reveal how various art deco styles influenced British domestic architecture in 1920s and 1930s. Beautiful people usually enjoy an image-based and/or financially-based prestige which enhances their aura of success, power, and beauty. Jean Gardner's book Houses of the Art Deco Years ISBN 1898030715 looks at the influence of art deco upon suburban housing styles in England. With the close of the 1960s, the concept of beautiful people gradually came to encompass fashionistas and the "hip" people of New York City, expanding to its modern definition. This is still the image of Art Deco held in the minds of most Americans. The Beatles reference the original "beautiful people" in their 1967 song "Baby You're a Rich Man" on the Magical Mystery Tour album. 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. The term "beautiful people" originally referred to the musicians, actors and celebrities of the Californian "Flower Power" generation of the 1960s.

In colonial countries such as India, it became a gateway for Modernism and continued to be used well into the 1960s. Such people often mirror in appearance and consumer choices the characteristics and purchases of wealthy actors and actresses, models, or other celebrities. Eventually the style was cut short by the austerities of World War II. The term "beautiful people" is used to refer to those who closely follow trends in fashion, physical appearance, food, dining, wine, automobiles, and real estate, often at a considerable financial cost. 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. Less attractive people earned, on average, 13% less than more attractive people, while the penalty for overweight was around 5%. Some historians see Art Deco as a type of or early form of Modernism. A survey conducted by London Guildhall University of 11,000 people showed that (subjectively) good-looking people earn more.

In architecture, this style was characterised by rounded corners, used predominantly for buildings at road junctions. For example, in a nautilus shell, the ratio between each section is about 1.618. Once the Chrysler Air-Flo design of 1933 was successful, "streamlined" forms began to be used even for objects such as pencil sharpeners and refrigerators. It is also called the divine ratio and it is frequently found in nature. 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. The so-called "Golden Mean", represented by the greek letter Phi(Φ) and approximately equal to 1.618, has also been considered by many to be beautiful. Art Deco was a popular style for interiors of cinema theatres and ocean liners such as the Ile de France and Normandie. Another connection between mathematics and beauty which played a prominent role in Pythagoras' philosophy was the way in which musical tones can be arranged in mathematical sequences, which repeat at regular intervals called octaves.

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. Vincent Millay wrote that "Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare" in an allusion to the austere beauty many people have found in the reasoning in the geometer Euclid's Elements. 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. The poet Edna St. 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. eiπ + 1 = 0 is commonly considered one of the most beautiful theorems in mathematics (see Euler's identity). Corresponding to these influences, the Art Deco is characterised by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin, and zebraskin. Even mathematical formulae can be considered beautiful.

It is considered to be eclectic, being influenced by a variety of sources, to name a few:. Main article: Mathematical beauty. Its practitioners were not working as a coherent community. The millihelen is therefore the degree of beauty that can launch one ship. The term Art Deco was coined during the Exposition of 1925 but did not receive wider usage until it was re-evaluated in the 1960s. This derives from the legend of Helen of Troy as presented in Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, in which her beauty was said to have launched a thousand ships. 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 Swiss-Jewish Jean Dunand, the glass of René Lalique and Maurice Marinot, clocks and jewelry by Cartier. The millihelen is sometimes jokingly defined as the scientific unit of human beauty.

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. Beauty contests claim to be able to judge beauty. 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. Here is a list of the goddesses of beauty in three different mythologies. 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. Different cultures have deified beauty, typically in female forms. . But considering that the visual system allows us to see by extracting the stable, rather than changing, features of the environment on a momentary basis, this ancient definition seems hard to support.

Art Deco (French: Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes) was an early twentieth century movement in the decorative arts, that also grew in influence to affect architecture, fashion and the visual arts. That is to say, it removes the mind from the world in which things grow old. Far Eastern University Campus in the City of Manila, Philippines. According to an ancient Indian definition, the beautiful is that which from moment to moment is always new. Former Pennsylvania Railroad 30th Street Station and Suburban Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some modern research seems to confirm this, in that people whose facial features are symmetric and proportioned according the golden ratio are consistently ranked as more attractive than those whose faces are not. South Beach in Miami Beach, Florida. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the golden ratio seemed more attractive.

720 and 730 Fort Washington Avenue, in the Hudson Heights area of Manhattan in New York City, New York. The extant writings attributed to Pythagoras reveal that the Pythagorean school, if not Pythagoras himself, saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. Carbon and Carbide Building. The earliest theory of beauty can be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period, such as Pythagoras. Chicago Board of Trade Building. Many admirers consider the Venus de Milo to be the perfect beauty. Chicago, Illinois

    . Most people have similar aesthetics about the work or hobbies they've mastered.

    Waterman Phileas fountain pen. Many musicians can likewise hear as dissonant a tone that's high or low by as little as two percent of the distance to the next note. The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Ohio. Carpenters may view an out-of-true building as ugly, and many master carpenters can see out-of-true angles as small as half a degree. The city hall of Asheville, North Carolina, built 1926 - 28 [1]. It is well known that people's skills develop and change their sense of beauty. Designed by Bruce Goff. Another type of counterexample are comic or sarcastic works of art, which can be good, but are rarely beautiful.

    Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most people find beauty in nature, despite it sometimes being "red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson). The Colleen Moore Dollhouse at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. These include such things as a glacier, or a ruggedly dry desert mountain range. Eltham Palace extension, south-east London. "Beauty as goodness" has many significant counterexamples with no agreed solution. The East and West Stands at Arsenal Stadium in London. The phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," however, suggests that beauty is wholly subjective.

    Marine Building in Vancouver. Most people judge physically attractive human beings to be good, both physically and on deeper levels. Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. This has many supporting examples. Université de Montréal central building. A common theory says that beauty is the appearance of things and people that are good. Radio City Music Hall. Schumann indicated that in music, or other art, both kinds of beauty appear, but the former is only sensual delight, while the latter begins where the former leaves off.

    Anzac War Memorial, Sydney built 1929-34 designed C Bruce Dellit (1900-1942), Sculptor: Rayner Hoff. The composer and critic Robert Schumann distinguished between two kinds of beauty, natural beauty and poetic beauty: the former being found in the contemplation of nature, the latter in man's conscious, creative intervention into nature. The India of Inchinnan office block, Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Understanding the nature and meaning of beauty is one of the key themes in the philosophical discipline known as aesthetics. The former Byrant and May match factory in Speke, Liverpool. . The Hoover Building, Perivale, London. The opposite of beauty is ugliness, the experience of displeasure at some stimulus.

    The city was rebuilt in the Art Deco style. It involves the cognition of a balanced form and structure that elicits attraction and appeal towards a person, animal, inanimate object, scene, music, or idea. Napier, New Zealand - In 1931 the city of Napier was levelled by the Napier earthquake and ensuing fires. Beauty is the phenomenon of the experience of pleasure, through the perception of balance and proportion of stimulus. The Montreal Eaton 9th floor restaurant is a copy of the huge SS Ile de France first class dining room. Venus - Roman mythology. The ocean liners Ile de France, Normandie and RMS Queen Mary. Lakshmi - Hindu mythology.

    Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. Aphrodite - Greek mythology. Buffalo City Hall in Buffalo, New York. Peace Hotel in Shanghai. The Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada.

    Guardian Building in Detroit. Fisher Building in Detroit. Golden Gate Bridge. Dallas Fair Park Hall of State.

    Chrysler Building. Empire State Building. The Bullock's Wilshire Building in Los Angeles, California (now home to Southwestern University School of Law). The Argyle Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

    Owen Williams. Williams. Ernest A. Thomas Wallis.

    Ralph Walker. Joseph Sunlight. Clifford Strange. Giles Gilbert Scott.

    Rowland. Wirt C. William van Alen. George Val Myer.

    James McKissack. Edwin Lutyens. Henry Vaughan Lanchester. Ely Jacques Kahn.

    Raymond Hood. Charles Holden. Oliver Hill. Banister Flight Fletcher.

    Ernest Cormier. George Coles. Pablo Antonio. Carl Paul Jennewein.

    Walter Dorwin Teague. Sue et Mar. Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Paul Manship.

    Tamara de Lempicka. Jules Leleu. René Lalique. Georg Jensen.

    Eileen Gray. Alexandra Exter. Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) (1892-1990). Jean Dupas.

    Jean Dunand. Adolphe Mouron Cassandre. "Machine age" technology such as the radio and skyscraper. Lithe athletic "modern" female forms; flappers' bobbed haircuts.

    Animal motifs and forms; tropical foliage; ziggurats; crystals; "sunbursts"; stylized fountain motifs. Everything associated with Jazz, Jazz Age or "jazzy". Severe forms of Neoclassicism: Boullée, Schinkel. Fauve color palette.

    Fractionated, crystalline, facetted form of decorative Cubism and Futurism. Léon Bakst's sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Ancient Greek sculpture and pottery design of the less naturalistic "archaic period". "Primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, or Aztec Mexico.

    Early work from the Wiener Werkstätte; functional industrial design.