Art Deco

Art Deco

Art Deco emerged from France in the 1920's, it varies from fine art to fashion, film, photography, transport and product design. Some characteristics of Egypt became very popular such as: hieroglyphics, scarabs, flowers, lotus and pyramids.

In Greece and Rome, Art Deco was also popular. Carl Milles and Paul Manshi were 2 artists who experimented with classical nude while other artists experimented with simplicity.  

In China and Japan, Art Deco was also influenced. It was expressed through traditional materials. Their properties in Art Deco were: polished surfaces and colours such as the Chinese jade and Japanese Lacquer. They used geometric forms of East Asian.

Art Deco was also in Africa, which was provided with the richest sources. They had bold, abstract, geometric zigzags, hatch marks, circles and triangles of African textiles. Jean Lambert-Rucki and Pierre Legrain were two African artists who produced African-inspired sculpture and furniture.

For example this Chrysler building which was built in 1928 was inspired from Art Deco. Art deco buildings which were from Art Deco usually had: Cubic forms, Ziggurat shapes: Terraced pyramid with each story smaller than the one below it,Complex groupings of rectangles or trapezoids, Bands of color, Zigzag designs, Strong sense of line and Illusion of pillars.


Art Deco designers used to draw on the art of Maya and Aztec to create different forms but North Americans and South Americans saw this particular art as something different than they used to do the

Europeans.

 

The image on the right top is from the film Great Gatsby because the film had Art Deco inspirations such as the clothes, building and era.

Art Deco's design were inspired from: Ancient Egyptian and Mayan civilizations, Tribal Art, Surrealism, Futurism, Neo-Classisism, Geometric Abstraction, Popular culture, Russian ballet companies and Modernists-Josef Hoffmann, Frank Lloyd and Adolf Loos.


Some of the materials that the Art Deco used were: Ivory, Enamel, Shagreen, Ebony and Mother of pearl.


Jean Carlu

He was born in France in Bonnieres. He came from a family of architects. His early work was inspired from Cubism, as one can see from the geometric shapes that Picasso used to draw. He produced the latter in the US. In poster form, Cubism and Surrealism were under the influence of Andre Breton and Yves Tanguy. Some innovations were: The introduction of photomontage, the use of 3D elements in poster design and the use of electric lightbulbs in posters.

Bibliography:

• Art Deco: Global Inspiration - Victoria and Albert Museum. 2014. Art Deco: Global Inspiration - Victoria and Albert Museum. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/art-deco-global-inspiration/. [Accessed 28 October 2014].
• School notes
• Search Artists / American Art. 2014. Search Artists / American Art. [ONLINE] Available at: http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=749. [Accessed 01 November 2014].
• The Art of Jean Carlu - Dieselpunks. 2014. The Art of Jean Carlu - Dieselpunks. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/blogs/the-art-of-jean-carlu. [Accessed 01 November 2014].