Art Deco
Art Deco is an eclectic artistic and design style which had its origins in Paris in the first decades of the 20th century. The style originated in the 1920s[1] and continued to be employed until after World War II. The term "art deco" first saw wide use after an exhibition in 1966,[2] referring to the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes that was the culmination of high-end style moderne in Paris. Led by the best designers in the decorative arts such as fashion, and interior design, Art Deco affected all areas of design throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including architecture and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as painting, the graphic arts and film. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, glamorous, functional and modern.
Art Deco moved away from the soft pastels and organic forms of Art Nouveau and embraced influences from many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, and Futurism.[3] Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties[4] and continued strongly in the US through the 1930s.[5] Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative.
Commentary
Art Deco has distiguishable visual characteristics:
- Sensation of speed
- Glamourous, rich, opulent and exotic design styles
- Egyptian and Assyrian Asian motifs
- Geometric lines.
However, there is no explicit set of design rules that the designers were trying to emulate and although it is part of the Modern Movement it would have been an anathema to some of the more serious followers of the movement. It was kind of a modern movement for the masses.
It was known at the time the moderne looking for inspiration outside Europe. It was about travel and the future and a certain amount of escapism. Immediately before Art Deco the Arts and Crafts movement which was earnest, moral and efficient and non-flamboyant. It was not fun
Serene Maughn was an early propoent of British Deco but the most well known designer was Clarice Cliff. She designed cheap, decorative deco to the mass market. But it was the US that democratize Deco and it became to define Hollywood in the 1920's. Take Busby Berekley films where the actors in the musicals come to resemble machines. Art Demo becomes flesh as it were. e.g Gold Diggers of..... series But there was a dark side. The man a machine philosophy was perverted by the Eugenics movement
Lightling for almost the first time became part of the artictecture. It brought atmospherics as well as adding to the design elements. Art Deco was about social mobility. There was a paradox. The thirties are known as the Great Depression but for those in work there was a real increase in income and expenditure in modern fashions increased. The democratization of Deco can be seen in retail stores selling deco items for the masses. But is was also a time of large building works and a lit of the charatectistics were included in the homes and towns of Britain. Radio came to symbolize Deco for Britons.
Germany had been the birth place of the modern movement. Gropius and Bauhaus But is was different from Deco. It was stripped of adornment and serious. It was form over function, utilitarian and socialist. Hitler hated the movement and expelled many of the main proponents such as Mendelsohn who went to design the De La Warr Pavallion. But even the rules of the modern movement were subverted in industrial buildings that the modern movement espoused and the more British tongue in cheek take on the modern movement can be seen in Wallace's Hoover Building.
It was speed of the deco movement that captured the British imagination. e.g. Trains, Cars and the Luxury Liners. The deco styles suited liners in particular compared with the stuffy, heavy Victorian liners that came before. The Queen Mary examplified the new liner style.
It was American designers who successfully exploited the Deco design features that were evocative of streamlining and efficiency. But the aethetics of streamlining meant some of the affectations of deco took a way from the form and function and replaced with a streamlining style. Even basic consumer products had streamlining style techiques that did not make them more efficient but were expressing its efficiency and functionality. Saltdean Lido is great example of the streamlining style or a kind of sunshine style
In America the eugenics style was not a political philosophy but a simplification and efficiency of style. Essentially an optimistic future. In Britain, the mood was changing with the onset of war Deco had become decadent and inappropriate. The Queen Mary for instance went from opulent liner to a stripped out troop ship. This was an age of austerity and service but the last harrah of Deco could be seen in the Spitfire. However now the optimistic future was also one which could be extinction and the deco movement was at an end.
Taken from Glamour's Golden Age: The Luxe Experience. BBC 4 February 2011
