Art Deco Movement Essay

In the 1920's Art Deco was a popular form of art. It also influenced architecture, fashion, and furniture. Art Deco used bold geometric shapes and strong colors. It used concrete, smooth stone, and terracotta as materials. Art Deco represented modernism and a bright future.

One of the most recognized architectural movements are the modern movements which comprise of the International Style, Art Deco Style, and Moderne Style. Modern Movements occurred between 1925 and 1950. Out of the three styles of architecture, International Style has been selected for this art analysis. The International Style of Architecture occurred between 1920s and 1930s, and it is characterized by starkly unornamented rectangular shapes which are very different from the traditional forms of architecture. The reason why International Style of architecture has been chosen for analysis in this paper is the fact that the rectangular shapes used in constructing the style have been punctuated with bands of windows which depict the modern purpose

The building at 111 South Michigan Avenue, home of the Art Institute of Chicago, was opened in 1893 as the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition. The building was passed on to the Art Institute after the end of the exposition. Designed in the Beax-Arts style by Boston firm Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, building has become an icon for chicagoans an tourists alike. The Modern Wing, the Art Institute’s latest and largest addition to date, opened on May 16, 2009, and was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. The 264,000 square foot addition now houses the museum’s collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. The new

A reflection of the International Style and the Bauhaus movement, Mid-Century architecture was typically used residentially in the hope of bringing Modernism into the post-war suburbs.

Painters, musicians, and novelists could easily flourish during this time. American artists experimented with their craft and tried out different techniques that weren’t as popular in the 1900s and 1910s. In painting, artists created a new style called Art Deco was being created (Scott). Art Deco is a decorative art that largely affects architecture, and variety of interesting materials can be used in Art Deco, such as aluminum, stainless steel, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin, and zebra skin. Art Deco also incorporates zigzag patterns, steps, sweeping curves, chevron patters, and sunburst. Well known American painters from the 1920s of Art Deco are Max Parrish and Cole Phillips (Scott). Another art form popularized in the 1920s was surrealism. It began to catch fire after the end of WWI and utilized techniques such as automatic drawing, automatic painting, decalcomania, frottage, fumage, grattage, and parsemage. Many surrealist paintings were made with the intention of looking dream-like and shocking audiences. Some pieces contained violence, nudity, and decay (1920s Art). Another type of art in the 1920s was modernism. Modernists, such as Georgia O’Keefe, broke away from traditional ideas. O’Keefe’s paintings were mainly influenced by the city scene and south west landscapes, such as “Ram’s Head with Hollyshock and Little Hills”

However, Art Deco was focused more on angular, geometric shapes, abstract patterns and a slick technological look (Striner 23). The main goal of the Art Deco movement was to “[serve] as an important channel between radical and traditionalist design responses to twentieth-century challenges” (Striner 21). With the constant changes happening in society it was hard to find a balance, and the Art Deco movement was an attempt to find that balance between traditionalism and modernism (Striner 24). Traditionalists were typically conservative, religious people from rural areas. They wanted to preserve their traditional and religious values (Lüsted 12). Modernists however, embraced the social change and advocated new ideologies, such as, liberalism, the sexual revolution, atheism, evolution, and socialism. Modernists were typically young, urban people who rejected traditional restrictions and values, especially those surrounding gender roles (Lüsted 12). In Fitzgerald’s novel the traditionalists are represented by the people of East Egg like Tom and Daisy Buchanan who come from money and do not really have to work in order to be successful. The modernists are represented by the people of West Egg such as Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway who did not necessarily come from a lot of money and had to work in order to become successful. They are the people who have dreams and have to work hard in order to achieve those dreams. Much like how the traditionalists frequently did not see eye

* Wright, F. (1943). “Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum” New York City. In F. S. Kleiner (Ed.), Gardner’s art through the ages: The Western perspective (14 ed., Vol. II, p. 562). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Deco Art itself is a reflection of changing world cultures. It was born in France post-World War I as a sort of marriage between craft motifs and the industrial age, characterized by wealthy and bold-looking colors and shapes. The art form is well depicted in the decoration of the Rockefeller Center in New York or any of the art and decor found in the movie The Great Gatsby. This striking form represented the glamour of the age. In a great sense, the period represented a change from conservative to a more liberal view on life. This was no different in Japan.

Art deco included luxury items as well as mass-produced products, but both wings had the intention to create modern and anti-traditional designs that illustrated wealth and elegance.

“The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne and an Angel” is an art piece with many different art principles and elements that are conveyed in such a manor that alludes complexity and great importance. The picture consists of four individuals- an angel, a baby, a Madonna or mother, and Saint Anne. The baby, cradled and asleep, is being overlooked by an angel, as the angel seems to be covering the child with a white blanket and much great care. Contrary to modern pictures, the angel has black wings wearing normal clothes similar to that of the mother and Saint. An important characteristic of the baby is that he has bright blonde and orange hair, a trait that resembles Jesus Christ. The mother and Saint Anne seem to be having a very important face-to-face discussion. All characters in the painting, including the child, are wearing late 15th century early 16th century clothing (rags and clothe looking material dresses) and recognizable colors.

An art movement inspired by nature, it’s vital force and never changing life cycle of birth, life, decay and death. The Art Nouveau became fashionable from about 1890 to the first world war. This aesthetic new art movement was concerned as new, hence it was named as “new art” – the Art Nouveau. It was also highly influenced by the Japonism, given a major boost in France, Paris and eventually spread across world. [1]

In the poem One Art, the speaker reflects over the many material things that she has lost in the past, like her mother’s watch, and even bigger things like houses. By the end of the poem she ends up confronting and reflecting over the loss of her loved one, which in turn shows a more intense side of loss for her and how she as a person deals with it. Elizabeth Bishop uses repetition, and her own interjections to help convey her belief that loss is an everyday part of life, but it is how you deal with it that changes the situation. Bishop uses her repetition to describe an aspect of loss, and how it changes and affects people over time.

As a concept 1920s and 1930s Art Deco architecture was particularly hard to define. It can be referred to as a decorative style that was new and innovative, as well as one that drew heavily on influences of the past. A closer look shows a bit of everything, Art Deco was able to take almost every movement, compress and reimagine them into a unity of their individual traits. The one thing that persists in all Art Deco architecture was its ability to usher in an era of new materials that were developed specifically for the decorative arts, interior decoration, and exterior building construction. Materials such as concrete, steel framing, terra cotta, flexwood, wood veneers, metal-steel framing, plate glass, and glass blocks proved to be exceedingly versatile within this style. While new materials such as stainless steel and

The Arts and Craft movement was a social and artistic movement, which began in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth spreading to continental Europe and the USA. Its adherents-artists, architects, designers and Craftsmen sought to reassert the importance of and craftsmanship in all arts in the face of increasing industrialization, which they felt was sacrificing quality in the pursuit of quantity. Its supporters and practioners were united not so much by a style rather than the common goal- a desire to break down the hierarchy of the arts and to revive traditional handicrafts and make art that could be affordable to all.

of art as a finished product, signed by the artist and authenticated by the art market,