Art Deco

The second quarter of twentieth century brought radical change to art and design called Art Deco. It was undoubtedly one of the liveliest, magnificent and the most comprehensive movements in the art history. It began in Europe, particularly in Paris, in early years of the twentieth century. Art Deco was really elegant and affected all aspects of live, design and art, starting with fine art and decorative art to fashion; architecture, cars, handbags, glass, bathroom fittings, jewellery, lighting, furniture, transport, product design and even film.

The term ‘Art Deco’ was coined in 1966 and refers to exhibition entitled 'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes', held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Originally planned for 1914 but launched in 1925 due to World War I. Many international exhibitions helped promote Art Deco, but none was more important than the exhibition held in Paris. The exhibition brought together many designers from all over the Europe including British, Austrian, Netherlanders, Hungarian, Italian, Spain, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Denmark, Swedish and the USSR designers. Other parts of the world were less well represented – Germany as a main aggressor in World War I was not invited to exhibit. The USA declined to participate. However, in later years ( around 1940s) Art Deco flourished in America.

The style that represented Art Deco was full of streamlined and sleek forms, geometric and angular patterns. It was also characterized by experimenting with industrial materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, glass, shark skin, zebra skin and plastic. This movement was a mixture of many different movements and styles including Cubism, Modernism, Neoclassical, Futurism, Bauhaus and Art Nouveau. Art Deco began a modernist reaction against Art Nouveau and totally took its place after World War I. It was caused by young reformers who believed that beauty does not depend on ornament but can be achieved by sensible use of colour and texture as well as manipulation of form.

Art Deco, like its precursor Art Nouveau, was influenced by many sources from all over the world. Art Deco had many strong European, Asian, African and Meso-American influences. Egypt played a big part in the style of Art Deco. The discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb, by Howard Carter in November 1922, resulted in huge interest of Egyptian art and culture. Many goods extracted from the tomb such as furniture, cases, mummy, chariot, gold jewellery and unusual golden funeral mask of Pharaoh inspired many designers.

Art Deco survived until 1939, the beginning of the World War II. However, in colonial countries like India or Philippines it became popular in 1960s as a gateway for Modernism. In my personal opinion Art Deco was one of the most admirable movements. What I like about it, is a fantastic use of form. Streamlined, elegant and modern shapes, extraordinary materials, triangle patterns.

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was completely new and decorative style in art and design. It started at the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries and involved wide range of designs, such as furniture, lamps, jewellery, textiles, architecture, illustrations, poster design and painting. It developed mainly in Europe and had many different names - in England and France 'Modern Art', in Germany 'Jugendstil', in Italy 'Stile Liberty'. In some way, Art Nouveau was a reaction against the Industrial Revolution as most of the artists were not in fond of the machine-made goods. Art Nouveau was characterized by complex, swirly leaves, flowers or roots and curved forms, vines and lines.

One of the most recognizable Art Nouveau artists who had a great impact on its look was Alphonse Mucha. He was a Czech painter and designer and was most famous for his fantastic posters. One of his first, which appeared in 1895, gained huge popularity. It was a poster for a play called Gismonda. From the moment that people saw the poster they absolutely loved it and soon they called it Art Nouveau. In the following years Mucha was developing his style and created many beautiful posters, which now are iconic for Art Nouveau style. In my personal opinion the poster are just amazing and really like them. One of the things I am impressed by are the stunning ornaments around the characters. Also I really like how the artist created the characters - combining outlines with very nice shading, which gives quite amazing look.


Another amazing example of Art Nouveau that I was able to find is this doorway in Paris. What I like about are great curvy lines and fantastic ornament around it.


Personally, I think that Art Nouveau is very impressive. However, in my opinion, too much of it can look just too busy and you can be overwhelmed with amount of details in each piece.

African influence on modern art

African sculptures had very strong influence on European art during 19th and 20th century. They inspired many artists because of their abstract form of the human body. French and Spanish painters Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso as well as other artists from School of Paris (perhaps also influenced by Paul Gauguin and Paul Cezanne) adopted African sculptures style mixed with Cubist style in their paintings.

Although Picasso's paintings from his 'African Period' have really vivid colour palette and the faces became flat, he kept the Cubist style by fragmented shapes in his paintings. What I find interesting in his paintings from that period are the colours he had chosen and relationships between them. However, I do not like the flattened faces and shapes Picasso created as I am not fond of abstract art.

The Young Sailor, 1906 (above) by Henri Matisse is one of his paintings influenced by African art. I find this painting quite nice because of the texture of the clothes that the artist created - in some way it looks abstract and loose, but at the same time it is quite realistic. And again, I like the nice colours that Matisse used and I think they really look fantastic together.

I think that the African influence played a big role in the modern art. It also inspired later generations of artists - Jean Michel was one of them. He incorporated African art with graffiti art. In my opinion it is interesting approach and I think he did similar thing to what Cubists did, mixing two different styles of art to create something new.

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism was a continuation and extended-version of the French movement - Impressionism. Post-Impressionist artist hadn't just stopped on vibrant colours and bold brush strokes but had gone further into structures, geometric forms, expression and exploring emotions in paint. Many of the appreciated artists were involved in this movement, such as Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin or Charles Angrand.

Probaly the most famous of the artists during this era was Vincent Van Gogh. Although he was never appreciated during his life, at present his paintings are worth millions. Van Gogh was born in Zundert, Holland, 1853. He died at early age (37) after he commited suicide caused by a mental illness.

One of Van Gogh's most famous paintings is The Starry Night. It shows part of the village of Saint-Remy which Van Gogh seen through his sanitarium window.

I like this picture as it seems to me that the artist was probably trying to express astronomical view of the sky at night. I can clearly see the stars, moon and perhaps the Milky Way.

During that time, Van Gogh was perhaps influenced by the discovery of the M51a galaxy in 1744 and the sketch made by Lord Rosse.

The Starry Night

Whirpool Galaxy (M51a) Sketch

Other well-known works from Vincent Van Gogh are the Sunflower Series. One of them, specifically fourth version , can be seen in London National Gallery.The artist did not concentrated really on perspective, light or details but focused on impression of the flowers, colours and rather their form.

Impressionism

Impressionism was an art movement during the 1870s and 1880s. It was completely new style in art. Bright colours freely brushed on canvas broke the academic rules of painting during 19th century. Impressionists concentrated on light, everyday life, weather and atmosphere. Also they started to work outside, while other painters painted in studios.

Beginnings of the impressionism started with the Academie des Beaux-Arts which dominated the art scene during the 19th century. It was a powerful institution which could make artists famous and rich or unknown and hated. Artists whose work was kept in traditional style showing religious, historical or landscape themes had the approval of the academy, and their work had been shown in the Salon de Paris during the annual art show. Others, like Edouard Manet, Claude Monet or Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with more controversial themes or techniques had been rejected.

In 1863, Emperor Napoleon III saw the rejected works and established Salon des Refuses as he thought people have the right to see different painting as well. Now rejected painters could show their work there.

One of the most popular impressionist paintings is probably Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet, which Impressionism name was driven from. Louis Leroy, who was an art critic, wrote an article in Le Harivari newspaper and entitled it The Exhibition of Impressionists inspired by the painting's name.

It was painted using oil paints on canvas in 1872. What I like about this picture is amazing use of colour. The artist did not payed much attention to the details but concentrated on the expressing the atmosphere, tones and the mood during the sunrise.

One of my favourite Impressionist paintings is Branch of the Seine near Giverny, also painted by Claude Monet. It was painted on canvas using oil paints in 1897.

I really like the way that Monet captured the trees and the reflections on them. You can see rather loose brush strokes when you look closley but when you move back it all comes together creating this fantastic landscape. I also like the depth - the trees further away are blurry, which makes the picture more convincing and gives a little realistic taste.

Another painting of my favourites is Garden Path in Rueil by Edouard Manet, painted in 1882 again using oil paints on canvas.

The reason why I like this one is the way that the artists captured the light and the shadows. Again, picture was painted freely, with many loose brush strokes giving very nice impression of leaves and shadows casted by them. Also, you clearly see where light hits the leaves.