From time to time I might be blogging on various art movements I like. I have to warn you, of course, that I am by no means an expert on the subject - most of it will just be my own thoughts and musings on the subject. Hopefully it'll be an interesting read.
One of my favorite art movements is the amalgamation known as "Art Deco". Art Deco wasn't a discreet art movement in and of itself; the term (as usually used) encompasses a number of art movements and styles, including Constructivism, Cubism, Neoclassicalism, Futurism, and Art Nouveau. Its most famous applications, of course, were in architecture and industrial design.
Russian Constructivism.
Polish art exhibition poster.
Everyone has seen examples of Art Deco design, even if they don't know it - the Chrystler and Empire State buildings in New York City are perhaps the largest examples. These two buildings are typified by their soaring vertical lines and complex peaks: the Empire State Building seems to flow downward in a series of steel cataracts, while the Chrystler Building exhibits arches reminiscent of Moorish architecture in its multilayered, patterned peak-arches.
The reason Art Deco is so interesting to me is not merely because of its sleek, bold design, but because of its cultural implications: this is the first truly modern, industrial art movement. Up to this point industrial machines had been featured in art as objects of curiosity or as props for the human characters, but now, at the dawn of the modern era, art and machine became one. Planes, trains, and automobiles (and even toasters) took their sleek, aggressive look from the design, even as the design took its parallel lines and constant motion from the very
machines it was supposed to decorate. High-tech became high-style. Art heralded the hard charge of progress, the thrill of empire: Egyptian and Sumerian styles melded with the machine age. Everywhere, buildings and planes were soaring higher, planes and automobiles were moving faster, the pace of industry and day-to-day life were becoming ever more frantic. Even in the thirties, as most of America wallowed in the Great Depression, somehow businesses, cities, and millionaires were scraping together enough dough to erect another sky-raping mountain of concrete and steel. This was an age that began with war and ended with war, an age of towering tycoons and rocket-ship trains, of Superman and Al Capone - of limitless possibilities, not only for America, but for the world.
Fox Theater, Detroit, MI.
And, ultimately, it was a doomed movement. After World War II and the dawn of the Nuclear Age, "progress" could never be viewed in the same light again. Rather than soaring ever-higher on the wings of technological achievement, humanity seemed poised to erase itself from history. Thus, Art Deco died. Art became cynical; architecture, boring; trains, planes, and automobiles slid down the far end of the sine wave into dreary functionality. The Atomic Age, and the Silicon Age which followed, were merely technical footnotes to the over-arching Plastic Age, rising like a muddy cloud of dioxins over civilization.
I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, of course; but Art Deco lends itself to these kinds of musings, as does its sad decline. The main charge against it - especially in terms of industrial design - was that it lent an unwarranted air of quality and sophistication to many cheap, mass-produced products: do you really need a blow-drier to look like a chrome rocket? How about a toaster? Does a decorative design really enhance the quality (and hence the price) of
such mundane objects? Secondly, there was the whole murky business of Industrialism (with a capital I) which inspired, and was inspired by, the Art Deco movement. You see, with the hard charge of glorious Progress came a dark side - a story of men serving machines, of desecration of the wilderness, of waste, excess, greed, and human engineering. It may have been that the harsh lines and blocky style of Art Deco proved too reminiscent of Nazi imagery following World War II, evoking the creepy pseudo-classicism and occult flamboyance of these uber-villains. The Soviet preoccupation with similar propagandic imagery did nothing help the movement in Western eyes. By the 1950s, despite the official love affair with SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, Industrialism had shown its true face, and never again would Art Deco - the Industrial Art - attain such prominence.
One of my favorite art movements is the amalgamation known as "Art Deco". Art Deco wasn't a discreet art movement in and of itself; the term (as usually used) encompasses a number of art movements and styles, including Constructivism, Cubism, Neoclassicalism, Futurism, and Art Nouveau. Its most famous applications, of course, were in architecture and industrial design.
Russian Constructivism.
Polish art exhibition poster.
Everyone has seen examples of Art Deco design, even if they don't know it - the Chrystler and Empire State buildings in New York City are perhaps the largest examples. These two buildings are typified by their soaring vertical lines and complex peaks: the Empire State Building seems to flow downward in a series of steel cataracts, while the Chrystler Building exhibits arches reminiscent of Moorish architecture in its multilayered, patterned peak-arches.The reason Art Deco is so interesting to me is not merely because of its sleek, bold design, but because of its cultural implications: this is the first truly modern, industrial art movement. Up to this point industrial machines had been featured in art as objects of curiosity or as props for the human characters, but now, at the dawn of the modern era, art and machine became one. Planes, trains, and automobiles (and even toasters) took their sleek, aggressive look from the design, even as the design took its parallel lines and constant motion from the very
machines it was supposed to decorate. High-tech became high-style. Art heralded the hard charge of progress, the thrill of empire: Egyptian and Sumerian styles melded with the machine age. Everywhere, buildings and planes were soaring higher, planes and automobiles were moving faster, the pace of industry and day-to-day life were becoming ever more frantic. Even in the thirties, as most of America wallowed in the Great Depression, somehow businesses, cities, and millionaires were scraping together enough dough to erect another sky-raping mountain of concrete and steel. This was an age that began with war and ended with war, an age of towering tycoons and rocket-ship trains, of Superman and Al Capone - of limitless possibilities, not only for America, but for the world.
Fox Theater, Detroit, MI.And, ultimately, it was a doomed movement. After World War II and the dawn of the Nuclear Age, "progress" could never be viewed in the same light again. Rather than soaring ever-higher on the wings of technological achievement, humanity seemed poised to erase itself from history. Thus, Art Deco died. Art became cynical; architecture, boring; trains, planes, and automobiles slid down the far end of the sine wave into dreary functionality. The Atomic Age, and the Silicon Age which followed, were merely technical footnotes to the over-arching Plastic Age, rising like a muddy cloud of dioxins over civilization.
I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, of course; but Art Deco lends itself to these kinds of musings, as does its sad decline. The main charge against it - especially in terms of industrial design - was that it lent an unwarranted air of quality and sophistication to many cheap, mass-produced products: do you really need a blow-drier to look like a chrome rocket? How about a toaster? Does a decorative design really enhance the quality (and hence the price) of
such mundane objects? Secondly, there was the whole murky business of Industrialism (with a capital I) which inspired, and was inspired by, the Art Deco movement. You see, with the hard charge of glorious Progress came a dark side - a story of men serving machines, of desecration of the wilderness, of waste, excess, greed, and human engineering. It may have been that the harsh lines and blocky style of Art Deco proved too reminiscent of Nazi imagery following World War II, evoking the creepy pseudo-classicism and occult flamboyance of these uber-villains. The Soviet preoccupation with similar propagandic imagery did nothing help the movement in Western eyes. By the 1950s, despite the official love affair with SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, Industrialism had shown its true face, and never again would Art Deco - the Industrial Art - attain such prominence.
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