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Art Deco Posters
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Published: August 17, 2006
Time is of the essence when it comes to any matter. And time is indisputably of the essence when it comes to producing art. An age can determine a style and make or break an art era. In the case of the Art Deco era, a specific event in time made it.
Art Deco came of age in the 1920's, as a reaction to post World War I devastation and seemingly lost humanity.
Promptly defined at the 1925 Paris World's Fair with the exhibit Exposition Internationales des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes (The International Exposition of Modern Decorative Art and Industry), "Art Deco" is shortened from the French phrase "Arts Decoratifs." Major themes are unity, harmony, and functionality. Art Deco is where art meets industry - machines are works of art, and art takes on a machine-like quality. However, the phrase "Art Deco" isn't officially coined until the mid-1960's, when the 1925 Exposition is scholarly re-examined and re-evaluated.
Unitarily, the artistic and industrial qualities of Art Deco posters are fashioned to create a distinct and pleasing marriage. Some of the popular objects of posters are cruise ships, trains, buildings, automobiles, planes, equipment and products of mass production, and metropolitan settings. And because the features are so omnipresent and current for their time, the depiction reflects the same clean lines, even flows, and glossy texture.
Art Deco poster style uses technical elements derived from the ancient world. Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Aztec techniques play a big role in the shapes, lines, form, and structure of these posters. Egyptian lines are used to display a graceful, elegant flow of lines from a common point to a divergent flourish. They create a lotus-like effect. Simultaneously, Mesopotamian and Egyptian straightness gives kinetic energy to the lines, so that the image has motion. For example, C. Gadoud's Camp Romain, 1930 is reminiscently Egyptian, with it's unidirectional one-dimensionally paralleled figures; the three figures are stylized after human pictorals found on Egyptian walls and papyruses. Many Art Deco posters borrow Aztec and Mesopotamian geometric structure. The layout of shapes are done in increasing or decreasing size, similar to Aztec pyramids and Mesopotamian ziggurats. Lateral size increments and flourishing lines harmoniously create a sweeping effect that is both glamorous and grand.
While Art Deco posters are often lumped into one overall periodic style, they, however, reflect nuances of other Modernist movements. Art Deco posters use the geometric fragmentation of Cubism, the mechanistic reverberance of Futurism, the acidic bright colors of Fauvism, and the socio-political lyricism of Constructivism. The melding of these different artistic styles creates the same effects as previous periods but take them to slightly different heights. No element is out of place; functionality is everything. For instance, if a poster uses triangles or angular lines, it uses them consistently and symmetrically. Art Deco posters' harmony can be traced through the interplay of shapes and lines. Anything straight creates speed, power, and sleekness, whereas anything circular creates a perpetually pumping or sweeping motion. Pieter Hofman's Utrecht Hollande, 1930 layers airbrushed straight lines at diagonal vertices, creating an angular effect and an auditory sensation of noisy clanking metal on metal - a Futuristic rendering indeed. Art Deco posters can never be accused of having a single element out of place. Function, harmony, and form are everything.
The imagination and ingenuity of Art Deco posters cannot be rivaled. To this day, they remain the most produced and reproduced posters of any period. The Art Deco movement itself came from the depths of despair when people were surrounded by ashes and rubble. And like picking up the pieces of a broken machine and reassembling a new apparatus, Art Deco picked up the broken remnants of war and forged a new and progressive mode in the art world. This is the absolute humanity of art - moving forward.
Art Deco came of age in the 1920's, as a reaction to post World War I devastation and seemingly lost humanity.
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Unitarily, the artistic and industrial qualities of Art Deco posters are fashioned to create a distinct and pleasing marriage. Some of the popular objects of posters are cruise ships, trains, buildings, automobiles, planes, equipment and products of mass production, and metropolitan settings. And because the features are so omnipresent and current for their time, the depiction reflects the same clean lines, even flows, and glossy texture.
Art Deco poster style uses technical elements derived from the ancient world. Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Aztec techniques play a big role in the shapes, lines, form, and structure of these posters. Egyptian lines are used to display a graceful, elegant flow of lines from a common point to a divergent flourish. They create a lotus-like effect. Simultaneously, Mesopotamian and Egyptian straightness gives kinetic energy to the lines, so that the image has motion. For example, C. Gadoud's Camp Romain, 1930 is reminiscently Egyptian, with it's unidirectional one-dimensionally paralleled figures; the three figures are stylized after human pictorals found on Egyptian walls and papyruses. Many Art Deco posters borrow Aztec and Mesopotamian geometric structure. The layout of shapes are done in increasing or decreasing size, similar to Aztec pyramids and Mesopotamian ziggurats. Lateral size increments and flourishing lines harmoniously create a sweeping effect that is both glamorous and grand.
While Art Deco posters are often lumped into one overall periodic style, they, however, reflect nuances of other Modernist movements. Art Deco posters use the geometric fragmentation of Cubism, the mechanistic reverberance of Futurism, the acidic bright colors of Fauvism, and the socio-political lyricism of Constructivism. The melding of these different artistic styles creates the same effects as previous periods but take them to slightly different heights. No element is out of place; functionality is everything. For instance, if a poster uses triangles or angular lines, it uses them consistently and symmetrically. Art Deco posters' harmony can be traced through the interplay of shapes and lines. Anything straight creates speed, power, and sleekness, whereas anything circular creates a perpetually pumping or sweeping motion. Pieter Hofman's Utrecht Hollande, 1930 layers airbrushed straight lines at diagonal vertices, creating an angular effect and an auditory sensation of noisy clanking metal on metal - a Futuristic rendering indeed. Art Deco posters can never be accused of having a single element out of place. Function, harmony, and form are everything.
The imagination and ingenuity of Art Deco posters cannot be rivaled. To this day, they remain the most produced and reproduced posters of any period. The Art Deco movement itself came from the depths of despair when people were surrounded by ashes and rubble. And like picking up the pieces of a broken machine and reassembling a new apparatus, Art Deco picked up the broken remnants of war and forged a new and progressive mode in the art world. This is the absolute humanity of art - moving forward.
