World of Art
2 total works
Art Deco is one of the most exciting chapters in the history of the decorative arts. Conceived in France before the First World War, it spread throughout Europe and had its greatest and most spectacular success in the United States. Myriad influences shaped the style - Cubism, Constructivism, Orientalism, the Ballets Russes, the Bauhaus - and its exponents included many of the century's most celebrated artists, designers and craftsmen.
Alastair Duncan tells the story of the meteoric rise and fall of Art Nouveau, which began as a general reaction by young artists and designers to the stifling traditionalism and revivalism of the mid-nineteenth-century fine and decorative arts. The 'new art' first made itself felt around 1895, in architecture, furniture, glass, ceramics and the other applied arts, and fell into eclipse after World War I, until its rediscovery in the 1960s. The author recounts the history of this important movement in detail, introducing the main personalities - Mucha, Lalique, Tiffany and others - and relating their aims and accomplishments to the background from which the movement emerged.