NOTES ON VARIOUS ART MOVEMENTS SINCE THE MIDDLE OF THE 19th CENTURY.


ART DECO

A sleek, geometric, elegant style of decorative art, set against the world’s economic depression between the two world wars, in the 1920’s and 1930’s; and embracing painting, buildings, furniture, fashion, jewellery, sculpture, ceramics, interior design, vehicles, ships, graphics, etc.

Notable examples are - the fashions of Paul Poiret, influenced by the Ballets Russes); the Odeon Cinema designs; Chryselephantine figurines, (bronze and ivory); Ceramics by Clarice Cliff; Sunray motif on gates and doors of suburban houses. Art Deco brought fashion into the workaday world.

It was a reaction to the austerity and deprivation occasioned by World War 1.
ELEVATOR DOOR: Chrysler Building. New York 

“Jazz Age” designs; Early Sky-Scrapers (Chrysler Building, New York); Exotic, new materials - glass, leather, fabrics, metals, platinum, onyx, ebony, chrome, plastic, lacquer, agate, coral, bakelite, tortoiseshell, jade, rhinestones, jet and moonstones.




CLARICE CLIFF Sunrise Vase


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