Delineating Picturesque adroitness

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During the 1920’s things were optimistic and futures seemed bright, the economy was booming and the Roaring Twenties brought frivolity, luxury and a sense of freedom and hopefulness.( http://www.art-deco-style.com/art-deco-history.html) Although things were positive and bright, with the crash of the stock market on 1929, the Great Depression began to spread throughout the globe, however it would be a few more years before the average family would the pressure.

Art Deco continue to soldier into the early 1930’s with high society still choosing to purchase Art Deco artists and craftsman’s products and works. With the Great Depression after effects getting closer, less expensive materials were no being interlaced with the luxury materials of the Art deco movement.

The Machine Age and technology was quickly advancing and becoming a prominent part of everyday life. The 1920’s saw the introduction of the radio, the printing press, the skyscraper and modernized transportation.

Woman power was also very prominent during the Art Deco movement with woman being granted the right to vote in the early 1920’s and the first woman to swim the English Channel later on in 1926.

In 1929 economic crisis struck when the stock market crashes, sending the world into a crazy. And the iconic Time magazine was found in 1923, paving the way for decades and decades of publishing gold to come.

One very prominent painter, poster artists, theatre designer and typographer of the Art deco movement was Adolph Jean-Marie Mouron , pseudonym AJM Cassandre.

Cassandre started out his career painting mostly in the "academic" style of Cezanne, however, progresses to be inspired by the Bauhaus and cubist movements. These inspirations lead Cassandre into his calling of Advertising, where he felt his works were best seen be the masses, and thus he began producing advertising posters. Cassandre's most infamous travel posters were the Le Nord Express and the Normandie.

Cassandre's work didn't just end with travel posters. Cassandre went on to form Alliance Graphique, a Graphic Design agency in the late 1920's, and started explore even deeper into the world of advertising, producing not only travel posters, but also covers for Harper's Bazaar Magazine.

By now Cassandre was firmly grounded in this new modernist style movement, referred to as Art Deco today, and was approached by the infamous type-foundry Deberny at Peignot. Here, Cassandre went on to develop the three quintessential Art Deco typefaces; Bifur (1928), Acier (1920), and Peignot (1937).

Later on in his years, still producing advertising material such as posters, magazine covers, as well as logos and fonts, Cassandre produced what would be his most famous and widely know logo to the entire western female population, Yves Saint Laurent.

Fashion itself also had a revolutionary amongst it during the Art Deco art movement. Paul Poiret (1879 - 1944) is best known for freeing women from constricting corsets and for his eyebrow raising designs such as the hobble skirt, "Harem" pantaloons, and "lampshade" tunics. (www.wikki.com/org)

In 1911, Jardin des Modes and La Gazette publisher Lucien Vogel, dared photographer Edward Steichen (The Pond- Moonlight 1904), to promote fashion as a fine art through photography.

According to HotShoe International; Fresh Perspectives on Contemporary Photography, Europe's leading contemporary photographic magazine's journalist Jesse Alexander; Steichen's photo shoot is "...now considered to be the first ever modern fashion photography shoot. That is, photographing the garments in such a way as to convey a sense of their physical quality as well as their formal appearance, as opposed to simply illustrating the object."

Etre Romain de Tirtoff is widely recognized as the most influential artists of the Art Deco movement. Commonly known as Etre, his illustrations have graced numerous magazine covers from Vogue, Cosmopolitan to most notably Harper’s Bazaar, with over 200 covers produced. His Illustrations overflow with sophistication and glamour and are synonymous with the Art Deco aesthetic – streamlined, geometric, highly stylized, boldly coloured and ultra fashionable. Etre was also a considerable contributor to the Art Deco movement through his numerous costume and set design productions. He design and conceptualised for greats such as The Ziegfeld Follies, Folies- Bergere, the opera La Boheme and the Epic Film Ben-Hur. (http://www.art-deco-style.com/art-deco-history.html)

Art Deco embraces the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents, which is based out of Cubism. As well as the Expressionist’s forms, derived from nature, distorted or exaggerated and colours that are intensified for emotive or expressive purposes. Art Deco also touches on Futurism’s rapid movements and dynamic motion, as well as Vorticism.

Art Deco is based on “mathematical geometric shapes which draw on Greco-Roman Classism, faceted architectural forms of Babylon, Assyria, Ancient Egypt and Aztec Mexico- notably their ziggurats, pyramids and other monumental structures.” (http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/art-deco.htm)

Automobiles, trains, ocean liners and other ways of transportation, started to adopt a very futuristic style. This sleek and modern look was achieved through the use of steel glass and lacquer wood.

Characteristics of the art/design movement

Although consider to be highly functional, Art Deco was formed simply for decorative purposes, beautiful and ornamental. Art Deco’s characteristics just ooze a life style of pleasure and leisure and all-out glamour. Art Deco was all about capturing blasé Wall street suits, framed by a slick Manhattan bar, with a cigar in one hand and a slinky, red lipstick 'ed blonde and dripping diamonds.

Or perhaps the French Riviera, circa1929, real life pin up girls lounging around in candy-coloured bathing suits, fawning over the muscled beefcake keeping card on the beach.( http://www.art-deco-style.com/) All these exuberate soap-opera settings are the key characteristics of Art Deco.

Art Deco characterised by thin, long forms, curving surfaces and geometric patterning. In particular, Art Deco designs are characterised by ... “trapezoidal, zigzagged and triangular shapes, chevron patterns, stepped forms, sweeping curves and sunburst motifs,” (http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/art-deco.htm) as well as fountains, gazelles and lighting flashes.

Art Deco has paved the way for copious graphic design attributes of today, especially advertising, and more so, poster design.

The sunburst characteristic of Art Deco has become a trend through modern graphic design of the twenty first century.

The overzealous use of colour from the Art Deco movement has opened the doors to over the top graphic design of the modern day. Art Deco has also influenced the stylized representation of shapes and geometry. From this we can see the influence of ridged, geometric shapes, transparent and overlapping.
The posing and positioning of subjects in graphics today is also very influence by the 1920’s pin up girls and their suggestive, yet conservative stances