Art Deco, the prevailing style of the 1920s and 1930s, is lust for life.
It brought joy, colorfulness, sensuality, elegance and exclusivity into people's life like no other style since then.
Basis for the success of Art Deco after the First World War - already before
the war there had been Art Deco creations - were many radical social transformations.
After the war people in the European countries wanted to make up for the »lost« years, the war had broken taboos, an exiting spirit of awakening and happy mindlessness swept away the established moral conceptions and behavior patterns of the Victorian resp. Wilhelmine era.
In the existential need of the post war years the status of women changed, they gained independence and with it self-confidence and awareness of their personal value, what resulted in major equality between men and women.
Already in the decades before the First World War there had taken place a process of urbanization, the number of metropolises had multiplied. Instead of the family, the individual became the basic element of the social order.
Life in metropolis with its speed and its manifold opportunities and sensory stimuli captivated people. The delight of dancing and sexuality played a significent role in the mass culture of the 1920s. Parallel with Art Deco, broadcasting, soundfilm, Swing, pictorials, photo reportage, and neon signs advertising evolved resp. spread on a massive scale.
Art Deco was cosmopolitan, it covered all areas of life, from architecture to furniture, vehicles, and graphic design, to jewelry, clothing, and everyday objects, and it appealed to people of all walks of life.
Art Deco was the last all-embracing style.
With the Second World War lust for life died in Europe, and thus the era of Art Deco ended, while in the USA it continued, and still influenced the design of the 1950s.
Characteristically, Art Deco was rediscovered in the second half of the 1960s, the »Swinging Sixties«, which was characterized just like the 1920s by awakening, hedonism, and love of experimentation, and, incidentally, as recently as that time it received its name. (Previously, one had got by with terms like »Zigzagjugendstil«, »Borax«, »Jazz Moderne« and »Aztec Airlines«.)
For stylistic characteristics, sources, and influences: Art Deco Wikipedia
Illustrations:
top left: »Bacchanale« by Janle (Max le Verrier), approx. 1926, private collection; photo:
Paul Maenz;
top right: Dancer Claire Bauroff, 1928; photo: Helene Roger-Viollet;
both from the monograph »Art Déco. Formen zwischen zwei Kriegen« by Paul Maenz, Köln (DuMont) 1980
bottom: Art Deco building in Miami South Beach