Female Form in the Art Deco Movement: Tamara de Lempicka

pistillate person Form in the guile Deco Movement Tamara de LempickaDesign for Passion The female pulp in artistic production DecoThe nontextual matter Deco hyphen was the genre during the 1920s and 1930s affecting the decorative r phthisiss, fine arts and fashion (Lucie-Smith, 1996). Throughout this period it was min for womens garb fashions. The portraits of Polish-born Tamara de Lempicka luxuriant on the tr halt as a catamount of people mainly in the smart social circles in which she travel. She was penurious when she fled to Paris with her husband and daughter. It was wherefore she resolved her talents of operati very(prenominal) would establish a successful c areer in Paris.To represent her depiction style she elaborated on distinctive streamlined civilization with a sense of modishness decadence, often compared to the cubism of Leger (some judgment of conviction called Soft Cubism). She was better than anyone else at representing the cunning Deco style in vid eo. Her devises exhibited the true meaning of the Art Deco style and consort the making love for protrude that women had in their flavours turning touch (de Lempicka, 1998). It can be said that she is likely the just about famous painter of the art deco period.The film style created by de Lempicka was as glamorous as her subject matter. Her instructor Andre Lhote did not realize the subtle syntheses of inspiration she portrayed. The use of a elastic metaphor which Tamara utilise time and again in her artistic product can be characterized by the haughty expression typical of a certain caste, or in her nudes which are allegories of lasciviousness. She employ a earmark combination of soft, rounded forms set against architectural lines and shapes that reflected a new forward-looking urbanity to those she painted in super mannered portraits. Her other main subjects include erotic nudes and still life of calla lilies. Her bold technique and pallet rapidly won her acclai m as the quintessential Art Deco artist (Blondell, 2004).Art Deco design was above all modern that exemplified the boundless say-so of a saucily industrialized world. The characterizations of Art Deco include the use of materials such as sharkskin, zebra skin, zigzag and stepped forms, bold and sweeping curves, chevron patterns, and sunburst motif. The sunburst motif was used in such varied contexts as a ladys shoe. It was a mainstream in consumerism that was stressed in the great fashion magazines as Vogue and Harpers fair to advertise the emergence of the New Woman in American society.It was argued that Art Deco functioned as a trademark for popular notions of femininity during a time when women were said to be the consumers of the average household. A genre of the time it appealed to women and was used as a selling destine for cosmetics, clothing, home furnishings, jewelry, and art objects. The realise that femininity would dominate the American imagination for the future in spired consumerism (Fischer, 2003).The tog was definitively eliminated making the flat and square dresses of the 1920s an ideal canvas to demo motifs of the Art Deco period. Skirts were shortened and the female figure became formless and androgynous (sexless) the waistline dropped to the hips or simply ceased to exist. In the 1930s the waistline moved to its indwelling position. Nylon, satin, silk and crepe the most prevalent of materials used to make fine figure defining dresses. Fabric was cut diagonally to take advantage of its elasticity to show formation of what it c everywhereed. Skirts were made largeer while the legs were allowed to be seen via long slits in the dresses and the shoulders were broadened by padded shoulder inserts (Lussier, 2003).In Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress, Tamara explicitly demonstrates her optical of the fashion of the times, sleek and seductive (Lucie-Smith). Girl in Green with Gloves, probably her most famous painting epitomizes her style showing the fabric and blur unite into sharp lines and flowing curves with the constitutional form strongly dimensional yet remaining rear and modern.The Art Deco of the 20s, with its geometric motifs and bright, bold colourize superlative represents the vanquish and purest forms of the decorative art period. Reaching its bold point between 1925 through 1935, the classical, symmetrical, rectilinear style of Art Deco, drew inspiration from other art movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and influence of the Bauhaus and became the dominant art form of Paris between 1920 through 1930. Tamara deLempicka was the artist who pursued the humanities Decoratifs style, derived from the Worlds fair held in 1925, formerly titled the Exposition Internationales des arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes that showcased French luxury goods (Wikipedia, 2003).A 1925auto portrait, Tamara in the Green Bugatti was an oil painting on wood. Tamara was dressed in a bright yellow with morose ha t, matching the color of the vehicle. The painting came about when a magazine editor was overwhelmed by the drivers style. The driver, later was learned, to be de Lempicka herself. The editor had left a barter card on the windshield asking the yellow clad charwoman to contact her. Die Dame, Germanys leading fashion magazine, then commissioned a self portrait in the car for the magazines cover. The result was one of de Lemplickas best kn testify works wherein she mixes cold, hard textures with luxurious, decadent sensual imagery. A point of interest on the matter was that Tamara NEVER owned a commonality Bugatti. The auto portrait was an word-painting of the era. The painting is said to represent the newly discovered freedom of women of the day (Paloma).Sexy, modern and unabashedly consumer-oriented was the new Art Deco style. Motifs were borrowed from Japan, Africa, ancient Egtyptian and Mayan cultures to create novel visual effects (Benton, 2003). French pochoir prints from t he divine Art Deco era presented womans fashion designs in their most original era. The clothing was revolutionary from designers such as Charles Worth, Jean Patou, Paul Poiret, Lucien Lelong and Joseph Paquin (Schiffer, 1998). Erte was an artist who accepted his fame by his drawings in Harpers Bazaars magazine for 22 yrs.His covers for the magazine shaped the entire modern tradition of fashion drawing. Erte (name derived from his initials R. T. Romaine de Tirtoff) also designed sets for plays and musicals most noted are the costumes and stage sets for the Folies-Bergere in Paris (Blum, 1976). He was perhaps the most appealing of artists at the time, called attention to the sleekness of style bad emphasis to lineal definition and bold color. (Fischer). The jewelry from the era change integrity with color, drama of form and juxtaposition of texture and contour. Designs included buckles, clips, belts, mirrors, pendants, cigarette cases, rings, chains, necklaces, watchbands, broo ches, studs and charms (Raulet, 2002).The aesthetic of Art Deco was most radical in the late 1920s at which female stars as Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy donned lavish Art Deco fashions. De Lempicka herself received acclaim for her aloof Garboesque beauty, her parties, and her love affairs. Her beauty and opinionated nature also increased her distinction (de Lempicka). The style declined as a growing conservatism challenged the feminist advances of an previous generation. The Art Deco woman was once an object of desire except she then regressed toward demeaning caricatures and pantomimes of unbridled sexuality (Fischer).To artists she (de Lempicka) appeared to be an upper-class dilettante, and to the nervous haute bourgeoisie she seemed arrogant and depraved, comments Laura Claridge. Her beauty and opinionated nature increased her celebrity as photographs of the period show a sleek woman whose lethargic-eyed mystique challenged that of Greta Garbo.De Lempicka was a v ery physical person. She often slept with the people she painted, or those who sat for her. They were both male and female. Her first lesbian affair was said to be with Ira Perrot who baffle for her and took her to Italy where she discovered paintings of Botticelli and Messina. It was the period of time in which she began to attend lesbian parties. Her creativity went as far as the tastefully arrangement of food on the body of a nude woman. on that pointafter, she would then slowly she eat her midnight repast (de Lempicka). The artist pursued older men as social companions, but slept with greener and more handsome men. She was often seen caressing a confinement boy one night and a woman the next. Her adventures inspired her artwork.An overview to her painting of Adam and Eve, her daughter Kizette states, The model walked across the room and picked up an apple from the bowl to satiate her hunger. Tamara then says Stop I have an inspiration. I have before me the vision of Adam and Eve. She then went out into the course and nearby saw a policeman on his beat. He was young and handsome. Monsieur, I am an artist and I need a model for my painting. She brought him into the studio and said you are Adam, here is your Eve completing her motivation. Among the queer aspects of her style is the overt lesbianism that informs it, especially in her female nudes, i.e. Two Friends, Spring, and The Girls. The tax deduction of sexuality between the females is subtle yet obvious.Tamara Gorska de Lempicka was married first to Tadeusz Lempicki a Russion lawyer and socialite and then to Baron Raoul Huffner with whom she moved to America. Being a bisexual woman, de Lempickas works reflects a glorification of the female form and vignettes of female life. seat Nude (1923) exploits her depiction of women in which she sets the tone of a powerful, curvy, and slab-faced image. Depicted during the spot Age de Lempickas art expel a riot of color combined with the sharpness of Cu bism making them seem to explode from their frames and grab our attention (Charlish, 2004). The sexy, bedroom-eyed women in stylish dresses are rendered in haunting poses that seem to mirror her life through her art.The Orange Turban of which Tamara produced eight versions in her lifetime, shows the influence of the Dutch and Flemish masters that she absorbed while studying at the Louvre. separatist publisher Mani de Li of Modern Art A Skeptical View, opinions that Tamara succeeds in portraits that have an aim similar to Picassos failures with hers being more original, complete, better drawn, faded and composed. The paintings never contain those scratchy areas of flat schmiery ugliness and unfinish so common in even the best of Picassos, he contends. From the pages of womens magazines to the salons and counters of department stores to the set of design of Hollywood films, the Art Deco style was used to market modernity and elegance (Fischer).Tamara sold her portrait art to the ri ch aristocracy of Paris that fetched ample prices. She refused to comment on the fascism around her. It was between the wars, that she painted portraits of writers, entertainers, artists, scientists, industrialists, and many of eastern Europes exiled nobility (Lucie-Smith). She had a choice to do carnival or festive art, and chose the festive (Boje, 2001). Peter Plagens, an art critic from Newsweek, referred to Tamara as practically forget with her production of almost soft porn. And he further stated that Tamara was the end product, not the producer of art that influences other artists (Claridge, 1999). After a menace of a Second World War, Tamara left Paris to go to Hollywood. There she became the Favorite Artist of the Hollywood Stars. The 1950s and 1960s phased out Deco Art until in a 1966 exhibition in Paris it resumed its interest.She had changed her style to abstract art in the 1960s. Her works were created then with a spatula with her output seemingly out of fashion. D e Lempickas earlier works began to rise in the 1970s and by the 1990s she once again became a stylish icon. Feminisms emphasis on unearthing sidelined women had played a part in her revitalization as well. The freeing of gay women has made her the prophetic, in -house painter of lipstick lesbianism (Charlish).Today de Lempickas work still is connected to Hollywood with singer/actress Madonna and actor cuckoo Nicholson being the most avid contemporary collectors of her paintings. Her paintings were rediscovered by the world (Neret, Gilles, 1992). Tamara de Lempicka achieved her honor and fame several times during her lifetime and remains popular today for her highly sexualized art deco portraits. The qualities of decadence and hedonism that caused critics of the 1960s and 1970s to dismiss her work are those traits that now show new appreciation, comments Elizabeth Ashburn, Professor and Head of the School of Art in the College of Fine Arts at the University of South Wales, Austrai lia.Tamara de Lempicka chose her teachers well. She learned the use of simple lines and a smooth finish from Maurice Denis, from who she had her first painting lesson at the Academe Ranson. She learned the neoclassical modification of cubism from Lhote in Paris. She learned the clear, fervent colors and imperious yet powerful interpretation of the female form and execution of the society portrait from Ingres (Charlish). When combined, the three distinct traits of her tutors were expelled though her own unique style in which she was able to bring across the passion of design.De Lempicka is the true demonstrator of the female form in Art Deco painting. The icon of Art Deco ceased her works after the death of her husband in 1962. She moved to Mexico and died in her sleep in 1980 only to leave behind her ashes strewn over the crater of Mt. Popocateptl along with her now valued works of art depict one of the most fascinating periods of art history in which she displayed the acquaintan ce of the woman of her time.BIBLIOGRAPHYBenton, Tim, Benton, Charlotte Wood Ghislaine. 2003 Art Deco 1910-1939. Bulfinch 1st North edition. Sept. 17. ISBN082122834X.Blondell, Alain Brugger, Ingirid. (2004) Tamara de Lempicka. Royal academy Books. 168 pgs. ISBN 1903973422.Blum, Stella. 1976 Designs by Erte. New York Dover.Boje, D. M. 2001 Athletic Apparel Industry is Tamara-land. Tamara Journal of fine PostmodernOrganization Science. Vol. 1 (2), pp. 6-19.Charlish, Nicky.2004 Art Deco Icon Tamara Lempicka. Culture Wars.RoyalAcademy, London.Claridge, Laura.1999 Tamara de Lempicka A Life of Deco and Decadence. ClarksonPotter Publishers. 436 pgs., folk 21.De Lempicka,Baroness Kizette and Philip, Charles. (1998) Passion by Design The Artand Times of Tamara de Lempicka, Abberville Press. 192 pgs. ISBN0789205033.Fischer, Lucy.2003 Designing Women Art Deco, and the Female Form (Film and Culture). capital of South Carolina University Press. 352 pgs. ISBN 0231125011.Lucie-Smith,Edward. 1 996 Art Deco Painting, Phaidon Press, 160 pages, ISBN071482545X.Lussier, Suzanne.2003. All Tied-Up The Corset in Contemporary Fashion. The Victoria and Albert Museum.Neret, Gilles. 1992.Tamara de Lempica Benedict. Taschen Verlag GrnbH. Kolan.Paloma Gallery. http//www.paloma.ca/gallery.html.Raulet, Sylvie.2002 Art Deco Jewelry. Thames Hudson.Schiffer. 1998. FrenchArt Deco Fashions In Pochoir Prints from the 1920s. Schiffer Publishing .Feb. 1. 160 pages. ISBN 0764304747.Wikipedia. 2003.The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press.