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From 1920 to 1939, the Art Deco style revisited all the arts of its time. The objective was twofold: on the one hand, to move past the excesses of Art Nouveau, and on the other, to innovate by creating a functional art adapted to the needs of modern life. Influenced by Cubism, Fauvism, and Greek, African, Mayan, and Egyptian art, the Art Deco style took its name from the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts held in Paris from April to October 1925. Architecture, furniture, jewelry, and fashion yielded to the desires for novelty and ease of a wealthy bourgeois society determined to turn the page on the dark hours of the First World War and to enjoy the freedom rediscovered during the Roaring Twenties as quickly as possible. Women freed themselves from petticoats and crinolines, shortened their hair, took up tennis, and wore swimsuits in Deauville, Biarritz, or Cannes; their slender silhouettes matched the clean lines of this new wave that redefined them as much as their wardrobes, their finery, their cars, and their entire homes. Certain creations were marketed for the first time in department store aisles (Le Printemps in Paris). The use of new materials characterized Art Deco: precious or exotic woods such as elm or walnut burr, walnut root, rosewood, sycamore, ivory, alabaster, gilded bronze, glass, etc. This style influenced all visual arts and even craftsmanship. Villas, houses, and hotels were Art Deco from floor to ceiling. Furniture, stained glass, doors, door handles, tableware—everything contributed to the realization of a total and refined art.
The architects were primarily Robert Mallet-Stevens, Le Corbusier, Raymond Fisher, the Perret brothers, André Lurçat, Jean and Édouard Niermans...; the decorators included Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jacques Adnet, Maurice Dufrêne, Jean Dunand, Paul Follot, Paul-Théodore Frank, Jules and André Leleu, Louis Sue, and André Mare; for textiles, Sonia Delaunay and Paul Poiret. Art Deco, whose premises could be seen as early as 1905 among certain jewelers, is characterized by clean, sharp lines and simpler, more legible geometric shapes, while figurative ornament disappeared. The rigor of Art Deco lines was tempered by a wide variety of colors. Transparent stones were contrasted with opaque stones and less expensive fine stones such as amethyst or citrine. The main Art Deco creators were Suzanne Belperron, Jean Fouquet, Boucheron and Cartier, Raymond Templier, Sandoz, Brandt, Jean Desprès, Jean Dunand, Coco Chanel, Chaumet, Van Cleef Arpels, and Mauboussin. The emphasis was placed on Modernity and the Avant-garde.
The Decorative Arts, or Art Deco, began to show signs of fatigue in the second half of the 1930s with the extreme politicization of one of its trends: Classical Modernism, a monumental art emanating from the great totalitarian regimes that returned to a refined and edifying art within a neo-classical inspired decor. In the same spirit, Socialist Realism was born (1932).
