The origins of the Art Deco movement can be found in the early years of the 20th Century. In 1906, the well-known Parisian jeweller Louis Cartier encouraged his best designers Baloche, Rauline and Thomas to venture for the first time into abstract and geometric forms. Calibré-cut coloured stones in simple squares, polygons and lozenges made a timid appearance to the detriment of the firm's "style guirlande". The isolated experiments were an echo of a general weariness of Art Nouveau. In effect, the 11th November 1918 began an era of folly in France. Forgetting the mourning, the ruins, the precarious situation of finances, the four million dead and wounded, the French inebriated themselves with the dearly bought victory. The pleasure of living gave way to a rage to exist, precipitating the cultural evolution which had previously been slowed by the weight of convention. Though the traditional bourgeoisie resisted the novelty, a newly wealthy class, as well as the aristocrats, the aesthetes and the fashion sphere were determined to dominate the revolution in social mores.

The most radical transformation of the period concerned the feminine silhouette. The new woman was liberated from the corset, freed from the long skirts and emancipated from the immense and unwieldy hats. The couturier Poiret did not cease to lament over the changes: "Until recently, women were pretty and architectural like the bow of a ship. Now, they resemble undernourished telegraph boys". All devoured the novel of Victor Marguerite "La Garonne" which triumphed by selling one hundred thousand copies. For this new woman of tubular outline, passionately fond of speed, shifting with ease from a tennis court to a tea dance, the famous couturiers created unlimited apparel. Chanel refined simplicity and comfort by incorporating materials until then reserved for men - tweeds and wools; Vionnet created dresses "à l'égyptienne"; Schiaparelli opted for rags or sackcloths and Patou defined his collections in various tricot models.

The jewellers of the time followed suit with the new styles, establishing a productive dialogue with "haute couture". Due to the strong ties between the two, Cartier exhibited at the haute couture "Pavillon d'Elégance" during the 1925 exhibition instead of at the Grand Palais with the other jewellers. Alfred Chapuis confirmed in a 1925 volume of the "Journal Suisse d'horlogerie et de bijouterie" that: "The jewellers derive inspiration from the creations of the great couturiers in such a fashion that a jewel or a wristwatch and an outfit complement each other with a harmony which was only known in distant eras." One only need to compare the silhouette of the crinoline or the bustle with the androgynous figure of the 1920s to understand the principal cause for the renaissance in jewellery.

In the first quarter of the 20th Century, ideas circulated as quickly as automobiles and aeroplanes. Manifesto suceeded manifesto, establishing an electric atmosphere. The borders opened to movements which spread across Europe: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Neo-plasticism, Constructivism, Suprematism and Dadaism constituted the aesthetic root of the 1920s. The arts of the parure, jewellery and clothing were imbued with the ideas present in these movements. The susceptibility of "Haute joaillerie" to the trends present in the intellectual and artistic climate was astonishing and without a doubt unique.

At the source of modernity, situated in the European avant-garde, the Viennese Secession, founded in 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich, caused an evolution in architecture, painting and the decorative arts towards a minimal, austere style in which the decorative motifs consisted of sinuous or geometric ornamentation.

As the Secession had affected ideas on design and form, an event in Paris, which took place in 1909, overthrew the current theories on colour. In reaction to the drab and realist stage designs of the Parisian theatre, the Russian Sergei de Diaghilev brought forth an explosion of colours with his Ballets Russes. A polyphony of bright hues, the boldness of which was impressive, invaded the stage. The exaltation of colour was contagious, spreading rapidly from the stage to the art galleries where the Fauves exhibited as a group for the first time in the Salon d'Automne of 1905. "A can of paint has been thrown in the face of the public", the critic Camille Mauclair declared indignantly.

Refusing the decorative and the anecdotic, Cubism, in the manifesto published in 1912 by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, proposed a vision of shapes which was analytic, realistic and objective. Sonia Delaunay produced her "tissus simultanés" with simple and repetitive geometric motifs from which she designed dress models for Jacques Heim.

Another aesthetic revolution originated in Germany where Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919. His teaching was based on a doctrine requiring the presence of a craftsman-designer for industrial production. The Bauhaus studios acted as suppliers of prototypes, characterised by their architectonic appearance. Without doubt, the artist-jeweller pioneers such as Gérard Sandoz, Jean Fouquet and Raymond Templier were strongly influenced by the German movement.

If the jewellery designers absorbed all of the aforementioned artistic manifestos which had circulated throughout Europe, they also sought inspiration in far away civilisations. The taste for exoticism and the fascination excercised by the Orient were not recent. Yet, it seems that the development of magazines and books offered increasing possibilities for the knowledge of artistic expressions different from those of the West. In November 1922, the archeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tuthankhamun and, from 1922 to 1932, newspapers reported regularly on the progress of the excavations, creating a vogue in the decorative arts for all motifs borrowed from Egypt. An ornamental grammar of Pharaonic figural motifs was defined by the jewellers. Van Cleef & Arpels created a series of brooches and bracelets evoking narrative scenes of pharaohs, lotuses and birds. Nonetheless, their most spectacular creation was lot 230, a sautoir created in December 1924.

The interest in Oriental art re-awakened at the end of the 19th Century and offered European artists a new source of stylistic motifs. They adapted, in their own fashion, the decorative elements transposed from nature, or the use, particular to Asia, of jade, coral, enamels, lacquer and pearls. The fans were wide, with their designs incorporating the exact copies of figures, like the fire-breathing dragon, the pagoda and chinese characters, as well as more liberal interpretations of certain motifs translated "à l'occidentale".

On the route to the Far East, another civilisation cast its spell, that of Persia. The designers borrowed plant and flower motifs from Persian carpets and miniatures, as well as refining the delicate gammut of roses, daffodils and cherries or the audacious combination of certain colours such as blue and green (emerald and sapphire or lapis and jade).

Two principal factors preside over the creation of a jewel: the imagination of the artist and the technical possibilities of the materials. The former alone does not serve as an explanation for the richness and depth of novelty embodied in the jewels of the 1920s. At the beginning of the 20th Century, important technical progress allowed the creators to give free rein to their fantasies and generated original combinations of manufacturing techniques and colours.

The lapidaries obtained effects in gemstones previously unknown. To the classic rose, brilliant or single-cuts came to be added unprecedented combinations. Tables, baguettes and trapezes facilitated the projects of the designers, and finally broke the invariable rigidity of the traditional cuts. For example, pavé-set diamonds were set for the first time next to luminous marquetry. Additionally, the artisans no longer hesitated to cut or facet hardstones such as jade, onyx, lapis-lazuli, malachite, turquoise and coral.

The discovery of the possibilities of platinum in jewellery circa 1900 brought about a revolution in jewellery design. By the 1920s, it had strongly affected the art of the mounting. Due to its great durability, it allowed for considerable reduction in the quantity of metal needed to set a stone. The ease brought by working in platinum allowed the creation of jewels without any space between the stones. Necklaces and bracelets took on the appearance and the suppleness of ribbons. The vogue was for platinum, combined with onyx, rock crystal and diamonds.
The colossal "exposition international des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes", inaugurated in Paris on May 16th, 1925, is considered to have been the baptism of the vast Art Deco movement. The initial idea for the exhibition dated back to 1912. It was scheduled to take place in 1916 and was ultimately delayed due to the war. Hundreds of participants displayed their creations and new ideas over an area of 23 hectares between the Grand Palais and the Place de la Concorde on the right bank and the Esplanade des Invalides on the left bank. The "Parure" show consisted of all the jewellers, except Cartier.

Three young designers, Jean Fouquet, Gérard Sandoz and Raymond Templier, attracted considerable notice during the exhibition. Diverging from the traditional "Haute Joaillerie", they played a premiere role in the aesthetic revolution which flourished during the 1920s. A pivotal text by Gérard Sandoz, published in August 1929, elaborated on the theories of these talented young artists who were born at the beginning of the century. Their credo can be summed up in his statement: "Pour ma part, j'estime qu'il faut tout d'abord penser à la ligne et au volume général du bijou à créer." Their's was an art that was essentially abstract, with simple geometric forms and volumes. They incorporated diverse materials, precious and non-precious, sometimes with surprising combinations.

Georges Fouquet, organiser of the "Parure" exhibition, wrote after its closing: "it was no longer exclusively the manifestation of some, as it was in 1900, but rather the demonstration of a common effort by the entire guild. This movement should not be interrupted; everyone should orient their research and their works in this direction, where we prove once more to the entire world that in what concerns the decorative arts, we are still at the forefront and we will always lead the way."

In the 1920s, the combination of lively and contrasting colours seen, for example, in the jewels by Cartier baptised "Tutti Frutti" was tempered by an opposing aesthetic bias, that of black and white which became more prevalent as the years passed. At the 1929 "Exposition de bijouterie-joaillerie et orfèvrerie" in the Palais Galliéra, most jewellers showed, to great acclaim, jewels with a "white note", sometimes on a black background, given by the combination of diamonds, transparent or frosted rock crystal, platinum, black onyx and black enamel or lacquer.

"In that which concerns jewels in particular, one can repeat that the only ones that count for posterity are those that recall an era from which they have received or maintained the imprint." This judicious remark by Emile Sedyn, contemporary critic of these creations, maintains its acuity today. Timeless and of a modernity rarely equalled, Art Deco jewels impose themselves as chef d'oeuvres of the jewellers craft, even seventy years after their creation.

Sylvie Raulet
June 1998