A Comparative Analysis of Art Nouveau and Art Deco Poster Design

The poster was one of the earliest advertising tools and in the 19th began to develop into a medium for visual communication and later widely spread to the rest of the world and became a stable of the graphic design trade. Evolvement of posters also highly influenced the development of typography, as posters were meant to be read from far distance, new and larger types were required to be produced. Posters were used to advertise various political parties, new recruits, promote products and spread ideas and knowledge to the public. The way a poster is designed is not a coincidence - it's done entirely on purpose in order to convey the message or the subject in the best possible way.

Through time, the style, techniques and “rules” of poster design have changed. Style is never constant, thus the medium is - posters have remained an important advertising tool. Even today with the internet being the most efficient advertisement tool, posters are still being produced and designed today. This topic intrigues me as I have always loved poster designs. It is such a powerful communication tool and does not only belong to one style or time period - over the time, the poster designers have been incorporating the contemporary visual means to communicate to the public in the most efficient way.

In this paper, I will compare posters from Art Nouveau and Art deco movements. My aim is to understand how these two movements differ from each other, and how these differences can be detected by analyzing specific posters created by Toulouse-Lautrec and by Cassandre. In my comparative analysis, I will examine what ideas, style and techniques were used in each poster, as well as put them in the context of their specific time period. The investigation will use the theory of semiotics to analyse the value and meanings of the signs represented in each poster, furthermore we will also be using Feisner, 2006 book about color symbolism to further understand the meaning and reasons for the use of certain colors and interpret their purpose.

These two theoretical approaches will lead to better understanding of the choices the artist made, and broader, what characterises the visual expression of Art Nouveau versus Art Deco. This paper will begin with a formal analysis, describing the elements of the posters, composition, color, lines, movement and so on. We will also be investigating the art movement and the time period of the poster in order to understand the context in which they were designed.

I intend through this investigation to gain a broader understanding of the two art movements and how they used and understood the art of poster design. In this paper I will analyze the two poster styles and use of visual means by applying a formal and contextual analysis. The approach I will be using is based on the semiotic theory which contributes to a further understanding of what the artists want to convey. I chose these two movements as they both have been extremely influential for the development of poster designs and advertising techniques we see today. Both movements emerged as a response to the cultural and historical context of their times.

Art Nouveau emerged at the origins of the industrial revolution. The visual expression of Art nouveau is characterized by its curves and flowiness. The Art Nouveau style began around 1890 and was characterized by its use of organic and geometric forms and originally a two-dimensional decorative style that explores the potentiality of line and the forms which they describe, rather than the perspective and depth. The use of natural forms in decoration had been a long tradition in Western art, thus they had mostly been representational. The movement approach this differently, they didn't want to create copies of nature, but instead use it as an inspiration for the world of imagination where nature was only the raw material.

Flora is widely represented, also animals and insects - real and imagined. Pisces decorated with bats, birds, dragons and dragonflies were widely used motifs. Geometry was also used in Art Nouveau but mostly in forms with curving rather than sharp edges. Art Nouveau is decorative, organic and floral. Art Deco on the other hand was sharp and based on straight lines and edges. Geometry was essential - perfect shapes, circles and angles. It was minimalist and became more over the years, and is considered the first industrialized style. On the other hand, between the two world wars, art deco designers could be divided into two categories - the sybarites and the revolutionaries.

The sybarites covered basically every available surface with their stylized flowers and fruit while the revolutionaries wanted the purity of line clear from decoration and looked towards the aesthetics of machinery for inspiration. However, the concept they all had in common was that of total design. Rather you wanted your house to look like a “clockwork or like an exotic jungle” (quote), every detail was worthy of the attention from the designer. Other than the flower, there were other favorite Art Deco concepts such as fountains, leaping gazelles, and as geometry became powerful also sunbursts and lightning ziggurats became used motifs.

By the 1930s the geometrical shapes of animals, flowers and plants gained respect and became decorations in themselves.

FORMAL ANALYSIS

La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1891. It is 189.99 x 116.51 cm and the medium used is lithograph. This artwork is an advertisement poster for one of the most popular clubs in France, Moulin Rouge. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter and illustrator but also a renewed draughtsman and printmaker. This poster contains a foreground, middleground and a background. The silhouettes of people in the background, the dancing women in the middle ground, the man facing to the left side in the foreground. A linear perspective is created by the yellow/green lines on the floor.

The male silhouette in the foreground is facing to the left side, he has his eyes closed. He has a tall hat on his head and a relatively long nose. His right hand is lifted up in salutation. The other arm is placed down along his body but the hand is positioned straight out from his body. The man is colored in a dark red color, not used elsewhere on the poster. On the top part of the poster, all the text is placed; “Moulin Rouge” repeated 3 times with one big M pulling it all together, written in a bright red color with a tiny black outline. The “M” is placed to the left side and written big enough to align with the underlining text “La Goulue”. Right below, it is written “La Goulue” which means the greedy, in a thin font with black color. To the right side of the top corner is “Concert Bal, tous les soirs” which means bal concert every night. The text placed on three lines underneath each other and centered. “Bal” is written in the thickest black font, and “concert” less thick and “tous les soirs” is written in a little tin black font.

The main focus is on the female dancer in the center of the poster. She is wearing a big white dress and a red top with white dots on it, and is standing with her back towards the viewer. Her face is seen facing the right side of the poster while she is lifting her right foot up which is half covered by the man in the foreground. She has yellow hair and her face is a pale yellow color as well. Her shoes are long red high heels. To the middle of the left side can be seen a yellow shape consisting of three circles melted together - the same yellow color as the female dancers hair.

In the background sees a bunch of silhouettes, probably all men as they are wearing high hats (common for this time period). Above some of the silhouettes on the right side can be seen some yellow half circle shapes that closer to the right side melts together into one long shape that leaves the poster. The four main colors in this poster are red, yellow, black and white. Lautrec uses a warm color palette in this poster with different hues consisting of red and yellow. These are primary colors. The artist uses a range of high and low saturation of the red and yellow. As described in Christie's Art Nouveau, Fiona Gallagher he is known for using “flattened blocks of color”, which means it's not three-dimensional but flat.

The balance is achieved through symmetry and asymmetry. Lautrec uses diagonal perspective that means that elements in the poster are organized based on a diagonal line. This creates depth and dynamism in the poster. The yellow shape in the left side, the female dancers´ yellow hair and the yellow shapes in the background, together create a straight line of yellow color. The same with the red text in the upper left corner, the red shirt and the red high heels - together they create a straight line that interferes with the yellow line, and together creates a balance of the primary colors.

Asymmetry is created with the free placing of lettering and text but also contributes to harmony by the repetition of the same handwritten font, use of color and the use of fore, back and middle ground. This asymmetry combined with the symmetrical use of colors and composition, creates an energetic and balanced composition. The use of lines can be described as painterliness that refers to those who emphasize the play of light and dark. Lautrec is known for using expressive contour lines in his posters and this is also present in this poster as well.

Pivolo Apéritif Aux Vins De France (1924)

A.M. Cassandre, one of the most influential poster artists and graphic designers in the Art Deco style, created this poster for the French liqueur Pivolo Aperitif in 1924. Cassandre is well known for his unique, smooth and minimal advertising posters promoting traveling, alcohol and furnitures. He is also considered to be one of the founders of modern graphic design. The poster is 35,6 x 25,4 cm and its medium is lithograph.

The poster consists of three big elements - the title, the bird and the liqueur glass. Each element has been broken down to its basic shapes and forms, for example, the bird is made up of basic shapes such as circles, triangles and so on. The glass has been placed in the center which creates harmony as it is the only object in the poster that contains a more vibrant color, as for the rest are made up of different blue tones creating a center point for the viewer. The monochromatic and simplified bird is placed behind the liqueur glass. The transparency of the glass emphasizes dynamic shapes, i.e. triangle in the wine glass, in the beak, and the negative space between glass and the beak.

The bird is facing sideways and has its beaker opened pointing towards the glass. The eye of the bird is made up of a perfect white circle with a small blue circle in the middle where there has been removed a part of it - this eye draws the attention of the viewer. There is text at the top and the bottom of the work. Cassandre´s use of minimalistic typography integrates with the rest of the work as it is also composed of basic geometric shapes. Together these shapes create letters. The top letters consist of black, blue tones and grey colored shapes. The “V” letter is perfectly placed in the center aligning with the liqueur glass.

The bottom text is placed in a grey rectangle and is also made up of geometric shapes in the same blue color. The type of lines used here can be categorized as linearity which refers to the emphasis of line and linear contour. Cassandre uses strong solid lines instead of lines that are broken up into many small lines. He works with geometrical shapes and this creates a static composition instead of a dynamic and rhythmic one as seen in Lautrec's poster. It's a flat geometric poster composition that does not have any perspective or depth to it.

This poster uses hue of blue and red which are both primary colors. He uses high and low saturated blue and red colors together with saturated white and black color. The liqueur glass has a range of orange and red tones that contrasts the cooler colors in the poster - grey, black and blue tones which are used throughout the poster and creates a minimalist color palette. This poster is very still and has been broken down to its original geometric shapes. The elements in the poster are very static composed but due to their placement and color choice, together they create a dynamic poster composition.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotics is the study of signs. In this paper, I will be comparing the two posters' elements to understand the artists' choices and recognize the different types of signs used. Semiotics is a theoretical way of analyzing how understanding is created, transferred, received and interpreted, and which reactions the signs trigger. We see different elements in our world as signs and sign systems, which can be anything from words, images and natural phenomena to objects. A sign should generally be understood as something that refers to something else than itself and to some extent as a meaning that should be understood or interpreted by someone.

There are two ways of looking at the meaning of a sign - denotation and connotation. Denotation meaning the literal dictionary description and connotation being the emotional meaning. There often exist a positive and negative connotation of anything. The two most important functions of colors are to provide visual and psychological information and to generate reactions from a viewer. With colors, the designer can predict and provoke different reactions and control how the viewer perceives an object. Our emotions influence our perception of colors. We use colors to describe different emotions and express our feelings; “I was so angry, I saw red” or “I was green with envy”. The meaning behind a color changes and is not constant; it's affected by cultural context and time period. Using Edith Anderson Feisner's book “How to use colors in art and design” as a reference, I investigated the reasons for the specific color choices and interpreted their meanings in both posters.

Pivolo Apéritif Aux Vins De France (1924) poster uses blue, black and red colors. The poster mainly uses blue and black tones specifically in the text and the bird. The liqueur in the glass has a combination of saturated orange colors. The red-orange color is likely been chosen because of the liqueur's actual color is red orange. The use of the red-orange color has therefore likely no deeper symbolic meaning. However, if it had a symbolic meaning, the orange color has both positive and negative connotations such as warmth, autumn, brightness, danger, and brashness.

The blue colors have most likely been used as they complement the orange color in the glass. This creates focus on the glass, which is an important element in the poster. The blue color's symbolism was probably not the primary reason for the choice but rather its contrast to the orange. It can also be argued that the reason for the use of the blue tones is that blue's positive connotation includes loyalty, dependability, security, and stability. Due to these associations with blue, it is often used in banks, technology, and government as they want to be associated with these terms. The use of the blue color can, therefore, be interpreted in two ways - it's complementary to the orange color and/or its positive symbolic connotations. As mentioned, this poster advertises a French liqueur and is represented in the glass, therefore it makes sense that it stands out. As quoted by Feisner, “Our bodies physically react to color - warm colors will raise our blood pressure and even our body temperature; cool colors depress both blood pressure and body temperature and slow down our metabolism.” This correlates with the idea that the glass is the focus element and, therefore, should capture the viewer's attention.

The La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891) poster uses red, yellows, black, black and white. The use of the yellow and red tones stands in contrast to the black silhouettes in the background and becomes the main focus elements of the poster. In this poster, the black color has been used as a contrast to the bright colors, creating a more dynamic and balanced poster rather than its symbolic meaning. It's also been used to create layers in the poster - foreground, middleground, and a background. The title of the club "Moulin Rouge" is the only text that uses a very bright red color and, therefore, becomes the first text that you read as it stands in deep contrast to the rest of the black text. This has been done on purpose to highlight the identity of the club. As mentioned earlier, the red colors' positive connotations are effective here as well. The color yellow, especially combined with black, is the first color to be seen. It has the second-highest luminosity rating after white. Its positive connotations include optimism, happiness, hope, and cheerfulness. Thus, it can be argued that orange has been used to further highlight the identity of the club. The combination of these colors creates a vibrant and energetic poster that piques the viewer's curiosity.

Typography

The La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891) poster's text is composed of an organic and rhythmic handwritten typography that correlates with the style of Art Nouveau. In comparison, the Pivolo Apéritif poster is a combination of different geometrical shapes that together create the letters of the overall text. This is a clear characteristic of Art Deco's inspiration from machinery.

Elements

The yellow ovals in the background can be interpreted as lamps. The black silhouette in the foreground is a representation of the dancer Valentine, also known as "the boneless one" due to her impressive flexibility. The female dancer in the middle ground of the poster is the famous cancan dancer La Goulue. Cassandre chose the bird for his poster, as during its creation, he realized that the name "Pivolo Apéritif" sounded like "pie vole haute," which in French means "magpie fly high," and the brand's symbol was born. The attraction to puns and playfulness with words is present in numbers of Cassandre's advertisements and is characteristic of Art Deco style.

Composition

"The La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge" contains a lot of movement, from the female dancer to the handwritten typography. The way the elements of the poster are placed in relation to each other creates a rhythmic and unified composition. This supports the purpose of the poster, which was an advertising of an entertainment club, full of dance, music, and movement. The "Pivolo" poster's composition is static, with the playfulness of Cassandre's pun. As described by William W. Crouse in The Art Deco Poster: "The design endlessly falls in upon itself, and the viewer's eye is led in a ski-slope pattern repeatedly over the page." The poster is almost entirely composed of basic geometrical shapes. The poster advertises for a liqueur, for which a static composition is appropriately referred to as still and quiet enjoyment of a drink.

Conclusion

To summarize, this paper aimed to detect the differences and similarities between Art Deco and Art Nouveau based on the analysis of two posters - one from each period. From this formal and contextual analysis, it has been possible to identify a few similarities, including the use of primary colors, white/black colors, and playfulness with text. These similarities are not necessarily useful in understanding the two movements as a whole. The two posters have few similarities and have more visual differences. Lautrec uses perspective and depth which contributes to the dynamic and rhythmic composition of the poster; however, Cassadre works with flat design and a static composition that's created by the use of lines and geometrical shapes. A difference that's important to distinguish is the typography. Lautrec's has an organic and rhythmic style, and Cassandre works with a geometrical and static typography. Lautrec's poster is a representation of movements - it's flowy, curvy, and uses natural elements. Cassandre's works with geometrical shapes and sharp lines to create a perfect abstract representation of reality. When looking at the use of visual elements, the two posters are distinctly different from each other; however, when understanding their movements, it's clear that their similarities lie within their history - they were both a reaction to a major historical event and both emerged to modernize from the previous movement.