Cubisme, décor et tradition vers 1912

Cubism, decoration and tradition around 1912. The generation of artists who were active in France during the 1880s was particularly interested in promoting the value of the decorative arts and several painters were involved in the creation of decorative ensembles. The influence of William Morris and of Ruskin was strong, and the aesthetics of the new style were linked to the idea of a social art. Towards 1900, Germany’s new industrial power had an influence on the decorative aesthetics of this country. In France, from the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1900, anti-German nationalism grew more marked. German success seemed all the more threatening since the French decorative arts were still unable to forge links with industry. The quest for a new style is marked by the ideology of French tradition. The decorative style seen as modern by the new generation of artists-decorators around 1910 tends towards geometric simplicity, but the dominant ideology remains hostile to any notion of volume production. The cubist house presented at the 1912 Paris Salon d’ Automne provides a good example of the contradictions and ambiguities of modernism. The notion of a French tradition still inspires a certain number of artists-decorators and cubist painters at the very moment when Picasso and Braque, on the one hand, and Marcel Duchamp, on the other, were raising the question of the materials of art.Amano Chika. Cubisme, décor et tradition vers 1912. In: Histoire de l'art, N°16, 1991. Les arts décoratifs. pp. 81-96