Design History

Manuel Orazi
title card
1921




Through out the film, motifs in Orazi's hand painted title cards, repeat throughout the set design. I especially like these cats.









Many of the set designs are heavily influenced by the work of Gérôme and other artists of classical antiquity and the Orientalism movement. The director Jacques Feyder insisted the movie been filmed entirely on location in the Sahara. Even the interiors were filmed in an improvised studio in a tent outside in the desert.

DVD preview, it's very interesting how Jacques Feyder brings to life Orazi's designs.



But Orazi's orientalist designs are often contrasted with huge stark sets, with hints of the coming of Art Deco and German Expressionism.



It seems now with the of easing technology, we see more individual artists expressing their own unique vision. But rare do we get to see one complete vision in recent movies. I hope you enjoyed my look at this little film and find it as exciting as I do. Thank you.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Atlantide_(1921_film)

In 1892 Manuel Orazi moved from Rome to Paris. It wasn't long before he became well respected as an Art Nouveau poster artist. But Orazi was also gaining inspiration from other sources. By 1900 he started incorporating elements of the Vienna Secessionists and adding the expressionist touches of the Symbolists. One of his most famous posters, one of Loie Fuller has the traces of his various inspirations. From the flat gold details of Klimt or the body swirling into the nothingness of Munch. By the time he was tapped by director Jacques Feyder to be the visual artist for the movie adaptation L'Atlantide, Orazi had created a style that was derivative of so many other styles it had become something quite unique all together.

Orazi's main task in designing the costumes for the film was for the character Antinea. Antinea needed to be expressive of her ancient history. Orazi looked to the Egyptian and Nordic, combining them with "modern" design.


Actress Stacia Napierkowska as Antinea ( Napierkowska previously starred in Les Vampires)
(click for larger image)

This costume is decorated with an applique of seven characters from Egyptian mythology. Above the divinities, silver plated decorations are painted on the textile, while at their feet, there is the design of seven heads of falcons. Though Egyptian inspired the costume owes much to the design of the Viennese school.


(click for larger image)
Applique detail
transparent lamé, velvet, gilded and silver plated fabrics.


Antinea had several costume changes throughout the film, from this amazing cape and silk dress


to her battle helm


painted background also by Orazi




Tomorrow I'll discuss some of the set design, feel free to comment or correct me.

References:
http://moma.org
http://www.bifi.fr

Recently on the Art Nouveau Live Journal community there was a brief mention of Manuel Orazi. Lately I've been slightly obsessed with Orazi's work and his ability to combine Secessionist imagery with Art Deco and Nouveau. Many of his images are also powered by the Symbolist movement with a heavy emphasis incorporating occult themes.

In 1920 Orazi was called on to design the sets, costumes, and posters for the film adaptation of Pierre Benoit's novel L'Atlantide. A story of a monstrous Queen Antinea, descendant of the rulers of Atlantis, it was a perfect fit for Orazi's theosophy leanings. Orazi had already had a very distinguished career, which included posters for Sarah Bernhardt’s Theodora, Empress of Byzantium , jewelry and poster designs for the Maison Moderne, and various illustrated books by authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Oscar Wilde.

L'Atlantide is a unique opportunity for Orazi's vision to be presented so clearly. Below are just some of the posters used to advertise the film around the world. Tomorrow, in part II, I'll post his amazing costume designs and in part III will discuss his set designs. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you.




(click for larger images)
L'Atlantide
Manuel Orazi
Movie Posters
French,
1920/1921













References:
http://www.bifi.fr

Colonial cinema and imperial France, 1919-1939
By David Henry Slavin

http://www.atlantide-films.net

Arts to Enchant is a one-day symposium that will bring together post-graduate academics and practitioners to discuss the role fantasy plays in visual culture. In the context of this exchange, fantasy will be examined, not just as an imaginative impulse, but also as an essential artistic outlet for the dark fears, strange desires, bright hopes, and frothy whimsies that reason cannot exorcise.

In order to create a flexible forum for original interdisciplinary exchange, this symposium will encourage exploration of diverse formations of fantasy across all periods and in every facet of visual culture. Possible areas of exploration are therefore broad and include: graphic design and illustration, film, photography, animation, fashion, performance, science-fiction and fantasy art, graphic novels and comics, architecture, archaeology and history of art.

Other themes include but are not limited to:
Fetish/ Goth
Fairy tales & Mythology
Dreams/ Nightmares
Theoretical/ideological/psychoanalytical Fantasy
Aesthetics of Fantasy
Black/ White Magic
Performance and Masquerade
Monsters and Monstrosities
The Surreal/ The Uncanny
Erotica/ Eroticism

Papers should be 20 minutes in length. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted in English with the speaker’s name, institutional affiliation, the title of the paper and, if applicable, a list of any audio-visual requirements.

Deadline for submission is Friday the 13th of March, 2009.

Please Send Abstracts to:
artstoenchant@googlemail.com
or
Arts to Enchant Symposium
History of Art Department
University of Glasgow
8 University Gardens
Glasgow
G12 8QH

University of Glasgow website: http://www.glasgow.ac.uk
Department of History of Art: http://www..glasgow.ac.uk/historyofart

Cross-posted, apologies for duplicates.

Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/29/vintage-space-age-il.html (Further gallery links embedded in the piece.)

Hi all! This was posted on history_time today and I thought I'd link to it.

Before the days of sonar and long-distance detection devices, German U-Boats would use their periscopes to figure out where ships were headed so they could launch their devastating torpedoes. Previous British and American attempts at bluish camouflage had failed, since the sea and sky are constantly changing, so they switched to painting their ships in bizarre cubist patterns to break up their outlines.

Read the full post + see more pics

Detectives Magazine
Back Cover
Mexico
1935

Police Magazine "Il Y A Un An..."
Periodical cover
French,
1931

Police Magazine was a noted French detective magazine, popular with the Surrealist Movement.

Click for larger image




Cover for Ivory Soap pamphlet
1900

Proctor & Gamble Ivory Soap Ad
Envy
W.P. McDonald
1900

So popular was this advertisement, the company offered a print of it, in exchange for ten Ivory soap wrappers.






Walter Harrison Cady
Early 1900's



Leyendecker
1900

I'll post a few more throughout the week.
Images from my personal collection and The Ivory Project.

...which apparently had zero impact upon the company's overall economic health (http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8767053), the corporate Wal-Mart branding has now been overhauled:



More about it here:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2008/id2008072_324653.htm

(And please don't shoot the messenger. I don't shop there. Often...)

...on the Art Deco incinerator designs of W. B. Griffin:

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/03/walter-burley-griffin.html

(And the BibliOdyssey feed itself is also available via LiveJournal: bibliodyssey.)

Scarab
William B. Stout (1880-1956)
Rear engine V8
aluminum body
automobile
1936

Wm. B. Stout built the first cantilever wing plane, the first tri-motor, and was a technical advisor for Henry Ford. He spent most of his life trying to develop the 'Aerocar', a flying car for commercial use. But my favorite of all of his designs is the elegant Egyptian revival, Scarab Travelling Machine.



The Scarab is often considered the first production minivan. Stout wanted the Scarab to be an office on wheels, complete with fold out table and additional chairs. Other models included a fold out bed and even a cocktail bar. Nine to Eleven versions were built between 1934-1946. Additional styling by John Tjaarda, who developed the rear engine Tjaarda-Ford show car of 1933, that famously influenced F. Porsche on the design of the VW Beetle.


Steering wheel design






William Stout and his model Aerocar

Links
Photos of the 1936 model.
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z9131/Stout_Scarab.aspx
Great Wikipedia Article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stout_Scarab

...to this entry: http://community.livejournal.com/design_history/19529.html

A Christian group in San Diego has taken offence at it*:

http://www.startribune.com/nation/18969709.html

(Link via disinfo.)


*Er, the logo, not the entry. ;o)

Everyman Library was a series of low-priced classics produced in England and New York at the beginning of the 20th C. They were not produced to last forever, and the volumes in my mom's library were already falling apart in the 60s when I first saw them - they were of the stamped paper cover series shown above (there was also a more costly hardbound edition). Below are title pages from her set of Dickens, and one Voltaire. As you will see the styling was heavy Arts & Crafts, blending into Art Nouveau. The endpapers were the same throughout the series. The series has recently been relaunched, see here.

( see the rest )

Walter Crane
1895

I just returned from an auction at Christies, London, where I watched a major pissing contest to acquire Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh's The White Rose and the Red Rose. It was put up for auction alongside its "sister" panel, The Heart of the Rose, both of which were in private collections together since they were crafted in 1902. Today, they were auctioned in separate lots, and in the end will go to two different buyers.

The White Rose and the Red Rose was the first lot to go up, and the estimate (for each) was £200,000 - £300,000. I was hoping to see the pair go for a million, but thus far the bidding had mostly been just hitting the bottom estimate (save two Josef Hoffman side chairs which, at a hammer price of £32,000, more than doubled their top estimate). The pissing contest for the Macdonald panel began between two phone bidders at the £400,000 pound mark.

It ended at £1,500,000. For just the one panel. That's $3 million dollars, btw.

These works are at the core of my own research, so I was very excited that the panel achieved this value (money brings recognition and perceived value where it went unnoticed before). However, I can't tell you how much my heart sank when I watched the Christie's rep hang up the phone before the next lot - the sister panel - bidding began.

To add insult to injury, The Heart of the Rose only went for £450,000. This panel is often commented as the more beautiful of the two, but regardless of that, to go for less than a third of the first was just completely bizarre.

Sorry I don't have an image to post, I'm on the go. But you can see the panel, along with the complete auction results (which includes VAT and buyer's premiums), here: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?intSaleID=21499#intSaleID=21499

It was an exciting auction, and if you are into the art market, one could call it a great success. But for this design historian,it was disheartening. Huh, that is an unintended pun. While the panels are lovely on their own, they have a certain power together... I cherished seeing them that way for perhaps whst is the last time.