Published by Mat @Victoria James on Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Art deco and art nouveau. What’s the difference?
So what’s the difference between art nouveau and Art Deco? Well, Art Nouveau came first and began in the early part of the 20th century in France.
Art deco arrived after art nouveau in around 1915 to 1920 again in France and was a reaction against the art nouveau period and is more about straight lines and symmetry whereas the art nouveau period is more organic.
Of course jewellery was also influenced by both art nouveau and Art Deco periods as the designs of the time and fashions of the time filtered down into all aspects of design including jewellery.
You can tell when a piece of jewellery was made by looking at what the shapes are like and what the cut of the stone is like. For instance, emerald cut stones and in particular aquamarines were very popular in the art deco period due to step cut symmetrical lines.
Whereas art nouveau pieces of jewellery are much more organic and maybe floral with reference to nature. Therefore, oval stones with orange and brown colours being popular, the claw work has overlapping complex styles of an organic nature.
Art deco jewellery relies on contrasting lines like Emerald cut stones, square cut stones, baguette cut stones and blue colours were popular in that period, for instance aquamarines in their light blues and sapphires at the cornflower blue colour end of the spectrum.
Victoria James jewellers have always been fans of art deco design and therefore it seem completely natural for us to create a jewellery with influences from that art deco period. Don’t get us wrong we’re not deco snobs, we will create art nouveau influenced pieces of jewellery and rings.
If you’ve got an idea in mind or a design that you would like us to create then please do send it to us, we like creating vintage style pieces of jewellery and rings. After all, the best designs in jewellery derive from when jewellery really became popular and was around those two periods.
So, if you’ve got a vintage design in mind whether it be for some art deco earrings, art nouveau pendant or a mix of the two together in your own design. There is nothing wrong with having a ring that has symmetrical lines when we look from the top but on the side it has a bit more detail, maybe some fretwork in a more art nouveau influence, just to give a bit of textual detail. A bit more detail to contrast against the straight lines in the rest of the ring.
So send us your ideas, tell us about the colours of stones you prefer, tell us about the art nouveau influence you would like on the shoulders of the shape of the stone the cut of the stone. Send us pictures or drawings of your deco influenced pendant that you’ve always wanted, or send us the picture of the vintage 1920s piece of jewellery that you’ve seen and would like to recreate for yourself. Send us the pictures of the vintage 1930s art deco diamond ring that you’ve stumbled across on the Internet and would like to create something similar.