George Barbier: The Essence of Art Deco with Roots in Shunga

Googling art of the 1920s, you’ll most likely learn about this French illustrator with an English name. Within his relatively short lifeᴛι̇ɱe (1882-1932), George Barbier defined the look of his ᴛι̇ɱe, working as a stage and costume designer and book illustrator. It was he who invented for the house of Cartier its’ famous black panther design, which remains iconic today (fig. 4). He created visual designs for exclusive art books of prominent Parisian couturiers and illustrated risky magazines like La Vie Parisienne. His creative output combining orientalism and neo-classicism became the most vivid and elegant ɱaпifestation of Art Deco.

Fig. 19. George Barbier (wikiart.org)

Fig. 20. Le feu (artophile.com)

Fig. 21. Chansons de Bilitis, 1910/1922 (liveinternet.ru)

Fig. 22. Chansons de Bilitis, 1910/1922 (liveinternet.ru)

Appreciation of Shunga

As we mentioned above, Barbier was a devotee of Japanese and Chinese

The whirlpool of activity in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s was unmatched in the Far East. In the booɱing port city, there was a mixture of the decadence of old China and the crudeness of the new culture. The..

prints since his study in Nantes. Love for Beardsley’s works, which were influenced by shunga as well, indirectly strengthened Barbier’s appreciation of this art. Origin and income allowed him to become a collector of antiques. He gave his immense collection of five hundred shunga

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prints, including oeuvres by Utamaro and Hokusai, to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France shortly before his death by an unknown illness. Barbier was a printmaker himself, working with woodblock and stencil printing. His prints resembled shunga by richly decorated visual elements and elegant eroticism catching the eye of a viewer. Barbier carefully transported and adopted some features of shunga tradition in Art Deco. As writer Albert Flament once said, “When our ᴛι̇ɱes are lost … some of his watercolors and drawings will be all that is necessary to resurrect the taste and the spirit of the years in which we lived.”