Art Deco & Art Nouveau

Art Deco & Art Nouveau are opposing styles of art and architecture that stem from the late 1800's and early 1900's. The original was Art Nouveau, which was popular in Western Europe and the US.


This is an example of Art Nouveau. It has elegant, flowing lines that seem very natural and are soothing to look at. Of the two, Art Nouveau is definitely my favorite.

This is an example of Art Deco. It tends to be more focused on the use of geometry and symmetry in its design. While this definitely does provide some interesting-looking pieces, it lacks the elegance and calm nature that can be found in Art Nouveau.

High Relief Sculpture

High relief sculpture is a form of 3D sculpture in which there are raised images on a flat background. I have found that they tend to have an antiquated appearance. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; as a matter of fact, I think that it makes them look cool and distinguished.
I've come across one artist in particular who I think does a fantastic job. His name is Paul Day. He's a British Sculptor who mainly works with terracotta, bronze, and resin.

This is an example of one of his pieces. I love the realism of everything along with the changing perspective that he uses throughout the artwork.

This is another one of his works, and as you can see, it's incredibly detailed. It also looks massive. I'm not entirely sure whether it is actually as big as it looks or if it's just an illusion, but either way it's an incredible piece of art to behold.

Suits of Armor

As you may have guessed by my profile name, I have a certain fascination with knights. So, this time I've decided to do a blog post on suits of armor, which I would most certainly consider to be a kind of art.

This on is absolutely incredible to me. I love all of the engravings on it, indicating huge attention to detail. I'm not totally sure when this was made, but due to the poor vision that would have accompanied the visor along with the master craftsmanship of the engravings, I doubt it would have ever seen any kind of combat, whether it be real or for a tournament.

This suit of armor looks much more practical to me, and therefore I believe that it was much more likely to have actually been put to use. Sure, there is some decoration on there, but nowhere nearly as much as the other suit. That being said, I'm not sure that this suit in particular was used, rather ones similar to it.

Old Architecture

There is something about old architecture that is absolutely fascinating to me. Take this house, for example:

it is complex and elegant. The porch surrounded by decorative pillars is itself extraordinary artwork. The way that the roof is shaped and colored is not only effective, it actually looks nice.There was so much effort that went into this place to make it stand out, so unlike the vast majority of modern architecture.

These cookie-cutter houses make absolutely no sense to me. They lack passion and any kind of thoughts of making it unique. They are, in a word, soulless. There are so many things in the modern world that are like this. In my opinion, we need to return to some of these older styles, or at least make something with some amount of caring put into it.