Artist - A.M. Cassandre
Created | Updated Apr 29, 2003
A. M. Cassandre (also know as Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron) was born on the 21st January 1901 in Kharkov in the Ukraine. Famed for his work in Graphic Design, Typography, Painting and Theatrical Set Design. Studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at the Académie Julian in 1918 and his extensive artistic career was cast across between the early 1920's and the late 1960's until his death in Paris on the 17th of June 1968.
Cassandre was a pioneer in the formation of the Art Deco style. He helped to establish the movement and became a key figure. At the time the simplicity and hard-edged look of the poster would have been considered radical considering it was the complete opposite of the flowery, organic look of Art Nouveau.His designs were technology-inspired and trying to replace the organic Art Nouveau style, using:
The visual impact of Étoile Du Nord is that your eye is drawn through the painting by Cassandre's curved tracks. The eye is drawn immediately to the central V of the tracks and up to the pinnacle where the spike meets the spike of the star (Étoile Du Nord meaning quite literally Star of the North), your eye is then drawn round the curved spoke back to the writing. Although Étoile Du Nord is not as colour as many of Cassandre's other posters it doesn't lessen the overall impact. His use of dark colours with the brighter track colour (white/grey) plus his almost airbrushed or machine-like manner of painting gives a great deal of impact in itself because the colours are so striking together. The only thing I believe lets down the visual impact of the poster is Cassandre's outer border, with opposite corners of the piece being either blue or yellow and the text within one or the other it makes parts of it difficult to read and I think distracts the eye away from the main writing "Étoile Du Nord". The overall poster is highly eye catching.
Étoile Du Nord is a poster designed in the 1920's when Art was making the change from Art Nouveau style to the Art Deco style. At this time artists were becoming drawn to the more technological and simplistic side of design rather than the organic. Cassandre has painted Étoile Du Nord in this style using very simplified streamlined shapes, the rail tracks curving up into the straight line of the horizon at the top of the page to meet a very angular star. The diagonals of the outer rail tracks are mimicked by way the clouds move up from the horizon point. Cassandre also sticks to the Deco style in his lettering style. He uses a very simplified curved lettering style, which was typical to Art Deco at this time.
The simplistic, streamlined style, which Cassandre used in his work, is important to many artists because it helps to draw the eye around his posters. In influenced work artists have tried to keep their ideas simple because they believe that they come across better, something simple and made up of simple shapes and forms tends to be easier to read, they are also more eye-catching be they eye can immediately relate to what the posters are about and if they can't make you want to have a closer look. Étoile du Nord is a good example of this because Cassandre has kept the design down to eight simple tapering lines which all join to meet the star just off centre of the top of the poster, it draws the eye back to the writing and if a poster can form it's own route way around the page and allow the viewer to take in everything easily it is a very effective design.
His use of colour is also important because although Étoile du Nord is limited in bright colour others of his work such as Cycle Brilliant (1923) it still gives a powerful effect. Colour is highly important in any design because it can either make someone stop and look at your design or keep on walking. Colours should be striking and make the viewer go "wow" and want to keep looking. Cassandre was trying to get across the idea that design didn't have to be restricted to organic designs and that posters can be both structural and architectural as well as showing the subject of the poster.
