Art Deco was built from the world

Art Deco was not a pure style. The PDF calls it a pastiche of historic, avant-garde, folk, exotic, ancient, and machine-age sources, and the V&A says its power came from tradition meeting modernity^[1][2].

Its geometry came from Cubism and the Vienna Secession, while Fauvism fed the color. Sources point to Cubist simplification, Hoffmann’s rectangles and checkerboard patterns, and Fauvist brightness^{[3][4][5][6][7]}. No verified image for this beat.

Egypt gave Art Deco scarabs, hieroglyphics, pyramids, and lotus forms. African art fed masks, ebony heads, textiles, shields, and sculptures. Native American, Mesoamerican, and Mayan links are usually grouped more broadly as Pre-Columbian motifs^{[8][9][10][11][12]}.

Chinese and Japanese borrowings show up in screens, lacquer, plants and animals, and chest forms; Chinese motifs include herons, mushrooms, pine trees, and stylized clouds. Persian decorative arts are named too, but the excerpt is less specific on exact forms^{[13][14][15][16]}.