Champagne art
Champagne embodies more than just the best quality among wines. Champagne, in addition to the actual pleasure, also creates a powerful aura, which is difficult to put into words, but is almost always tangibly close.
In English they say: "Champagne sets a mood, delivers a powerful statement and almost predictably enhances the experience favorably! Know, that you are not only consuming the best wine, but are also summoning a great spirit!"
Some manufacturers realized as early as the Belle Epoque that this powerful phenomenon, this spirit, could best be captured through art. Only the best artists and graphic designers of the era were good enough to engage them in the embodiment of this 'spirit' in the context of labels, posters, menus and postcards.
For example, the Delbeck company successfully commissioned famous artists of the era such as Klimt, Muchas, Cappiello, Ergé, Gallé, Andreis, Chatin, Tristan Bernard and Benjamin Rabier.
Both the success and the scope of artistic achievements of this era are so far without comparison. Champagne posters of the Belle Epoque are still highly sought after as decorative posters around the world.
However, the natural link between champagne and art remains unbroken to this day.
Today's art of champagne houses can be divided roughly into three areas:
- National art, i.e. art that is purely limited to France and its artists.
- The International Art, that is, art that puts artists worldwide in the light of champagne.
- The design art or New Art. This refers to an often provocative, sometimes offensive type of art. In this kind of champagne art fall the things that no longer show any reference to the time of the Belle Epoque.
An example of National Art are the bottles from the house of Bruno Pillard, for which the labels were designed and created by French artists.
So far, twelve bottles have been realized by artists working and living in France. The special thing about these bottles is that through each artist was honored a different variety or year.
Just a showcase for the International Art in relation to champagne are the so-called Collections bottles from the house Taittinger.
The Taittinger Collecitons bottles are champagne bottles, which are produced since 1978 at a good champagne year.
What makes it special is that each of these bottles was designed by a different artist. Since 1983, nine artists of international fame have each designed a bottle commissioned by Claude Taittinger.
The first six bottles were designed by VASARELY (Millsésime 1978), by ARMAN (Millsésime 1981), by MASSON (Millsésime 1982), by VIEIRA DA SILVA (Millsésime 1983), by LICHTENSTEIN (Millsésime 1985) and by HARTUNG (Millsésime 1986). They can be found only with good luck in auctions.
Fortunately, however, the last three bottles of the artists ImaÏ, Corneille and Matta are still available in stores.
In what we call the art of design, a good example came from the house of Veuve Cliquot.
For the so-called millinnium, the turn of the year from 1999 to 2000, a special version of La Grande Dame was released by Veuve Cliquot.
For this purpose, the artist Elisabeth Rubin designed a suitcase made of acrylic glass, which accommodated either a 1.5-liter or a 3-liter bottle. The bottle was attached to two leather straps in this case.
Last but not least, here is an example that does not fit easily into one of the three categories:
From the house of Piper-Heidsieck comes a bottle designed by French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
This was a bottle dressed by a red corset. The bottle and the wrapping clothes are of course signed by the creator, and the bottle comes in a beautiful acrylic glass packaging.
As you can see, the topic of 'art and champagne' is very versatile and cannot be put away in a 'fixed drawer'.