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Abstract

The Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements (1890–1940) produced a rich visual vocabulary in which the female figure and the peacock emerged as recurring and symbolically charged motifs. Despite extensive scholarship on both movements, the specific aesthetic and symbolic relationship between these two elements, and their collective contribution to the development of character design principles, has received limited scholarly attention.

The aim is to enhance understanding of the visual diversity presented in the selected works, despite the shared fundamental elements represented by the woman and peacock. The complementary relationship between them, whether it is a spatially intertwined and harmonious relationship with unclear boundaries between the bird and the woman, or a situation of the woman's control over the peacock.

The study examines the relationship through a comparative, descriptive, and analytical approach, applying formal analysis to eight selected artworks by eight artists for the symbolic relationship between the aesthetic elements of the woman and the peacock in both Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles.  These diverse visual symbols influence the narrative meaning of the works. The analysis reveals that while both movements employed the woman–peacock pairing to signify femininity, luxury, and beauty, Art Nouveau expressed this through organic, fluid, nature-rooted forms, while Art Deco reinterpreted the same iconography through geometric precision and modernist strength.

These findings suggest that the woman peacock visual unit functioned as an evolving cultural symbol reflecting shifting perceptions of femininity across two decades of social transformation, with lasting implications for contemporary character design.

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