art nouveau research paper

Art Nouveau: Art of Darkness

First named such in Belgium, Art Nouveau was intimately tied up with that country’s brutal rule of the Congo.

Art Nouveau remains one of the most popular forms of modern art. The style had multiple permutations and names in different countries in fin-de-siècle Europe, but it was first named “art nouveau” in Belgium in the 1880s. There, “pioneers in modern design” including Victor Horta, Henry van de Velde, Paul Hankar, and Philippe Wolfers created the curvy new style as the country exploded in development on the profits from King Leopold II’s murderous Congo Free State.  

Scholar Debora L. Silverman argues that this context was no coincidence . Belgian Art Nouveau was an “imperial modernism,” with “profound and inextricable ties, long unexamined, between the Belgian arts and artists […] and the patrons, policies, violence, and even the expressive forms of Congo imperialism.”

“These artists’ creative consciousnesses were also vitalized by the sudden and successful Congo venture,” she notes, “and they shared the exhilaration of their contemporaries, as well as some of the collective derangement, over the fact that their small, new, and neutral nation has ‘acquired’ one-thirteenth of the African continent.”

Artists used raw materials from the colony, including ivory and tropical hardwoods. They were inspired by colonial motifs, including the “sinuous coils” of the rubber vine and the lash of the chicotte , or imperial flogging whip made of hippopotamus hide. (An early Belgium name for the new art was Style coup de fouet, or whiplash style.) And they were supported by patrons, above all Leopold II, who—engorged with profits from the colony, especially from rubber—commissioned their buildings and bought their works.

The colonial history here is unique. In 1885, as the European powers divided up Africa, Leopold II managed to gain control of the Congo region. The resulting L’État indépendant du Congo wasn’t technically a colony of what was then a half-century-old Belgian state. It was Leopold II’s personal colony. His minions proceeded to extract rubber, palm oil, ivory, and exotic hardwoods out a place much larger than Belgium itself. Shareholders in his exploitation of the Congo earned an average stock dividend of 220% from the plundering between 1892 and 1897.

“By 1905,” writes Silverman, “two decades of contact with the Congo Free State had remade Belgium as a global hub, vitalized by a tentacular economy, technological prowess, and architectural grandiosity.”

Buoyed by the wealth of what critics called bloody “red rubber,” the “Builder King” himself never visited his African fiefdom. By the time the state of Belgium annexed the Congo from Leopold II in 1908 in response to the world-wide scandal over conditions there, his regime “of forced labor, invasion terror, hostage taking, and hand severing” had murdered millions of Congolese. (Silverman cites a figure of four to eight million; Adam Hochschid’s King Leopold’s Ghost , which introduced the historical record to many in 1998, argues for a higher figure: ten million lives.)

Silverman focuses on the 2005 exhibition La mémoire du Congo, le temps colonial , at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (now known as AfricaMuseum) in Tervuren, Belgium. The exhibition “attempted to confront for the very first time the brutal history of Belgium in the Congo.” This history was “long suppressed in what had become the pivotal institution of official national denial and the most visible and provocative embodiment of the ‘great forgetting’” of Belgium’s role in Africa—a role that lasted long after Leopold II’s death in 1909. (In 2002, Belgium formally apologized for its role in the 1961 assassination of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, whose body was hacked up and dissolved in acid after death.)

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Calling the exhibit “flawed and evasive,” Silverman nevertheless argues that the display of long-unseen objects, especially works in ivory, helped to reveal the “art of darkness” behind Belgian Art Nouveau. The phrase intentionally echo’s Joseph Conrad’s famous 1899 novella Heart of Darkness , which explores European imperialism in the Congo .

Silverman ends with the words of Henry Van de Velde, who explained the “eruption of modern line” in the “breakthrough” of Art Nouveau, transposing Belgian violence in the Congo into the new art in Belgium: “We seized line like one seizes a whip. A whip whose sonorous cracks accompanied our adventurous course, and whose blows lashed the skin of an indolent public.”

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Art nouveau.

Factory of Olivier de Sorra

Vase with peacock feathers

Auguste Delaherche

"Ombellifères" (cow parsley) Cabinet

Emile Gallé

Moulin Rouge: La Goulue

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Designed by Louis C. Tiffany

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Edvard Munch

Designed by Philippe Wolfers

Monumental vase

Georges Hoentschel

Edward Colonna

Alexandre Bigot

Cabinet-vitrine

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy

Dress panel

Hector Guimard

Georges Fouquet

Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat

Coffeepot (part of a service)

• Sèvres Manufactory

René-Jules Lalique

Henry van de Velde

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Designed by Henri-Jules-Ferdinand Bellery-Desfontaines

Maude Adams (1872–1953) as Joan of Arc

Alphonse Mucha

Tea service

Josef Hoffmann

Mäda Primavesi (1903–2000)

Gustav Klimt

Cybele Gontar Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2006

From the 1880s until the First World War, western Europe and the United States witnessed the development of Art Nouveau (“New Art”). Taking inspiration from the unruly aspects of the natural world , Art Nouveau influenced art and architecture especially in the applied arts, graphic work, and illustration. Sinuous lines and “whiplash” curves were derived, in part, from botanical studies and illustrations of deep-sea organisms such as those by German biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834–1919) in Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature, 1899). Other publications, including Floriated Ornament (1849) by Gothic Revivalist Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) and The Grammar of Ornament (1856) by British architect and theorist Owen Jones (1809–1874), advocated nature as the primary source of inspiration for a generation of artists seeking to break away from past styles. The unfolding of Art Nouveau’s flowing line may be understood as a metaphor for the freedom and release sought by its practitioners and admirers from the weight of artistic tradition and critical expectations.

Additionally, the new style was an outgrowth of two nineteenth-century English developments for which design reform (a reaction to prevailing art education, industrialized mass production, and the debasement of historic styles) was a leitmotif—the Arts and Crafts movement and the Aesthetic movement. The former emphasized a return to handcraftsmanship and traditional techniques. The latter promoted a similar credo of “art for art’s sake” that provided the foundation for non-narrative paintings, for instance, Whistler ‘s  Nocturnes . It further drew upon elements of Japanese art (“ japonisme “), which flooded Western markets , mainly in the form of prints, after trading rights were established with Japan in the 1860s. Indeed, the gamut of late nineteenth-century artistic trends prior to World War I, including those in painting and the early designs of the Wiener Werkstätte, may be defined loosely under the rubric of Art Nouveau.

The term art nouveau first appeared in the 1880s in the Belgian journal L’Art Moderne to describe the work of Les Vingt, twenty painters and sculptors seeking reform through art. Les Vingt, like much of the artistic community throughout Europe and America, responded to leading nineteenth-century theoreticians such as French Gothic Revival architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) and British art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), who advocated the unity of all the arts, arguing against segregation between the fine arts of painting and sculpture and the so-called lesser decorative arts. Deeply influenced by the socially aware teachings of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement , Art Nouveau designers endeavored to achieve the synthesis of art and craft, and further, the creation of the spiritually uplifting Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) encompassing a variety of media. The successful unification of the fine and applied arts was achieved in many such complete designed environments as Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde’s Hôtel Tassel and Hôtel Van Eetvelde (Brussels, 1893–95), Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald’s design of the Hill House (Helensburgh, near Glasgow, 1902–4), and Josef Hoffmann and Gustav Klimt’s Palais Stoclet dining room (Brussels, 1905–11) ( 2000.350 ; 1994.120 ; 2000.278.1–.9 ).

Painting styles such as Post-Impressionism and Symbolism (the “Nabis” ) shared close ties with Art Nouveau, and each was practiced by designers who adapted them for the applied arts, architecture, interior designs, furnishings, and patterns. They contributed to an overall expressiveness and the formation of a cohesive style ( 64.148 ).

In December 1895, German-born Paris art dealer Siegfried Bing opened a gallery called L’Art Nouveau for the contemporary décor he exhibited and sold there ( 1999.398.3 ). Though Bing’s gallery is credited with the popularization of the movement and its name, Art Nouveau style reached an international audience through the vibrant graphic arts printed in such periodicals as The Savoy, La Plume, Die Jugend, Dekorative Kunst, The Yellow Book , and The Studio . The Studio featured the bold, Symbolist-inspired linear drawings of Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898). Beardsley’s flamboyant black and white block print J’ai baisé ta bouche lokanaan for Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé (1894), with its brilliant incorporation of Japanese two-dimensional composition, may be regarded as a highlight of the Aesthetic movement and an early manifestation of Art Nouveau taste in England. Other influential graphic artists included Alphonse Mucha, Jules Chéret, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , whose vibrant poster art often expressed the variety of roles of women in Belle Époque society—from femme nouvelle (a “new woman” who rejected the conventional ideals of femininity, domesticity, and subservience) to demimonde ( 20.33 ; 32.88.12 ). Female figures were often incorporated as fairies or sirens in the jewelry of René Lalique, Georges Fouquet, and Philippe Wolfers ( 1991.164 ; 2003.560 ; 2003.236 ).

Art Nouveau style was particularly associated with France, where it was called variously Style Jules Verne, Le Style Métro (after Hector Guimard’s iron and glass subway entrances), Art belle époque , and Art fin de siècle ( 49.85.11 ). In Paris, it captured the imagination of the public at large at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the last and grandest of a series of fairs organized every eleven years from 1798. Various structures showcased the innovative style, including the Porte Monumentale entrance, an elaborate polychromatic dome with electronic lights designed by René Binet (1866–1911); the Pavillon Bleu, a restaurant alongside the Pont d’Iena at the foot of the Eiffel Tower featuring the work of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858–1910) ( 1981.512.4 ); Art Nouveau Bing, a series of six domestic interiors that included Symbolist art ( 26.228.5 ); and the pavilion of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, an organization dedicated to the revival and modernization of the decorative arts as an economic stimulus and expression of national identity that offered an important display of decorative objects ( 1991.182.2 ; 26.228.7 ; 1988.287.1a,b ). Sharing elements of the French Rococo (and its nineteenth-century revivals ), including stylized motifs derived from nature, fantasy, and Japanese art, the furnishings exhibited were produced in the new taste and yet perpetuated an acclaimed tradition of French craftsmanship. The use of luxury veneers and finely cast gilt mounts in the furniture of leading cabinetmakers Georges de Feure (1868–1943), Louis Majorelle (1859–1926), Edward Colonna (1862–1948), and Eugène Gaillard (1862–1933) indicated the Neo-Rococo influence of François Linke (1855–1946) ( 26.228.5 ).

The Exposition Universelle was followed by two shows at which many luminaries of European Art Nouveau exhibited. They included the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901 that featured the fantastical Russian pavilions of Fyodor Shekhtel’ (1859–1926) and the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna at Turin in 1902 that showcased the work of furniture designer Carlo Bugatti of Milan ( 69.69 ).

As in France, the “new art” was called by different names in the various style centers where it developed throughout Europe. In Belgium, it was called Style nouille or Style coup de fouet . In Germany, it was Jugendstil or “young style,” after the popular journal Die Jugend ( 1991.182.2 ). Part of the broader Modernista movement in Barcelona, its chief exponent was the architect and redesigner of the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) cathedral (Barcelona, begun 1882), Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). In Italy, it was named Arte nuova, Stile floreale , or Lo stile Liberty after the London firm of Liberty & Co., which supplied Oriental ceramics and textiles to aesthetically aware Londoners in the 1870s and produced English Art Nouveau objects such as the Celtic Revival “Cymric” and “Tudric” ranges of silver by Archibald Knox (1864–1933). Other style centers included Austria and Hungary, where Art Nouveau was called the Sezessionstil . In Russia, Saint Petersburg and Moscow were the two centers of production for Stil’ modern . “Tiffany Style” in the United States was named for the legendary Favrile glass designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany .

Although international in scope, Art Nouveau was a short-lived movement whose brief incandescence was a precursor of modernism, which emphasized function over form and the elimination of superfluous ornament. Although a reaction to historic revivalism, it brought Victorian excesses to a dramatic fin-de-siècle crescendo. Its influence has been far reaching and is evident in Art Deco furniture designs, whose sleek surfaces are enriched by exotic wood veneers and ornamental inlays. Dramatic Art Nouveau—inspired graphics became popular in the turbulent social and political milieu of the 1960s, among a new generation challenging conventional taste and ideas.

Gontar, Cybele. “Art Nouveau.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm (October 2006)

Further Reading

Arwas, Victor. Art Nouveau: The French Aesthetic . London: Andreas Papadakis, 2002.

Escritt, Stephen. Art Nouveau . London: Phaidon, 2000.

Fahr-Becker, Gabriele. Art Nouveau . Cologne: Könemann, 1997.

Greenhalgh, Paul, ed. Art Nouveau, 1890–1914 . Exhibition catalogue. London: V&A Publications; Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2000.

Weisberg, Gabriel P. Art Nouveau Bing: Paris Style 1900 . Exhibition catalogue. New York: Abrams, 1986.

Weisberg, Gabriel P., Edwin Becker, and Évelyne Possémé, eds. The Origins of L'Art Nouveau: The Bing Empire . Exhibition catalogue. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2004.

Additional Essays by Cybele Gontar

• Gontar, Cybele. “ Empire Style, 1800–1815 .” (October 2004)
• Gontar, Cybele. “ Neoclassicism .” (October 2003)
• Gontar, Cybele. “ Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) .” (October 2004)
• Gontar, Cybele. “ The Neoclassical Temple .” (October 2003)

Related Essays

• The Arts and Crafts Movement in America
• Design Reform
• Design, 1900–1925
• European Revivalism
• Alice Cordelia Morse (1863–1961)
• America Comes of Age: 1876–1900
• Christopher Dresser (1834–1904)
• Design, 1925–50
• Design, 1950–75
• Design, 1975–2000
• Exoticism in the Decorative Arts
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
• James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
• Lithography in the Nineteenth Century
• Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933)
• The Lure of Montmartre, 1880–1900
• The Nabis and Decorative Painting
• Paul Poiret (1879–1944)
• Post-Impressionism
• The Pre-Raphaelites
• The Print in the Nineteenth Century
• Central Europe and Low Countries, 1800–1900 A.D.
• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• France, 1900 A.D.–present
• Germany and Switzerland, 1900 A.D.–present
• Great Britain and Ireland, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Great Britain and Ireland, 1900 A.D.–present
• Low Countries, 1900 A.D.–present
• The United States and Canada, 1800–1900 A.D.
• The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present
• 19th Century A.D.
• 20th Century A.D.
• Aestheticism
• American Art
• Aphrodite / Venus
• Art Nouveau / Jugendstil
• Arts and Crafts Movement
• Balkan Peninsula
• Central Europe
• Chicago School
• Decorative Arts
• Edwardian Style
• Floral Motif
• German Literature / Poetry
• Gothic Revival
• Great Britain and Ireland
• Impressionism
• Modern and Contemporary Art
• North America
• Oil on Canvas
• Sculpture in the Round
• United States
• Victorian Art
• Vienna Secession

Artist or Maker

• Bellery-Desfontaines, Henri-Jules-Ferdinand
• Bigot, Alexandre
• Bugatti, Carlo
• Colonna, Edward
• Dalpayrat, Pierre-Adriene
• Delaherche, Auguste
• Fouquet, Georges
• Gallé, Émile
• Grittel, Emile
• Guimard, Hector
• Hoentschel, Georges
• Hoffman, Josef
• Jallot, Léon-Albert
• Jones, Owen
• Klimt, Gustav
• Knox, Archibald
• Kupka, Frantisek
• Lalique, René-Jules
• Läuger, Max
• Lévy-Dhurmer, Lucien
• Lundström, Nils Emil
• Mackintosh, Charles Rennie
• Massier, Clément
• Morris, William
• Mucha, Alphonse
• Munch, Edvard
• Scherf, Walter
• Schiele, Egon
• Serrurier-Bovy, Gustave
• Tiffany & Company
• Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company
• Tiffany, Louis Comfort
• Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de
• Van De Velde, Henry
• Whistler, James McNeill
• Wiener Werkstätte
• Wolfers, Philippe
• Wright, Frank Lloyd

Art Nouveau

Summary of Art Nouveau

Generating enthusiasts in the decorative and graphic arts and architecture throughout Europe and beyond, Art Nouveau appeared in a wide variety of strands, and, consequently, it is known by various names, such as the Glasgow Style, or, in the German-speaking world, Jugendstil. Art Nouveau was aimed at modernizing design, seeking to escape the eclectic historical styles that had previously been popular. Artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric forms, evolving elegant designs that united flowing, natural forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants. The emphasis on linear contours took precedence over color, which was usually represented with hues such as muted greens, browns, yellows, and blues. The movement was committed to abolishing the traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed the so-called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture, as superior to craft-based decorative arts. The style went out of fashion for the most part long before the First World War, paving the way for the development of Art Deco in the 1920s, but it experienced a popular revival in the 1960s, and it is now seen as an important predecessor - if not an integral component - of modernism .

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• The desire to abandon the historical styles of the 19 th century was an important impetus behind Art Nouveau and one that establishes the movement's modernism. Industrial production was, at that point, widespread, and yet the decorative arts were increasingly dominated by poorly-made objects imitating earlier periods. The practitioners of Art Nouveau sought to revive good workmanship, raise the status of craft, and produce genuinely modern design that reflected the utility of the items they were creating.
• The academic system, which dominated art education from the 17 th to the 19 th century, underpinned the widespread belief that media such as painting and sculpture were superior to crafts such as furniture design and ironwork. The consequence, many believed, was the neglect of good craftsmanship. Art Nouveau artists sought to overturn that belief, aspiring instead to "total works of the arts," the famous Gesamtkunstwerk , that inspired buildings and interiors in which every element worked harmoniously within a related visual vocabulary. In the process, Art Nouveau helped to narrow the gap between the fine and the applied arts, though it is debatable whether this gap has ever been completely closed.
• Many Art Nouveau practitioners felt that earlier design had been excessively ornamental, and in wishing to avoid what they perceived as frivolous decoration, they evolved a belief that the function of an object should dictate its form. In practice this was a somewhat flexible ethos, yet it would be an important part of the style's legacy to later modernist movements, most famously the Bauhaus .

Key Artists

Overview of Art Nouveau

Gustav Klimt famously said, “Enough of censorship…I refuse every form of support from the state, I’ll do without all of it,” – because he was attacked for his work’s swirling erotic forms, he went on pioneer his Gold Period – one of the highlights of Art Nouveau.

Artworks and Artists of Art Nouveau

Cover design for Wren's City Churches

Artist: Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo

Mackmurdo's woodcut is an example of the influence of English design, particularly the Arts and Crafts movement, on Art Nouveau. The woodcut as a genre points to the handcrafted, unique quality of the work and the simplicity of Mackmurdo's use of positive and negative space both contribute to this association. Meanwhile, Mackmurdo's abstract-cum-naturalistic forms and the trademark whiplash curves are characteristic of the visual sense of free movement and energy that would eventually define Art Nouveau. The emphasis on the floral and vegetal imagery adorning the cover which refuses any real consonance with the professed subject matter of the book also highlights its purposefully decorative quality, hinting at how Mackmurdo's work is of an experimental nature rather than a definitive, mature example of Art Nouveau. The woodcut proves far more valuable than the actual content, which consists of a rambling, loose description of the architecture of the Baroque London churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

Woodcut on handmade paper

La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec is one of Art Nouveau's most important graphic artists who were responsible for raising the poster from the realm of advertising ephemera to high art during the 1890s (the same decade that saw the establishment of artistic magazines solely dedicated to this medium). Lautrec and his fellow graphic artists understood that they were innovative, though the stylistic label "Art Nouveau" was probably never applied to them until after Lautrec's death in 1901. La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge takes the flourish and messiness of a French can-can dancer's dress and breaks it down to a few simple, rhythmic lines, thereby suggesting the sense of movement and space. The flattening of forms to mere outlines with the flat infill of color recalls Art Nouveau's debt to Japanese prints as well as the lighting in such nightclubs that naturally would render the surface details of figures and other objects indistinct. Likewise, the repetitive red lettering of the cabaret's name suggests the pulsating energy of the performances for which dancers like La Goulue (stage name of Louise Weber, one of Lautrec's friends) took center stage.

Lithograph - The Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Peacock Skirt

Artist: Aubrey Beardsley

Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt is an illustration made for Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Salome , based on the Biblical narrative centered on Salome's order to behead and serve on a platter the head of John the Baptist. (Salome was a popular subject for many other Art Nouveau artists, including Victor Prouvé.) Beardsley's Salome is comparatively tame in comparison with some of the illustrator's more erotic and nearly pornographic works. It is a fine example of how many artists influenced by Art Nouveau laid great emphasis on line, often abstracting their figures to produce the fashionable sinuous curves so characteristic of the style. One might also take it as an example of how the formal vocabulary of the style could be used with exuberant excess, a quality that would later attract criticism. The influence of Japonese prints on Art Nouveau is also evident in Beardsley's work in its flattened rendition of form. But this illustration might also be taken as an example of the contemporaneous Aesthetic movement, and in that respect it demonstrates how Art Nouveau overlapped and interacted with various other period styles.

Ink illustration

The Budapest Museum of Applied Arts

Artist: Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos

Designed by Ödön Lechner, sometimes known as the "Hungarian Gaudi," with his partner Gyula Pártos, the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts is an example of the way that the Hungarian "national" strand of Art Nouveau (often called the Hungarian Secession because of its closeness to Vienna) consisted more of an amalgamation of various historical styles than a precise search for new ones. This building, on a trapezoidal site, encircles a courtyard that is largely filled by a glass atrium to the rear of the main facade. The forms used inside and out derive from a mixture of Islamic and Persian architecture, as seen in its elaborate multi-lobed arches, as well as Central European-derived baroque, bell-shaped domes and spires with onion-shaped carved finials. As with Gaudi's work, the highly ornamental building, articulated everywhere by tilework, stained glass and stone produces a lively, polychromed effect that keeps the viewer's eye moving and reminds one of the harmonious unity of the applied arts here in creating a "total work of art."

Budapest, Hungary

Entrances to Paris Subway Stations

Artist: Hector Guimard

When Hector Guimard was commissioned to design these famous subway station entrances, Paris was only the second city in the world (after London) to have constructed an underground railway. Guimard's design answered the desire to celebrate and promote this new infrastructure with a bold structure that would be clearly visible on the Paris streetscape. The entrances use the twisted, organic forms typical of Art Nouveau that appear at first to be nearly seamless, yet they are constructed out of several cast iron parts that were easily mass produced, at Osne-le-Val to the east of Paris. In effect, Guimard had concealed an aspect of the object's modernity beneath its sinuous continuity, a strategy that is symptomatic of Art Nouveau's ambivalent attitude to the modern age. Guimard's design was thus instrumental in bringing Art Nouveau's otherwise complex, labor-intensive designs to a mass audience for whom the style seemed like a symbol of unattainable luxury.

Paris, France

Ernst-Ludwig-Haus, Darmstadt

Artist: Joseph Maria Olbrich

This is the centerpiece of the new Darmstadt Artists Colony (Kunstlerkolonie), formed in 1899 under the patronage of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, an admirer of the Arts & Crafts movement. It was designed by J.M. Olbrich, one of the Colony's founding artists, whom the Duke poached from the Vienna Secession. (Olbrich had designed the Secession's exhibition building three years before.) Like the Secession building, the Ernst-Ludwig-Haus is highly rectilinear, with a gleaming white exterior capped by a gently sloping roof, set on the brow of a hill. This is offset by the arched, centrally-located main entrance, delineated by its gold-plated, cloudlike geometric pattern surrounding the doorway, which is fronted by Ludwig Habisch's twin male and female sculptures personifying Strength and Beauty. The sloping skylights stretching the length of the rear of the structure disclose its function as one of the rare Art Nouveau buildings designed solely as studio space, and it served as the centerpiece of the opening exhibition of the Darmstadt group in 1901. Although the Colony only lasted until the outbreak of war in 1914, today the structure serves as a museum of their artistic endeavors.

Darmstadt, Germany

Model #342, “Wisteria” Lamp

Artist: Clara Driscoll for Tiffany Studios, New York

Table lamps are some of the most famous Art Nouveau items produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany's firm. The model #342, commonly called "Wisteria," is one of the most prized. The bronze base resembles the roots and lower trunk of a tree, with the leaded glass shade that appears like the branches of a wisteria at its crown cast in bronze. These suspend the flowering petals that appear to drip like drops of water, created from nearly 2,000 individually-selected pieces of glass whose screen produces a warm, yet soft glow, suggesting the filtering of sunlight. The irregularity of the armature at the crown along with the border of the bottom of the shade add to the naturalism of the design, but they also recall the influence of Impressionism and Japonism on Art Nouveau, as wisteria are native to both the eastern United States, where Tiffany was based, and to China, Japan, and Korea. Recently-discovered evidence proves that Model #342 was designed by Clara Driscoll, head of Tiffany Studios Women's Glass Cutting Department and creator of over thirty of the company's famed lamps, including the Daffodil, Dragonfly, and Peony models. It thus also represents an important moment for women designers at the turn of the century, who were put in charge of a significant sector of the firm's production. Driscoll herself commanded $10,000 a year as one of the highest-paid women of her time, until she was required to leave Tiffany Studios when she married in 1909.

Leaded glass and patinated bronze

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Klimt's work, like Aubrey Beardsley's, involves the distortion and exaggeration of forms and, often, highly sexually-charged subject matter. Unlike Beardsley, however, Klimt is famous, particularly in his post-1900 paintings, for his frequent use of gold leaf, often in concert with a kaleidoscope of other bright hues. This combination helped create Klimt's signature mature style, often summarized as a set of dreamy, visually luscious (and materially luxurious) paintings of women, sometimes real portraits but often imagined or allegorical personifications, including his Hope II . The nearly-surreal imagery of exaggerated and flattened bodily forms, highlighted by the emphasis on pattern and the lack of depth and detached from a recognizable environment, underscores the way that Klimt focused on creating a literal "new art" that was free from prescribed rules or principles. As a founding member of the Vienna Secession, he rejected the tenets of academic painting under which he had been trained. The shocking reactions that Klimt's work has provoked - during his lifetime up to the present day - helps contribute to his renown as the most innovative Art Nouveau painter and a master of modernism.

Oil and gold leaf on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Artist: Antoni Gaudi and Josep Maria Jujol

Antoni Gaudi, the foremost architect of Catalan Modernisme , may be best-known for his work on the still-unfinished Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, but his signature designs can be seen in dozens of buildings throughout the city. One of the last projects that Gaudi, a devout Catholic, undertook before devoting himself entirely to the Sagrada Familia in 1914 was a speculative hillside suburban community for his chief patron, the textile magnate Eusebi Guell. The development displays Gaudi's innovative design capabilities, even though the only homes completed were his own house plus one other residence and the project is generally considered a financial failure. The park's design is thoroughly integrated into the landscape, with rough-hewn inclined columns seemingly excavated out of the hillsides and covered by vines. The centerpiece consists of a columned market space supporting an open plaza bounded by a serpentine bench covered with a conglomerate of discarded ceramic tiles, called trencadís , a hallmark of Catalan craftsmanship. The market is connected to the Parc's entrance by a grand staircase with a tiled fountain sporting the face of a dragon and the striped Catalan flag. There, the gatehouse and concierge's residence consist of rocky lodges crowned by irregular, conical spires, appearing to be crafted out of gingerbread. The undulating forms, inspired by inverted catenary arches, and brilliantly-colored tilework point to the collaborative nature of Catalan Art Nouveau, involving teams of craftsmen specializing in different media and the reliance on the honest treatment of ecologically-sensitive materials.

Beginnings of Art Nouveau

The advent of Art Nouveau - literally "New Art" - can be traced to two distinct influences: the first was the introduction, around 1880, of the British Arts and Crafts movement, which, much like Art Nouveau, was a reaction against the cluttered designs and compositions of Victorian-era decorative art. The second was the current vogue for Japanese art, particularly wood-block prints, that swept up many European artists in the 1880s and 90s, including the likes of Gustav Klimt , Emile Gallé , and James Abbott McNeill Whistler . Japanese wood-block prints in particular contained floral and bulbous forms, and "whiplash" curves, all key elements of what would eventually become Art Nouveau.

It is difficult to pinpoint the first work(s) of art that officially launched Art Nouveau. Some argue that the patterned, flowing lines and floral backgrounds found in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin represent Art Nouveau's birth, or perhaps even the decorative lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , such as Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891). But most point to the origins in the decorative arts, and in particular to a book jacket by English architect and designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for the 1883 volume Wren's City Churches . The design depicts serpentine stalks of flowers emanating from one flattened pad at the bottom of the page, clearly reminiscent of Japanese-style wood-block prints.

Art Nouveau Exhibitions

Art Nouveau was often most conspicuous at international expositions during its heyday. It enjoyed center stage at five particular fairs: the 1889 and 1900 Expositions Universelles in Paris; the 1897 Tervueren Exposition in Brussels (where Art Nouveau was largely employed to show off the possibilities of craftsmanship with the exotic woods of the Belgian Congo); the 1902 Turin International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts; and the 1909 Exposition International de l'Est de la France in Nancy. At each of these fairs, the style was dominant in terms of the decorative arts and architecture on display, and in Turin in 1902, Art Nouveau was truly the style of choice of virtually every designer and every nation represented, to the exclusion of any other.

The Regional Names for Art Nouveau

Siegfried Bing, a German merchant and connoisseur of Japanese art living in Paris, opened a shop named L'Art Nouveau in December 1895, which became one of the main purveyors of the style in furniture and the decorative arts. Before long, the store's name became synonymous with the style in France, Britain, and the United States. Art Nouveau's wide popularity throughout Western and Central Europe, however, meant that it went by several different titles. In German-speaking countries, it was generally called Jugendstil (Youth Style), taken from a Munich magazine called Jugend that popularized it. Meanwhile, in Vienna - home to Gustav Klimt , Otto Wagner , Josef Hoffmann and the other founders of the Vienna Secession - it was known as Sezessionsstil (Secession Style). It was also known as Modernismo in Spanish, Modernisme in Catalan, and Stile Floreale (floral style) or Stile Liberty in Italy (the latter after Arthur Liberty's fabric shop in London, which helped popularize the style). In France it was commonly called Modern(e)-Style and occasionally Style Guimard after its most famous practitioner there, the architect Hector Guimard , and in the Netherlands it was usually called Nieuwe Kunst (New Art). Its numerous detractors also gave it several derogatory names: Style Nouille (noodle style) in France, Paling Stijl (eel style) in Belgium, and Bandwurmstil (tapeworm style) in Germany - all names which made playful reference to Art Nouveau's tendency to employ sinuous and flowing lines.

Art Nouveau: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

Art nouveau graphics and design.

Art Nouveau's ubiquity in the late-19 th century must be explained in part by many artists' use of popular and easily reproduced forms, found in the graphic arts. In Germany, Jugendstil artists like Peter Behrens and Hermann Obrist had their work printed on book covers and exhibition catalogs, magazine advertisements and playbills. But this trend was by no means limited to Germany. The English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley , perhaps the most controversial Art Nouveau figure due to his combination of the erotic and the macabre, created a number of posters in his brief career that employed graceful and rhythmic lines. Beardsley's highly decorative prints, such as The Peacock Skirt (1894), were both decadent and simple, and represent the most direct link we can identify between Art Nouveau and Japonism / Ukiyo-e prints . In France, the posters and graphic production of Jules Chéret , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Pierre Bonnard , Victor Prouvé , Théophile Steinlen , and a handful of others popularized the lavish, decadent lifestyle of the belle époque (roughly the era between 1890-1914), usually associated with the seedy cabaret district of Montmartre in northern Paris. Their graphic works used new chromolithographic techniques to promote everything from new technologies like telephones and electric lights to bars, restaurants, nightclubs and even individual performers, evoking the energy and vitality of modern life. In the process, they soon raised the poster from the ranks of the pedestrian advertisement to high art.

Art Nouveau Architecture

In addition to the graphic and visual arts, any serious discussion of Art Nouveau must consider architecture and the vast influence this had on European culture. In urban hubs such as Paris, Brussels, Glasgow, Turin, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Vienna, as well as smaller cities like Nancy and Darmstadt, along with Eastern European locales like Riga, Prague, and Budapest, Art Nouveau architecture prevailed on a grand scale, in both size and appearance, and is still visible today in structures as varied as small row houses to great institutional and commercial buildings. In architecture especially, Art Nouveau was showcased in a wide variety of idioms. Many buildings incorporate a prodigious use of terracotta and colorful tilework. The French ceramicist Alexandre Bigot, for example, made his name largely through the production of terracotta ornament for the facades and fireplaces of Parisian residences and apartment buildings. Other Art Nouveau structures, particularly in France and Belgium ( Hector Guimard and Victor Horta were important practitioners), show off the technological possibilities of an iron structure joined by glass panels.

In many areas across Europe, local stone such as yellow limestone or a rocky, random-coursed rural aesthetic with wood trim characterized Art Nouveau residential architecture. And in several cases, a sculptural white stucco skin was used, particularly on Art Nouveau buildings used for exhibitions, such as the pavilions of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 and Secession Building in Vienna. Even in the United States, the vegetal forms adorning Louis Sullivan's skyscrapers like the Wainwright Building and Chicago Stock Exchange are often counted among the best examples of Art Nouveau's wide architectural scope.

Art Nouveau Furniture and Interior Design

Like the Victorian stylistic revivals and the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau was intimately associated with interior decoration at least as much as it was conspicuous on exterior facades. Also like these other styles of the 19 th century, Art Nouveau interiors also strove to create a harmonious, coherent environment that left no surface untouched. Furniture design took center stage in this respect, particularly in the production of carved wood that featured sharp, irregular contours, often handcrafted but occasionally manufactured using machines. Furniture makers turned out pieces for every use imaginable: beds, chaises, dining room tables and chairs, armoires, sideboards, and lamp stands. The sinuous curves of the designs often fed off the natural grain of woods and was often permanently installed as wall paneling and molding.

In France, the chief Art Nouveau designers included Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Eugène Vallin, all based in Nancy; and, Tony Selmersheim, Édouard Colonna and Eugène Gaillard, who worked in Paris - the latter two specifically for Siegfried Bing's shop named L'Art Nouveau (later giving the whole movement its most common name). In Belgium, the whiplash line and reserved, more angular contours can be seen in the designs of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy and Henry van de Velde, who both admired the works of the English Arts & Crafts artists. The Italians Alberto Bugatti and Augustino Lauro were well-known for their forays in the style there. Many such designers moved freely between media, often making them hard to categorize: Majorelle, for example, manufactured his own wooden furniture designs and opened up an ironworking foundry, which also produced many of the metal fittings for the glasswork put out by the Daum Brothers' glassworks.

Painting and "The High Arts"

Few styles can claim to be represented across nearly all forms of visual and material media as thoroughly as Art Nouveau. Besides those who worked mainly in the graphics, architecture, and design, Art Nouveau counts some prominent representatives in painting, such as the Vienna Secessionist Gustav Klimt, known for Hope II and The Kiss (both 1907-08), and Victor Prouvé in France. But Art Nouveau painters were few and far between: Klimt counted virtually no students or followers ( Egon Schiele went in the direction of Expressionism ), and Prouvé is known equally well as a sculptor and furniture designer. Instead, Art Nouveau was arguably responsible, more than any style in history, for narrowing the gap between the decorative or applied arts (to utilitarian objects) and the fine or purely ornamental arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which traditionally had been considered more important, purer expressions of artistic talent and skill. (It is debatable, however, as to whether that gap has ever been completely closed.)

Art Nouveau Glasswork and Jewelry

Art Nouveau's reputation for luxury was also evident by its exploitation by some of the best-known glass artists in history. Emile Gallé, the Daum Brothers, Tiffany, and Jacques Gruber all first found renown, at least in part, through their Art Nouveau glass and its applications in many utilitarian forms. Gallé and Daum's firms established their reputations in vase designs and art glass, pioneering new techniques in acid-etched pieces whose sinuously curved, shapely surfaces seemed to flow between translucent hues effortlessly. The Daum Brothers and Tiffany also exploited the artistic possibilities of glass for utilitarian purposes such as lampshades and desk utensils. Both Tiffany and Jacques Gruber, who had trained in Nancy with the Daum Brothers, became specialists in stained glass that celebrated the beauty of the natural world in large-scale luminant panels

In jewelry, René Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Marcel Wolfers created some of the most prized pieces of the turn of the century, producing everything from earrings to necklaces to bracelets to brooches, thereby assuring that Art Nouveau would always be associated with fin-de-siècle luxury, despite the hope that its ubiquity might make it universally accessible.

Retailing and Corporate Identity

Art Nouveau rose to prominence at the same time that retailing expanded to attract a truly mass audience. It was featured prominently by many of the major urban department stores established during the late-19 th century, including La Samaritaine in Paris, Wertheim's in Berlin, and the Magasins Reunis in Nancy. Furthermore, it was marketed aggressively by some of the most famous design outlets of the period, beginning with Siegfried Bing's shop L'Art Nouveau in Paris, which remained a bastion of the dissemination of the style until its closure in 1905 shortly after Bing's death. His was far from the only store in the city to specialize in Art Nouveau interiors and furniture.

Meanwhile, Liberty & Co. was the major distributor of the style's objects in Britain and to Italy, where Liberty's name became nearly synonymous with the style as a result. Many Art Nouveau designers made their names working exclusively for these retailers before moving in other directions. The architect Peter Behrens, for example, designed virtually everything from tea kettles to book covers to advertising posters to exhibition pavilions' interiors to utensils and furniture, eventually becoming the first industrial designer when in 1907 he was put in charge of all design work for AEG ( Allgemeine Elektrisitats-Gesellschaft , the German General Electric).

Later Developments - After Art Nouveau

If Art Nouveau quickly took Europe by storm in the last five years of the 19 th century, artists, designers and architects abandoned it just as quickly in the first decade of the 20 th century. Although many of its practitioners had made the doctrine that "form should follow function" central to their ethos, some designers tended to be lavish in their use of decoration, and the style began to be criticized for being overly elaborate. In a sense, as the style matured, it started to revert to the very habits it had scorned, and a growing number of opponents began to charge that rather than renewing design, it had merely swapped the old for the superficially new. Even using new mass-production methods, the intensive craftsmanship involved in much Art Nouveau design kept it from becoming truly accessible to a mass audience, as its exponents had initially hoped it might. In some cases, such as in Darmstadt, lax international copyright laws also prevented artists from monetarily benefitting from their designs.

Art Nouveau's association with exhibitions also soon contributed its undoing. To begin with, most of the fair buildings themselves were temporary structures that were torn down immediately after the event closed. But more importantly, the expositions themselves, though held under the guise of promoting education, international understanding, and peace, instead tended to fuel rivalry and competition among nations due to the inherently comparative nature of display. Many countries, including France and Belgium, considered Art Nouveau as potential contenders for the title of "national style," before charges of Art Nouveau's foreign origins or subversive political undertones (in France, it was variously associated with Belgian designers and German merchants, and was sometimes the style used in Socialist buildings) turned public opinion against it. With a few notable exceptions where it enjoyed a committed circle of dedicated local patrons, by 1910 Art Nouveau had vanished from the European design landscape.

From Wiener Werkstätte to Art Deco

Art Nouveau's death began in Germany and Austria, where designers such as Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser began to turn towards a sparer, more severely geometric aesthetic as early as 1903. That year, many designers formerly associated with the Vienna Secession founded the collective known as the Wiener Werkstätte, whose preference for starkly angular and rectilinear forms recalled a more precise, industrially-inspired aesthetic that omitted any overt references to nature. This reification of the machine-made qualities of design was underscored in 1907 by two key events: the installation of Behrens as AEG's chief of all corporate design, from buildings to products to advertising, making him the world's first industrial designer; and the founding of the German Werkbund, the formal alliance between industrialists and designers that increasingly attempted to define a system of product types based on standardization. Combined with a newfound respect for classicism, inspired in part by the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and given an official blessing by the City Beautiful movement in the United States, this machine-inspired aesthetic would eventually develop, in the aftermath of World War I, into the style that we now belatedly call Art Deco. Its distinctly commercial character was expressed most succinctly at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925, the event which would, in the 1960s, give Art Deco its name.

Postmodern Influences

Despite its brief life, Art Nouveau would prove influential in the 1960s and '70s to designers wishing to break free of the confining, austere, impersonal, and increasingly minimal aesthetic that prevailed in the graphic arts. The free-flowing, uncontrolled linear qualities of Art Nouveau became an inspiration for artists such as Peter Max, whose evocation of a dreamy, psychedelic alternative experience recalls the imaginative, ephemeral, and free-flowing aesthetic world of the turn of the century.

Always recognized from the start as an important step in the development of modernism in both art and architecture, today Art Nouveau is understood less as a transitional bridge between art periods as it is an expression of the style, spirit, and intellectual thought of a certain time frame, centered around 1900. In its search to establish a truly modern aesthetic, it became the defining visual language for a fleeting moment of the age.

Useful Resources on Art Nouveau

• Art Nouveau: Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Taschen) Our Pick By Klaus-Jurgen Sembach
• Art Nouveau By Gabriele Fahr-Becker
• Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from "The Studio" (Dover Pictorial Archive)
• Art Nouveau (Architecture & Design Library) By Robert Fitzgerald
• Art Nouveau Architecture Our Pick By Keiichi Tahara
• Treasures of Art Nouveau: Painting, Sculpture, Decorative Arts in the Gillion Crowet Collection By Michel Draguet
• An Art Nouveau Master Remembered in Prague Our Pick By Dinah Spritzer / The New York Times / September 1, 2010
• Guest Column: The Social Agenda of Art Nouveau By Elisabeth Horth / Collectors Weekly / August 21, 2009
• An Art Nouveau Room Thick With Wisteria Our Pick By Carol Vogel / The New York Times / November 23, 2007
• Louis Tiffany's Eclecticism a Harbinger of Art Nouveau By Roberta Smith / Taipei Times / November 30, 2006

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Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Peter Clericuzio

By Artspace Editors

Oct. 18, 2018

The following was excerpted from Phaidon's "Art and Ideas" series book, Art Nouveo:

Extraordinary things were afoot in the visual arts at the turn of the nineteenth century. Between about 1890 and 1910 artists, designers and architects from Paris to St Petersburg, from Brussels to Buenos Aires, produced work that evoked the spirit of the age at the same time as provoking the bitterest critics. Since its brief apogee, this work, which contemporaries labelled Art Nouveau, has continued to fascinate, disturb and inspire us in equal measure.

The mention of Art Nouveau, also then known as the ‘modern style,” over a century after its triumphal appearance at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 conjures up images of feminine curves, organic tendrils, and linear forms. In the popular imagination Art Nouveau brings to mind seductive posters for French musical reviews or the sinuous ironwork of the Paris Metro stations. Museums proudly display their examples of opaque naturalistic glassware and contorted carved furniture, representatives of a now alien style that brought the old century to a close and heralded the new.

Yet, the influence of Art Nouveau reached far beyond the streets of Paris, and its aesthetic was far richer than mere organic fantasy. For alongside the tumbling arabesques caricatured in a contemporary cartoon, Art Nouveau also encompassed the geometry and radical simplicity of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow and the artists of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop). Early centers of the style included Brussels in Belgium, Nancy in France and Munich in Germany, as well as Paris. Moreover, the style also accommodated designers across central and eastern Europe, inspired in part by their own specific national traditions.

The pan-European nature of Art Nouveau resulted in a correspondingly diverse nomenclature. In Germany it was Jugendstil, in Austria and Hungary it was the Secession style, and in Barcelona it was part of the broader Modernista movement. In Italy it was La Stile Liberty, named after the London shop Liberty’s, which was perceived, by the Italians at least, as the fount of the new aesthetic. In England and America practitioners whom we might now describe as Art Nouveau were still considered to be part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Art Nouveau not only spread across Europe; it manifested itself wherever Europeans went. It became a global style, one that, in different hands, could be both imperial and nationalist.

As well as being aesthetically varied and genuinely international, Art Nouveau was also an incredibly versatile style. Noting within architecture and the decorative arts escaped its influence, from door handles to chairs, chandeliers to apartment blocks, wallpapers to shop fronts. The style had no respect for the boundaries of class or quality. The finest luxury objects were conceived and handcrafted in the Art Nouveau manner, as was the cheapest jewelry and the most ordinary industrially produced tableware, along with all manner of printed ephemera. This dichotomy meant that Art Nouveau embodied all the tensions within art, design, and society at the turn of the century. In its variety of manifestations Art Nouveau was both elitist and populist, private and public, conservative and radical, opulent and simple, traditional and modern.

Copious amounts of ink were split by critics at the 1990 Universal Exposition over the merits and failings of Art Nouveau, proof that it was a highly self-conscious style. This peculiar self-consciousness was a product of the role Art Nouveau played in the history of late nineteenth-century design. Heralded as revolutionary by some of its mentors (and damned for the same reason by some of its detractors), it came at the end of a century that for the most part had seen architecture and the decorative arts gradually descend into a rut of increasingly derivative historicism. Past styles were endlessly regurgitated in debased fashions until they resembled pastiche. The great exhibitions of the nineteenth century were characterized by incongruous combinations of Renaissance, Baroque and classical styles that revealed an unease with the progress afforded by the industrial age. Radical Art Nouveau designers set out to shatter historicism and create a style appropriate to their time, the age of cinema, the telephone, and the automobile. Yet the more conservative embarked upon a mission to rescue the guiding principles of traditional craftsmanship and elegance, to update them rather than overthrow them.

In either case, Art Nouveau was perceived as being much-needed, and in some ways long-awaited. When it arrived, the style was the product of an extended gestation period and had a brilliant, albeit, brief, lifespan. The movement took shape in the 1880s and 1890s, burst onto a wider public at the 1900 Universal Exposition, but was largely eclipsed after 1914. If Art Nouveau saw itself as a reaction against an aesthetically corrupt century, it was also a product of it. In order to explain Art Nouveau it is necessary to survey a maze of interlinked influences, from the Gothic and Rococo revivals, to the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Aesthetic Movement, as well as the political and economic motives of those who engendered its development.

All these apparently contradictory facets mean that the study of Art Nouveau offers a fascinating insight into the often schizophrenic mind-set of an age. Through the style we can see the fears, anxieties, hopes and dreams of the fin de siècle , but Art Nouveau has also lived on as an influence and a propaganda tool for both its friends and enemies. First came the immediate period of disdain. The Modern Movement pilloried the organic ornament of Art Nouveau as the last gasp of bourgeois decorative excess, while claiming the more geometric Viennese tradition as the parent of its own functionalism. What was once so fashionable inevitably fell out of favor—the French even threatened to knock down the Art Nouveau entrances to the Paris Métro in the 1930s. Yet at the same time Art Nouveau effectively evolved into Art Deco, the modern decorative style of the inter-war period (which was equally reviled by the more zealous Modernists).

After World War II, Art Nouveau gradually evolved as a subject fit for scholarly study. Then came the revivals. Although Scandinavian and Italian post-war design never forgot the organic roots it shared with Art Nouveau, it was not until the 1960s that the psychedelic movement on the West Coast of America and Barbara Hulanicki’s Biba store in London brought the style back into vogue. As this initial burst of pop-revivalism evolved into an intellectual critique of Modernism, Art Nouveau, together with Art Deco, provided the new alternative decorative history of twentieth-century design.

Below are nine of the most significant practitioners of the period.

AUBREY VINCENT BEARDSLEY 1872-98 English graphic artist

Beardsley’s linear style, rendered in pen and ink, was among the earliest manifestations of mature Art Nouveau. He came to widespread attention through his illustrations for Sir Thomas Malory’s Le More d’Arthur in 1893 and 1894. His 1894 illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé remain his most famous work; in the same year he became art editor of The Yellow Book , the flagship of the Aesthetic Movement in London. By 1896 Beardsley had adopted a more intricate manner to depict the finery and decadence of 18th-century France. In 1897 the tuberculosis he had suffered from since childhood worsened, leading to his death at the age of 25.

HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC 1864-1901 French painter and graphic artist

Toulouse-Lautrec began painting in Paris in the 1880s and studied under the Symbolist Émile Bernard, exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants from 1889. In 1891 he designed his first posters, for which he received widespread acclaim. His posters brought his stylized representations of decadent Parisian life to a broad public.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT 1867-1959 American architect and designer

Between 1888 and 1893 he worked in Chicago for Louis Sullivan, and the influence of Sullivan’s organic forms is apparent in his designs and writings. Wright’s early work displays close parallels with the development of Art Nouveau in Europe. From 1901 to 1913 he built a series of “prairie houses” that combine low geometric forms and spaces with stylized ornament. For Wright, natural setting was crucial to his designs.

GUSTAV KLIMT 1862-1918 Austrian painter and designer

Klimt opened a studio in 1883 after training at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna. His early paintings were academic in style, but he became increasingly influenced by Symbolism, provoking bitter criticisms from Vienna’s artistic establishment. Klimt was one of the founders of the Secession in 1897, becoming the group’s first president; he also set up the journal Ver Sacrum. The Beethoven Frieze , painted in 1902 to decorate the Secession Building, signaled an even more stylized aesthetic. Klimt remained a prominent figure in the Secession until he resigned in 1905. He was associated with the Wiener Werkstätte, his most notable contribution being his friezes for the Palais Stoclet in Brussels designed by Josef Hoffmann in 1905-11.

PAUL GAUGUIN 1848-1903 French artist

Gauguin was born in France and brought up mainly in Peru. He became a banker in Paris, but painted in his spare time and exhibited with the Impressionists from 1878. In 1883 he gave up his job and his relations with his family broke down. Gauguin worked with Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne in Pontoise. He became the leader of the Pont-Aven group in Brittany between 1886 and 1889, and developed a distinctive brand of Symbolism, using simplified decorative lines and flat bright colors inspired by Japanese art to represent mystic and primitive subjects. From 1891 he lived for extended periods in Tahiti.

WILLIAM H. BRADLEY 1868-1962 American graphic artist

Bradley’s work drew on the contrasting influences of William Morris and Aubrey Beardsley and his illustrations were among the earliest examples of American Art Nouveau. Trained as a wood engraver in the mid-1880s, he turned to line engraving as his first technique became obsolete. His covers for the Chicago journal Inland Printer in 1894 established him as an exponent of the new style, and he gained widespread acclaim for his posters for another Chicago publication, The Chap Book . In 1895 he returned to his birthplace Massachusetts, where he turned to traditional printing methods, the result being his own periodical Bradley: His Book . He exhibited work at the Paris gallery of Siegried Bing in 1895, but by 1900 his career was in decline and thereafter he worked largely in commercial printing and type design.

GEORGES FOUQUET 1862-1957 French jeweler

Bracelet Madea (1899) made for actress Sarah Bernhardt, made in collaboration with Alphonse Mucha

The son of a goldsmith, Fouquet took over the family firm in 1895 and soon adopted the Art Nouveau style. In 1900 he produced jewelry designed by Alphonse Mucha and won a gold medal at the Paris Universal Exposition. Much also created the interiors of Fouquet’s shop in 1901. Although initially inspired by nature and Japanese art, he went on to make more geometric pieces with Egyptian motifs, resulting in a revival in his fortunes in the 1920s with the advent of Art Deco.

EUGÈNE GAILLARD 1862-1933 French designer and architect

Gaillard rejected a career in law to take up interior design and decoration. Siegried Bing employed him alongside Georges de Feure and Edouard Colanna to create interiors for his pavilion at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition. The abstract natural forms of his furniture reflected a mistrust of historicism and he became a vocal advocate of modern design. Around 1903 he left Bing’s atelier and set up his own firm. In 1906 he published A Propos du Mobilier (On Furniture.)

MARGARET MACDONALD (1865-1933) & CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH (1868-1928)

Macdonald was a painter and designer who worked closely with her husband Charles Mackintosh, a Scottish architect, designer, and painter, whom she met at the Glasgow School of Art. Mackintosh was taken on by the architects Honeyman and Keppie in 1888, where he met the artist Herbert MacNair. Mackintosh developed an individual style with Symbolist overtones. In 1894, he exhibited with MacNair, Macdonald, and her sister Frances for the first time. Mackintosh is best remembered today for his post-1895 work, beginning with the Glasgow School of Art (begun in 1896) and followed by tea rooms for Catherine Cranston. Mackintosh and MacDonald also received decorative commissions, the most celebrated being the Hill House (1902-4) in Helensburgh. His success declined in the years after 1905.

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What Was Art Nouveau? The Artists and Histories Behind One of the Most Short-Lived Yet Memorable Movements

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All our frames are manufactured in the USA, using eco-friendly & sustainably sourced engineered hardwood for durability and a uniform finish that is free of defects. Frames are available in Black or White Satin and Honey Pecan.

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All prints are hinged to a conservation quality, acid-free and lignin-free Alpha Cellulose matboard, using an acid-free linen tape. The mat's surface paper is fade and bleed resistant and is attached to a conservation quality foam-core mounting board that will keep the work safe from deterioration over time. Artworks with a deckled or decorative edges will be floated on the matboard, with acrylic spacers to separate the art from the glazing. All mounting is fully reversible, without any potential damage to the art.

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• 1 1/4” wide, 3/4” deep, with a 2 1/2” wide mat.
• We generally leave 1/4” - 1/2” of paper showing around the image, to accommodate signatures and for visual appeal.

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The interiors of Art Nouveau Period : analyse, restore, make accessible

On the occasion of RANN’s 20th anniversary, urban.brussels, a founding member of RANN, hosted an international symposium in Brussels on 29 & 30 November, co-organised with RANN, in partnership with the Horta Museum and the CIVA, and dedicated to the theme “The interiors of the Art Nouveau period interiors: analyse, restore, make accessible”.

The research and progress of our knowledge of Art Nouveau has always been one of RANN’s primary objectives. If Art Nouveau is accessible to everyone in the street itself and while the Art Nouveau facades are the ornament of many European cities, the interiors arouse both from the academic world as from the general public many questions related to their accessibility, to their knowledge, to the refined restorations that they require.

This subject of interiors had not yet been scientifically exploited in a transversal manner in Europe; the aim of this colloquium was to provoke a confrontation on research practices, understanding, conservation and enhancement of Art Nouveau interiors, in order to identify new research perspectives.

The programme of the symposium was structured around 17 speakers from all Europe presenting Art Nouveau interiors from Ålesund (Norway), Barcelona (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), Krakow (Poland), Istanbul (Turkey), La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland), Moscow (Russia), Nancy (France), Terrassa (Spain) and Zagreb (Croatia).

Videos of the various interventions are available on our YouTube channel.

Françoise Aubry

Art historian, former curator of the horta museum, quelques réflexions sur la restauration des intérieurs anciens.

The theme I have chosen for my introductory lecture at the Réseau Art Nouveau Network’s 20th anniversary symposium is private residences, for these, in my view, were the basis for the development of Art Nouveau during the late 19th century. Building and furnishing a home was about much more than simply sheltering one’s family under a roof while conforming to a layer of society defined in terms of income. Such materialistic criteria came to be inadequate. Instead, as Mario Praz put it: “The surroundings become the museum of the soul, an archive of its experiences.”

Watch the video of the speaker’s contribution on YouTube

Mario Baeck

Post-doctoral researcher in art history.

• Ghent University

Tiled interiors on paper. Trade catalogues as a key source to understand the use of Art Nouveau tiles in Belgian interiors

The enormous popularity of the decorated industrial wall and floor tile in Belgium is strongly linked to the Art Nouveau style that was put on the map by such prominent men as Victor Horta, Henry van de Velde, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy or Privat Livemont who all experimented with ceramic tile material. But it was in the work of younger and lesser known Belgian architects that the art nouveau tile really came to maturity. From 1896 onwards Belgian Art Nouveau architecture is for an important part characterized by the abundance of colourful tile panels in façades, loggias and porticos and thus very visible for the general public. However, Art Nouveau floor and wall tiles were also less visible used in the interiors of public buildings, cafés, shops and in the intimacy of the bourgeois house, and particularly in entrance halls, sitting rooms and winter gardens that were often – surprisingly – very sumptuously decorated.

More than the study of still existing tile schemes in interiors – only a fraction of what once was executed -, the study of trade catalogs leads to a better understanding of the general use of the tile in the Art Nouveau interior. Tile catalogues give us a deeper insight in the great variety in use of that material, inform us about the factories that were producing these luxury building products, help us to date the designs more precisely in cases where a exact building year or date of refurbishing is not known, and more general they offer invaluable information on the technical and aesthetic evolution of tiles. Trade catalogs are thus of great importance for a deeper knowledge about the changes in taste in interior architecture. The catalogs are also a valuable source for understanding international differences or international influences in matters of style and the huge and worldwide export success of the Belgian Art Nouveau tile. Moreover, many Belgian Art Nouveau tile designs were copied, notably in Spain, Portugal and even Japan.

As a practical example of how the study of tile catalogues can help to make the right choices in a restauration process of a partly lost interior, Victor Horta's Brussels home and studio is discussed. The house was renovated three times in the period from construction to 1911. In preparation for the restoration of the basement kitchen, the identification and dating of the wall and floor tiles was needed to map as precisely as possible the various periods of refurbishment.

Apolline Malevez

Phd student.

• Queen's University Belfast

A case for tresholds: Redifining interior spaces in Art Nouveau architecture and painting

This article focuses on thresholds (understood in the broadest sense: doors, windows, stairs, etc.) as indicative of a change in the design and perception of space in home interiors and their painted representations. In the Art Nouveau era, architects experimented with the transitions between different rooms in the house: glass walls and curtains replaced doors, while the staircase freed itself from the partitioning of its hall. Many painters, for their part, depict interiors by highlighting the articulation of different spaces through the representation of thresholds. These architectural and artistic researches testify to a particular sensitivity at the end of the century regarding the search for fluidity and the progressive erasing of spatial demarcations in interiors.

Inessa Koutenikova

Independent art and architecture historian and photographic researcher.

• Netherlands

A style without a destination: Fyodor Schechtel's Art Nouveau interiors in photography

At the turn of the 20th century, Moscow’s art institutions played an important role in the training of craftsmen and artists by fostering their ability to integrate Russian and European trends. Inevitably, as a link was established between art, industry and commerce, the general orientation moved away from rural or popular principles. The revival of the latter is largely left in the hands of artists and architects such as Ivan Fomine and Fiodor Schechtel. However, the work of Otto Wagner and the Viennese Secession greatly influenced the spread and modernisation of Art Nouveau in Russia, adding an alternative dimension to it. It is both anti-rational, an expression of the most extravagant dreams, and functionalist, a material form given to socialist aspirations and technological advances.

Moscow 1900 owes its strength and vitality to its diversity, complexity, ambiguity and pan-European manifestations. The struggle of the forms it represents is also a struggle of worldviews; nationalism is confronted with universalism, science with art, and European beliefs with orthodox thought. Photography’s mission remains much simpler, as it succeeds in the delicate exercise of describing, translating and analysing a highly appreciated style.

Élodie Scheydecker

Master's degree in art history.

• University of Strasbourg

La maison Paul Luc à Nancy. Documenter un exemple disparu de l'Art nouveau

The subject of this article — and of my master’s thesis — is a lost but well documented example of École de Nancy architecture. The Maison Paul Luc, one of the largest villas in Nancy, was built by two architects, scarcely studied until now, Henri Gutton and Joseph Hornecker, for a wealthy manufacturer. The construction gathered great Art Nouveau artists and craftsmen: Louis Majorelle, Émile Gallé, Jacques Gruber and Edgar Brandt. Unfortunately demolished in 1968, many elements of the house were preserved by the École de Nancy museum (handrails, fireplace, stained-glass windows, built-in furniture, etc.).

In 2015, the donation of a documentary collection by the owners’ heirs, comprising plans, drawings, quotes and bills from Majorelle, allowed us to better understand the different stages of the architectural project and interior design, to replace the surviving elements in their original context, and to gain new insight into the activities of the Majorelle company, whose records burned in 1916.

Edyta Barucka

Independent scholar, solar symbolism in stanisław wyspiański's design for the interiors of the house of the medical society in cracow.

Stanisław Wyspiański (1869-1907) is one of the most versatile Polish artists of the turn of the 20th century. He made a lasting contribution to both the decorative arts and literature. Having studied art in Krakow and Paris, he joined the Vienna Secession in 1897.

One of his most fascinating creations is the interior decoration of the House of the Medical Society in Krakow (1904), which is also a rare Polish example of a total work of art (“Gesamtkunstwerk” in German). Placed under the patronage of Nicholas Copernicus, it refers to the heliocentric system and celebrates the healing power of the sun. The centrepiece of this creation is the stained glass window depicting Apollo attached to his lyre in a position evocative of the iconography of the Crucifixion. The article highlights the symbolic references of the creation of Wyspiański in connection with his literary work.

Mireia Freixa

Emeritus professor in the department of art history & director of gracmon.

• University of Barcelona

Le Design Muncunill ou comment un système de compréhension des intérieurs domestiques peut devenir modèle d'identification d'une ville

Lluís Muncunill i Parellada (1868–1931) settled in the city of Terrassa, where he achieved a wide range of production: factories, warehouses, domestic architecture and, to a lesser degree, public work. He developed a very characteristic twist on prevalent Art Nouveau taste, with the use of parabolic shapes, lowered arches and curved profiles in doors and windows in harmony with the sinuous roofs of his buildings.

In this essay we propose to go further and analyse how the large team of industrialists and artisans who collaborated with him ended up disseminating these stylistic traits — traits that would become an identifying language of the city and can be qualified as Urban Cultural Landscape. This paper aims to recover these heritage elements in order to guarantee their preservation.

Thomas Moser

Phd student in art history.

• Ludwig-Maximillian’s University

"Le style pieuvre” Art Nouveau interiors and Marine Biology

In the 19th century, the octopus became an omnipresent symbol of the unknown and unfathomable depths of the sea. The fear of the unknown is manifested by its transformation into a monstrous creature in the works by Victor Hugo, Jules Verne and other novelists. This article argues that, parallel to this narrative, a different interpretation of the octopus, unnoticed until now, emerges. In the case of Art Nouveau interiors and objects, the cephalopod constantly embodies the sense of touch, long neglected in art theory. Nineteenth-century physiology and marine biology explain this reading. When dense clusters of nerve endings were discovered in the animal’s tentacles, the octopus became a hyperbolic haptic entity. From then on, the spectacular relief representations of the animal on tangible objects such as vases, plates, small bronzes, stamps and cane handles precisely reflect this scientifically founded association with the sense of touch.

Charlotte Ashby

Programme director and associate lecturer, department of history of art.

• Birkbeck, University of London

A Crucible for the New Man and Woman: A Phenomenology of the Art Nouveau Interior

Art nouveau interiors can be seen as a sequence in the long history of creating spectacular and innovative interiors, designed to impress visitors and symbolise the taste, wealth and cultural capital of their owners. Art nouveau interiors have also been approached as a highlight of modern design, which emphasises the use of new materials and new technologies as well as new principles, such as the frankness of construction, the emphasis on craftsmanship and the concept of the total work of art. Without wishing to dismiss any of these elements of interpretation, this contribution focuses on an attribute of Art Nouveau interiors that is quite specific – although not entirely unique to these interiors and their cultural context. Many Art Nouveau interiors have been conceived by artists and patrons as manifestations of a new and modern form of consciousness. More than that, as tools for realizing or contributing to this modern consciousness. These interiors were spaces designed to appeal to individuals who had just become aware of the functioning of their minds and bodies. They were designed to restore and protect psyches, perceived as shaken and broken by the pressures of modern life. Finally, they were designed to facilitate the search for a new unity between body, mind and soul, or even a transcendence at a higher level of being.

Camille André

Heritage architect.

• Atelier Grégoire André

La Villa Majorelle à Nancy, comment restaurer un intérieur Art nouveau ?

The works to restore the villa’s interiors are part of a larger project to return this building to its former glory as an artist’s house by recreating the interior décor and reinstating the original furniture, as a testament to the works of Louis Majorelle and the École de Nancy Art Nouveau movement. The present operation follows the previous phase of works, in 2017, which saw the fireplaces by Alexandre Bigot reinstated, the roofing slates repaired, and the façades cleaned. This cultural and scientific interior works project is not merely about preserving the interiors and collections: it also showcases a private space with the aim of revealing how people used to live through the domestic art, furniture and décor of the time, alongside the permanent exhibition of the Musée de l’École de Nancy.

Wivine Wailliez & Emmanuelle Job

Conservators.

• Monumental Decoration unit, Conservation Department, Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique – Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage)

In search of Horta: on-site examinations of the decorative finishes and results

Advocacy for preliminary in situ studies, this article demonstrates how the finishing exams of the second of the built heritage are an indispensable tool to “know, understand and restore” interiors Art nouveau. The material examination is a unique means to characterise the work and its finishes, and to understand it execution and history, or even to formulate choices in order to its restoration.

Zorica Tomanovic

Conservator.

• Art Nouveau center in Ålesund

Restoring and repairing the staircase in Jugendstilsenteret in Ålesund

An enlightened cultural heritage policy aims to present this heritage as a unique source of knowledge about societies of the past and as a medium for new experiences and uses. The National Centre and Museum of Art Nouveau in Ålesund, housed in a listed Art Nouveau building, is an example of an outstanding contribution to this policy. With the aim of exhibiting and presenting our heritage to the public as a unique source of knowledge, we have reached a record number of 40,000 visitors in 2018. As adapting it to modern conditions of use is a complex challenge, the reuse and conservation of cultural heritage requires considerable commitment, resources and knowledge. The article presents some restoration projects that have sought to repair the staircase using different methods and techniques. It presents not only the study and restoration of the original colours and materials, but also the various challenges related to the structural stability of the staircase as a fundamental prerequisite for future use and experience. An empirical method was used for the research of this case study, while the indicators of the staircase’s stability were determined by physical analysis and with the help of observation and measurement methods. Previous research and restoration work was presented using a descriptive method and by collecting data from the archives of the Jugendstilsenteret.

Metalworker

À chaque époque, sa technique.

What are the criteria that determine the quality of a restoration? Seasoned metalworker Luc Reuse considers this question through a discussion of several of the most prestigious restorations he has worked on in Brussels. In particular, he introduces us to the unseen side of his restoration work, which includes searching archives, identifying and studying the production techniques and materials used, and applying a healthy dose of creativity so that, when necessary, he is able to build the right tools and hardware for the job — all in the name of consistency. While seeking to constantly balance the past and the future, artisans are called to find solutions that comply with modern safety standards while being suitable from a technical point of view, sympathetic to local aesthetics, and respectful towards the ethics of the original architect.

François-Xavier Richard

• Ateliers d'Offard

La papier peint à planche, langage des muts

Wallpaper does not always deliver a good first impression. We dislike its obsessive repetition and only later discover its subtleties. Block-printed wallpaper embodies the excellence of a free act that consists of decorating our walls, nothing more. Despite being a positive billboard for interior design, wallpaper has been gagged by the industry and reduced to its simplest expression, to a basic idiom (pattern/colour), when it could be the greatest way of letting our imaginations run wild. Inspired by the multiple methods of enriching and transforming paper seen in the vestiges found on a few forgotten walls, the Atelier d’Offard creates and reconstruct  block-printed wallpapers using the artistic techniques handed down by engravers and papermakers. And while this traditional know-how has re-emerged thanks to new technology, the craft itself has the last word.Ever since wallpaper was created, major architectural movements have continued to embrace it. Art Nouveau is one of the best examples of this use of paper for interior décor.

Dragan Damjanovic

Professor in art history department faculty of humanities and social sciences.

• University of Zagreb

Furnishing the Temple of Croatian History and Science. Art Nouveau Interiors of the Croatian National and University Library and the State Archives Building

This text details the iconographic programme of the most important Art Nouveau building in the country: the University Library and National Archives of Croatia. In particular, it shows how the selection of the artists, craftsmen and companies that worked there is linked to the peculiarity of the Croatian political situation within the Austro-Hungarian kingdom at the beginning of the 20th century.

Monserrat Puges i Dorca & Kusi Colonna-Preti

Responsible for conservation and restoration / conservator-restorer, art historian, sole associate.

• Archaeological Research Service of the Barcelona City Council-ICUB / Terra Conservació i patrimoni

"La mosaïque de mon quartier". Conservation des pavements d'intérieurs à Barcelone : des outils simples pour impliquer le citoyen

My Neighbourhood’s Mosaic is a participatory, preventive, urban conservation project aimed at discovering, highlighting and conserving the mosaics in the city of Barcelona. Thanks to citizen cooperation, a “participatory inventory” of photos of mosaics has been created. Nearly half these works are Modernist in style. We have discovered private interiors that afford us a more complete overview of Barcelona’s mosaic history. Aware of the rich mosaic heritage in the city, both public and private, we realised we had to commit and involve the citizens in ensuring its conservation. The project includes “conservation tips” targeted at the general public and presented in the form of simple interventions protocols. The idea is that anyone keen to conserve their mosaic, but who has no experience in the matter, can make an initial diagnosis and carry out occasional interventions, mainly for maintenance purposes.

Marikit Taylor

Independent historian and heritage enhancement officer.

• City of La Chaux-de-Fonds

Le Salon bleu : une œuvre d’art totale au cœur du patrimoine horloger

In 2016, the City of La Chaux-de-Fonds bought the Salon bleu, a total work of art decorated in the local “Pine Tree Style”. This music room, designed in 1907 for an influential watchmaking factory owner, is held up as one of the town’s most emblematic and well-preserved Art Nouveau interiors. Its opening to the public is part of a large-scale plan to promote La Chaux-de-Fonds’ Art Nouveau, eclectic and industrial “secret heritage”. Research, conservation and historical accuracy are of the essence, but making this Art Nouveau interior accessible to the public is also an opportunity to find new and creative ways to introduce visitors to a rich but relatively unknown current of Art Nouveau. The Salon bleu’s adjacent workshop provides a gateway into the town’s watchmaking town planning and into the story of the industry which led to the creation of a unique artistic style, wholly inspired by the forests and pastures of the Jura Mountains.

Deniz Balik Lokce

Associate professor.

• Dokuz Eylul University

Art Nouveau apartments in Istanbul

Spread by foreign architects, Art Nouveau influenced the westernisation period of the Ottoman Empire in relation to socio-cultural, technological, political and economic developments. The increasing diversity of the population in the Galata and Pera districts led to the construction of new buildings in the area around the avenue İstiklal, formerly known as the Great Street of Pera. This study aims to raise awareness of this under-theorised issue within the multi-layered fabric of Istanbul. It shows that inaccessibility, inadequate restoration and abusive reuse are detrimental to the spatial atmosphere of Art Nouveau interiors.

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Related Papers

Secesijska arhitektura v Sloveniji : Art Nouveau architecture in Slovenia

Jelka Pirkovič

The chapter represents a part of the introduction to the book on Slovenian Art Nouveau (the co-author of the book is Breda Mihelič). A brief history of Art Nouveau and its general characteristics are presented in the chapter.

Katalin Gellér

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, fine arts in Hungary, as in the Northern and Eastern European countries, could be characterized by a rapid influx of Western European trends and a buoyant artistic life. Naturalism, impres­ sionism, symbolism and art nouveau all appeared on the scene almost simultane­ ously and their coexistence might be regarded as one of the principal features of the age. Only a few years passed between the foundation of the Nagybánya colony (1896), the association of Hungarian plein air painters, and the establishment of the Gödöllő colony (after 1902), the most characteristic art nouveau group. As a consequence of their rather belated foundation there is a great interconnection between them. The graphic art of the painters of the Nagybánya colony was influenced by art nouveau, and most of the Gödöllő masters produced plein air paintings. The acceptance of new ideals and trends in painting was accompanied by a search for a national tra...

“Dreaming of Russia”. National-Romantic Features in Art Nouveau

Olga Davydova

The National-Romantic trend in Russian Art Nouveau is characterized by a lyrical approach to the past, including imagery from folklore. This tendency is also identifiable within the global development of Art Nouveau, each country expressing its national identity in highly characteristic forms in design and architecture. Art Nouveau coincided with the zenith of Symbolism and, therefore, transmitted both its universal ideas and the unique creative psychology of the individual artist, who often based personal quest upon local traditions and innate cultural memory. This article analyzes the poetics of this style in Russia. The lyrical and mythological approach towards artistic images, influencing design, form, and meaning, is studied through an examination of the works of artists close to the Abramtsevo circle and the innovative experiments of the World of Art group (1898-1904).

Melita Čavlović

This paper traces the implications of Semper's Bekleidung theory on working processes in the field of architecture in Zagreb. The idiosyncrasies of the work of freshly graduated architects in a peripheral Austro-Hungarian city are analysed, both in the context of developing and spreading the city block system and the appearance of the new Art Nouveau style. Buildings in this new modern style, which appeared in 1897, were built sporadically throughout the city's urban fabric, which generally consisted of historicist residential buildings at the time. Parallel to historicism, the demand for Art Nouveau from clients grew, especially around the turn of the 20th century. At the time, typical migration processes resulted in the arrival of a well-educated populace that would commission Art Nouveau buildings in the coming years. The unique characteristics of Art Nouveau style, especially its ability to directly engage citizens and transmit messages of modern times, proved to be an important determinant in its increasing popularity in the city. Many professions and products were advertised on the façades and ornamentation of buildings, the main bearers of Art Nouveau style.

Mela Corral

A short essay on art nouveau.

ART-SANAT, HISTART'15 SPECIAL ISSUE

Suna Aydın Altay

Rosa Tamborrino

Harbin (Northern China) and Czernowitz (Bukowina, Habsburg Empire until 1918, then Rumania until 1945, now Ukraine), are two examples of cities at the edges of empires, close to the borders of countries with a consequent melting pot of people and nationalities. In this framework of needs of representation of different national or religious characters, at the beginning of XXth century the Art Nouveau architecture played a key role on a background of never-ending Eclecticism. Less as a fight against Eclecticism and more as a symbol of modernity and super-national feature, Art Nouveau reached these outposts of Western culture directly by Vienna or through the Russian version of it. The Postsparkasse in Czernowitz (1900) and the Chinese Eastern Railway buildings (1902) in Harbin are the best examples of this search of modernity. The Art Nouveau era in Czernowitz, strongly related to the imperial core, vanished in 1918, but in Harbin it lasted until the 20’s, thanks to its iconic value.

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

Isabelle Gournay

Bukola Bankole-Adeyemi

The essay introduces Art Nouveau style, which was a brief movement that swept through Europe, Russia and the US. It had many names: Le Style Jules Verne, Le Style Metro, in France. In Germany it was known as Jugendstil ‘young style.’ In the US it inspired the Tiffany style, best known in the Tiffany lamps. Art Nouveau was inspired by wild nature, by biological discoveries of deep-sea creatures, and gothic revivals. It was a reaction to Industrialization, a conclusion of the Arts and Craft and Aesthetic movements and in Glasgow and Barcelona, it was also used to express independence of thought.

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Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was an artistic movement that united the architecture and decorative arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were the European enthusiasts who practiced the variety of styles. The objectives of Art Nouveau were to escape the traditional historical styles and modernize a design. Consequently, the representatives of the movement united natural and flowing forms with the angular figures and evolved elegant designs. One should mention that both geometric and organic forms inspired the artists to create. As a result, the traditional hierarchy of the arts was abolished as the representatives of Art Nouveau did not consider sculpture and painting superior to craft-based decorative arts. Besides, this essay explores the relationship between the history of Art Nouveau and the emergence of global modernity.

The Key Ideas of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was the result of leaving behind the historical styles and the way of transferring to modernism and creativity. Earlier periods were characterized by poorly made objects and the decorative arts were necessary to make the revolution in art. One should mention that the representatives of Art Nouveau raised the status of craft, produced modern and genuine design and revived good workmanship. Such forgotten crafts as silver-smoothing and furniture design had become the most sophisticated work and proved the necessity of craftsmanship.

The artists of Art Nouveau changed the vision and beliefs about crafts and inspired others to create the art of buildings and interiors. The attention was paid to the smallest objects and details that were decorated to be ornamental and unique. The representatives of Art Nouveau believed that this was the object that should dictate its form. The movement was short-lived as it was less collective. Not every artist supposed geometric forms of plants such as rectangles and squares attractive and exciting. Architects, visual artists, and designers were united to create the style of design for the modern art. Additionally, Art Nouveau was the reaction against Victorian-era decorative art that was too predictable and traditional.

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One should mention that the movement did not have boundaries presenting graphic art, printing of works on playbills, magazine advertisements, and exhibition catalogs. New forms of Art Nouveau were controversial, debatable and ambiguous. The natural world was the key muse of the artists. As a result, they were free in the choice of objects, forms, and meaning. The main features of Art Nouveau were curvy, elongated and sinuous lines, exotic woods, semi-precious stones and silver, female forms, stylized nature and vertical lines. Art Nouveau was influenced by botanical research, rococo style and crafts.

It is evident that objects were in the center of Art Nouveau. The artists designed flowers, ornaments, fireplaces, lighting, door handles, stained glass, furniture, tiles, wallpaper, walls color schemes and floors. The conceptual traits of Art Nouveau were imaginary, abstraction, conceptualization, minimalism, orientation on the natural world and simplicity. The ambiguity that provoked a lot of interpretations was another feature of Art Nouveau that proved transferring to the global modernity and leaving behind traditionalism of Victorian era. Art Nouveau was so rich that it was difficult to predict whether it evoked magic atmosphere and charm or shock and fear. The distinction of lines and colors was a proof of modernization of art and its movement to era of technologies. Calmness and non-aggressiveness of colors of the depicted objects made them different from the traditional art forms.

Conceptual meaning of objects was more important than their depiction. As a result, abstract expressionism did not always provoke astonishment and approval. It means that the representatives of Art Nouveau should not only present their vision of the modern art but fight against stereotypes and traditionalism of art forms that deprived craftsmanship of the place during the Victorian period. Imagery and physicality of objects were the driving forces of the representatives of Art Nouveau. Expressionism, minimalism, and cubism were the ways of the depiction of the natural world differently through colors, compositions, space and abstraction. The artists ruined the boundaries and limitations between the real and imaginary. The attention was paid to the perception and vision of the depicted objects.

The advantage of the artists of Art Nouveau was that they were not afraid to experiment with different materials making them look alive and realistic. They could make panels and floors depict the state of consciousness and perception. They fused with the objects involving creativity and creating mystery. Presently, it often remains a mystery for students who are assigned to write about this art form and share their perceptions. Our art essay writing service can help with this task and enable you to learn more based on vivid textual representations and comprehensive explanations offered by professionals.

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Georgia O’Keefe and her Works

Georgia O’Keefe was one of the brightest and most talented artists of Art Nouveau whose works revealed the traits of that movement and presupposed modernization not only of art but even of its perception. Her vision of the modern art was not aimed at shifting art trends. On the contrary, it intended to look for abstract and essential forms in nature. It means that Georgia O’Keefe concentrated her attention on natural objects. One should mention that her great finesse and powers of observations made her paintings unusual and untraditional. She ruined the canons of Victorian art that was too pompous, sophisticated and complicated.

Bones, flowers, and landscapes fascinated her the most. Her life experience and place of living were the sources for her creative ideas. She contributed to Art Nouveau as she was one of the American representatives, and she was a woman that was a rare case among painters. One should mention that Georgia O’Keefe had developed as an artist and a painter under the influence of the modernist photographers and painters.

Her work “Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue” was created in 1931. Her depiction of this painting on canvas made it a bit traditional. However, the subject of that work was really shocking and unexpected for the audience. The colors of the painting were meaningful and symbolic as red, white and blue were the colors of the American flag. It means that Georgia O’Keefe wanted to identify and promote the American artistic style as it lagged behind the European one. Her symbols of America are not stereotypical as she did not use landscapes and natural beauty as regionalist artists did. On the contrary, she managed to reveal urban problems and represent American enduring spirit.

“Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue” was an iconic painting as it symbolized also the American West and was like a joke on the American art scene. One should mention that the work was based on perception and cultural background of the audience. Cow’s skull was an unusual object for depiction that provoked fear and disgust. However, peaceful colors and association with the American flag changed the opinion about the work. Vertical lines also made “Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue” calmer and not so aggressive. Minimalism and abstractness reinforced the depth and symbolism of the depicted objects.

Another distinctive work of Georgia O’Keefe was “White Canadian Barn” that was painted with oil on canvas. That painting differed from the previous one with the commitment to the geometric forms. Summer trip to Gaspe Peninsula of Canada inspired her to create such work that belonged to the theme series. The barn was the key object that was stark in design and color. The narrow and horizontal proportion of “White Canadian Barn” and flat rectangular forms of the walls and roof proved its belonging to Art Nouveau. Three distinct areas such as ground, building and denoting sky divided the space into three areas.

One can say that “White Canadian Barn” is made in three-dimensional form that made it modernist and innovative. It is evident that commitment to geometry and form proved the orientation of Georgia O’Keefe toward Art Nouveau and violation of traditional and old-fashioned subjects and forms. Frontal presentation put forward the barn as an object of the painting. The massive size and somber coloring added it some mystery and unpredictability. Every detail from the geometric shape and architectural element to black doorways proved the breadth of the painting and depiction of every object as a small and important painting with its own meaning and form.

In conclusion, one should say that Art Nouveau is the movement and design, creativity and modernization that violates the canons of the traditional and stereotypical art vision and benefits the emergence of global modernity. The value of Art Nouveau is that it managed to turn the usual objects in the masterpieces and symbolic things. Flowers, ornaments, fireplaces, lighting, door handles, stained glass, furniture, tiles, wallpaper, walls color schemes and floors could be the inspiring subjects for the artists of Art Nouveau. The conceptual traits of Art Nouveau are imaginary things, abstraction, conceptualization, minimalism, orientation toward the natural world and simplicity.

Georgia O’Keefe is not only a revolutionary artist of Art Nouveau but also of the American painting that was not as famous as a European one. Her modernist vision of art is reflected in her works “White Canadian Barn” and “White Canadian Barn”. Both paintings are oriented toward the abstractionism and geometric simplicity. However, design of every object showed depth of meaning and symbolism. Live Chat Order Now

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