Art Nouveau
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Wikipedia-Article "Art Nouveau"
Art Nouveau (French for "new art") is an art and design style that peaked in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century. Other, more localized terms for the cluster of self-consciously radical, somewhat mannered reformist chic that formed a prelude to 20th-century modernism, included "Jugendstil" in Germany and the Netherlands, named for the snappy avant-garde periodical Jugend ('Youth') or "Sezessionsstil" ('Secessionism') in Vienna, where forward-looking artists and designers seceded from the mainstream salon exhibitions, to exhibit on their own in more congenial surroundings.
In Russia, the movement revolved around the art magazine World of Art, which spawned the revolutionary Ballets Russes. In Italy, "Stile Liberty" was named for the London shop, Liberty & Co, which distributed modern design emanating from the Arts and Crafts movement, a sign both of the Art Nouveau's commercial aspect and the "imported" character that it always retained in Italy. In Catalonia, the movement was centred in Barcelona and was known as "modernisme", with Antoni Gaudí as the most noteworthy practitioner.
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Career of Art Nouveau
Though Art Nouveau climaxed in the years 1892 to 1902, the first stirrings of an Art Nouveau can be recognized in the 1880s, in a handful of progressive designs influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, such as the architect-designer Arthur Mackmurdo's often-illustrated bookcover design for his essay on the city churches of Sir Christopher Wren, published in 1883. Some free-flowing wrought iron from the 1880s could also be adduced, or some flat floral textile designs, most of which owed some impetus to vegetal-derived patterns of High Victorian design.
The name "Art Nouveau" derived from the name of a shop in Paris, Maison de l'Art Nouveau, at the time run by Samuel Bing, that showcased objects that followed this approach to design.
A high point in the evolution of Art Nouveau was the Universal Exposition of 1900 in Paris, in which the "modern style" triumphed in every medium. In the following decade, mass-production so trivialized Art Nouveau that it was scorned after about 1907, and the term was ascribed a pejorative meaning.
A notable Art Nouveau fixture is the entrances to the Paris Metro designed by Hector Guimard.
Character of Art Nouveau
Dynamic, undulating and flowing, curved "whiplash" lines of syncopated rhythm characterize much of Art Nouveau. Another feature is usage of hyperbolas and parabolas. Conventional moldings seem to spring to life and "grow" into plant-derived forms.
As an art movement it has affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolism movement, and artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Alfons Mucha, Edward Burne-Jones, Gustav Klimt, and Jan Toorop could be classed in more than one of these styles. Unlike Symbolist painting, however, Art Nouveau has a distinctive visual look; and unlike the backwards-looking Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau artists quickly used new materials, machined surfaces, and abstraction in the service of pure design.
Art Nouveau in architecture and interior design eschewed the eclectic historicism of the Victorian era. Though, Art Nouveau designers selected and "modernized" some of the more abstract elements of Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures, in place of the historically-derived and basically tectonic or realistic naturalistic ornament of high Victorian styles, Art Nouveau advocated the use of highly-stylized nature as the source of inspiration and expanded the "natural" repertoire to embrace seaweed, grasses, and insects. Correspondingly organic forms, curved lines, especially floral or vegetal, and the like, were used.
Japanese wood-block prints with their curved lines, patterned surfaces and contrasting voids, and flatness of their picture-plane, also inspired Art Nouveau. Some line and curve patterns became graphic clichés that were later found in works of artists from all parts of the world.
Art Nouveau did not negate the machine, as other movements such as the Arts and Crafts Movement, but used it to an advantage. For sculpture the principle materials employed were glass and wrought iron, leading to sculpturesque quality even in architecture.
Art Nouveau is considered a "total" style, meaning that it encompasses a hierarchy of scales in design — architecture, interior design, jewellery, furniture and textile design, utensils and art objects, lighting, and etc. (See Hierarchy of genres.)
Art Nouveau media
2-dimensional Art Nouveau pieces were painted, drawn, and quite popular in printed material like advertising, posters, labels, magazines and the like.
Glass making was an area in which the style found tremendous expression — for example, the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany in New York and Émile Gallé and the Daum brothers in Nancy, France.
Jewelry of the Art Nouveau period revitalised the jeweller's art, with nature as the principal source of inspiration, complemented by new levels of virtuosity in enamelling and the introduction of new materials, such as opals and semi-precious stones. The widespread interest in Japanese art and the more specialised enthusiasm for Japanese metalworking skills, fostered new themes and approaches to ornament.
For the previous two centuries the emphasis in fine jewellery had been on gemstones, particularly on the diamond, and the jeweller or goldsmith had been principally concerned with providing settings for their advantage. With Art Nouveau, a different type of jewellery emerged, motivated by the artist-designer rather than the jeweller as setter of precious stones.
The jewellers of Paris and Brussels created and defined Art Nouveau in jewellery, and in these cities it achieved the most renown. Contemporary French critics were united in acknowledging that jewellery was undergoing a radical transformation, and that the French designer-jeweller René Lalique was at its heart. Lalique glorified nature in jewellery, extending the repertoire to include new aspects of nature — dragonflies or grasses — inspired by his encounter with Japanese art.
The jewellers were keen to establish the new style in a noble tradition, and for this they looked back to the Renaissance, with its jewels of sculpted and enamelled gold, and its acceptance of jewellers as artists rather than craftsmen. In most of the enamelled work of the period precious stones receded. Diamonds were usually given subsidiary roles, used alongside less familiar materials such as moulded glass, horn and ivory.
Geographical scope of Art Nouveau
Principal centers of the style were:
- Mannheim, Barcelona, Brussels, Darmstadt, Moscow, Glasgow, Rīga, London, School of Nancy France, Paris, St.Petersburg Russia, Munich, New York, Vienna.
Other centers included:
- Amsterdam, Ålesund, Berlin, Chicago, Illinois, Helsinki, Ljubljana, Osijek, Oslo, Prague, The Hague, Subotica, Vladivostok, La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Modern developments
Art Nouveau is viewed as a stage in the cultural movement called "Modernism", not so much from the character of its surficial details but in its fundamental inspiration, which was motivated by the search for a new style that would not depend on any of the styles of the past. Following the rapid commercialization of Art Nouveau in the decade 1900–10, designers reacted in two fundamentally different manners: a decorative school of designers turned to new sources for decor and produced Art Deco, while a radical approach, epitomized by Adolf Loos, swept away all decorative detail, as "degenerate" and looked to a sleekly-machined "functionalism". Out of that reaction evolved Bauhaus styles and International Modernism.
Following the revival of connoisseur interest in Art Nouveau in the early 1960s and scholarly interest, partly spurred by a 1959 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and Nikolaus Pevsner's Pioneers of Modern Design (a 1936 essay republished in 1949, reprinted 1960), Psychedelic art was profoundly influenced by the style, with its emphasis on naturalistic forms, the female nude, and luxurious flowing hair.
Gaudí's original plan for the Casa Mila in Barcelona appeared in the spiral ramp of Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York (1959).
Noted Art Nouveau artists
Architecture
- Émile André (1871-1933)
- Georges Biet (1868-1955)
- Paul Charbonnier (1865-1953)
- Raimondo Tommaso D'Aronco (1857-1932)
- August Endel (1871-1925)
- Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926)
- Victor Horta (1861-1947)
- Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956)
- Hector Guimard (1867-1942)
- Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928)
- Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)
- Eugène Vallin (1856-1922)
- Henry Van de Velde (1863-1957)
- Otto Wagner (1841-1918)
- Lucien Weissenburger (1860-1929)
Drawing, Graphics
- Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)
- Gaston Gerard (1878-1969)
- Alfons Mucha (1860-1939)
- Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)
- Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Furniture
- Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940)
- Eugène Gaillard (1862-1933)
- Louis Majorelle (1859-1926)
- Henry van de Velde (1863-1957)
Glassware and Stained glass
- Daum Frères (1825-1885)
- Emile Gallé (1846-1904)
- Jacques Gruber (1870-1936)
- René Lalique (1860-1945)
- Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933)
Other decorative arts
- Charles R. Ashbee (1863-1942)
- William Bradley (1868-1962)
- Jules Brunfaut (1852-1942)
- Georges de Feure (1868-1928)
- Hermann Obrist (1863-1927)
- Philippe Wolfers (1858-1929)
Murals and mosaics
External links
- The Art Nouveau in Brussels, only available in French, with pictures of Art Nouveau buildings
- Art Nouveau World Wide, the most complete site with texts and links
- LE CERCLE GUIMARD - The association for the protection and the promotion of the work of Hector Guimard
- lartnouveau.com Artists and their works in Paris, Nancy and in Europe
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