Lecture 11b: Art Nouveau

The following information comes from the website “The Art Story” and is meant to give you
information on Art Nouveau. You do not need to study this for the exam. There are however cross
references with the other lectures we saw; so this information may be of use to you when studying
for the exam. I’ve underlined the most important aspects and characteristics.

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 abolished 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.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

The desire to abandon the historical styles of the 19th 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 dictated 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.

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. 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 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. But most point to the origins in the decorative arts.
Art Nouveau Exhibitions
Art Nouveau was often well represented at international expositions during its heyday. It enjoyed
centre stage at world fairs, such as the 1889 and 1900 Expositions Universelles in Paris. At the fairs,
the style was dominant in terms of the decorative arts and architecture on display.

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. Meanwhile, in Vienna it was known as Sezessionsstil (Secession Style). It was also
known as Modernismo in Spanish, 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
occasionally called Style Guimard after its most famous practitioner there, the architect Hector
Guimard.

Art Nouveau Graphics and Design

Art Nouveau's succes in the late-19th 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 had
their work printed on book covers, exhibition catalogues and magazine advertisements. 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 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 and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 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 cities such as Paris, Brussels, Glasgow, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Vienna, along with Eastern
European cities 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 terracotta and colorful tilework. Other Art
Nouveau structures, particularly in France and Belgium (for example Hector Guimard and Victor
Horta), show off the technological possibilities of an iron structure joined by glass panels.

Art Nouveau Furniture and Interior Design

Art Nouveau was intimately associated with interior decoration as much as it was with intricate
exterior facades. 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, sideboards, and lamp stands. The sinuous
curves of the designs often fed off the natural grain of woods.
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. Many designers moved freely between media, often making them hard to categorize.

Later Developments - After Art Nouveau

If Art Nouveau quickly took Europe by storm in the last five years of the 19th century, artists,
designers and architects abandoned it just as quickly in the first decade of the 20th century. Although
many of its practitioners had made the doctrine that "form should follow function" central to their
ethos, some designers tended to be too 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.

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. 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.

Wiener Werkstätte
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.