Art Noveau

Introduction• Art Nouveau was a movement that swept through the decorative arts and architecture from 1890 to 1910.

• It was a response to the radical changes caused by the rapid urban growth and technological advances that followed the Industrial Revolution

• Art Nouveau is said to be an attitude, a way of thinking about modern society and utilising the most modern production techniques.

• First mention came in Belgium around the late 1880’s. A journal called L’ Art Moderne describes the work of a group of artists called Les Vingt as trying to blow apart prevailing conventions and create a new style.

• It is known by various names:• Secenssiontil (Czech)• Glasgow Style (British)• Jugendstil (German)

Elements of Art Noveau• organic, flowing lines- forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants

• Sinuous swirling line• geometric forms such as squares

and rectangles• Flat surfaces• Contrasting colours

William Blake

Songs Of Innocence

1789

Purpose• against the cluttered designs and compositions of Victorian-era decorative art

• abolishing the traditional hierarchy of the arts• To modernise visual culture

19th century interiors were solemn, tedious with little air and less light. Every space was used and covered with tapestries, wallpaper and ornaments. So in the 1890’s, the Art Noveaumovement gave way to a more modern, coherent and neat settings. The synchronisation of every element in the room.

• Art Nouveau’s philosophy: art should become part of everyday life, it employed flat, decorative patterns that could be used in all art forms.

• Typical decorative elements include leaf and tendril motifs, intertwined organic forms, mostly curvaceous in shape, although right-angled designs were also prevalent in Scotland and in Austria.

• Art in this style typically depicted lavish birds, flowers, insects and other zoomorphs, as well as the hair and curvaceous bodies of beautiful women.(Zoomorphism is a derivative of a Greek word zōon that means

animal and morphē means form or shape. It is a literary technique in which the animal attributes are imposed upon non-animal objects, humans, and events and animal features are ascribed to humans, gods and other objects)

Key Influences It started off with William Morris’s Artsand Crafts movement. He was discontentedwith the Industrial Revolution.He was against machines, mass productionand wares that were imitative of other ages and culture.He thought it as cheapening life itself. His choice of a botanical decorative vernacular,together with his glorification ofhandcraftsmanship was the foundation of the European Art Noveau movement.

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851-1942) was an English architect, craftsman, graphic artist and economist.He designed the chair in 1883 that precipitated the decorative movement.

row of slender tendrils

tossed by the wind

shows endless rhythm and

motion (became a hallmark

of turn of the century design)

Title page for Wren’s City Churches

Arabesque ornament integrated with

typography to create a sense of movement.

Walter Crane (1845-1915)An English designer and book illustrator. His designs had Pre-Raphaelite and Renaissance influences.

Flora’s Feast (1889)

Flat rendering, harmonious colours showed

Japonisme influence which linked him to

the Art Noveau movement.

Illustrations for

Shakespeare (1893-94)

Aubrey Beardsley• In 1893, a magazine called The Studio published an illustration by an English artist named Aubrey Beardsley.

• It’s daring, sinuous line, starkly represented in striking black and white is said to be the first work of Art Noveau. Also a great influence to the style in many years to come.

• The Peacock Skirt, Illustration for Salome, by Oscar Wilde.

• Black ink on graphite paper, 1894

• Poster advertising A Comedy Of Sighs, 1894

JaponismeFollowing the treaty between United States and Japan drawn byCommodore Matthew C. Perry in February 1854.Siegfried Bing and Arthur Lasenby Liberty (main marketers)Western artists took these elements from their Japanesecounterparts:

• 2Dimensional picture frame • Flattened perspectives (bird’s eye view) • Block colours • Silhouetting • Japanese style cartouches & calligraphy• Nature

Ando HiroshigePlum Trees inFlowerWoodcut1857

Different expressions at different places:France - Hector Guimard’s glass and ironwork for Paris Metro

Rene Lalique’s glasswareEmile Galle’s furniture and ceramics (Using curving naturalistic forms)

Hector Guimard's Paris Métroin Abbesses station, Paris

Dragonfly lady brooch, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Rene Lalique, 1903Zoomorph (human and dragonfly, metamorphosis and nature. Shown at Exposition Universelle 1900

A carved walnut and fruitwood marquetry “Narcissus” side table by Emile Gallé. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2012,

Engraved crystal vase by Emile Gallé,

around 1900

Belgium - James Ensor (artist) testify to the effervescent activity of this period.Victor Horta’s Hôtel Tassel in Brussels (1892-1893)

James Ensor : “The Singular Masks”, 1892.

Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels'whiplash' decorative style

Spain - Antoni Gaudi (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926)

La Sagrada Familia is an unfinishedCatholic Basilica began in 1882,designed by the architect Antoni Gaudiwhose decorative architectural styleis so personal that he is sometimes considered as practising an artisticstyle different from Art Nouveau,nonetheless uses Art Nouveau'sfloral and organic forms. Not one straightline in the façade.

The Casa Batlló, already built in 1877,was remodelled in the Barcelonamanifestation of Art Nouveau

modernisme, by Antoni Gaudí andJosep Maria Jujol during 1904–1906

Germany - Gustav Klimt (Symbolist, simplification of form)

• Klimt was one of the most influential exponents of Art Nouveau. His approach was inspired by the ethereal atmosphere of work by artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, and by some aspects of Impressionist technique; it was also determinedly eclectic, borrowing motifs from Byzantine, Greek and Egyptian art.

Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907.

Medicine, 1907.

• Led by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, young Artists and architects formed a group called the Wiener Sezession, or Vienna Secession, in protest against the entrenched conservatismof the art establishment in Vienna. Secession designers rejected historical stylesand they expressed this through an increasing simplification of form. Viennese artists moved towards the restrained geometric designs exemplified by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Judith 1 (1901)Oil on canvas

Glasgow - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ( geometric designs)The Room de Luxe in the Tearooms , 1903

Glasgow School of Art Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1909

Key moments• 1895- Paris: a shop called Art Noveau, opened by Siegfried Bing

• 1900- A stand at the Exposition Universelle

Siegfried Bing was an art dealer who imported Japanese art to Paris.At the Paris Universal Expo of 1900, Bing asked Georges de Feure to create a pavilion. People attending the expo associated Bing’s pavilion with the art inside, so the text on these panels became the name for the entire Art Nouveau movement.

Alphons Maria MuchaAlfons Maria Mucha (24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939) was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.

F. ChampenoisImprimeue Editeur, 1897, Lithograph,ArtRenewal CenterMuseum, Image 4411

Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile1896, Lithograph,Art Renewal CenterMuseum

Impact of Art Nouveau• Art nouveau represents the beginning of modernism in design. It occurred at a time when mass-produced consumer goods began to fill the marketplace, and designers, architects, and artists began to understand that the handcrafted work of centuries past could be lost. While reclaiming this craft tradition, Art Nouveau designers simultaneously rejected traditional styles in favour of new, organic forms that emphasized humanity's connection to nature.

Art Nouveau Today• The façade of Blooms Hotel, Temple Bar was done by an artist named James Earley. He was inspired by Alphons Mucha and the Ulysses book written by James Joyce. (who was inspired by the Art Nouveau era)

Café en Seine, Dawson StreetA café inspired by the French Art Nouveau,with forty foot trees, statues & glass panels(nature)