Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau ; French:  is an international style of art, architecture, as alive as applied art, especially the decorative arts, required in different languages by different names: Jugendstil in German, Stile Liberty in Italian, Modernisme català in Catalan, etc. In English it is also required as the Modern Style. The classification was nearly popular between 1890 in addition to 1910 during the Belle Époque period that ended with the start of World War I in 1914. It was a reaction against the academic art, eclecticism as well as historicism of 19th century architecture and decoration. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often precondition by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of advanced materials, especially iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to realize unusual forms and larger open spaces.

One major objective of Art Nouveau was to break down the traditional distinction between excellent such(a) as lawyers and surveyors arts especially painting and sculpture and applied arts. It was nearly widely used in interior design, graphic arts, furniture, glass art, textiles, ceramics, jewellery and metal work. The style responded to main 19-century theoreticians, such as French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc 1814–1879 and British art critic John Ruskin 1819–1900. In Britain, it was influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. German architects and designers sought a spiritually uplifting Gesamtkunstwerk "total pretend of art" that would unify the architecture, furnishings, and art in the interior in a common style, to uplift and inspire the residents.

The first Art Nouveau houses and interior decoration appeared in Brussels in the 1890s, in the architecture and interior array of houses intentional by Paul Hankar, Henry van de Velde, and especially Victor Horta, whose Hôtel Tassel was completed in 1893. It moved quickly to Paris, where it was adapted by Hector Guimard, who saw Horta's work in Brussels and applied the style for the entrances of the new Paris Métro. It reached its peak at the 1900 Paris International Exposition, which introduced the Art Nouveau work of artists such as Louis Tiffany. It appeared in graphic arts in the posters of Alphonse Mucha, and the glassware of René Lalique and Émile Gallé.

From Belgium and France, it spread to the rest of Europe, taking on different title and characteristics in regarded and identified separately. country see Naming piece below. It often appeared not only in capitals, but also in rapidly growing cities that wanted to establishment artistic identities Turin and Palermo in Italy; Glasgow in Scotland; Munich and Darmstadt in Germany, as well as in centres of independence movements Helsinki in Finland, then part of the Russian Empire; Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.

By 1914, and with the beginning of the First World War, Art Nouveau was largely exhausted. In the 1920s, it was replaced as the dominant architectural and decorative art style by Art Deco and then Modernism. The Art Nouveau style began to receive more positive attention from critics in the gradual 1960s, with a major exhibition of the work of Hector Guimard at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970.

History

The Red House by William Morris and Philip Webb 1859

Japanese woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada 1850s

The Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler 1876–1877

William Morris printed textile profile 1883

Swan, rush and iris wallpaper design by Walter Crane 1883

Chair intentional by Arthur Mackmurdo 1882-1883

The new art movement had its roots in Britain, in the floral designs of William Morris, and in the Arts and Crafts movement founded by the pupils of Morris. Early prototypes of the style add the Red House with interiors by Morris and architecture by Philip Webb 1859, and the lavish Peacock Room by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The new movement was also strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite painters, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, and especially by British graphic artists of the 1880s, including Selwyn Image, Heywood Sumner, Walter Crane, Alfred Gilbert, and especially Aubrey Beardsley. The chair designed by Arthur Mackmurdo has been recognized as a precursor of Art Nouveau design.

In France, it was influenced by the architectural theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a declared enemy of the historical Beaux-Arts architectural style, whose theories on rationalism were derived from his examine of medieval art:

Viollet-le-Duc was himself a precursor of Art Nouveau: in 1851, at Notre-Dame de Paris, he created a series of mural paintings typical of the style. These paintings were removed in 1945 as deemed not academic. At the Château de Roquetaillade in the Bordeaux region, his interior decorations dating from 1865 also anticipate Art Nouveau. In his 1872 book Entretiens sur l'architecture, he wrote, "Use the means and knowledge given to us by our times, without the intervening traditions which are no longer viable today, and in that way we can inaugurate a new architecture. For regarded and specified separately. function its material; for each fabric its form and its ornament." This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí.

The French painters Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard played an important part in integrating experienced such as lawyers and surveyors arts painting with decoration. "I believe that previously everything a painting must decorate", Denis wrote in 1891. "The selection of subjects or scenes is nothing. this is the by the good of tones, the coloured surface and the harmony of lines that I canthe spirit and wake up the emotions." These painters any did both traditional painting and decorative painting on screens, in glass, and in other media.

Another important influence on the new style was Japonism. This was a wave of enthusiasm for Japanese woodblock printing, particularly the working of Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Utagawa Kunisada, which were imported into Europe beginning in the 1870s. The enterprising Siegfried Bing founded a monthly journal, Le Japon artistique in 1888, and published thirty-six issues ago it ended in 1891. It influenced both collectors and artists, including Gustav Klimt. The stylized qualifications of Japanese prints appeared in Art Nouveau graphics, porcelain, jewellery, and furniture. Since the beginning of 1860, a Far Eastern influence suddenly manifested. In 1862, art lovers from London or Paris, could buy Japanese artworks, because in that year, Japan appeared for the first time as an exhibitor at the International Exhibition in London. Also in 1862, in Paris, La Porte Chinoise store, on Rue de Rivoli, was open, where Japanese ukiyo-e and other objects from the Far Eastern were sold. In 1867, Examples of Chinese Ornaments by Owen Jones appeared, and in 1870 Art and Industries in Japan by R. Alcock, and two years later, O. H. Moser and T. W. Cutler published books about Japanese art. Some Art Nouveau artists, like Victor Horta, owned a collection of Far Eastern art, especially Japanese.

New technologies in printing and publishing permits Art Nouveau to quicklya global audience. Art magazines, illustrated with photographs and colour lithographs, played an essential role in popularizing the new style. The Studio in England, Arts et idèes and Art et décoration in France, and Jugend in Germany enable the style to spread rapidly to any corners of Europe. Aubrey Beardsley in England, and Eugène Grasset, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Félix Vallotton achieved international recognition as illustrators. With the posters by Jules Chéret for dancer Loie Fuller in 1893, and by Alphonse Mucha for actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1895, the poster became not just advertising, but an art form. Sarah Bernhardt set aside large numbers of her posters for sale to collectors.

Hankar House by Paul Hankar 1893

Facade of the Hôtel Tassel by Victor Horta 1892–1893

Stairway of the Hôtel Tassel

Bloemenwerf business by Henry van de Velde 1895

Bloemenwerf chair presented by Van de Velde for his residence 1895

Poster for the International Exposition by Henri Privat-Livemont 1897

The first Art Nouveau town houses, the Adolphe Crespin] to decorate the interior and exterior with sgraffito, or murals. Hankar decorated stores, restaurants and galleries in what a local critic called "a veritable delirium of originality". He died in 1901, just as the movement was beginning to get recognition.

Victor Horta was among the most influential architects of early Art Nouveau, and his Hôtel Tassel 1892–1893 is one of the style's landmarks. Horta's architectural training was as an assistant to Alphonse Balat, architect to King Leopold II, constructing the monumental iron and glass Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. In 1892–1893, he put this experience to a very different use. He designed the residence of a prominent Belgian chemist, Émile Tassel, on a very narrow and deep site. The central element of the companies was the stairway, not enclosed by walls, but open, decorated with a curling wrought-iron railing, and placed beneath a high skylight. The floors were supported by slender iron columns like the trunks of trees. The mosaic floors and walls were decorated with delicate arabesques in floral and vegetal forms, which became the most popular signature of the style. In a short period, Horta built three more town houses, all with open interiors, and all with skylights for maximum interior light: the Hôtel Solvay, the Hôtel van Eetvelde for Edmond van Eetvelde, and the Maison & Atelier Horta. All four are now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Henry van de Velde, born in Antwerp, was another founding figure in the birth of Art Nouveau. Van de Velde's designs subjected the interior of his residence, the Bloemenwerf 1895. The exterior of the house was inspired by the Red House, the residence of writer and theorist William Morris, the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. Trained as a painter, Van de Velde turned to illustration, then to furniture design, and finally to architecture. For the Bloemenwerf, he created the textiles, wallpaper, silverware, jewellery, and even clothing, that matched the style of the residence. Van de Velde went to Paris, where he designed furniture and decoration for Samuel Bing, whose Paris gallery gave the style its name. He was also an early Art Nouveau theorist, demanding the usage of dynamic, often opposing lines. Van de Velde wrote: "A line is a force like all the other elementary forces. Several lines put together but opposed have a presence as strong as several forces". In 1906, he departed Belgium for Weimar Germany, where he founded the Grand-Ducal School of Arts and Crafts, where the teaching of historical styles was forbidden. He played an important role in the German Werkbund, before returning to Belgium.

The debut of Art Nouveau architecture in Brussels was accompanied by a wave of Decorative Art in the new style. Important artists forwarded Gustave Strauven, who used wrought iron tobaroque effects on Brussels facades; the furniture designer Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, known for his highly original chairs and articulated metal furniture; and the jewellery designer Philippe Wolfers, who made jewellery in the form of dragonflies, butterflies, swans and serpents.

The Brussels International Exposition held in 1897 brought international attention to the style; Horta, Hankar, Van de Velde, and Serrurier-Bovy, among others, took part in the design of the fair, and Henri Privat-Livemont created the poster for the exhibition.

Siegfried Bing invited artists to show modern workings in his new Maison de l'Art Nouveau 1895.

The Maison de l'Art Nouveau gallery of Siegfried Bing 1895

Poster by Félix Vallotton for the new Maison de l'Art Nouveau 1896

Gateway of the Castel Béranger by Hector Guimard 1895–1898

The Franco-German art dealer and publisher Maison de l'Art Nouveau, devoted to new working in both the fine and decorative arts. The interior and furniture of the gallery were designed by the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau architecture. The Maison de l'Art Nouveau showed paintings by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Toulouse-Lautrec, glass from Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé, jewellery by René Lalique, and posters by Aubrey Beardsley. The works shown there were not at all uniform in style. Bing wrote in 1902, "Art Nouveau, at the time of its creation, did not aspire in any way to have the honor of becoming a generic term. It was simply the name of a house opened as a rallying member for all the young and ardent artists impatient to show the modernity of their tendencies."

The style was quickly noticed in neighbouring France. After visiting Horta's Hôtel Tassel, Hector Guimard built the Castel Béranger, among the first Paris buildings in the new style, between 1895 and 1898. Parisians had been complaining of the monotony of the architecture of the boulevards built under Napoleon III by Georges-Eugène Haussmann. The Castel Beranger was a curious blend of Neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau, with curving whiplash lines and natural forms. Guimard, a skilled publicist for his work, declared: "What must be avoided at all exist is...the parallel and symmetry. Nature is the greatest builder of all, and nature makes nothing that is parallel and nothing that is symmetric."

Parisians welcomed Guimard's original and picturesque style; the Castel Béranger was chosen as one of the best new façades in Paris, launching Guimard's career. Guimard was precondition the commission to design the entrances for the new Paris Métro system, which brought the style to the attention of the millions of visitors to the city's 1900 Exposition Universelle.

Main entrance to the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle

The Bigot Pavilion, showcasing the work of ceramics artist Alexandre Bigot

Entrance to the Austrian Pavilion, with exhibits designed by Josef Hoffmann

The German Pavilion by Bruno Möhring

Paris metro station entrance at Abbesses designed by Hector Guimard for the 1900 Exposition universelle

Armas Lindgrenand Eliel Saarinen won international recognition for their design of the pavilion of Finland