Influence of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants and flowers.

English uses the French name Art Nouveau (new art). The style is related to, but not identical with, styles that emerged in many countries in Europe at about the same time: in Austria it is known as Secessionsstil after Wiener Secession; in Spanish Modernismo; in Catalan Modernisme; in Czech Secese; in Danish Skønvirke or Jugendstil; in German Jugendstil, Art Nouveau or Reformstil; in Hungarian Szecesszió; in Italian Art Nouveau, Stile Liberty or Stile floreale; in Norwegian Jugendstil; in Polish Secesja; in Slovak Secesia; in Ukrainian and Russian Модерн (Modern); in Swedish and Finnish Jugend.

Art Nouveau is a total art style: It embraces a wide range of fine and decorative arts, including architecture, painting, graphic art, interior design, jewelry, furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass art, and metal work.

By 1910, Art Nouveau was already out of style. It was replaced as the dominant European architectural and decorative style first by Art Deco and then by Modernism.

Art Nouveau in France
Following the 1900 Exposition, the capital of Art Nouveau was Paris. The most extravagant residences in the style were built by Jules Lavirotte, who entirely covered the façades with ceramic sculptural decoration. The most flamboyant example is Lavirotte Building, at 29 avenue Rapp (1901). Office buildings and department stores featured high courtyards covered with stained glass cupolas and ceramic decoration. The style was particularly popular in restaurants and cafés, including Maxim’s at 3 rue Royale, and Le Train bleu at the Gare de Lyon (1900).

The city of Nancy in Lorraine became the other French capital of the new style. In 1901, the Alliance provinciale des industries d’art, also known as the École de Nancy, was founded, dedicated to upsetting the hierarchy that put painting and sculpture above the decorative arts. The major artists working there included the glass vase and lamp creators Emile Gallé, the Daum brothers in glass design, and the designer Louis Majorelle, who created furniture with graceful floral and vegetal forms. The architect Henri Sauvage brought the new architectural style to Nancy with his Villa Majorelle in 1898.

The French style was widely propagated by new magazines, including The Studio, Arts et Idées and Art et Décoration, whose photographs and color lithographs made the style known to designers and wealthy clients around the world.

In France, the style reached its summit in 1900, and thereafter slipped rapidly out of fashion, virtually disappearing from France by 1905. Art Nouveau was a luxury style, which required expert and highly-paid craftsmen and could not be easily or cheaply mass-produced. One of the few Art Nouveau products that could be mass-produced was the perfume bottle, and these continue to be manufactured in the style today. The Art Nouveau was succeeded by Art Deco (Art déco).

Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland
Belgium was an early center of the Art Nouveau, thanks largely to the architecture of Victor Horta, who designed the first Art Nouveau houses, the Hôtel Tassel in 1893, and the Hôtel Solvay in 1894. Horta met and had a strong influence on the work of the young Hector Guimard. Other important designers included architect Paul Hankar, who built an Art Nouveau house in 1893; the architect and furniture designer Henry van de Velde, the decorator Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, and the graphic artist Fernand Khnopff. Belgian designers took advantage of an abundant supply of ivory imported from the Belgian Congo; mixed sculptures, combining stone, metal and ivory, by such artists as Philippe Wolfers, was popular.

In the Netherlands, the style was known as the Nieuwe Kunst, the New Art. Architects included Hendrik Petrus Berlage, who designed a more functional, rational variant, while Carel Adolph Lion Cachet, Theo Nieuwenhuis and Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof designed a more picturesque and decorative style. Furniture design was influenced by the importation of exotic woods from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), while textiles were influenced by the designs and techniques of batik.

Prominent Swiss artists of the period included painter and graphic artist Théophile Steinlen, creator of the famous poster for the Paris cabaret Le Chat noir, and the artist, sculptor and decorator Eugène Grasset, who moved from Switzerland to Paris where he designed graphics, furniture, tapestries, ceramics and posters. In Paris, he taught at the Guérin school of art (École normale d’enseignement du dessin), where his students included Augusto Giacometti and Paul Berthon.

Modern Style and Glasgow School in Britain
Art Nouveau had its roots in Britain, in the arts and crafts movement of the 1880s, which called for a closer union between the fine arts and decorative arts, and a break away from historical styles to designs inspired by function and nature. One notable early example Arthur Mackmurdo’s design for the cover of his essay on the city churches of Sir Christopher Wren, published in 1883.

Other important innovators in Britain included the graphic designers Aubrey Beardsley whose drawings featured the curved lines which became the most recognizable feature of the style. free-flowing wrought iron from the 1880s could also be adduced, or some flat floral textile designs, most of which owed some impetus to patterns of 19th century design. Other British graphic artists who had an important place in the style included Walter Crane and Charles Ashbee.

The Liberty department store in London played an important role, through its colorful stylized floral designs for textiles, and the silver, pewter, and jewelry designs of Manxman (of Scottish descent) Archibald Knox. His jewelry designs in materials and forms broke away entirely from the historical traditions of jewelry design.

For Art Nouveau architecture and furniture design, the most important center in Britain was Glasgow, with the creations of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School, whose work was inspired by the French Art Nouveau, Japanese art, symbolism and Gothic revival. Beginning in 1895, Mackintosh displayed his designs at international expositions in London, Vienna, and Turin; his designs particularly influenced the Secession Style in Vienna. His architectural creations included the Glasgow Herald Building (1894) and the library of the Glasgow School of Art (1897). He also established a major reputation as a furniture designer and decorator, working closely with his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, a prominent painter and designer. Together they created striking designs which combined geometric straight lines with gently curving floral decoration, particularly a famous symbol of the style, the Glasgow Rose”.

Léon-Victor Solon, made an important contribution to Art Nouveau ceramics as art director at Mintons. He specialised in plaques and in tube-lined vases marketed as “secessionist ware” (usually described as named after the Viennese art movement). Apart from ceramics, he designed textiles for the Leek silk industry and doublures for a bookbinder (G.T.Bagguley of Newcastle under Lyme), who patented the Sutherland binding in 1895.

The Edward Everard building in Bristol, built during 1900–01 to house the printing works of Edward Everard, features an Art Nouveau façade. The figures depicted are of Johannes Gutenberg and William Morris, both eminent in the field of printing. A winged figure symbolises the “Spirit of Light”, while a figure holding a lamp and mirror symbolises light and truth.

Jugendstil in Germany
German Art Nouveau is commonly known by its German name, Jugendstil. The name is taken from the artistic journal, Die Jugend, which was published in Munich and which espoused the new artistic movement. It was founded in 1896 by Georg Hirth (Hirth remained editor until his death in 1916, and the magazine continued to be published until 1940). The magazine was instrumental in promoting the style in Germany. As a result, its name was adopted as the most common German-language term for the style: Jugendstil (“youth style”). Although, during the early 20th century, the word was applied to only two-dimensional examples of the graphic arts, especially the forms of organic typography and graphic design found in and influenced by German magazines like Jugend, Pan, and Simplicissimus, it is now applied to more general manifestations of Art Nouveau visual arts in Germany, the Netherlands, the Baltic states, and Nordic countries. The two main centres for Jugendstil art in Germany were Munich and Darmstadt (Mathildenhöhe).

Two other journals, Simplicissimus, published in Munich, and Pan, published in Berlin, proved to be important proponents of the Jugendstil. The magazines were important for spreading the visual idiom of Jugendstil, especially the graphical qualities. Jugendstil art includes a variety of different methods, applied by the various individual artists and features the use of hard lines as well as sinuous curves. Methods range from classic to romantic. One feature of Jugendstil is the typography used, the letter and image combination of which is unmistakable. The combination was used for covers of novels, advertisements, and exhibition posters. Designers often used unique display typefaces that worked harmoniously with the image.

One of the most famous German artists associated with both Die Jugend and Pan was Otto Eckmann. His favourite animal was the swan, and such was his influence in the German movement that the swan came to serve as the leitmotif for the Jugendstil.

One of the most prominent German designers in the style was Richard Riemerschmid, who made furniture, pottery, and other decorative objects in a sober, geometric style that pointed forward toward Art Deco.

Vienna Secession in Austria
Vienna became the center of a distinct variant of Art Nouveau, which became known as the Vienna Secession, an art movement that was founded in April 1897 by a group of artists which included Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, and Otto Wagner. The painter Klimt became the president of the group. They objected to the conservative orientation toward historicism expressed by Vienna Künstlerhaus, the official union of artists. The Secession founded a magazine, Ver Sacrum, to promote their works in all media. The Secession style was notably more feminine, less heavy and less nationalist than the Jugendstil in neighboring Germany. The architect Joseph Olbrich designed the domed Secession building in the new style, which became a showcase for the paintings of Gustav Klimt and other Secession artists. The architectural style of the Vienna Secession had an influence well beyond the city. Buildings in the style appeared in the other major cities of the Empire and beyond; one of the most famous examples is the Stoclet Palace built by Josef Hoffmann in Brussels in 1905–11. The interior is entirely decorated in Secession style, including notable paintings by Gustav Klimt.

Klimt became the best-known of the Secession painters, often erasing the border between fine art painting and decorative painting. Koloman Moser was an extremely versatile artist in the style; his work including magazine illustrations, architecture, silverware, ceramics, porcelain, textiles, stained glass windows, furniture, and more. He often worked in collaboration with Hoffmann and Klimt; the three together created the interiors, furnishing and even clothing to be worn in the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. In 1903, he and Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte, a training school and workshop for designers and craftsmen of furniture, carpets, textiles and decorative objects.

Secession in Central Europe
In the capitals of Central Europe, then ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Vienna, national forms of Art Nouveau are quick to appear, and often took on historical or folkloric elements. The furniture designs of Ödön Faragó in Budapest (Hungary) combined traditional popular architecture, oriental architecture and international Art Nouveau in a highly picturesque style. Pál Horti, another Hungarian designer, had a much more sober and functional style, made of oak with delicate traceries of ebony and brass.

Prague, in the Czech Republic, has a notable collection of Art Nouveau architecture, including the Hotel Central and the Jubilee Synagogue, built in 1908.

The style of combining Art Nouveau and national architectural elements was typical also for a Slovak architect Dušan Jurkovič who was under the influence of Hungarian Art Nouveau. His most original works are the Cultural House in Skalica in Slovakia (1905), buildings of spa in Luhačovice in Czech Republic (1901–1903) and 35 war cemeteries near Nowy Żmigród in Galicia (now Poland), most of them heavily influenced by local Lemko (Rusyn) folk art and carpentry (1915–1917). Another example of Secession architecture in Slovakia is the Church of St. Elisabeth (The Little Blue Church) in Bratislava.

Stile Liberty in Italy
Italy’s Stile Liberty took its name from the British department store Liberty, the colorful textiles of which were particularly popular in Italy. Notable Italian designers included Galileo Chini, whose ceramics were inspired both by majolica patterns and by Art Nouveau. He was later known as a painter and a scenic designer; he designed the sets for two Puccini operas Gianni Schicchi and Turandot.

The Teatro Massimo in Palermo, by the architect Ernesto Basile, is an example of the Italian variant of the style, architectural style, which combined Art Nouveau and classical elements.

The most important figure in Italian Art Nouveau furniture design was Carlo Bugatti, the son of an architect and sculptor, and brother of the famous automobile designer. He studied at the Milanese Academy of Brera, and later the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His work was distinguished by its exoticism and eccentricity, included silverware, textiles, ceramics, and musical instruments, but he is best remembered for his innovative furniture designs, shown first in the 1888 Milan Fine Arts Fair. His furniture often featured a keyhole design, and had unusual coverings, including parchment and silk, and inlays of bone and ivory. It also sometimes had surprising organic shapes, copied after snails and cobras.

Modernisme in Spain, Arte Nova in Portugal
In Spain, a highly original variant of the style, Catalan Modernisme, appeared in Barcelona. Its most famous creator was Antoni Gaudi, who used Art Nouveau’s floral and organic forms in a very novel way in Palau Güell (1886). His designs from about 1903, the Casa Batlló (1904–1906) and Casa Milà (1906–1908), are most closely related to the stylistic elements of Art Nouveau. However, famous structures such as the Sagrada Família characteristically contrast the modernising Art Nouveau tendencies with revivalist Neo-Gothic. Besides the dominating presence of Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner also used Art Nouveau in Barcelona in buildings such as the Castell dels Tres Dragons (1888), Palau de la Música Catalana and Casa Lleó Morera (1905). Another major modernista was Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who designed the Casa Martí and its Quatre Gats café, the Casimir Casaramona textile factory (now the CaixaFòrum art museum), Casa Macaya, Casa Amatller, the Palau del Baró de Quadras (housing Casa Àsia for 10 years until 2013) and the Casa de les Punxes (“House of Spikes”). Also well-known is Josep Maria Jujol, with houses in Sant Joan Despí (1913–1926), several churches near Tarragona (1918 and 1926) and the sinuous Casa Planells (1924) in Barcelona. A few other major architects working outside of Barcelona were Lluís Muncunill i Parellada, with a magnificent textile factory in Terrassa (Vapor Aymerich, Amat i Jover, now the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia – Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya)and a “farmhouse”/small manor house called Masia Freixa in the same city; and Cèsar Martinell i Brunet, with his spectacular “wine cathedrals”, housing town cooperative wineries throughout southern and central Catalonia. A Valencian architect who worked in Catalonia before emigrating to the States was Rafael Guastavino. Attributed to him is the Asland Cement Factory in Castellar de n’Hug, among other buildings.

The Catalan furniture designer Gaspar Homar (1870–1953), influenced by Antoni Gaudi, often combining marquetry and mosaics with his furnishings. Examples of Art Nouveau (Arte nova), based largely on the French model, appeared in Portugal in Porto and Aveiro, A notable example is the ‘Livraria Lello’ bookstore in Porto, designed by Xavier Esteves (1906).

Jugendstil in the Nordic Countries
Art Nouveau was popular in the Nordic countries, where it was usually known as Jugendstil, and was often combined with the National Romantic Style of each country. In Norway the Art Nouveau was connected with a revival inspired by Viking folk art and crafts. Notable designers included Lars Kisarvik, who designed chairs with traditional Viking and Celtic patterns, and Gerhard Munthe, who designed a chair with a stylized dragon-head emblem from ancient Viking ships, as well as a wide variety of posters, paintings and graphics. Other examples include the Skien Church (1887–1894) and Fagerborg Church in Kristiania (Oslo) (1900–1903).

In Finland, good examples are the Helsinki Central railway station, designed by Eliel Saarinen, father of the famous American modernist architect Eero Saarinen. Examples of the style include the Finnish National Theatre, Kallio Church, the Finnish National Museum, and Tampere Cathedral. In contrast to the very elaborate furniture of the Norwegian Art Nouveau, Finnish Art Deco was extremely simple and functional, as in the chairs designed by Eliel Saarinen (1907-1908).

World of Art in Russia
A very colorful Russian variation of Art Nouveau appeared in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in 1898 with the publication of a new art journal, “Мир искусства” (transliteration: Mir Iskusstva) (“The World of Art”), by Russian artists Alexandre Benois and Léon Bakst, and chief editor Sergei Diaghilev. The magazine organized exhibitions of leading Russian artists, including Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Somov, Isaac Levitan, and the book illustrator Ivan Bilibin. The World of Art style made less use of the vegetal and floral forms of French Art Nouveau; it drew heavily upon the bright colors and exotic designs of Russian folklore and fairy tales. The most influential contribution of the “World of Art” was the creation by Diaghilev of a new ballet company, the Ballets Russes, headed by Diaghilev, with costumes and sets designed by Bakst and Benois. The new ballet company premiered in Paris in 1909, and performed there every year through 1913. The exotic and colorful sets designed by Benois and Bakst had a major impact on French art and design. The costume and set designs were reproduced in the leading Paris magazines, L’Illustration, La Vie parisienne and Gazette du bon ton, and the Russian style became known in Paris as à la Bakst. The company was stranded in Paris first by the outbreak of World War I, and then by the Russian Revolution in 1917, and ironically never performed in Russia.

Moscow and Saint Petersburg have several prominent Art Nouveau buildings constructed in the last years before the Revolution; notably the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, which features a ceramic mural on the façade, The Princess of Dreams, by scenic designer Mikhail Vrubel; and the Vitebsk Railway Station in Saint Petersburg (1904)

Tiffany Style in the United States
In the United States, the firm of Louis Comfort Tiffany played a central role in American Art Nouveau. Born in 1848, he studied at the National Academy of Design in New York, began working with glass at the age of 24, entered the family business started by his father, and 1885 set up his own enterprise devoted to fine glass, and developed new techniques for its coloring. In 1893, he began making glass vases and bowls, again developing new techniques that allowed more original shapes and coloring, and began experimenting with decorative window glass. Layers of glass were printed, marbled and superimposed, giving an exceptional richness and variety of color In 1895 his new works were featured in the Art Nouveau gallery of Siegfried Bing, giving him a new European clientele. After the death of his father in 1902, he took over the entire Tiffany enterprise, but still devoted much of his time to designing and manufacturing glass art objects. At the urging of Thomas Edison, he began to manufacture electric lamps with multicolored glass shades in structures of bronze and iron, or decorated with mosaics, produced in numerous series and editions, each made with the care of a piece of jewelry. A team of designers and craftsmen worked on each product. The Tiffany lamp in particular became one of the icons of the Art Nouveau, but Tiffany’s craftsmen (and craftswomen) designed and made extraordinary windows, vases, and other glass art. Tiffany’s glass also had great success at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris; his stained glass window called the Flight of Souls won a gold medal.

Another important figure in American Art Nouveau was the architect Louis Sullivan, best known as the architect of some of the first American iron-framed skyscrapers. At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, most famous for the neoclassical architecture of its renowned White City, he designed a spectacular Art Nouveau entrance to the Transportation Building. The Columbian Exposition was also an important venue for Tiffany; a chapel he designed was shown at the Pavilion of Art and Industry. The Tiffany Chapel, along with one of the windows of Tiffany’s home in New York, are now on display at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida.