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"art may be beautiful
but art for the sake of progress is even more beautiful"
Victor Hugo
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Lalique
brooch
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Art Nouveau is French for
new art. The term was originally used in various articles
published throughout 1884 to 1890 in the Belgian avant-garde
publication Art Moderne.
The term was familiarised in France by the opening of a furnishing
and novelty shop in Paris in 1895 by the dealer Siegfried Bing,
named Maison Art Nouveau, which displayed furniture and new
designs for interiors such as glassware by Tiffany and Emile
Gallé, and exotic imported goods.
Known also in Europe as Jugendstil or ‘youth
style’, the art form began in the 1880s as a result of the Arts
and Crafts Movement, which rejected the mass-produced techniques
of industrialization. Art Nouveau developed a new style of exuberant
curving lines, assymetrical design and elements of fantasy.
It took on a wealth of different and at times conflicting orientations,
spreading to varying degrees to a number of major European cities,
such as Brussels, Glasgow, Munich, Nancy, Barcelona, and Vienna.
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A
Celtic Initial
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Its new linear patterns originated
in Arts and Crafts principles of design derived from the natural
forms of plants; but the sinuous curves of plants were incorporated
into the structure of the product, replacing those formerly
simple restrained shapes with flowing constructions.
The sources of Art Nouveau were diverse. Although
the movement sought to create new decoration and designs and
reject the backward looking trends of the past generation with
its reliance on historical design forms, it embraced traditional
themes as well as a broad mix of foreign and other exotic arts;
also incorporating designers continuing the Arts and Crafts
objectives of reconciling fine handcraft with industrial production.
Art Nouveau resurrected the interlacing lines of
Celtic art and the fluid arches and curves of Gothic architecture
in exuberant style, but the arts and artifacts of Japan were
the crucial inspiration - along with with the legacy of the
Arts and Crafts movement.
 The
practitioners of Art Nouveau borrowed motifs from Japanese wood
prints, which had an angular, linear look, incorporating the
grids and parallel lines of Japanese interior design depicted
in these images, as well as the sinuous, flowing lines of the
kimono. They were intrigued by the novel artistic vision of
the wood prints, with their simple pallette of colours and asymmetrical
outlines, and the abrupt angularity of the branching cherry
blossom tree. The elegant refined detail of craftwork evident
in these and other products from Japan gave a new aesthetic
input, feeding their desire for a new style -new decoration
for a new century.
The Arts and Crafts movement returned designers to the concepts
of craftsmanship, simplicity of decoration, and forms derived
from nature. But while the subtle use of ornament of Arts and
Crafts and the structural simplicity of its forms inspired designers
outside Britain, by the turn of the century historicism
or recreating a past style, became outmoded in favour of new
styles that were fresh and contemporary.
A spreading international community of designers,
linked by new design journals featuring the work and philosophy
of Morris and his followers, wanted to look forward; to express
the inspiration of a new century, a new age. Gothic revival
was replaced by a mix of influences from exotic other cultures.
The heritage of the Arts and Crafts movement influenced two
directions: design simplicity, removing unnecessary decoration;
and form -particularly of plants and flowers- derived
from nature. Its principles of simple and functional construction
led to The Modern Movement of the 1920’s, but the principles
of nature as ornament inspired Art Nouveau.
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Dresser
vase
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Christopher Dresser, a contemporary
of William Morris and John Ruskin, felt strongly that good design
could enrich everyone's lives. But unlike the two theorists
of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, who were largely disdainful
of modern manufacturing, Dresser enthusiastically endorsed it.
Using innovative techniques that included machinery, he was
able to produce modern, functional products at affordable prices.
A trained botanist and artist-turned-designer, he
used references to nature and botanical forms in his early work,
believing in an affinity between natural forms and those of
design.
His later work was characterised by a spare purity
of line and simplicity of shape, inspired by a visit to Japan
in 1876. Dresser's reputation for promoting Japanese arts grew
with the spread of the Anglo-Japanese style from Europe to the
United States, where his ideas were picked up by architects
such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The inspiration for his work came from an eclectic variety of
sources, and it has a sophistication and simple elegance that
shows Dresser to be one of the essential pioneers of modern
industrial design. His striving for simplicity was strengthened
after his visit to Japan and he avoided decorative ornament,
giving his products a distinctly modern profile, treating the
metals with electroplating and using modern techniques in manufacturing
to make his products affordable, attractive and functional.
Believing as he did that there should be no gap
between economic class, creativity and true artistic sensibility,
Dresser's influence on later developments in industrial design
was profound. While not a follower of the Art Nouveau movement,
he was an early advocate of Japanese aesthetics and influenced
the work of designers in Austria and Germany, where Art Nouveau
evolved into a more durable aesthetic.
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Knox
'cymric' jewellery box.
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Stylized motifs, refined surfaces
and sweeping lines were innovations also in the work of Archibald
Knox and Charles Robert Ashbee, who created designs for international
retailers such as Tiffany’s in New York and Liberty’s in London.
Knox was much inspired by the interlaced patterns
of Celtic art. An associate of Christopher Dresser, he was an
authority on Celtic ornament and a major figure in the revival
of Celtic arts and literature of the 1890s. He produced fine
metalwork with interlace pattern and enamel.
Liberty, a department store, was set up to educate
public taste, not follow current fashions and it introduced
imported goods from Japan,as well as the work of Ashbee, Knox,
and Dresser. This association broke the link with the socialist
ideals of the movement and spread their work to an international
audience.
Ignoring the social theories behind Arts and Crafts style, the
Art Nouveau movement increasingly viewed finely crafted objects
as things of beauty in themselves. Art Nouveau took the Arts
and Crafts ‘unity across disciplines’ ideal of unity and harmony
across the various fine arts and crafts media and effectively
made it happen as the style was adopted throughout the visual
and applied arts. But while it created a new sense of unity
across the arts, it removed itself from the Arts and Crafts
principle of beautiful things created for all people, and remained
in its pure form exclusive and expensive, with its emphasis
on finely hand-worked production.
 Originating
in France as a decorative art movement in the 1880s and evolving
to different forms up to 1914, it is remembered mainly for its
richly ornamental, and assymetrical use of of whiplash lines
reminiscent of twining plants and organic forms. It reached
its highpoint at the 1900 trade fair, the Paris Exposition Universelle.
"Lean upon the staff of line - line determinative,
line emphatic, line delicate, line expressive, line controlling
and uniting."
These words are from Walter Crane, the British book designer,
whose style was an early manifestation and inspiration for the
twining, plant-like forms of Art Nouveau, but who rejected this
stylistic exuberance that soon began to dominate.
Familiar motifs of the style included curvilinear
elements, sinuous contours, use of tendrils and floral arabesques,
whiplash lines, and later, exaggerated embellishment. Art Nouveau,
with its emphasis on decoration, responded well to inlaid wood
veneers, wrought iron and exquisitely coloured glass. Its themes,
particularly in France were symbolic and sensual, "from the
darkness into the light" a theme often recurring, with its associations
of plants, movement and regeneration.
The reason for the development of the Art Nouveau movement was
also the cause of its demise. By the turn of the century the
costs involved in producing Art Nouveau pieces were very high.
The craftsmanship needed to create intricately constructed pieces
was prohibitive and the designs were unsuited to manufacture
on a large scale.
In its pure form in France, the exuberant linear
style had run its course by 1905, but elsewhere in Europe in
a more restrained manifestation it was more enduring, adopting
a prophetic and intellectual energy as it pointed towards modernism.
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Hoffman
clock
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Spreading to Belgium, Germany and
Austria, it evolved into a more geometric style, using motifs
from nature in abstract fashion, particularly in the work of
Josef Hoffmann, and the Wiener Werkstatte. Rejecting the more
'beautiful' aesthetic of French Art Nouveau and substituting
a cooler, restrained style in tune with Arts and Crafts aesthetics
of simplicity and understatement, he combined this with the
elegant, geometric style of Japanese design and architecture,
taking the lead from Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Christopher
Dresser.
This restrained geometric aesthetic of Viennese
and German Art Nouveau was shortly to become the characteristic
of Modernist productions.
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CR
Mackintosh poster design
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A major international influence
at the time was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who rose to become
the leader of the Art Nouveau movement in Scotland, and the
creator of some of the most enduring work of the period. From
an early age, Mackintosh was determined to become an architect,
and from the start he was an innovator, his earliest designs
incorporating 'structural' objects into a decorative design.
This was evident in his major work, the Glasgow School of Art,
which is acknowledged as a forerunner of the Modern Movement.
In addition to his architectural genius, he was
an accomplished interior designer. Guided by the principles
of William Morris, in his native Scotland he had a strong belief
in the contemporary relevance of Scottish architectural traditions
and frequently used them as starting-points for his own designs.
Vertical forms, pale colours and austere linear patterns were
the hallmarks of his work and in the design community of the
time he was huge.
In 1898 he designed the Glasgow tea rooms, and the
fittings of these and other tea-rooms (restaurants) aroused
great interest, particularly in continental Europe. Spare and
elegant, these designs were a fusion of Arts and Crafts, Japananese
aesthetic, and Celtic art.
Throughout this period, Mackintosh was also designing a variety
of pieces of furniture and other art objects for a range of
clients. His furniture was usually painted white with stylized
flower patterns, avoiding the excesses of Art Nouveau style
in its restraint.
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Margaret
MacDonald poster design for the Vienna Exhibition
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In 1900 Mackintosh married
Margaret MacDonald, a former Glasgow School of Art student.
Already linked by their similar artistic interests they had
established an international reputation as members of 'The Glasgow
Four'. In Austria, the avant-garde Secessionist movement
adopted their work, with its simplification and functionalism.
Mackintosh in 1901 furnished and decorated a room
at Vienna's 8th Secessionist Exhibition, followed by further
exhibitions at Munich, Turin and elsewhere. Much interest was
generated by these continental exhibitions, and wide coverage
given to his work in foreign publications, where his work was
more appreciated than in Britain. Visited by Josef Hoffmann
at this time, his rectangular geometric style was developed
further in Austria, in Hoffmann’s Weiner Werkstatte where
the exuberant decorative flourish of Art Nouveau was replaced
by the more restrained geometry of Mackintosh.
Art Nouveau in France flourished between 1895 and 1905. The
Paris Great Exhibition of 1900 marked both the movement's peak
(1900 style) and the first signs of decline which would later
be confirmed at the Turin Exhibition in 1902. While the movement
began in Paris, within a short time under the guidance of Emile
Gallé, Nancy became the home of French Art Nouveau. Thanks
to his growing reputation and his enthusiasm for communication,
he soon drew followers among the artists and young industrialists
of Nancy and in 1901 founded the École de Nancy, a school
of art whose aims were 'to revive the artistic professions that
have died out and become forgotten trades...and to encourage
their revival everywhere.'
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Galle
lamp
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Louis Majorelle took over artistic
management of his father's cabinetmakers workshop. Under Gallé’s
influence he also adopted nature’s forms in the decoration and
structure of his furniture. Emile Gallé soon asserted
his talents as an original creator of glassware; engaged in
research and experimentation, ranging widely for his sources.
A master glassmaker, his work reflected his passion for nature
and especially botany. Another producer of glassware was Louis
Comfort Tiffany in America who, instead of the naturalistic
motifs of Gallé created abstract designs; mosaic-like
in their patterns of coloured glass pieces combined with bronze.
This interest in decorative arts was accompanied by debates
between artists, architects, designers and sometimes industrialists.
The full range of concepts was widely broadcast by exhibition
catalogues, or sometimes works, but for the most part by the
many publications which were often European in outlook. Aspects
of industrial design questioned by Art Nouveau heralded major
issues that would be addressed in the 20th century; namely,
ornaments and functionalism, and design and production. While
it tried nobly to reconcile art and industry, it was essentially
an artists' style and failed to satisfy the demands of mass
production.
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Van
de Velde chair
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The Belgian Art Nouveau movement
was led by Henry Van de Velde who along with the Austrian Hoffmann,
developed a prototype for modernism. He moved to Berlin in 1900
and became director of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts,
which was later to become the Bauhaus. Van de Velde was
one of the foremost theorists and practitioners of the Art Nouveau
style in Europe, and produced work for Bing’s shop. He believed
in the need to bring art and industry closer together for the
benefit of all people, as proposed earlier in England by William
Morris. This was seen to guide and inspire him in all his creative
pursuits. He developed his own special form-language, which
used abstract curvilinear shapes.
Another Belgian was Victor Horta, an architect and interior
designer. Like Van de Velde he pursued an abstract, curvilinear
approach infused with elegance and delicacy, and with frequent
use of the organic forms which recur throughout much of international
Art Nouveau. He was the most acclaimed architect of the Art
Nouveau style in Belgium, using whiplash linear form and swirling
convoluted patterns in the ironwork balustrades and mosaic tiled
floors of the Hotel Tassel in Brussels.
Horta also produced furniture and textiles and his
dual role as an artist/craftsman expressed one of the fundamental
principles of Art Nouveau, the unification of the arts and crafts.
He and Van de Velde had single handedly made Brussels the most
important city for the new style.
In Berlin, Van de Velde joined the Deutscher Werkbund
as an associate. It was formed by Hermann Muthesius after careful
study of the British Arts and Crafts movement, and set it’s
goal to: ‘improve industrial products through the combined efforts
of artists, industry and craftsmen’.
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Behrens
electric kettle for AEG
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To
this end it concentrated on designs for industrial production.
Its ‘standardisation’ ethic was opposed by Van de Velde who
saw no room in its collectivist approach for individual, artistic
temperament. The Werkbund included among its members Peter Behrens
who became chief architect of the AEG company in 1906, designing
its buildings, its advertising posters and its products, including
electric kettles. Originally a Jugendstil, or Art Nouveau graphic
artist, Behrens distanced himself from the sinuous lines of
his Jugendstil phase, substituting abstract, geometric shapes
expressing a machine aesthetic.
Another founding member of the Werkbund was Richard Riemerschmid
who designed machine-made and hand-finished furniture. An architect
and industrial designer, his work was characterised by well-proportioned
designs, functional, but with a simple elegance. Some of it
is still in production.
In Austria the Wiener Werkstätte or Vienna
Workshop, was a direct offshoot from the Vienna Secession, which
was a coalition of progressive artists and designers which gave
equal status to the fine and applied arts in its exhibitions.
This was a breakthrough which confirmed a changing attitude
by the European avant-garde towards design.
Henry van de Velde also called for the unification of art. He
wished to see the re-evaluation of the role of craftsman and
designer; the recognition that we are able:
"to impress beauty upon every aspect of our lives,
that the artist should no longer simply paint pictures, but
rather create whole rooms, or even whole dwellings, with wallpapers
and furniture as well as paintings".
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Koloman
Moser writing desk |
This reappraisal of
the status of the applied arts became a fundamental issue in
the Secessionist movement. Realizing the need to find craftsmen
who shared their high standards and objectives if quality designs
were to be realised, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser co-founded
the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903, modelling the concept
after Charles Robert Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, and produced
in its early days, works in Hoffmann's geometric style.
In an age dominated by second-rate production and imitation
of the past, the Werkstätte saw its duty to eliminate familiar
historical and naturalistic motifs in design, while simultaneously
reviving high standards of craftsmanship. Taking his lead from
the English Arts and Crafts Movement, Hoffmann described the
foundation of the Wiener Werkstätte as:
"part of a continuous process of development extending
from John Ruskin and William Morris to the present day."
 Hoffmann
and Moser closely collaborated on the early designs for the
Weiner Werkstatte. Occasionally their designs are indistinguishable.
Both enjoyed contrasting black and white color schemes and the
play of bold, dramatic forms with decorative elements of extreme
subtlety and refinement.
Their severely rectilinear designs dominated production
through the early years of the Werkstätte and are notable
for their geometric refinement and elegant simplicity; an antidote
to the ornament derived from historical models and the exuberance
found in continental Art Nouveau.
This turn towards simplification was influenced by Charles Rennie
Mackintosh who had a strong formal impact on Hoffmann's early
work.
Together, their geometric approaches helped to
supercede the style of Art Nouveau because their new rectilinear
aesthetic did not accomodate its naturalistic flourishes.
They were Modern.. |
