Art nouveau

The Art nouveau is an artistic movement of the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th century, also called according to the countries: Tiffany (according to Louis Comfort Tiffany with the the United States), Jugendstil (in Germany), Sezessionstil (in Austria), Nieuwe Kunst (in the Netherlands), Stile Liberty (in Italy), Modernismo (in Spain), Style fir tree (in Switzerland) or Modern Style (in Great Britain), although the majority of these styles slightly are different from/to each other. In France, the Art nouveau was also called by its detractors the style noodle because of the forms in characteristic arabesques, or the style subway , because of the Parisian metro entrances carried out in 1900 by Hector Guimard.

Beginnings

The theoretical bases of the Art nouveau appear in Great Britain, with the emergence of mobility Arts & Crafts and the theses of William Morris, John Ruskin. Enemies of the drifts of industrialization and the creative draining that it involves, they preach a return to the spirit of the medieval guilds, being studied of the natural reason, the use of purified forms: the regeneration of the company will be done only by the truth of the forms which surround it and it uses.

In France, the matter is less moralist and more rational: Eugene Purple-the-Duke does not reject modern material (iron in particular), but wants on the contrary to post it by giving him a decorative and esthetic function, with the Gothic manner of the structures S of the Moyen-âge. Paradoxically known like the leader of the Neo-gothic movement, Purple-the-Duke will be the inspirer of many architects of the Art nouveau. Some of its works, in particular its frescos painted with the Castle of Roquetaillade (1850), are perfect examples of the bond of filiation between the Néo-Gothique movement and the Art nouveau.

Thus in 1893 is set up with Brussels, by Victor Horta, the Hôtel Tassel, is regarded as the very first building Art nouveau, where the fluidity of spaces echoes the vegetable curves which invest ironwork, mosaics, frescos and stained glasses - elements as well structures as ornaments, in the most perfect line of Eugene Purple-the-Duke.

The expression “Art nouveau” is employed for the first time by Edmond Picard in 1894 in the Belgian review the Modern art to qualify the artistic production of Henry van of Velde. It passes in France, when, the December 26th 1895, it becomes the sign of the art gallery of Siegfried Bing, located 22, rue de Provence with Paris. Y expose great names of mobilities Symbolists and Art nouveau: in addition to van of Velde, let us quote Munch, Rodin, Tiffany or Toulouse-Lautrec. Borrowing a more solitary way, Hector Guimard makes figure of genius prolific and isolated, creating its own universe, the “Guimard style”.

But it is Nancy which will constitute the most beautiful whole of French Art nouveau, when, not wishing to remain under German administration after the annexation of the Alsace and the the Moselle in 1870, from Lorraine-annexed much pass in free Lorraine. The Art nouveau becomes there the means of expression of an asserted regionalism; Emile Galle, Daum Brothers, Jacques Gruber, and well of others, gives a base to the movement by creating the École of Nancy .

These authentic creators are quickly caught up with by the success of a fashion of which they are (involuntarily) the inspirers, and who triumphs with the World Fair over Paris in 1900, in particular in an invading bimbelotery (denounced by Bing and van of Velde) which will tarnish for a long time the memory of the Art nouveau.

Objectives

The Art nouveau is the fact of a generation of artists who leave their ivory tower to take in hand the decoration of the life and to cross with the exploitation of the styles of last in order to proposing an alternative to a official historicism which prevents the revival of the forms.

They is accordingly that the old materials as wood, the stone were elegantly married with the new ones like steel, glass. For each one of them, artists pushed their research to the extreme to draw the best. Thus the multi-layer molten glasses, the slopes of staircase with interlacing of ironwork, the pieces of furniture with the wood undulations made it possible to place art at the disposal of all at an accessible cost while keeping a will of formal innovation, inspired by nature. This art is all the same related to many patrons and is propagated in a middle-class élitiste medium.

Indeed, the reasons usually represented are flowers, plants, trees, insects or animals, which not only made it possible to insert the beautiful one in the dwellings but also to make become aware of esthetics in nature.

The use of steel also allowed the architectural evolution of the increasingly high buildings to carry out skyscrapers finally.

The art nouveau of course inspires the architecture of many Parisian buildings but especially that, sometimes very neat of many old villas in Meulière, construires for the majority at the beginning of the 20th century and which one can discover at the time of ballades in Parisian suburbs, in particular in the suburban towns of the Val de Marne, the Essonne and the Seine Denis saint. They are characterized by their audacities out of wrought iron, their earthenware and brick decorations, their pinions and sometimes their small towers. It is in these suburbs that French architects try out new materials and new styles inaugurating the Art nouveau which, in opposition to the Académisme wants to be total.

After the First World War, a new artistic movement will take the changing: the Art déco (1920 - 1940).

In the same spirit of rupture with the standard, certain artists Hippie (Bob Masses, Wes Winston) will take as a starting point the Art nouveau to create the psychedelic Art in the Années 1960. That goes from the similarities in the typography and the curves until the recolorisation of the posters of Mucha in version fluo.

Some major architectural works

The Art nouveau also left many works in the towns of Nancy and Brussels which was development centres of this movement. It is also interesting to note that Rīga contains the greatest concentration of Art nouveau in Europe.

Principal representatives

The Art nouveau is especially a movement spread in Europe but there exist also some developments with the the United States.

Here principal poles and speakers of the Art nouveau throughout the world:

In Great Britain, where the Art nouveau has its roots, Charles R. Ashbee, William Bradley, William Morris, John Ruskin with London, Glasgow form the precursors. It develops then in Glasgow with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, which formed with the sister of Margaret, Frances Mac Donald and Herbert MacNair, the collective of the “School of Glasgow” ( Glasgow School ) known under the name “The Four” ( Four ).

In Belgium, Victor Horta inaugurates the first buildings of the Art nouveau; it is followed by Paul Hankar, Ernest Blerot, Paul Cauchie, Gustave Strauven, Paul Saintenoy, Leon Delune, Philippe Wolfers, Jules Brunfaut, Gabriel van Dievoet, Gustave Metal worker-Bovy Victor Rousseau and well of others. The intellectual of the movement, Henry van of Velde, will develop his art in Germany.

In France, in addition to Hector Guimard, Paris enorgueillit of personalities like Rene Lalique, Strong Eugene or Samuel Bing. But the most coherent unit is consisted the members of the École of Nancy such as the Frères Daum, Emile Galle, Jacques Gruber, Louis Majorelle, Eugene Vallin…

With the the United States, Louis Sullivan, Louis Comfort Tiffany with New York and Chicago.

Alfons Mucha for the Czechoslovakia (Prague).

Jan Toorop and H.P. Berlage for the Holland.

Ernesto Basile, Raimondo d' Aronco, Giuseppe Sommaruga, Carlo Bugatti, Giuseppe Brega for the Italy.

Antoni Gaudí for the Spain, especially with Barcelona.

The Germany is represented by August Endel, Hermann Obrist, and Josef Maria Olbrich with Munich, Berlin and Darmstadt.

The Austria by Gustav Klimt and Otto Wagner with Vienna.

In Latvia (Rīga) and in Russia (Petrograd), Mikhaïl Eisenstein, architect and father of the scenario writer Sergueï Eisenstein

And the Norway had the fabrics of Edvard Munch with Ålesund or Trondheim.

Only center of Swiss Art nouveau creation in , the School of art of La Chaux-de-Fonds is represented by the Style fir tree. The first realization in this country, the house Sandreuter with Basle, is l´œuvre of Flora Steiger-Crawford.

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • lartnouveau.com of the artists and their works
  • szecesszio.com Art nouveau in Hungary

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