Synopsis

Art Nouveau was a movement that swept through the decorative arts
and architecture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Generating
enthusiasts throughout Europe and beyond, the movement issued in a
wide variety of styles, and, consequently, it is known by various names,
such as the Glasgow Style, or, in the German-speaking world,
Jugendstil. Art Nouveau was aimed at modernizing design, seeking to
escape the eclectic historical styles that had previously been popular.
Artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric forms,
evolving elegant designs that united flowing, natural forms with more
angular contours. The movement was committed to abolishing the
traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed so-called liberal arts,
such as painting and sculpture, as superior to craft-based decorative
arts, and ultimately it had far more influence on the latter. The style
went out of fashion after it gave way to Art Deco in the 1920s, but it
experienced a popular revival in the 1960s, and it is now seen as an
important predecessor of modernism.

Key Ideas
 The desire to abandon the historical styles of the 19th century
was an important impetus behind Art Nouveau and one that
establishes the movement's modernism. Industrial production
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 was, at that point,widespread, and yet the decorative arts were
increasingly dominated by poorly made objects imitating earlier
periods. The practitioners of Art Nouveau sought to revive good
workmanship, raise the status of craft, and produce genuinely
modern design.

 The academic system, which dominated art education from the

17th to the 19th century, underpinned the widespread belief that
media such as painting and sculpture were superior to crafts such
as furniture design and silver-smithing. The consequence, many
believed, was the neglect of good craftsmanship. Art Nouveau
artists sought to overturn that belief, aspiring instead to "total
works of the arts," the infamous Gesamtkunstwerk, that inspired
buildings and interiors in which every element partook of the
same visual vocabulary.

 Many Art Nouveau designers felt that 19th century design had
been excessively ornamental, and in wishing to avoid what they
perceived as frivolous decoration, they evolved a belief that the
function of an object should dictate its form. This theory had its
roots in contemporary revivals of the gothic style, and in practice
it was a somewhat flexible ethos, yet it would be an important
part of the style's legacy to later movements such as modernism
and the Bauhaus.

Beginnings
Art Nouveau (the "new art") was a widely influential but relatively
short-lived movement that emerged in the final decade of the 19th
century and was already beginning to decline a decade later. This
movement - less a collective one than a disparate group of visual artists,
designers and architects spread throughout Europe was aimed at
creating styles of design more appropriate to the modern age, and it was
characterized by organic, flowing lines- forms resembling the stems
and blossoms of plants - as well as geometric forms such as squares and
rectangles.
The advent of Art Nouveau can be traced to two distinct influences: the
first was the introduction, around 1880, of the Arts and Crafts

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movement, led by the English designer William Morris. This
movement, much like Art Nouveau, was a reaction against the cluttered
designs and compositions of Victorian-era decorative art. The second
was the current vogue for Japanese art, particularly wood-block prints,
that swept up many European artists in the 1880s and 90s, including the
likes of Gustav Klimt, Emile Galle and James Abbott McNeill
Whistler. Japanese wood-block prints contained floral and bulbous
forms, and "whiplash" curves, all key elements of what would
eventually become Art Nouveau.
It is difficult to pinpoint the first work(s) of art that officially launched
Art Nouveau. Some argue that the patterned, flowing lines and floral
backgrounds found in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Paul
Gauguin represent Art Nouveau's birth, or perhaps even the decorative
lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, such as La Goule at the
Moulin Rouge (1891). But most point to the origins in the decorative
arts, and in particular to a book jacket by English architect and designer
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for the 1883 volume Wren's City
Churches. The design depicts serpentine stalks of flowers coalescing
into one large, whiplashed stalk at the bottom of the page, clearly
reminiscent of Japanese-style wood-block prints.

Concepts and Styles

Although Art Nouveau has become the most commonly used name for
the movement, its wide popularity throughout Western and Central
Europe meant that it went by several different titles. The most well-
known of these was Jugendstil (Youth Style), by which the styles was
known in German-speaking countries. Meanwhile in Vienna - home to
Gustav Klimt, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann and the other founders of
the Vienna Secession - it was known as Sezessionsstil (Secession
Style). It was also known as Modernismo in Spain and stile Liberty in
Italy (after Arthur Liberty's fabric shop in London, which helped
popularize the style). It also went by some more derogatory names:
Style Nouille (noodle style) in France, Paling Stijl (eel style) in
Belgium, and Bandwurmstil (tapeworm style) in Germany, all of which
made playful reference to Art Nouveau's tendency to employ sinuous
and flowing lines.
Art Nouveau's ubiquity in the late 19th century must be explained in

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part by many artists' use of popular and easily reproduced forms such
as graphic art. In Germany, Jugendstil artists like Peter Behrens and
Hermann Obrist, among many others, had their work printed on book
covers and exhibition catalogs, magazine advertisements and playbills.
But this trend was by no means limited to Germany. The English
illustrator Aubrey Beardsley perhaps the most controversial Art
Nouveau figure due to his combination of the erotic and macabre
created a number of posters in his brief career that employed graceful
and rhythmic lines. Beardsley's highly decorative prints, such as The
Peacock Skirt (1894), were both decadent and simple, and represent the
most direct link we can identify between Art Nouveau and Japonisme.

The Architecture of Europe

In addition to the graphic and visual arts, any serious discussion of Art
Nouveau must consider architecture and the vast influence this had on
European culture. In urban hubs such as Paris, Prague and Vienna, and
even in Eastern European cities like Riga, Budapest, and Sveged,
Hungary, Art Nouveau-inspired architecture prevailed on a grand scale,
in both size and appearance. Turn-of-the-century buildings, like The
Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest and the Secession Building in
Vienna, are prime examples of Art Nouveau's decorative and
symmetrical architectural aesthetic. The arrival in the same period of
urban improvements such as subway lines also provided an important
outlook for Art Nouveau designers. Hector Guimard's designs for
entrances to the Paris subway (c.1900) are particularly fondly
remembered examples of the style.

The Vienna Secession

No other group of artists did more to popularize and spread the Art
Nouveau style than the Vienna Secessionists, the collective of visual
artists, decorators, sculptors, architects and designers, who first banded
together in 1897 to promote their own work and organize exhibitions
that resisted the conservatism that still prevailed in so many of Europe's
traditional art academies. Arguably the most prolific and influential of
the secessionists was painter Gustav Klimt, creator of such definitive
examples of early modernism as Hope II and The Kiss (both 1907-08).
The elaborate decorations in his paintings, including gold and silver
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leaf, and rhythmical abstractions, make them some of the most widely
revered examples of the style.

Later Developments
Despite its popularity - both in terms of its geographical spread and its
influence on the creation of so many media - Art Nouveau enjoyed very
few moments during its heyday when all artistic elements came
together to be recognized as a coherent whole. One exception was the
1900 World's Fair in Paris (Exposition Universelle), where the Art
Nouveau style was present in all its forms. Of particular note was the
construction and opening of the Grand Palais in 1900, a building
which, although in the Beaux Arts tradition, contained an interior glass
dome that clearly adopted the Art Nouveau decorative style. Other
exhibitions took place throughout the continent during this time, but
none could claim to be celebrating Art Nouveau in such a
comprehensive manner as had the Paris Expo.
If Art Nouveau quickly stormed Europe in the late 19th century, artists,
designers and architects abandoned it just as quickly in the first decade
of the 20th century. Although the movement had made the doctrine that
"form should follow function" central to their ethos, some designers
tended to be lavish in their use of decoration, and the style began to be
criticized for being overly elaborate. In a sense, as the style matured, it
started to revert to the very habits it had scorned, and a growing
number of opponents began to charge that rather than renewing design,
it had merely swapped the old for the superficially new.

Original content written by Justin Wolf

Key Artists:

Gustav Klimt
Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was the most
renowned advocator of Art Nouveau in Vienna, and
is remembered as one of the greatest decorative
painters of the twentieth century. He also produced
one of the century's most significant bodies of erotic
art.

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 Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was a late-19th and
early-20th-century English architect, furniture maker
and interior designer whose work was influential to
the Arts & Crafts Movement. Mackmurdo enjoyed
success at an early age, opening his own architecture
practice in London at age 28, and was involved in the
craft guild The Century Guild of Artist, which
encouraged members to participate in the production
as well as design of homes, furnishings and other
projects.

Arthur Liberty
Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty was an English merchant
and the founder of London's Liberty & Co, a store
that sold ornaments, fabrics and various art objects
from the Far East. Liberty's store became a popular
destination for artists and designers working in the
Art Nouveau style during the turn of the 20th century.
In fact, Liberty & Co's reputation grew to the point
where in some circles, particularly among Italian
practitioners of the style, Art Nouveau became known
as Stile Liberty.

Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Mucha was a Czech painter, designer and
illustrator commonly associated with the Art
Nouveau movement. Although largely forgotten in
the annals of decorative art, Mucha is perhaps best
known for his outspoken Slavic nationalism, which
greatly informed his work. In particular, Mucha's The
Slav Epic, a series of 20 large paintings depicting the
history of Czech and Slav peoples, survives as the
artist's greatest masterpiece

Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann was an Austrian architect, designer,
and one of the founders of Weiner Werkstatte, a
production company of visual artists. Arguably
Hoffmann's most famous work was his Art Deco
Palais Stoclet, a private home in Brussels, for which
Gustav Klimt provided some of the wall decorations.

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 Otto Wagner
Otto Wagner was an Austrian architect and urban
planner. His appraoch is considered part of the Art
Nouveau, or Jugendstil, style of architecture,
characterized by clean lines and ornate decoration. In
1897 Wagner became one of the founding members
of the Vienna Secession.

Adolf Loos
Adolf Loos was a 19th and 20th-century Czech-born
Austrian architect, and one of the key promoters and
designers of turn-of-the-century modern European
architecture. Loos' designs represented a unique blend
of classical Baroque-style ornamentation and modern
Art Nouveau aesthetics.

Antoni Gaudi
Antoni Gaudi was a Spanish Catalan architect, and
the most popular representative of the Catalan
Modernista movement, which combined elements of
Art Nouveau, Japonisme, Gothic design, and
geometric forms. Gaudi's design style has been
referred to as "global," indicating a profound
attention to every detail of his work, from a building's
structure and placement down to its smallest
decorative details. Gaudi's masterpiece is considered
to be the Sagrada Familia, a distinctly modern Roman
Catholic church in Barcelona.

Louis Comfort Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American glass
designer, painter and decorative artist, and
undoubtedly the American most associated with the
Art Nouveau movement. Tiffany's hand-made glass
designs, which used opalescent glass in various colors
to create a uniquely modern style of stained glass, are
very much synonymous with the aesthetic luxury and
opulence of the era. Tiffany's father, Charles Lewis
Tiffany, was the founder of Tiffany & Co jewelry,
and Tiffany himself was the company's first design
director.

Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley was a 19th-century English
illustrator and author. Beardsley's preferred medium
was black ink, which he used to create highly erotic,

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 grotesque and decadant drawings, much in the style
of Japanese woodcuts. Beardsley's work was part of
the Aesthetic movement, and was highly influential to
the subsequent Art Nouveau movement of the early
20th century.

Koloman Moser
Koloman Moser was an Austrian painter, designer
graphic artist, and a co-founder of both the Vienna
Secession and Weiner Werkstatte. In addition to
designing many book covers and the magazine for the
Secession, Moser was an incredibly versatile designer
who worked with jewelry, tapestries, blown and
stained glass, ceramics and much more.

Joseph Maria Olbrich

Joseph Maria Olbrich was an Austrian architect and
one of the founders of the Vienna Secession. In 1897
Olbrich designed and built Vienna's Secession
Building, which housed all of the group's exhibitions.
In his later years Olbrich branched out and began
designing furniture, pottery and musical instruments

Franz Matsch
Franz Matsch was a Viennese painter and sculptor,
and for a time, was one of Gustav Klimt's closest
collaborators during turn-of-the-century Austria.
Along with the Klimt brothers Gustav and Ernst,
Matsch was one of the leading ceiling painters and
architectural decorators working in and around
Vienna's Ringstrasse.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an Scottish architect,
designer, sculptor and decorative artist, associated
with the Arts & Crafts Movement, but is best known
as the United Kingdom's greatest proponent of Art
Nouveau. However, unlike many of his Art Nouveau
contemporaries in the field of architecture,
Mackintosh preferred simple design and economy of
form as opposed to ornate decoration. Mackintosh
was also a founding member of the Glasgow School
movement and the so-called "Glasgow style" of
architecture.

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 Rene Lalique
Rene Lalique was a French industrial and decorative
designer who is associated with both the Art Nouveau
and Art Deco movements of the late-19th and early
20th centuries. Known primarily as a glass maker,
Lalique created chandeliers, jewelry, vases, perfume
bottle, clocks and automobile hood ornaments, among
other decorative objects. In addition to designing
works for jewelers such as Cartier and Boucheron,
Lalique is perhaps best known for designing lighted
glass walls and other objects for the "grand salon" of
the SS Normandie steamship.

Major Works:

Artist: Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo

Title: Cover design for "Wren's City Churches" (1883)
Materials: Woodcut on handmade paper
Description: Mackmurdo's woodcut print is an example of the influence of English
design, and by extension the Arts and Crafts movement, on Art Nouveau. In particular,
Mackmurdo's use of positive and negative space, his abstract-cum-naturalistic forms,
and the trademark "whiplash" curves, are all characteristic of the visual and decorative
energy that would eventually define Art Nouveau. However, despite Mackmurdo's print
being commonly referred to as the very first work of Art Nouveau, its obvious differences
with later works still make it a key precursor rather than definitive example of the
movement's style.

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Title: La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891)
Materials: Lithograph

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Collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Description: Toulouse-Lautrec is not typically associated with the vast number of Art
Nouveau artists, but some of his later work deserves consideration as an example of the
movement's output. His late lithographic posters in particular bear comparison to the
Japanese prints that so widely influenced Art Nouveau. La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge
takes the flourish and messiness of a French can-can dancer's dress and breaks it down
to a few simple, rhythmic lines. The way in which the poster sacrifices spatial depth to
create a bold impression of linear surface design is also typical of the movement.

Artist: Aubrey Beardsley

Title: The Peacock Skirt (1894)
Materials: Ink illustration
Description: Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt, an illustration made for Oscar Wilde's 1892
play Salome, is comparatively polite in comparison with some of the illustrator's more
erotic, borderline pornographic, works. It is a fine example of how many artists
influenced by Art Nouveau laid great emphasis on surface design, often abstracting their
figures to produce the fashionable sinuous lines so characteristic of the style. One might
also take it as an example of how the formal vocabulary of the style could be used with
exuberant excess, a quality that would later attract criticism. The influence of Japonisme
on Art Nouveau is also evident in Beardsley's work. But this illustration might also be
taken as an example of the contemporaneous Aesthetic movement, and in that respect it
demonstrates how Art Nouveau overlapped and interacted with various other period
styles.

Artist: Odon Lechner and Gyula Partos

Title: The Museum of Applied Arts (1893-96)
Collection: Budapest, Hungary
Description: The Museum of Applied Arts is characteristic of both the Art Nouveau
architectural style (precise lines, ornate decorations and grand scale) and the
architectural style popularized by the Hungarian Odon Lechner, who was known for
infusing his designs with elements drawn from Hungarian folk art. Lechner was an early
representative of the Hungarian Secession, a fringe movement of the Vienna Secession,

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and his late-19th and turn-of-the-century work can be found throughout Budapest and
other eastern European cities.

Artist: Henri Delagne, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault
Title: Interior of dome of the Grand Palais, Paris (1897-1900)
Collection: Paris, France
Description: The Grand Palais, like many Parisian buildings erected during that time, is
a wonderful example of modern architecture finding its style. While it is in some respects
typical of older, Beaux Arts design, the architects' use of reinforced concrete and steel
framing, and the glass vault ceiling in particular, are all examples of attempts to find
modern solutions to old problems. The dome ceiling itself - reinforced with steel that both
supports and complements it visually - resembles a grandiose flower in bloom.

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Title: Hope II (1907-08)
Materials: Oil and gold leaf on canvas
Collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Description: With the exception of Picasso, no other modern artist could be said to
have produced so many definitive early-century works of art as Gustav Klimt. Known
primarily for his occasionally somber, occasionally ecstatic, but always visually luscious
paintings of women, Klimt's Hope II is an example of the artist's unique combination of
the figurative, the decorative and the abstract. Although commonly associated with Art
Nouveau, Klimt's paintings could very well represent the movement's demise. Art
Nouveau's influence is evident in Hope II and similar works, but so is the overelaboration
that, to many critics, seemed like a betrayal of the movement's original desire to match a
work's forms to its function.

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Artist: Hector Guimard
Title: Entrance Gate to Paris Subway Station (1900)
Materials: Painted cast iron, glazed lava, and glass
Collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Description: When Hector Guimard was commissioned to design these famous subway
station gates, Paris was only the second city in the world (after London) to have
constructed an underground railway. Guimard's design answered the desire to celebrate
and promote this new infrastructure with a bold structure that would be clearly visible on
the Paris streetscape. The gate utilizes the sinuous, organic forms that are so typical of
the Art Nouveau style, yet while it appears at first to be a single component, it is in fact
made up of several parts that could be easily mass produced in Paris. In effect, Guimard
had concealed an aspect of the object's modernity beneath its soft forms, a strategy that
is symptomatic of Art Nouveau's ambivalent attitude to the modern age. Ironically,
perhaps, Guimard's design was instrumental in popularizing Art Nouveau, and making
the style an important early stage in the evolution of modernist design.

Artist: Victor Horta

Title: Hotel Tassel (1893-4)
Collection: Brussels, Belgium
Description: Victor Horta's reputation as one of the foremost influences on Art Nouveau
is based in part on the Hotel Tassel, a townhouse he built for the scientist Emile Tassel.
Most distinctive is its decoration, whose curvy forms avoid the references to historical
styles that has been so prevalent throughout most of the 19th century. But Horta also
introduced innovations in the plan, effectively splitting the building down the center and
using modern materials to create a steel and glass-covered ceiling that let light down
into stairs and landings which link the rooms together. The Hotel exemplifies the Art
Nouveau desire for a total approach to design, since Horta designed every element of it,
from the mosaic flooring to the stained glass. As a feat of creation, it is stunningly
successful, though its rich embellishment made it less useful as a template for popular
design. Nevertheless, it is thought to have been an important influence on the French
designer Hector Guimard. In 2000, along with three other Brussels townhouses
designed by Horta, the Hotel Tassel was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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