Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau, literally new art, a complex and innovative European artistic and design style of the last two decades of the 1800s and the first decade of the 1900s. It found expression in a wide range of art forms— architecture, interior design, furniture, posters, glass, pottery, textiles, and book illustration—and was characterized by its devotion to curving and undulating lines, often referred to as whiplash lines. The term Art Nouveau is derived from La Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a shop opened by the dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris in 1896.

Art Nouveau, traces of which are discernible in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and even in that of the 18th-century visionary poet William Blake, grew out of tenets consolidated by the Arts and Crafts Movement founded by William Morris in 1861. In the face of increasing mass-production, and the shoddiness of design and workmanship that inevitably ensued, the Arts and Crafts Movement sought to revive good design and honest handcraftsmanship. Taking up and elaborating the tenets of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau also sought to create a completely new style that, by contrast to the eclectic historicism of the Victorian era, made no references to the styles of the past.

Art Nouveau is characterized by long curving lines based on sinuous plant forms, and an element of fantasy. It was primarily a decorative style and as such was used particularly effectively in metalwork, jewellery, and glassware, and in book illustration, where the influence of Japanese prints is often evident.

The earliest examples of Art Nouveau are usually considered the work of the English architect Arthur Mackmurdo, particularly a chair designed in 1882 and an engraved frontispiece for a book (Wren's Early Churches) of 1883, both of which exhibit the sinuous flowing lines that were to become hallmarks of Art Nouveau. The fabric designs sold by Arthur Liberty in his famous London shop (founded 1875) and the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley—particularly those for the periodical The Yellow Book (1894) and for Salomé (1894) by the English writer Oscar Wilde—carried English Art Nouveau to its height. Annual exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, beginning in 1888, helped disseminate the style, and a new magazine, The Studio (founded 1893), helped disseminate it in Europe.

Art Nouveau first appeared in Belgium in the work of the architects Victor Horta and Henri van de Velde; their designs for townhouses featured elegantly twining wrought-iron staircases, balconies, and gates. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Glasgow architect, practised a spare, austere version of Art Nouveau style in his interior design, furniture, glass, and enamel work. In France, the style was most evident in the work of the architect Hector Guimard (particularly the exotic Parisian Metro subway entrances, 1898-1901), the glassmaker Émile Gallé, the furniture designer Louis Majorelle, and the poster artist Alphonse Mucha. It was also fashionable in interior décor, notably at Maxim's Restaurant in Paris. In Munich, as Jugendstil (German, “youth style”), and in Vienna, as Sezessionstil (German, “secession style”), it permeated applied art and magazine illustration and reached a peak in the paintings of Gustav Klimt and the furniture and architectural designs of Josef Hoffmann. In Italy, it was known as Stile Liberty, a reference to the shop established by Arthur Liberty that had been instrumental in disseminating the style on the continent. In the United States, the leading exponent of Art Nouveau was Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose shimmering Favrile-glass vases and stained-glass lampshades were fantasies of iridescence. In Spain, Art Nouveau had perhaps its most original practitioner in Antoni Gaudí; his highly idiosyncratic Güell Park and Casa Milá Apartment House in Barcelona have no straight lines and give the impression of being natural organisms that have sprung from the earth.

By 1910 Art Nouveau was in decline and did not outlive World War I, being succeeded by the sleekly elegant Art Deco style. It had never been a widespread style, since the best works were costly and unsuited to mass manufacture, but the style was rediscovered in the middle of the 20th century, with exhibitions held in Zurich in 1952, London in 1952-1953, and New York in 1960. Art Nouveau was a pivotal development in the history of art, particularly in architecture. By rejecting conventional style and redefining the relationship of art to industry, its practitioners helped prepare the way for the advent of modern art and architecture.