|
Art Nouveau came into being in 1893 when Victor Horta introduced
iron and casting into the homes of the bourgeoisie in Brussels.
These industrial materials enabled him to breathe space into home
interiors, allowing air and light to circulate. By choosing to
decorate with abstract curves he was able to express the malleable
nature of metal, whose varied composition provided the decorative
theme of mural paintings and mosaics. He thus created a teeming
universe where lines expressed vitality, the power of plant growth.
Nature was one of the fundamental sources of Art Nouveau (or "new style"): theoreticians such as Eugène Grasset in his work "La plante et ses
applications ornementales" showed how motifs borrowed from nature
could be used in a logical way. The rediscovery of Japanese art in
the latter 19th Century led to a new perspective that would wonder
at the beauty of a wave, a kimono motif or the curve of a
courtesan’s neck. The fluidity of lines, asymmetrical compositions
without geometric perspective and delicate shades of colour created
a new ornamental vocabulary, freeing itself from historicism, from
the grand "carnival of styles" which prevailed for a large part of
the 19th Century.
The languishing and mysterious image of the female which haunted the
pre-Raphaelites became a decorative theme adopted in advertising
(Mucha’s posters) before appearing in architecture and the
decorative arts in the same way as plants or abstract lines. Art
Nouveau has two faces: that of a style appropriate to new ways of
life (lighting, hygiene, transport) and that of a quest to embellish
daily life (artists trained in the traditional fine arts devoting
themselves to the applied arts). The creators pondered the lasting
nature of craft production methods as well as the need to provide
industry with models of high quality in order to raise the
esthetical level of mass production.
Traditional products created by William Morris and Arts and Crafts
were costly and only accessible to the well-heeled. In Weimar or
Darmstadt, creators of Art Nouveau such as Henry Van de Velde or
Josef-Maria Olbrich were employed to revitalise the local industries
and increase the prosperity of the states that employed them. In
Vienna, the Viennese Workshops were wholeheartedly committed to
costly craft production in the belief that it was time for the
bourgeoisie to play its part in artistic patronage.
Art
Nouveau spread quickly throughout Europe thanks to photo-illustrated
art magazines as well as international exhibitions. The name
differed according to country, it was called "Modernisme" in
Catalonia, "Jugendstil" in Germany, "Liberty" in Italy or
"Secession" in Vienna or Prague. The Art Nouveau movement was to develop more quickly in
countries or regions which claimed greater cultural autonomy (such
as Catalonia, Czechoslovakia and Finland) or those experiencing
economic prosperity and distancing themselves from tastes dictated
by capitals (Glasgow or Nancy). The whole of Europe was to adopt Art
Nouveau to a greater or lesser extent because the style was able to
cohabit with forms inherited from the past. It was more often
dominant in new areas constructed to cope with increasing
urbanisation at the end of the 19th Century (Riga or Barcelona). The
Art Nouveau fashion was to diminish from 1906, disappearing almost completely during
the First World War.
Francoise Aubry, Curator of the Horta Museum, Bruxelles-Brussel
|
