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QUOTES
"Color in certain places has the great
value of making the outlines and
structural planes seem more energetic."
Antoni Gaudi
"Something impractical cannot be
beautiful."
Otto Wagner
"I discard the ower and leaf, but keep
the stalk."
Victor Horta
"I believe that everything in Nature
aspires to the acme of strength, well-
being, and happiness; and everything that
deviates from this I call immoral."
Henry van de Velde
"Those who look for the laws of Nature
as a support for their new works
collaborate with the creator."
Antoni Gaudi
"Our roots are in the depths of the
woods-on the banks of streams and
among the mosses."
Emile Gallé
"There are no straight lines or sharp
corners in nature. Therefore, buildings
must have no straight lines or sharp
corners."
Antoni Gaudi
KEY ARTISTS
Gustav Klimt
https://www.theartstory.org/print_new_design.html?id=art_nouveau&name=Art%20Nouveau&type=movement
Print movement page - Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Started: 1890
Ended: 1905
"Art is a line around your thoughts."
Synopsis
Generating enthusiasts in the decorative and graphic arts and architecture throughout Europe
and beyond, Art Nouveau appeared in a wide variety of strands, 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 owing, natural forms resembling the stems and
blossoms of plants. The emphasis on linear contours took precedence over color, which was
usually represented with hues such as muted greens, browns, yellows, and blues. The
movement was committed to abolishing the traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed the
so-called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture, as superior to craft-based decorative
arts. The style went out of fashion for the most part long before the First World War, paving
the way for the development of Art Deco in the 1920s, but it experienced a popular revival in
the 1960s, and it is now seen as an important predecessor - if not an integral component - 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 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 that re ected the utility of the items they were creating.
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 ironwork. 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 famous Gesamtkunstwerks, that inspired buildings
and interiors in which every element worked harmoniously within a related visual
vocabulary. In the process, Art Nouveau helped to narrow the gap between the ne and the
applied arts, though it is debatable whether this gap has ever been completely closed.
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Artist Page
Many Art Nouveau practitioners felt that earlier 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. In practice this was a somewhat
Arthur Heygate
exible ethos, yet it would be an important part of the style's legacy to later modernist
Mackmurdo
movements, most famously the Bauhaus.
Further External Info

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Arthur Liberty Beginnings
Further External Info

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Alphonse Mucha

Artist Page

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Josef Hoffmann

Further External Info

--------------- The Hotel Tassel famous staircase designed by Victor Horta. Completed in 1894.
Otto Wagner
The advent of Art Nouveau - literally "New Art" - can be traced to two distinct in uences: the
Further External Info rst was the introduction, around 1880, of the British Arts and Crafts movement, which, much
--------------- like Art Nouveau, was a reaction against the cluttered designs and compositions of Victorian-
Antoni Gaudí era decorative art. The second was the current vogue for Japanese art, particularly wood-
Artist Page block prints, that swept up many European artists in the 1880s and 90s, including the likes of
--------------- Gustav Klimt, Emile Gallé, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Japanese wood-block prints in
Louis Comfort particular contained oral and bulbous forms, and "whiplash" curves, all key elements of what
Tiffany would eventually become Art Nouveau.

Further External Info

It is di cult to pinpoint the rst work(s) of art that o cially launched Art Nouveau. Some
--------------- argue that the patterned, owing lines and oral backgrounds found in the paintings of
Aubrey Beardsley
Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin represent Art Nouveau's birth, or perhaps even the
Artist Page decorative lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, such as Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891).
--------------- But most point to the origins in the decorative arts, and in particular to a book jacket by
Koloman Moser English architect and designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for the 1883 volume Wren's City
Churches. The design depicts serpentine stalks of owers emanating from one attened pad
Further External Info

--------------- at the bottom of the page, clearly reminiscent of Japanese-style wood-block prints.
Joseph Maria
Olbrich Art Nouveau Exhibitions

Further External Info

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Charles Rennie
Mackintosh

Further External Info

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Rene Lalique

Further External Info

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Hector Guimard
Art Nouveau-style poster for the 1900 Expositions Universelle in Paris
Artist Page

--------------- Art Nouveau was often most conspicuous at international expositions during its heyday. It

Victor Horta enjoyed center stage at ve particular fairs: the 1889 and 1900 Expositions Universelles in
Paris; the 1897 Tervueren Exposition in Brussels (where Art Nouveau was largely employed to
Artist Page
show off the possibilities of craftsmanship with the exotic woods of the Belgian Congo); the
---------------
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--
1902 Turin International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts; and the 1909 Exposition
Henry van de Velde
International de l'Est de la France in Nancy. At each of these fairs, the style was dominant in
Further External Info terms of the decorative arts and architecture on display, and in Turin in 1902, Art Nouveau was
--------------- truly the style of choice of virtually every designer and every nation represented, to the
Emile Galle exclusion of any other.

Further External Info

The Regional Names for Art Nouveau
---------------

Entrance to Siegfried Bing's shop L'Art Nouveau

Siegfried Bing, a German merchant and connoisseur of Japanese art living in Paris, opened a
shop named L'Art Nouveau in December 1895, which became one of the main purveyors of
the style in furniture and the decorative arts. Before long, the store's name became
synonymous with the style in France, Britain, and the United States. Art Nouveau's wide
popularity throughout Western and Central Europe, however, meant that it went by several
different titles. In German-speaking countries, it was generally called Jugendstil (Youth Style),
taken from a Munich magazine called Jugend that popularized it. 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 Spanish, Modernisme in Catalan, and Stile Floreale ( oral style) or Stile Liberty
in Italy (the latter after Arthur Liberty's fabric shop in London, which helped popularize the
style). In France it was commonly called Modern(e)-Style and occasionally Style Guimard after
its most famous practitioner there, the architect Hector Guimard, and in the Netherlands it
was usually called Nieuwe Kunst (New Art). Its numerous detractors also gave it several
derogatory names: Style Nouille (noodle style) in France, Paling Stijl (eel style) in Belgium, and
Bandwurmstil (tapeworm style) in Germany - all names which made playful reference to Art
Nouveau's tendency to employ sinuous and owing lines.

Concepts and Styles

Art Nouveau Graphics and Design

Art Nouveau's ubiquity in the late-19th century must be explained in part by many artists' use
of popular and easily reproduced forms, found in the graphic arts. In Germany, Jugendstil
artists like Peter Behrens and Hermann Obrist 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 gure due to his combination of the erotic and the 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 Japonism. In France,
the posters and graphic production of Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre
Bonnard, Victor Prouvé, Théophile Steinlen, and a handful of others popularized the lavish,

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decadent lifestyle of the belle époque (roughly the era between 1890-1914), usually associated
with the seedy cabaret district of Montmartre in northern Paris. Their graphic works used new
chromolithographic techniques to promote everything from new technologies like telephones
and electric lights to bars, restaurants, nightclubs and even individual performers, evoking the
energy and vitality of modern life. In the process, they soon raised the poster from the ranks of
the pedestrian advertisement to high art.

Art Nouveau Architecture

The Vienna Secession Building as it looks today

In addition to the graphic and visual arts, any serious discussion of Art Nouveau must
consider architecture and the vast in uence this had on European culture. In urban hubs such
as Paris, Brussels, Glasgow, Turin, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Vienna, as well as smaller cities
like Nancy and Darmstadt, along with Eastern European locales like Riga, Prague, and
Budapest, Art Nouveau architecture prevailed on a grand scale, in both size and appearance,
and is still visible today in structures as varied as small row houses to great institutional and
commercial buildings. In architecture especially, Art Nouveau was showcased in a wide variety
of idioms. Many buildings incorporate a prodigious use of terracotta and colorful tilework. The
French ceramicist Alexandre Bigot, for example, made his name largely through the
production of terracotta ornament for the facades and replaces of Parisian residences and
apartment buildings. Other Art Nouveau structures, particularly in France and Belgium, show
off the technological possibilities of an iron structure joined by glass panels.

In many areas across Europe, local stone such as yellow limestone or a rocky, random-
coursed rural aesthetic with wood trim characterized Art Nouveau residential architecture.
And in several cases, a sculptural white stucco skin was used, particularly on Art Nouveau
buildings used for exhibitions, such as the pavilions of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900
and Secession Building in Vienna. Even in the United States, the vegetal forms adorning Louis
Sullivan's skyscrapers like the Wainwright Building and Chicago Stock Exchange are often
counted among the best examples of Art Nouveau's wide architectural scope.

Art Nouveau Furniture and Interior Design

Like the Victorian stylistic revivals and the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau was
intimately associated with interior decoration at least as much as it was conspicuous on
exterior facades. Also like these other styles of the 19th century, Art Nouveau interiors also
strove to create a harmonious, coherent environment that left no surface untouched. Furniture
design took center stage in this respect, particularly in the production of carved wood that
featured sharp, irregular contours, often handcrafted but occasionally manufactured using
machines. Furniture makers turned out pieces for every use imaginable: beds, chaises, dining
room tables and chairs, armoires, sideboards, and lamp stands. The sinuous curves of the
designs often fed off the natural grain of woods and was often permanently installed as wall
paneling and molding.

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In France, the chief Art Nouveau designers included Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Eugène
Vallin, all based in Nancy; and, Tony Selmersheim, Edouard Colonna and Eugène Gaillard, who
worked in Paris - the latter two speci cally for Siegfried Bing's shop named L'Art Nouveau
(later giving the whole movement its most common name). In Belgium, the whiplash line and
reserved, more angular contours can be seen in the designs of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy and
Henry van de Velde, who both admired the works of the English Arts & Crafts artists. The
Italians Alberto Bugatti and Augustino Lauro were well-known for their forays in the style there
Many such designers moved freely between media, often making them hard to categorize:
Majorelle, for example, manufactured his own wooden furniture designs and opened up an
ironworking foundry, which also produced many of the metal ttings for the glasswork put out
by the Daum Brothers' glassworks.

Painting and "The High Arts"

Few styles can claim to be represented across nearly all forms of visual and material media as
thoroughly as Art Nouveau. Besides those who worked mainly in the graphics, architecture,
and design, Art Nouveau counts some prominent representatives in painting, such as the
Vienna Secessionist Gustav Klimt, known for Hope II and The Kiss (both 1907-08), and Victor
Prouvé in France. But Art Nouveau painters were few and far between: Klimt counted virtually
no students or followers (Egon Schiele went in the direction of Expressionism), and Prouvé is
known equally well as a sculptor and furniture designer. Instead, Art Nouveau was arguably
responsible, more than any style in history, for narrowing the gap between the decorative or
applied arts (to utilitarian objects) and the ne or purely ornamental arts of painting, sculpture
and architecture, which traditionally had been considered more important, purer expressions
of artistic talent and skill. (It is debatable, however, as to whether that gap has ever been
completely closed.)

Art Nouveau Glasswork and Jewelry

Charismatic portrait of Art Nouveau glass designer Emile Gallé by Victor Prouvé (1892)

Art Nouveau's reputation for luxury was also evident by its exploitation by some of the best-
known glass artists in history. Emile Gallé, the Daum Brothers, Tiffany, and Jacques Gruber all
rst found renown, at least in part, through their Art Nouveau glass and its applications in
many utilitarian forms. Gallé and Daum's rms established their reputations in vase designs
and art glass, pioneering new techniques in acid-etched pieces whose sinuously curved,
shapely surfaces seemed to ow between translucent hues effortlessly. The Daum Brothers
and Tiffany also exploited the artistic possibilities of glass for utilitarian purposes such as
lampshades and desk utensils. Both Tiffany and Jacques Gruber, who had trained in Nancy
with the Daum Brothers, became specialists in stained glass that celebrated the beauty of the
natural world in large-scale luminant panels

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In jewelry, René Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Marcel Wolfers created some of the most
prized pieces of the turn of the century, producing everything from earrings to necklaces to
bracelets to brooches, thereby assuring that Art Nouveau would always be associated with n
de-siècle luxury, despite the hope that its ubiquity might make it universally accessible.

Retailing and Corporate Identity

Art Nouveau rose to prominence at the same time that retailing expanded to attract a truly
mass audience. It was featured prominently by many of the major urban department stores
established during the late-19th century, including La Samaritaine in Paris, Wertheim's in Berlin
and the Magasins Reunis in Nancy. Furthermore, it was marketed aggressively by some of the
most famous design outlets of the period, beginning with Siegfried Bing's shop L'Art Nouveau
in Paris, which remained a bastion of the dissemination of the style until its closure in 1905
shortly after Bing's death. His was far from the only store in the city to specialize in Art
Nouveau interiors and furniture.

Meanwhile, Liberty & Co. was the major distributor of the style's objects in Britain and to Italy,
where Liberty's name became nearly synonymous with the style as a result. Many Art
Nouveau designers made their names working exclusively for these retailers before moving in
other directions. The architect Peter Behrens, for example, designed virtually everything from
tea kettles to book covers to advertising posters to exhibition pavilions' interiors to utensils
and furniture, eventually becoming the rst industrial designer when in 1907 he was put in
charge of all design work for AEG (Allgemeine Elektrisitats-Gesellschaft, the German General
Electric).

Later Developments

If Art Nouveau quickly took Europe by storm in the last ve years of the 19th century, artists,
designers and architects abandoned it just as quickly in the rst decade of the 20th century.
Although many of its practitioners 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 super cially
new. Even using new mass-production methods, the intensive craftsmanship involved in much
Art Nouveau design kept it from becoming truly accessible to a mass audience, as its
exponents had initially hoped it might. In some cases, such as in Darmstadt, lax international
copyright laws also prevented artists from monetarily bene tting from their designs.

Art Nouveau's association with exhibitions also soon contributed its undoing. To begin with,
most of the fair buildings themselves were temporary structures that were torn down
immediately after the event closed. But more importantly, the expositions themselves, though
held under the guise of promoting education, international understanding, and peace, instead
tended to fuel rivalry and competition among nations due to the inherently comparative nature
of display. Many countries, including France and Belgium, considered Art Nouveau as potentia
contenders for the title of "national style," before charges of Art Nouveau's foreign origins or
subversive political undertones (in France, it was variously associated with Belgian designers
and German merchants, and was sometimes the style used in Socialist buildings) turned
public opinion against it. With a few notable exceptions where it enjoyed a committed circle of
dedicated local patrons, by 1910 Art Nouveau had vanished from the European design
landscape.

From Wiener Werkstätte to Art Deco

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Art Nouveau's death began in Germany and Austria, where designers such as Peter Behrens,
Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser began to turn towards a sparer, more severely
geometric aesthetic as early as 1903. That year, many designers formerly associated with the
Vienna Secession founded the collective known as the Wiener Werkstätte, whose preference
for starkly angular and rectilinear forms recalled a more precise, industrially-inspired aesthetic
that omitted any overt references to nature. This rei cation of the machine-made qualities of
design was underscored in 1907 by two key events: the installation of Behrens as AEG's chief
of all corporate design, from buildings to products to advertising, making him the world's rst
industrial designer; and the founding of the German Werkbund, the formal alliance between
industrialists and designers that increasingly attempted to de ne a system of product types
based on standardization. Combined with a newfound respect for classicism, inspired in part
by the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and given an o cial blessing by the
City Beautiful movement in the United States, this machine-inspired aesthetic would
eventually develop, in the aftermath of World War I, into the style that we now belatedly call Ar
Deco. Its distinctly commercial character was expressed most succinctly at the Exposition
Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925, the event which
would, in the 1960s, give Art Deco its name.

Postmodern In uences

Despite its brief life, Art Nouveau would prove in uential in the 1960s and '70s to designers
wishing to break free of the con ning, austere, impersonal, and increasingly minimal aesthetic
that prevailed in the graphic arts. The free- owing, uncontrolled linear qualities of Art Nouveau
became an inspiration for artists such as Peter Max, whose evocation of a dreamy,
psychedelic alternative experience recalls the imaginative, ephemeral, and free- owing
aesthetic world of the turn of the century.

Always recognized from the start as an important step in the development of modernism in
both art and architecture, today Art Nouveau is understood less as a transitional bridge
between art periods as it is an expression of the style, spirit, and intellectual thought of a
certain time frame, centered around 1900. In its search to establish a truly modern aesthetic, i
became the de ning visual language for a eeting moment of the age.

Important Art and Artists of Art Nouveau

The below artworks are the most important in Art Nouveau - that both overview the major
ideas of the movement, and highlight the greatest achievements by each artist in Art
Nouveau. Don't forget to visit the artist overview pages of the artists that interest you.

Cover design for Wren's City Churches (1883)

Artist: Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
Artwork description & Analysis: Mackmurdo's woodcut is an example of the in uence of
English design, particularly the Arts and Crafts movement, on Art Nouveau. The woodcut as a
genre points to the handcrafted, unique quality of the work and the simplicity of Mackmurdo's
use of positive and negative space both contribute to this association. Meanwhile,
Mackmurdo's abstract-cum-naturalistic forms and the trademark whiplash curves are
characteristic of the visual sense of free movement and energy that would eventually de ne
Art Nouveau. The emphasis on the oral and vegetal imagery adorning the cover which
refuses any real consonance with the professed subject matter of the book also highlights its
purposefully decorative quality, hinting at how Mackmurdo's work is of an experimental nature
rather than a de nitive, mature example of Art Nouveau. The woodcut proves far more
valuable than the actual content, which consists of a rambling, loose description of the
architecture of the Baroque London churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
Woodcut on handmade paper

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La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891)

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Artwork description & Analysis: Toulouse-Lautrec is one of Art Nouveau's most important
graphic artists who were responsible for raising the poster from the realm of advertising
ephemera to high art during the 1890s (the same decade that saw the establishment of
artistic magazines solely dedicated to this medium). Lautrec and his fellow graphic artists
understood that they were innovative, though the stylistic label "Art Nouveau" was probably
never applied to them until after Lautrec's death in 1901.

La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge takes the ourish and messiness of a French can-can dancer's
dress and breaks it down to a few simple, rhythmic lines, thereby suggesting the sense of
movement and space. The attening of forms to mere outlines with the at in ll of color
recalls Art Nouveau's debt to Japanese prints as well as the lighting in such nightclubs that
naturally would render the surface details of gures and other objects indistinct. Likewise, the
repetitive red lettering of the cabaret's name suggests the pulsating energy of the
performances for which dancers like La Goulue (stage name of Louise Weber, one of Lautrec's
friends) took center stage.
Lithograph - Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Peacock Skirt (1894)

Artist: Aubrey Beardsley
Artwork description & Analysis: Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt is an illustration made for
Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Salome, based on the Biblical narrative centered on Salome's order to
behead and serve on a plater the head of John the Baptist. (Salome was a popular subject for
many other Art Nouveau artists, including Victor Prouvé.) Beardsley's Salome is comparatively
tame in comparison with some of the illustrator's more erotic and nearly pornographic works.
It is a ne example of how many artists in uenced by Art Nouveau laid great emphasis on
line, often abstracting their gures to produce the fashionable sinuous curves 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 in uence of Japonese prints on Art Nouveau is also evident in Beardsley's work in its
attened rendition of form. 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.
Ink illustration

The Budapest Museum of Applied Arts (1893-96)

Artist: Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos
Artwork description & Analysis: Designed by Ödön Lechner, sometimes known as the
"Hungarian Gaudi," with his partner Gyula Pártos, the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts is an
example of the way that the Hungarian "national" strand of Art Nouveau (often called the
Hungarian Secession because of its closeness to Vienna) consisted more of an
amalgamation of various historical styles than a precise search for new ones. This building,
on a trapezoidal site, encircles a courtyard that is largely lled by a glass atrium to the rear of
the main facade. The forms used inside and out derive from a mixture of Islamic and Persian
architecture, as seen in its elaborate multi-lobed arches, as well as Central European-derived
baroque, bell-shaped domes and spires with onion-shaped carved nials. As with Gaudi's
work, the highly ornamental building, articulated everywhere by tilework, stained glass and
stone produces a lively, polychromed effect that keeps the viewer's eye moving and reminds
one of the harmonious unity of the applied arts here in creating a "total work of art."
- Budapest, Hungary

Entrances to Paris Subway Stations (1900)

Artist: Hector Guimard
Artwork description & Analysis: When Hector Guimard was commissioned to design these
famous subway station entrances, 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 entrances use the twisted, organic forms typical of Art
Nouveau that appear at rst to be nearly seamless, yet they are constructed out of several
cast iron parts that were easily mass produced, at Osne-le-Val to the east of Paris. In effect,
Guimard had concealed an aspect of the object's modernity beneath its sinuous continuity, a
strategy that is symptomatic of Art Nouveau's ambivalent attitude to the modern age.

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Guimard's design was thus instrumental in bringing Art Nouveau's otherwise complex, labor-
intensive designs to a mass audience for whom the style seemed like a symbol of
unattainable luxury.
- Paris, France

Ernst-Ludwig-Haus, Darmstadt (1900-01)

Artist: Joseph Maria Olbrich
Artwork description & Analysis: This is the centerpiece of the new Darmstadt Artists Colony
(Kunstlerkolonie), formed in 1899 under the patronage of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse,
an admirer of the Arts & Crafts movement. It was designed by J.M. Olbrich, one of the
Colony's founding artists, whom the Duke poached from the Vienna Secession. (Olbrich had
designed the Secession's exhibition building three years before.)

Like the Secession building, the Ernst-Ludwig-Haus is highly rectilinear, with a gleaming white
exterior capped by a gently sloping roof, set on the brow of a hill. This is offset by the arched,
centrally-located main entrance, delineated by its gold-plated, cloudlike geometric pattern
surrounding the doorway, which is fronted by Ludwig Habisch's twin male and female
sculptures personifying Strength and Beauty. The sloping skylights stretching the length of the
rear of the structure disclose its function as one of the rare Art Nouveau buildings designed
solely as studio space, and it served as the centerpiece of the opening exhibition of the
Darmstadt group in 1901. Although the Colony only lasted until the outbreak of war in 1914,
today the structure serves as a museum of their artistic endeavors.
- Darmstadt, Germany

Model #342, “Wisteria” Lamp (ca. 1901-05)

Artist: Clara Driscoll for Tiffany Studios, New York
Artwork description & Analysis: Table lamps are some of the most famous Art Nouveau
items produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany's rm. The model #342, commonly called "Wisteria,"
is one of the most prized. The bronze base resembles the roots and lower trunk of a tree, with
the leaded glass shade that appears like the branches of a wisteria at its crown cast in
bronze. These suspend the owering petals that appear to drip like drops of water, created
from nearly 2,000 individually-selected pieces of glass whose screen produces a warm, yet
soft glow, suggesting the ltering of sunlight. The irregularity of the armature at the crown
along with the border of the bottom of the shade add to the naturalism of the design, but they
also recall the in uence of Impressionism and Japonism on Art Nouveau, as wisteria are
native to both the eastern United States, where Tiffany was based, and to China, Japan, and
Korea.

Recently-discovered evidence proves that Model #342 was designed by Clara Driscoll, head of
Tiffany Studios Women's Glass Cutting Department and creator of over thirty of the
company's famed lamps, including the Daffodil, Dragon y, and Peony models. It thus also
represents an important moment for women designers at the turn of the century, who were
put in charge of a signi cant sector of the rm's production. Driscoll herself commanded
$10,000 a year as one of the highest-paid women of her time, until she was required to leave
Tiffany Studios when she married in 1909.
Leaded glass and patinated bronze

Hope II (1907-08)
Artist: Gustav Klimt
Artwork description & Analysis: Klimt's work, like Aubrey Beardsley's, involves the distortion
and exaggeration of forms and, often, highly sexually-charged subject matter. Unlike
Beardsley, however, Klimt is famous, particularly in his post-1900 paintings, for his frequent
use of gold leaf, often in concert with a kaleidoscope of other bright hues. This combination
helped create Klimt's signature mature style, often summarized as a set of dreamy, visually
luscious (and materially luxurious) paintings of women, sometimes real portraits but often
imagined or allegorical personi cations, including his Hope II. The nearly-surreal imagery of
exaggerated and attened bodily forms, highlighted by the emphasis on pattern and the lack
of depth and detached from a recognizable environment, underscores the way that Klimt
focused on creating a literal "new art" that was free from prescribed rules or principles. As a
founding member of the Vienna Secession, he rejected the tenets of academic painting under
which he had been trained. The shocking reactions that Klimt's work has provoked - during his
lifetime up to the present day - helps contribute to his renown as the most innovative Art
Nouveau painter and a master of modernism.
Oil and gold leaf on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

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Park Guell (1900-1914)

Artist: Antoni Gaudi and Josep Maria Jujol
Artwork description & Analysis: Antoni Gaudi, the foremost architect of Catalan Modernisme,
may be best-known for his work on the still-un nished Expiatory Church of the Sagrada
Familia in Barcelona, but his signature designs can be seen in dozens of buildings throughout
the city. One of the last projects that Gaudi, a devout Catholic, undertook before devoting
himself entirely to the Sagrada Familia in 1914 was a speculative hillside suburban
community for his chief patron, the textile magnate Eusebi Guell. The development displays
Gaudi's innovative design capabilities, even though the only homes completed were his own
house plus one other residence and the project is generally considered a nancial failure.

The park's design is thoroughly integrated into the landscape, with rough-hewn inclined
columns seemingly excavated out of the hillsides and covered by vines. The centerpiece
consists of a columned market space supporting an open plaza bounded by a serpentine
bench covered with a conglomerate of discarded ceramic tiles, called trencadís, a hallmark of
Catalan craftsmanship. The market is connected to the Parc's entrance by a grand staircase
with a tiled fountain sporting the face of a dragon and the striped Catalan ag. There, the
gatehouse and concierge's residence consist of rocky lodges crowned by irregular, conical
spires, appearing to be crafted out of gingerbread. The undulating forms, inspired by inverted
catenary arches, and brilliantly-colored tilework point to the collaborative nature of Catalan Art
Nouveau, involving teams of craftsmen specializing in different media and the reliance on the
honest treatment of ecologically-sensitive materials.

Related Art and Artists

Jupiter and Semele (1895)

Movement: Symbolism
Artist: Gustave Moreau
Artwork description & Analysis: This painting illustrates the myth that tells of the love
between Jupiter, the divine king of the gods, and Semele (the embodiment of that which is
earthly), who upon the suggestion of Jupiter's wife Juno, asks Jupiter to make love to her in
his divine radiance. Jupiter cannot resist the temptation of her beauty, with the
acknowledgment that she will be consumed by his light and the re of his divinity (he is
crowned with thunderbolts). Thus the painting is symbolic of humanity's union with the divine
that ends in death. However, as the artist wrote, "all is transformed, puri ed, idealized.
Immortality begins, the Divine pervades everything." Themes of death, corruption, and
resurrection all make their appearance. As in this painting, Moreau followed the example of
Wagner's music, composing pictures in the style of symphonic poems in their richness of
detail and color, although that same characteristic prevented him from emphasizing the more
modern aspects of Symbolism. The artist expressed himself in a more traditional style, but
true to Symbolism, meaning evolves from the forms themselves; humanity is small-scaled
and vulnerable in its eshy voluptuousness. The androgynous gure of Jupiter suggests the
isolation of the dreaming artist and the life of ideas. Moreau, central to any discussion of
Symbolism, contributed to the more literary aspects of Symbolism, choosing his subjects
from the Bible or, as here, mythology - at the same time that he was able to point out some of
the neuroses of the modern age.
Oil on canvas - Gustave Moeau Museum, Paris

L'Indolence (Laziness) (1896)

Movement: Les Nabis
Artist: Félix Vallotton
Artwork description & Analysis: Félix Vallotton's woodcut style was novel in its starkly
reductive opposition of large masses of undifferentiated black and areas of unmodulated
white. Vallotton emphasized outline and at patterns, and generally eliminated the gradations
of traditional modeling. In this work he was especially in uenced by the Japanese woodcut; in
fact, a large exhibition of these prints had been shown at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1890,
and Vallotton, like many artists of his era, admired and collected them.

As in this example, the gure is not individualized, but serves as an image of an idea -

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indolence. The mood is quiet and the overall effect somewhat decorative, but executed with
an economy of means. To the Nabi group Valloton contributed his work in the form of the
modern woodcut. The many woodcuts he produced during the 1890s were recognized as
innovative, and established him as a leader in the revival of true woodcut as an artistic
medium rather than as a mere means of reproducing a drawn or painted work. Vallotton's
woodcuts were widely disseminated in periodicals and books in Europe as well as in the
United States, and have been suggested as a signi cant in uence on the graphic art of Edvard
Munch, Aubrey Beardsley, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Woodcut on paper - Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany (1919-1925)

Movement: Bauhaus
Artist: Walter Gropius
Artwork description & Analysis: Gropius's complex for the Bauhaus at Dessau has come to be
seen as a landmark in modern, functionalist design. Although the design seems strongly
uni ed from above, each element is clearly divided from the next, and on the ground it unfolds
a wonderful succession of changing perspectives. The building consists of an asphalt tiled
roof, steel framework, and reinforced concrete bricks to reduce noise and protect against the
weather. In addition, a glass curtain wall – a feature that would come to be typical of
modernist architecture - allows in ample quantities of light. Gropius created three wings that
were arranged asymmetrically to connect different workshops and dormitories within the
school. The asymmetry expressed the school's functionalist approach and yet retained an
elegance that showed how beauty and practicality could be combined.

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