ART NOUVEAU Part 2:

Inspiration for the style was characterized by organic, flowing lines- forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants - as well as geometric forms such as squares and rectangles. This unity of flowing, natural forms with sharper lines made for the fashioning of Art Nouveau’s elegant designs. The key elements which composed and differed this style are the Floral and bulbous designs and “whiplash” curves – (forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants - as well as geometric forms such as squares and rectangles).

Quote: Hermann Obrist's wall-hanging Cyclamen (1894) described it as "sudden violent curves generated by the crack of a whip," (Yamauchi, 2011) 

The Art Nouveau movement was highly committed to giving equal importance to all types and forms of art.   Be it craft-based art – such as silver-smiting or furniture design with paintings and sculpture.  In the German speaking world (where Art Nouveau was referred to a Jugendstil) it was known as Gesamtkunstwerk "total works of the arts". The artists involved in Art Nouveau aimed at reviving good workmanship and raise the level of production.  They sought to avoiding excessively ornamental and frivolous decoration. Thus putting in the forefront that function of the object should dictate its form. This would be crucial for later movements such as modernism and the Bauhaus when it came to inheriting styles.

The Vienna Secession

The word Secession essentially means the unity of a group of individual professionals who get together to give each other more power to change, improve or divert from current situations. In Art Nouveau this was very wide spread and popularised as it was a collective of visual artists, sculptors, architects, designers, decorators, jewellery makers, specialised craftsmen who first combined together in 1897  to promote their work and organise exhibitions.  One of the most resourceful and prominent secessionist was the painter Gustav Klimt, who was one who tapped into early modernism with rhythmical abstractions and elaborate gold and silver leaf decorations in his paintings.  Two very popular works at Hope II and The Kiss (both 1907-08).

Klimt's paintings could very well embody what the movement was not about and perhaps how it also came to its demise. Art Nouveau's influence is evident in Hope II and similar works, but so is the over elaboration that, to many critics, this seemed like a betrayal of the movement's original yearning to match a work's forms to its function.       

As the Art Developed

The movements geographical reach and influence on various types of media was second to none. However, despite its popularity it enjoyed very few moments in which all artistic elements came together as a coherent whole.  This celebration can be most vivid and claimed as comprehensive during the Paris Expo 1900.    

The nearer towards the end of the first decade of the 20^th century, the more its popularity started to be abandoned.  In spite of its doctrine as mentioned previously of “form should follow function” which was central to its ethos, some designers began to break the code and tended to over elaborate its use of decoration. (as seen before with for example with Gustav Klimt). As the style mature any artists began to revert back to the very old habits it had initial scorned.   Ultimately, it had practically reverted back to swapping the old for the superficially new.  This lead to the style going out of fashion and making way to the birth of Art Deco in the 1920’s.

 

A bit about Alfons Mucha: 

“Mucha set the flora motifs moving away for cheret and Toulouse more subtle representations.  His dominant theme was a central female figure surrounded by stylized forms derived from plants and flowers, Moravian folk art, Byzantine mosaics, and even magic and the occult. Exotic and sensuous while retaining an aura of  innocence,they express no specific age, nationality, or historical period. His stylized hair patterns became a hallmark of the era in spite of detractors who dismissed

this aspect of his work as “noodles and spaghetti.”–

The further development of French art nouveau  pg.213 (Meggs & Purvis, 2012)

Bibliography

Meggs, P. B. & Purvis, A. W., 2012. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fifth ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc..

Yamauchi, S., 2011. Art Nouveau Style. [Online]
Available at: http://cefiro.main.jp/Art_Nouveau_Style.html
[Accessed 15 January 2015].