Art Nouveau

The Art Nouveau artists expressed a strong desire to break from traditional forms and define a new modernity, while going back to Nature and its symbols. Art Nouveau deliberately focused on the decorative arts, architecture and interior decoration. Flowing lines, arabesques, smoke or plant like volutes are the emblematic features of this style.

Art Nouveau appeared around 1890, during what is known as the Belle Epoque in Europe. The name came from Samuel Bing’s House of the Art Nouveau in Paris. Launched with panache in the World’s Fair of 1900, two artistic hubs developed side by side with specific products: Paris and Nancy.

In the town of Nancy Emile Galle (1846-1904) lead the way for Art Nouveau creativity: the Daum brothers, Louis Majorelle, Eugene Vallin and Victor Prouve were among the style’s great artists. Glass, in all its forms (cameo glass, stained glass windows, jewellery) was the key material of the style.

Emile Galle was strongly influenced by Japanese art. Japanese prints with their curves, their compositional freedom, their contrast between emptiness and form, and their flat areas of colour were a great inspiration. His passion for natural science inclined him to depict nature: shells, seaweed, butterflies, dragonflies, flowers filled his designed in which woman were also omnipresent. In 1884, Galle opened a furniture workshop. Louis Majorelle’s Waterlily and Umbelliferae designs were made there and were hugely successful.

 Art Nouveau created a real revolution in interior design: the walls, furniture, fireplaces became alive with dynamic, flowing, sculptural shapes. Lines dominated volumes, which gave a very graphic aspect to the aesthetics. Architecture was now seen as a whole, the interior design, the furniture, stained glass windows and lighting were all given equal importance. The inspiration for the style is a highly stylized nature.

 Other discoveries and influences of the times were the Russian Ballet of Serge Diaghilev which came to Paris in 1911 and ignited a taste for luxury and the exotic; African sculpture introduced whole new forms that inspired artists. This was also the period of Fauvism (Matisse and Derain) and Cubism (Braque and Picasso).

Large department stores like the Galleries Lafayette helped warm the public to the Art Nouveau style, which it first viewed with shock.

• photo 1: Wrought iron door, Parisian building.
• photo 2 : Metro entrance, Hector Guimard
• photo 3: Antechamber bench, composition by M. Leon Fagnen. 
• photo 4: Harp, music stand and stool, (wood, bronze and gilded leather), sculptor André Methey, architect A.Tassu.  
• photo 5 : Objets d'art, bronze, silver, décorative panel after an aquarelle by Jeanne Bogureau.