ii Art Nouveau

El Paso Museum of Art January 23 – May 8, 2014

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Alphonse Mucha, Job, 1898.

rt Nouveau was an art movement that had an influence on many aspects of life between 1890 and 1910. This movement spread all over the globe. The style went by various names in

different countries such as Stile Floreale in Italy and Jugendstil in Germany. The increased trade and communication during the

nineteenth century between the east and west was responsible for the development of this new kind of art. Western countries benefited from

trade with the east because Asian art had different traditions that inspired western artists. Ukiyo-e, is a genre of woodblock prints. Considered art of the “floating world,” it depicted scenes of an evanescent world, impermanent, fleeting beauty and a realm of entertainments (kabuki, courtesans, geisha)

divorced from the responsibilities of the mundane, everyday world and had a major influence upon Art Nouveau. In 1895, Samuel Bing opened an art gallery in Paris called Maison de l’Art Nouveau. This place was

a center for the new art in this style to be displayed from all around the world. It was considered new art, or “Art Nouveau” in French, for

its fresh use of space, color, texture and unique linear quality, but most of all, for its inspiration from nature. Unlike in previous

art movements where the ornaments were just decoration, in Art Nouveau the ornaments became the most important features. Art Nouveau presented itself in different ways including graphic design, architecture, and glass.

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Art Nouveau had an influence on the graphic arts in the form of posters. At this time, there had already been major improvements in printing methods. Many of the artists during this period tried to capture what everyday life was like. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French representative of Art Nouveau; he broke a new ground when it came to poster design. Toulouse-Lautrec depicted Art Nouveau through the simplification of symbolic shapes and dynamic spatial relationships like the ones that are shown on his poster La Goulue au Moulin Rouge. Here, people become symbols of an abstraction of Paris nightlife. Another important exponent of Art Nouveau graphic design was Alphonse Mucha. Mucha was a Czech artist that grew up in the small village of Ivancice. Mucha began to make a name for himself in 1894 while working at Lemerciers’ printing company. It was Christmas Eve and he was the only person available that night to design a poster for an important actress of the day, Sarah Bernhardt, for her play Gismonda. The women that were depicted on Mucha’s posters had an archetypal sense of exoticism. These women belonged to no exact ethnicity, age or historical period. Although Mucha resisted the term Art Nouveau maintaining that “art was eternal and could never be

new,” he is considered one of the most representative artists of the movement. Another Art Nouveau artist, Eugene Grasset, devided his designs into zones and then unified them with the use of illustrations, type and organic decorative patterns like the ones shown on his Histoire des quatre fils Aymon. Page space was divided in to zones and then he unified it covering the whole page with his designs. The Art Nouveau influence in England is seen in works by Aubrey Beardsley. He was considered the “Enfant Terrible” of this movement because of his use of shockingly exotic imagery, his stark black and white pen line, and the distortion of the human figure, like in his design for the cover The Studio . Henri van de Velde, a Belgian designer, showed more ordered designs in his books. Van de Velde’s designs used only one column per page with ornaments on the top and middle, but these were very subtle unlike in other countries were they covered the page with ornaments and they became the center of attention rather than the text. The typography in his books is very ornamental and organic because of the way it flows around the page. These artists always found a way to make their compositions work even though they almost always had crowded designs.

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Mucha resisted the term Art Nouveau maintaining that “art was eternal and could never be new.”

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Alphonse Mucha, The Exposition of The Salon Des Cents, 1896 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Aristide Bruant, 1893 Alphonse Mucha, Gismonda, 1894 Aubrey Beardsley, The Studio, 1893Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Goulue au Moulin Rouge,1891

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ArchitectureArt Nouveau architecture consisted of free-flowing, sinuous compositions and was influenced by the late Baroque as well as by the Rococo and Gothic revival periods. Antonio Gaudi, was a Spanish architect who made this movement reach its high-est idiosyncratic expression. His Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona includes not only traces of Art Nouveau but also traces of different stylistic periods. Within this work, started in 1892 and still not yet finished to this date, there is a Gothic Structure on the façade which shows an array of grotto-erod-ed elements that flower together. Gaudi’s Casa Mila has sets of

rooms following the same organic design with no two rooms alike. Victor Horta, a Belgian architect was also a great inno-vator when it came to architectural design. Horta’s Tassel House in Brussels shows swirling tendril designs all throughout. He also exploited the use of iron on this building to create sinu-ous designs for the railing. Hector Guimard was another great architect of the Art Nouveau movement. Guimard’s most well-known designs are located in Paris. He was in charge of design-ing the metro entrances that are still in use there and in Mexico City to this day.

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Previous Page:Hector Guimard, Metro Entrance, 1899 – 1904Victor Horta, Hotel Van Eetvelde interior, 1897

In this Page:Antonio Gaudi, Church of The Sagrada Familia, 1882 Antonio Gaudi, Casa Mila, 1905 – 1907

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The art of glass also had a major presence during the Art Nouveau movement. One of the representatives of this move-ment was Emile Gallé. Galle’s designs were complete in ev-ery aspect from the shape of the vessel that was going to be used, to the smallest detail in the decoration that was going to be drawn. His Verrerie Parlante Vase and Rose de France de-pict flowers and birds that have been captured in their fin-est detail. Louis Comfort Tiffany was another glass designer during the Art Nouveau movement who became well known for his iridescent glass. Tiffany’s works both incorporated na-ture and played with color to end up with works of art that had organic forms and swirling lines. René Lalique was an Art Nouveau glass and jewelry designer. Even though Lalique focused more on his jewelry design during the Art Nou-veau movement, in 1909 he established his own glass studio.

Glass Arts

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In this Page:Emile Galle, Bat Vase,1904

Next Page:Emile Galle, Varrerie Parlante Vase, 1900Louis Comfort Tiffany, Favrile paperweight vases, 1900 Emile Galle, Cristallerie d’Emile Galle, 1920

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Art Nouveau, with its inspiration from nature, sought to cre-ate a new art, different than that established during the Victo-rian era. With great technologies already having been invented by this time, this era exploited them in the creation of new art. It was a brief but important movement that had a great impact on today’s art. There are artists today that still practice this style such as Adam Hughes and Jessica Hische. These artists adopt the principles that Art Nouveau was known for, like the use of organic forms. Art Nouveau has found its way into today’s art and it serves today’s artist so that they can express themselves in fresh and innovative ways.

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In this Page:Adam Hughes, Slave Leia, 2008 Jessica Hische, Power Plant

Next Page:Adam Hughes, Poison Ivy

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