Art Nouveau. Jean Lahor

Museum of Modern Art, New York.

      The reform of architecture and decorative art in England was therefore national at first. This is not immediately obvious, however, in the work of Morris. But it was the fundamental inclination of this artist and (whether consciously or not) of those in his orbit, who like him passionately embraced English art and history as their own. It meant a return to profiles, colours, and forms that were no longer Greek, Latin, or Italian: an art that was English rather than classical.

      Along with wallpaper and tapestries there was truly English furniture being designed that was new and modern, often with superb lines, and English interiors often displayed decorative ensembles with equally superb layouts, configurations, and colours.

      Finally, throughout England, there was a desire to go back and redo everything from overall structural ornamentation, the house, and furniture, right down to the humblest domestic object. At one point even a hospital was decorated, an idea retained by the English and later adopted in France.

      From England, the movement spread to neighbouring Belgium.

      Belgium: The Flowering of Art Nouveau

      Belgium has long recognised the talent of its most famous architect, Victor Horta, along with that of Paul Hankar and Henry Van de Velde, and the furniture maker and decorator Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, one of the founders of the Liège School. Art Nouveau owes much to these four artists, who were less conservative than their Flemish counterparts and mostly unassociated with any tradition whatsoever. Horta, Van de Velde, and Hankar introduced novelties to their art that were carefully studied and freely reproduced by foreign architects, which brought great renown to the Belgians, even though the reproductions were executed with slightly less confidence and a somewhat heavier hand.

      These four had a great impact. Unfortunately, much of their impact was due to students and copyists (as is often the case with masters) who were sometimes immoderate, exhibiting a taste that comprised the masters. This first became noticeable in relation to Horta and Hankar, even though Horta and Hankar had initially employed their decorative vocabulary of flexible lines, undulating like ribbons of algae or broken and coiling like the linear caprices of ancient ornamentalists, with restraint, distributing it with precision and in moderation. Among imitators, however, the lines grew wild, making the leap from ironwork and a few wall surfaces to overrun the whole house and all its furniture. The result was seen in torsions, in dances forming a delirium of curves, obsessive in appearance and often torture to the eyes. The love of tradition was not as strong in Belgium as it was in England and Belgian artists were preoccupied with discovering new and comfortable interior designs. However successfully they met that challenge, however pleasing the interior arrangements, however unexpected the curves seemed, the new decor still had to be enlivened to satisfy the Flemish taste for abundance and elaborate decoration.

      Serrurier-Bovy started by imitating English furniture, but eventually his own personality emerged. Nevertheless, his creations, which for the most part excelled in novelty, generally remained more restrained than the work of subsequent Belgian artists. These Belgians were no less talented and imaginative but, in order to make their work more impressive, they exaggerated linear decoration in the leitmotif of the line. Curved, broken, or cursive, in the form of the whiplash, zigzag, or dash, the leitmotif of the line would reach a level of contagion by the 1900 Universal Exposition.

      Walter Crane, Swans, wall paper design, 1875.

      Gouache and watercolour, 53.1 × 53 cm.

      Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

      Victor Horta, Solvay House, view from main salon, 1895.

      Brussels.

      © 2007 – Victor Horta/Droits SOFAM – Belgique

      Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, Pedestal, 1897.

      Congolese rosewood.

      Norwest Corporation, Minneapolis.

      Henry Van de Velde, Desk, 1900–1902.

      Wood.

      Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna.

      Charles Plumet and Tony Selmersheim, Dressing Table, 1900.

      Wood, padauk and bronze.

      Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

      If we linger over the Belgian artists, it is because of the important role they played in the renewal of the decorative arts, especially furniture.[5] In this, Belgium, for better or worse, deserves as much credit as England. From England and Belgium the movement then extended to the northern countries and to France, the United States and Germany.

      It is true that Germany needed these decorations to help make its Art Nouveau pillars and its geometric furniture decorated with rigid mouldings borrowed from ancient Greek monuments more palpable. (Remember it was only fifty years ago that King Louis of Bavaria had made his capital Munich as Greek as possible).

      Displaying the individual character that comes from local resources, customs, and taste, Art Nouveau then also appeared in Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands.

      At no point did England, the Netherlands, or Germany excel in statuary, which almost completely disappeared from their versions of Art Nouveau. In order to entertain the eye their artists instead gave precedence to shiny brass decoration cut in the form of openwork arabesques and attached to woods that were either naturally rich in colour or artificially highlighted.

      France: A Passion for Art Nouveau

      The passion for Art Nouveau was different in France. Instead of decorating with schematically stylised flora and fauna, French artists concentrated on embellishing new forms with sculpted ornamentation that retained the flower’s natural grace and showed the figure to best advantage. This was already the focus of French exhibitors in 1889. But those artists were looking for novelty in absolute realism. Their successors remembered that the refined art of the eighteenth century had derived its charm from the free interpretation of nature, not its rigorous imitation. The best among the artist craftsmen endeavoured to instil their designs with the gentle harmony of line and form found in old French masterpieces and to decorate them with all the novelty that flora and fauna could provide when freely interpreted. Although the best furniture makers, such as Charles Plumet, Tony Selmersheim, Louis Sorel, and Eugene Gaillard, had little use for sculpture, it was sometimes a handy aid, as seen in certain ensembles by Jules Desbois and Alexandre Charpentier. By employing freely interpreted flora and the human figure, these two designers (who also designed stunning contemporary jewellery) were able to produce dynamic new poetic effects in which shadow and light played an important role. Such was also the case with René Lalique, whose works evoked exquisite fantasies, or the more robust jewels executed by Jean-Auguste Dampt, Henry Nocq, and François-Rupert Carabin, for example. French objects such as these were more sumptuous and more powerfully affecting than the graphic rebuses seen in Brussels and Berlin.

      Art Nouveau exploded in Paris in 1895, a year that opened and closed with important milestones. In January, the poster designed by Alphonse Mucha for Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Gismonda was plastered all over the capital. This was the event that heralded the Art Nouveau poster style, which Eugène Grasset had previously tackled, in particular in his posters for Encres Marquets (1892) and the Salon des Cent (1894). Then December saw the opening of Bing’s Art Nouveau boutique, which was entirely devoted to propagating the new genre.

      Jacques Gruber, Roses and Seagulls.

      Leaded glass, 404 × 300 cm.

      Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy, Nancy.

      It was also around this time that Hector

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The asymmetrical and unsymmetrical furniture, the straight line broken by curved lines, these light supports, with their knots and curved tree trunks, are simultaneously inspired by Belgium, England and Japan.

To get an idea of the genesis of Art Nouveau in the decorative arts, add to these influences the School of Nancy (in particular, the glassmaker Emile Gallé) and the Danes of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain factory. It is to Gallé, among others, that we owe the plant stylisation that was most successful motif in glassware, ceramics and silver.