![]() But as the designs on 1stDibs demonstrate, Art Nouveau retains its power to fascinate and seduce. The sensuous, languorous style fell out of favour early in the 20th century, deemed perhaps too light and insubstantial for European tastes in the aftermath of World War I. Like a mayfly, Art Nouveau was short-lived. A favourite Art Nouveau jewellery motif was insects (think of Tiffany, in his famed Dragonflies glass lampshade). Jewellery design was revolutionised, as settings, for the first time, were emphasised as much as, or more than, gemstones. Bold vases, bowls and lighting designs in acid-etched and marquetry cameo glass by Émile Gallé and the Daum Freres appeared in France, while in New York the glass workshop-cum-laboratory of Louis Comfort Tiffany - the core of what eventually became a multimedia decorative-arts manufactory called Tiffany Studios - brought out buoyant pieces in opalescent favrile glass. Ceramists such as Ernest Chaplet and Edmond Lachenal created new forms covered in novel and rediscovered glazes that produced thick, foam-like finishes. The Art Nouveau movement was known as Jugendstil ("Youth Style") in Germany, and in Austria the designers of the Vienna Secession group - notably Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich - produced a relatively austere iteration of the Art Nouveau style, which mixed curving and geometric elements.Īrt Nouveau revitalised all of the applied arts. Meanwhile in France, Hector Guimard - whose iconic 1896 entry arches for the Paris Metro are still in use - and Louis Majorelle produced chairs, desks, bed frames and cabinets with sweeping lines and rich veneers. In Scotland, the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh developed a singular, restrained look based on scale rather than ornament a style best known from his narrow chairs with exceedingly tall backs, designed for Glasgow tea rooms. While all Art Nouveau designs share common formal elements, different countries and regions produced their own variants. The Art Nouveau style quickly reached a wide audience in Europe via advertising posters, book covers, illustrations and other work by such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. Impressionist artists were moved by the artistic tradition of Japanese woodblock printmaking, and Japonisme - a term used to describe the appetite for Japanese art and culture in Europe at the time - greatly informed Art Nouveau. The visual vocabulary of Art Nouveau was particularly influenced by the soft colours and abstract images of nature seen in Japanese art prints, which arrived in large numbers in the West after open trade was forced upon Japan in the 1860s. The latter’s signature motif is the "whiplash" curve - a deep, narrow, dynamic parabola that appears as an element in everything from chair arms to cabinetry and mirror frames. Although Art Deco and Art Nouveau were both in the forefront of turn-of-the-20th-century design, they are very different styles - Art Deco is marked by bold, geometric shapes while Art Nouveau incorporates dreamlike, floral motifs. Use of hardwoods such as oak, mahogany and rosewoodĪrt Nouveau - which spanned furniture, architecture, jewellery and graphic design - can be easily identified by its lush, flowing forms suggested by flowers and plants, as well as the lissome tendrils of sea life. ![]()
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