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"Luminous Art & Design :: Art & Artists"
Art nouveau :: Biography and Books"
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Art Nouveau is a style of art based on decoration that flourished between 1880 and 1914, recognizable by typical natural motives as vines, leafs, flowers and birds. Art Nouveau was an opposition to historicism and prepared the ground for abstract art
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Art Nouveau is an international style of art based on decoration. It was most popular in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. As a pure style is only existed for about 20 years. During this period an urban life style was developed. Art nouveau was an answer to the Industrial Revolution and the popularity of machine made products. The artists of this period tried to protect art and crafts by creating a form of art that was more appropriate to the modern age. New technologies and new materials were used on everyday objects as buildings, interiors, furniture, textiles, fashion, and jewelry. Art Nouveau did not make a distinction between art and design. The artists aimed at unifying all arts and making beauty and harmony part of every day life.
Characteristics of Art Nouveau are organic and dynamic forms and streamlined designs with curvy lines. Objects were made of asymmetrical and two-dimensional patterns often inspired by nature; writhing plant forms (vines), leaves, flowers, insects as dragonflies and birds. Straight lines were scorned by Art Nouveau designers.
The art was conducted in modern industrial materials as cast iron, large pieces of glass, decorative tiles, and semi-precious stones.
The name ‘Art Nouveau’ came from a shop in Paris (Maison de l'Art Nouveau) that displayed interior design objects in 1896. However, the movement has British origins and was also called the ‘Modern Style’. Throughout Europe this same movement had different names; ‘Jugendstil’ in Germany, ‘Floreale’ or ‘Stile Liberty’ in Italy, ‘Modernista’ in Spain and ‘Sezessionstil’ in Austria.
The roots of Art Nouveau lie with the Art and Crafts Movement and William Morris (a home furnisher who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the movement). Other famous British artists connected to the style are Arthur Lazenbury Liberty (jewelry designer after who Stile Liberty was named) and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
In the end the British were too reserved to push the limits of Art Nouveau and the French developed it further. Hector Guimard (who introduced Art Nouveau in Paris in 1894) and Rene Lalique (whose avant-garde designs were very popular in Paris) are the most recognizable names of Art Nouveau in France. In America, it inspired Louis Comfort Tiffany (known for his stained glass windows and lamps), who became an enthusiastic supporter of the European Art Nouveau movement, challenging the current Victorian ornate style.
Designers of Art Nouveau rejected the inspiration of classical European art and instead looked to Japanese, Celtic and other folk art as a basis for their work. Art Nouveau would break all connections with classical times and open the way to the more abstract forms of art as we are used to now. Around the time of the First World War Art Nouveau was found to be very expensive to produce and was replaced by the cheaper and plainer style of Art Deco. Art Nouveau was brought back into life in the 1960’s after London's Victoria and Albert Museum organized a great retrospective exhibit in 1952.
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