El Paso Museum of Art January 21, 2016 – May 13, 2016
rt Nouveau was an international movement that achieved popularity at the turn of the twentieth century, more specifically from
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the year 1890 to around 1910. The style is characterized by its use of organic, elegant,
and curvilinear detail in design inspired by nature. It was known by a great variety of names in different countries. Critics in each country seemed to highlight the feeling that the style was unusual to their own national traditions using terminology such as “Art Nouveau” in England, “Modern Style” in France, and “Stile Liberty” in Italy. In 1896, the term Art Nouveau first appeared on the Maison de l’Art Nouveau shop sign of a gallery opened by Samuel Bing in Paris. Therefore in essence, the movement took on many forms, which included architecture, graphic design, and decorative arts.
END PAPERS Alphonse Mucha, Peonies, 1897
FACING PAGE Alphonse Mucha, La Plume, ca. 1896
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Architecture Art Nouveau brought upon a major change in the style of architecture, which had an abrupt and questionable life in comparison to the delicacy of its forms. The architects during this period shared a familiar desire to separate with the past. Significant architect and inventor, Victor Horta, designed the first example of Art Nouveau architecture, the Tassel House of 1882. Horta gave much structural and elaborate emphasis to metal elements of the stair hall of the Tassel House, which is inspired by the ideas of Viollet-lle-Duc, a major Gothic Revival architect. The character of the linear decoration in the Victor Horta, Maison du Peuple, 1897
stair rail, floor, and wall is quite beyond the limits of the midnineteenth-century medievalist’s creative capacity. Another one of the largest and most prominent architectural monuments of Art Nouveau, also designed by Horta, is the Maison du Peuple of 1897 to 1899. The Maison du Peuple’s interior of the auditorium is successfully executed with slanting supports that bend gracefully across the ceiling in a boldly curved and expressive structure. Impressed by the Tassel House was French architect Hector Guimard, who was awarded the commission to design the entrances of the first Parisian Métro line in 1899. These became Guimard’s best-known work, which also gave Art Nouveau the name of “Style de bouche de Metro.”
Guimard, Paris Métro Station, 1899
FACING PAGE Victor Horta, Tassel House Stair hall, 1882
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Graphic Design Art Nouveau reached a larger public through graphic design. The popularity of this movement corresponded accurately with the first appearance of the illustrated wall poster. Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was one of the principle designers to conceive the ideals of graphic design during this time. Mackmurdo designed the frontispiece of the book, Wren’s City Churches that is highly expressive in the animation of modern graphic arts. The title is integrated into a floral motif so appropriately it almost blends. The lines of the drawing are developed in semi parallels, which expand and multiply across the entire page.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, 1891
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Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Wren’s City Churches, 1883
Henry Clemens Van de Velde, Tropon, 1897
The decorative method of Mackmurdo was so popular that Alphonse Mucha also used it in his poster to advertise the theater production of Gismonda. The Parisian actress Sarah Bernhardt was the most influential figure in Mucha’s life as an artist. His first poster for her, Gismonda, made him famous. Mucha soon became known as the master of the Art Nouveau poster and the prince of elegant “Parisianism.” Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also depicted the Parisian life. His Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a bold, four-color lithograph depicting the famous cancan dancer La Goulue and her flexible partner Valentine le désossé made to advertise the popular French club, Moulin Rouge. Their audience is reduced to silhouettes in order to focus attention on the performers and evoke the Japanese art then in vogue. The triple repetition of the club’s name draws the focus down to the central figure of the poster, La Goulue herself. The stark white of her petticoats, depicted with just a few lines on the white paper, epitomizes Toulouse-Lautrec’s boldly simplistic style, a sharp break from the text-heavy posters of the day. Another use of linear motifs is seen in Henri Van de Velde’s Tropon, a poster designed for the publicity and packaging for the German food manufacturer. Van de Velde puts much emphasis on pattern and abstraction to possibly evoke the form of egg whites with yolk.
Alphonse Mucha, Gismonda, 1894
Decorative Arts The French decorative arts, like architecture, produced some of the most outstanding works of Art Nouveau. Responsible for this revival was the dealer Bing who was also a propagandist for Japanese Art. Bing was aware of the international character of the movement, which led him to recognize the intelligence of American Louis Comfort Tiffany, and he later became the European agent for Tiffany’s pearly glass objects. Tiffany designed ornamental vases and lamps with the use of metal for the effect of a mosaic. For experimentation, he applied new forms to night lights in an ogival shape.
In 1901, the School of Nancy contributed to this movement and the central most active figure was Emile Gallé. He made vases and glass ornaments that were first-rate works of art. Gallé’s creations always featured innovative techniques inspired by Japanese style. His beautifully designed glass vessel, Tetards, is inspired by imagination and nature. He wanted each vase was to capture balances of light, dark, birth, death, growth, and decay. Later, intrigued by stained glass, the gallery owner Samuel Bing also employed Eugene Grasset, who stood out from the rest of the artists with his motifs of women and flowers, which portrayed a liturgical art form through stained glass such as his 1884 window entitled Spring. LEFT Emile Galle, Tetards, 1891
RIGHT Louis Comfort Tiffany, Vase, ca. 1900
FACING PAGE Eugene Grasset, Spring, ca. 1900
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Legacy Art Nouveau can be seen in today’s contemporary art and styles. It continues to draw attention. One of the most highly recognized logos influenced by Art Nouveau is The Coca-Cola logo. Frank Robinson, Coca-Cola’s bookkeeper, originally designed it in 1885, during the Art Nouveau era. The design underwent many
Frank Robinson, Coca Cola Logo, 1886
stages for it to achieve its look today. Nevertheless, it kept its thick to thin characters, a detail the artists during the movement were mostly fond of, inspired by nature.
Lippincott Mercer , Coca Cola Logo, ca. 1960
Wes Wilson, an acknowledged father of the 1960s psychedelic posters, adopted the style of Art Nouveau for several of his works. Wilson created a poster inspired by Mucha, The Sound. In this poster, Wilson combines the elements of flowy letters and a feminine form for extra vibrancy. Wilson also used Nouveau artist Albert Angus Turbayne’s Peacock Editon as a source for his poster Byrds. In this poster he almost replicates the bird but stylizes it in his own way. Art Nouveau promoted the acceptance for such beautiful design in different forms of art. Artists took advantage of the many technological innovations at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, the style still holds a place in design and contemporary works of art. Wes Wilson , The Sound, 1966
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Albert Angus Turbayne, Cover for Peacock Edition, Macmillian’s Illustrated Standard Novels, 1898
Wes Wilson , Byrds, 1967 Alphonse Mucha, Salon des Cent, 1896
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It is not the language of painters but the language of NATURE which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for REALITY, is more important than the feeling for pictures. - Vincent van Gogh
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