Art Nouveau A short description 12足11足2010 Albert Wieringa 97575 Art & Technology 2010/2011 In足Sight
Table of Contents Introduction Arts and Crafts Alphonse Mucha Art Nouveau Spread Antoni GaudĂ Conclusion Personal Reflection Bibliography
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Introduction
Art nouveau was a style of international scope and eclectic vitality that resulted from attempts to find an art appropriate for the modern world. Its earliest works appeared in the 1890s. Art nouveau triumphed at the 1900 Paris World's Fair, becoming the style of the age. (McKinney, 2001) Art Nouveau is a style that's been admired and copied even now. In this short description of Art Nouveau the history, important artists and characteristics will be described. This description is for everyone who is interested in Art Nouveau.
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Arts and Crafts
Around 1850 the first spark of Art Nouveau started in England. The industrial revolution made mechanisation important, very important. People valued manufactured goods over handmade products, because it meant progress and wealth. The only problem of this 'progress' was that it led to poor quality. People earned more, felt rich, and wanted to have the same things the rich had. So these goods were produced fast and cheap, but lacked real craftmanship. At the end of the 19th century William Morris started the Arts and Crafts movement. He was inspired by the writings of the artist and social thinker John Ruskin. The goal of the movement was to bring the real craftmanship back and to make fine, solid and affordable objects for the man in the street. (Jirousek, 1995) The Arts and Crafts movement was not really a design style, but a design principle. So it didn't have a recognizable style, but it influenced a lot of artists and art movements, like Alphonse Mucha.
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Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860Â1939) was born in the town of IvanÄ?ice, Moravia (present Czech Republic). He went to Paris to study art. In addition to his studies, he worked at producing magazine and advertising illustrations. Around christmas 1894 there was a sudden need for an advertising poster for the play 'Gismonda' with the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. Mucha heard of this in a print shop and accepted to create a lithographed poster within two weeks. The unconventional poster was an instant succes. Mucha got a 6 year contract from Bernhardt, the style got named Mucha Style and the posters were robbed of the streets. Mucha's works often featured a young, beautiful girl with a robe surounded by lush flowers and organical, symetrical forms. He used pastel colors. Mucha also produced paintings, advertisements, book illustrations, as well as designs for jewellery, carpets, wallpaper, and theatre sets. His style was often imitated and became known as Art Nouveau. Mucha wanted to mean something to his birthplace and returned to Czechoslovakia in 1910, where he dedicated the remainder of his life to the production of a an epic series of 20 paintings depicting the history of the Slav people, the Slav Epic. (Mucha Museum, 2002)
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Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau wanted to break all the connections to classical time, and bring down the barriers between the fine arts and applied arts. It was an attempt to redefine the nature and meaning of the work of art. Every object had to be a work of art. This approach was revolutionary and new, hence the name. Visual standards within the Art Nouveau style are flat, decorative patterns, intertwined organic forms of stems or flowers. Lines are an important part, curved or straight. There is no perspective and there are no shadows and shades. A typical Art Nouveau work feauture birds, flowers, insects and a young, beatiful girl (Damjanovic, 2007) The Art Nouveau movement took place from roughly the 1880's to the 1910's and was in many ways a response to the Industrial Revolution. A group of artists didn't like the massproduced machinemade sloppy goods. They wanted to elevate the decorative arts to the level of fine art by applying the highest standards of craftsmanship and design to everyday objects. Art Nouveau designers also believed that all the arts should work in harmony to create a “total work of art”, or Gesamtkunstwerk: buildings, furniture, textiles, clothes, and jewelry all conformed to the principles of Art Nouveau. (Greenhalgh, 2000) In december 1896 Siegfried Bing (18381905) opened his Maison de l'Art Nouveau. He was a german art dealer with a interest for japanese and modern art. His famous gallery showed works of artists of what would become known as the Art Nouveau movement. Henry van de Velde designed the interiors of the gallery, while Louis Comfort Tiffany supplied stained glass. Bing's gallery featured entire rooms designed in the Art Nouveau style by his stable of inhouse designers. In 1902 the man who influenced and propagated Art Nouveau closed his Maison. (Wikipedia, 2010)
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Spread
In Germany Art Nouveau got a different name. In 1896 the magazine Jugend: Münchner illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben was founded. The illustrated magazine was made by Georg Hirth. The typography and illustrations, by Otto Eckman, were organic and distinctive. That's why this typical style was called Jugendstil. (Wikipedia, 2010) Except for the Netherlands and Belgium the style was named different. In Austria it was called Sezessionstil, Glasgow style in the United Kingdom and the United States called it Tiffany style. All styles differed a bit, but were mainly the same: a craftmanships approach to art. At the start of the First World War the movement(s) of Art Nouveau ended, but it had a revival in the sixties and it's influence is still present today. Two great examples are the metro entrances in Paris and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona by Antoni Gaudí. (Greenhalgh, 2000)
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Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (18521926) was born in Catalonia, Spain in a family of coppersmiths. He suffered from rheuma, and this illness caused that he spent much time in isolation. Often in nature. Gaudí lived in the time of Art Nouveau, but was highly individualistic. Catalan Modernism, the local name for the art movement, also focused on organic natural elements, bent lines, asymmetry. This in a decorative form. (Wikipedia, 2010) When he was seventeen he went to Barcelona to study architecture. Equal to the Arts and Crafts movement Gaudí wanted to show what objects are made from, and designed buildings as a whole, with interior etcetera. One of his biggest and most famous (and unfinished) works is Sagrada Família in Barcelona. (Wikipedia, 2010) In 1926 Gaudí was hit by a tram and die three days later in a paupers' hospital. He was entombed in his own Sagrada Família which had become his life work, the biggest Art Nouveau masterpiece. (Van Hensbergen, 2001)
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Conclusion
Art Nouveau is a very influental (art) movement. Even now. It was originated from the Arts and Crafts movement which aimed to bring the real craftmanship back in an industrializing world and to create every everyday object as a work of art. This in a decorative and organic way, like nature. The biggest work of Art Nouveau can be seen in Barcelona, the Sagrada FamĂlia, by Antoni GaudĂ. It's style is still being copied in magazines, websites and posters. Maybe it's time for a new Art Nouveau movement to end the digital copy paste culture, and create real craftmanship again.
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Personal Reflection
As a student of Art and Technology it's great to discover there's an art movement that sees art in an utilitarian way. Not the formalistic l'art pour l'art, but art for the man in the street. Art for everyday use. Art for everyday objects. Art Nouveau was not a art style, but an holistic art movement that tried to bring real craftmanship in every object possible. Art is not only for the elite or the rich, it can be used to make things more attractive to use. Everything has to have an aesthetic value, even technology. Maybe even the most.
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Bibliography
Google images. (n.d.). Retrieved november 8th, 2010, from google: http://images.google.com
Flickr – Photo Sharing! (n.d.). Retrieved november 8th, 2010, from flickr: http://flickr.com McKinney Brenner, C (2001). Exhibition catalogue, Art Nouveau 18901914. London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
Jirousek, J. (1995). Art, design and visual thinking, An interactive Textbook. Retrieved 5 november, 2010, from Cornell University:
http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/artcraft/artcraft.htm Mucha Museum (2002). Alphonse Mucha Biography. Retrieved 7 november, 2010, from Mucha Museum: http://mucha.tyden.cz/index.phtml?S=biog&Lang=EN
Damjanovic, S (2007). Art Nouveaum. Retrieved on 4 november, 2010 from Huntfor.com: http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c19th/artnouveau.htm
Greenhalgh, P. (2000) Art Nouveau, a new style for a new age. Retrieved november 6, 2010,
from Victoria and Albert Museum: http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_intro.shtm Wikipedia. (2010, november 9). Siegfried Bing. Retrieved november 9, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Bing
Wikipedia. (2010, november 9). Jugendstil. Retrieved november 9, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugendstil
Greenhalgh, P. (2000) Art Nouveau, a new style for a new age. Retrieved november 6, 2010, from Victoria and Albert Museum: http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_time.shtm Wikipedia. (2010, november 9). Modernisme. Retrieved november 9, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernisme
Wikipedia. (2010, november 7). Sagrada Família. Retrieved november 7, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia Van Hensbergen, G (2001) Gaudí. The Biography. Perennial, 2001
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