Thursday, May 7, 2009

ART NOUVEAU

 
1890 - 1914
{Post by Melissa}

{ Art Nouveau - Organic forms inspired by nature, frequently accentuated with asymmetrical curves or elaborate flourishes characterize its decorative vocabulary }

Art Nouveau was in many ways a response to the radical changes caused by the rapid urban growth and technological advances that followed the industrial revolution. Art Nouveau believed that all the Arts should work in harmony to create a total work of Art. Being buildings, furniture, textiles, clothes, design and jewelry all conformed to the principles of Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau's fifteen year peak was strongly felt through Europe - from Glascow to Moscow to Spain but its influence was global. As in France, the "New Art" was called by different names in the various style centres where it developed through out Europe. In Belgium, it was called Style nouille. In Germany, it was Jugendstil or "Young Style".

It later influenced psychedelic Art that flourished in the 1960's and 1970's. Japanese wood block prints with their curved lines, patterned surfaces, contrasting voids and flatness of visual plane also inspired Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau style reached an international audience through the vibrant graphic arts printed in such periodicals as the Savoy, La Plume, Jugend, Dekorative Kunst, The Yellow Book and The Studio. The Studio featured the bold, symbolist - inspired linear drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. Other influential graphic artists included Alphonse Mucha, Jules Cheret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautre.

By the start of the first World War, Art Nouveau design, which itself was expensive to produce, began to be dropped in favour of more streamlined, rectilinear modernism that was cheaper and thought to be more faithful to the rough, plain, industrial aesthetic that became Art Deco.

1 comment:

  1. great post melissa. images could have been a bit larger

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