Art Nouveau Architecture E-Book

Anne Anderson

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 392

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Distinguished by their lavish sculpture, metalwork or tile facades, Art Nouveau buildings certainly stand out. Art Nouveau buildings are unique, audacious and inspirational. Rejecting historic styles, considered inappropriate for an era driven by progress, architects and designers sought a new vocabulary of architectural forms. Their vision was shaped by modern materials and innovative technologies, including iron, glass and ceramics. A truly democratic style, Art Nouveau transformed life on the eve of the twentieth century and still captivates our imaginations today. Beautifully illustrated, this book explains how the new style came into being, its rationale and why it is known by so many different names: French Art Nouveau, German Jugendstil, Viennese Secession, Catalan Modernisme, Italian Liberty and Portuguese Arte Nova. It covers the key architects and designers associated with the style; Victor Horta in Brussels, Hector Guimard in Paris, Antoni Gaudi on Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna, Odon Lechner in Budapest and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow. There are detailed descriptions and stunning photographs of buildings to be found in Brussels, Paris, Nancy, Darmstadt, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona, Milan, Turin and Aveiro. Finally, it covers the decorative arts, stained glass, tiles and metalwork that make Art Nouveau buildings so distinctive.

Leseprobe

ART NOUVEAUARCHITECTURE

Ödön Lechner, with Sándor Baumgarten, Postal Savings Bank, Hold u. 4, Pest (1900-01)

ART NOUVEAUARCHITECTURE

ANNE ANDERSON

First published in 2020 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[e-mail]

This e-book first published in 2020

© Anne Anderson 2020

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 768 2

Acknowledgements:Many thanks to Scott Anderson, my husband, for helping with the images. They were mostly taken by both of us on our Travel Editions tours. The image of the Villino Ruggeri, Pesaro, was kindly supplied by Foto di Andrea Speziali, Associazione Italia Liberty – http://www.italialiberty.it

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: New Art for a New Century

Chapter 2: New Art: Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Secession, Modernisme or Liberty

Chapter 3: Art Nouveau/Jugendstil Symbolism

Chapter 4: Materials and Techniques

Chapter 5: Iconic Buildings

Epilogue

Further Reading

Index

Introduction

THE ART NOUVEAU CITY ROUTE LISTS OVER seventy cities that judge their Art Nouveau legacy to be of cultural significance. These cities range as far west as Lima and Mexico City and to the east, Moscow and Kecskemét. Recognizing Art Nouveau’s ‘millennial moment’, the route was founded in 2000; the pan-world significance of Art Nouveau’s quest for modernity on the eve of the twentieth century was also recognized in a major exhibition at the V&A. The growing enthusiasm for Art Nouveau, amongst both academics and tourists, had already resulted in the founding of the European Reseau Art Nouveau Network (RANN) in 1998. This currently comprises twenty-three European cities that are all committed to protecting, studying and raising awareness of their remarkable heritage: among these are Ålesund, Norway; Averio, Portugal; Bad Nauheim, Germany; Barcelona, Catalonia; Brussels, Belgium; Glasgow, Scotland; Havana, Cuba; Helsinki, Finland; La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Nancy, France; Regione Lombardia (Milan and Lake Como), Italy; Szeged, Southern Hungary; Riga, Latvia; and Terrassa, Catalonia.

Brussels, the ‘cradle’ of Art Nouveau, Barcelona, Glasgow and Riga have all benefited from this fervour for Art Nouveau with specialist tours and architectural walks abounding. Many books, both general surveys and detailed monographs on individual architects, have been published. Previous writers have dealt with the new art and architecture of the 1890s–1900s by city or country1. This approach has been taken in order to discuss the local conditions, cultural, economic and political, that stimulated the search for a modern idiom.

However, given the overwhelming number of cities in many different countries in the Art Nouveau Route, my appraisal must be selective. To a certain extent it concentrates on cities I have come to know well: Brussels, Paris, Nancy, Budapest, Barcelona, Milan, Turin, Porto and Aveiro. It evaluates the new architectural idioms through many different building types ranging from civic and commercial to domestic. By looking at houses and apartments, schools and hospitals, and shops and restaurants, we can see how architects responded to the demands of modern life. Greater attention has also been given to the role played by the so-called applied arts; stained glass, ceramics and metalwork. Many surveys fail to mention the many artisans and craftsmen whose work made Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil as it is known in German-speaking countries, so distinctive.

Chapter 2 surveys all the terminology associated with the New Art. Indeed, in order to avoid confusion, the term Art Nouveau is used specifically for Belgian and French forms. At the time, English magazines such as The Studio (1893–) coined the term New Art to categorize the developments taking place in London and Glasgow. Throughout this volume, therefore, the moniker New Art is adopted as a neutral term to describe an international impulse that strove through art and architecture to express modernity. Focusing on the terminology, this survey starts in England with the Arts and Crafts and the Aesthetic movements, recognized as the precursors of the New Art. England does develop its own New Art idioms, especially in the graphic arts, but the most significant architectural contribution comes from Glasgow. The centres for Art Nouveau (Brussels, Paris and Nancy) are followed by Jugendstil (Darmstadt, Hagen, Weimar) and Secession (Munich and Vienna). Magyar Szecesszió, Catalan Modernisme, Italian Stile Liberty and Portugal’s Arte Nova expand the field into areas often neglected in general surveys. Moreover, much of the current research is not published in English, making access to information doubly hard.

Allied to literary Decadence and Symbolism in the fine arts, the New Art sought to express the anxieties aroused by modern life. A symbolic language evolved, based on flora and fauna that expressed complex ideas in a visual form. Artists drew on a wide range of ancient sources, myths and legends as well as the Bible, to create a symbolic language that was universal. Exploring the concept of architecture as language, Chapter 3 unpicks these motifs and explains their meaning.

Understandably, the new architecture was driven by innovative technologies and materials (iron/steel, concrete, glass and ceramics). The role of new building materials is covered in Chapter 4; the New Art owes its very existence to mass-produced materials, industrial processes and technical innovations. The stress laid on ornamentation, stained glass, ceramics and metalwork brought the applied arts closer to the fine arts. Wider opportunities led many artists into different fields of endeavour; artists no longer simply painted, they designed posters, textiles, tiles and stained glass. As polymaths, artist-craftsmen strove to be like their Renaissance forebears.

Chapter 5 singles out iconic buildings that mark a turning point or epitomize the style of an outstanding architect, landmarks in the literal sense. Many iconic buildings have been lost, through wartime destruction or post-war development. During the 1950s and 1960s, when all things ‘Victorian’ were scorned, it was hard to protect buildings from developers and speculators. The most famous victim was Victor Horta’s Maison du Peuple or the People’s House (1896–99), Brussels. Commissioned by the Belgian Workers’ Party, the Maison du Peuple embodied Art Nouveau’s democratic ethos or ‘Art for the People’. With offices, meeting rooms and an auditorium that could seat 300 people, it was a ‘true ship of socialist ideology’. It spawned a People’s House in every Belgian city; the notion also inspired the Municipal House in Prague (1905–12, Osvald Polívka and Antonín Balšánek), which combines a concert hall with restaurants. The demolition of Horta’s Maison du Peuple in 1965, despite an international protest mounted by over 700 architects, has been condemned as an ‘architectural crime’ and the ‘assassination of Victor Horta’. Among the other great losses must be counted August Endell’s Elvira Studio, Munich (1898), destroyed by allied bombing in 1944 and much more recently Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art (1896–1906) destroyed by fire in 2014 and 2018.

Finally, the Epilogue considers how Art Nouveau/Jugendstil evolved into post-war intellectually driven Modernism, as epitomized by the Bauhaus and fashionable Art Deco.

Notes

1. Massini, Lara-Vinca, Art Nouveau, London: Thames and Hudson, 1984; Greenhalgh, Paul (ed.), Art Nouveau 1890–1914, London: V&A Publications, 2000; Russell, Frank (ed.), Art Nouveau Architecture, London: Academy Editions, 1979; Sembach, Klaus Jurgen, Art Nouveau; Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable, Köln: Benedikt Taschen, 1991; Fahr-Becker, Gabriele, Art Nouveau, Potsdam: h. f. Ullmann, 2015.

Chapter One

New Art for a New Century

BEFORE CONSIDERING INDIVIDUAL architects or buildings, this introductory chapter considers some key themes. How did the new style come about and how can we define it? Art Nouveau, literally the New Art, went by different names in different countries. Individuality is the key factor, with each architect pursuing his own agenda and creating his own style. The New Art was an artistic movement rather than a stylistic straight jacket. Peter Behrens (1868–1940), a leading German architect and designer, declared ‘the style of an era does not mean specific forms in a specific form of art . . . each art form is a mere contribution to the style. Yet a style is the symbol of an overall feeling, of an era’s attitude to life, and is only visible within the universe of all the arts’1.

In other words, to understand the aims of the New Art we must examine all aspects of life at the close of the nineteenth century. Buildings cannot be studied in isolation but embedded in the culture that created them. The desire to respond to modern life can be tracked through all the arts, literature, music, painting and sculpture as well as architecture and the so-called decorative or applied arts. Many architects took a holistic approach, as they believed art, in the broadest sense of the word, enhanced life.

International exhibitions and a plethora of new magazines devoted to the arts allowed artists and architects to keep abreast of new developments. They enabled an international dialogue. The New Art was shaped by many factors especially Japonisme, an interest in all forms of Oriental art. When opened to trade with the West in 1853, Japan was not industrialized. Many admired Japanese society: to Western eyes their culture successfully integrated art and life, with beautiful objects (ceramics, lacquer work, textiles) used daily.

On the eve of the twentieth century, artists wanted to create art forms that were relevant to the times and to widen the definition of art to encompass objects used daily. The concept of design was born, that utilitarian objects should be stylish as well as functional. The architect widened his remit to include all aspects of a building and its interior. Homes were to be beautiful, as the goal was a ‘Life lived in Art’.

A Style for Modern Life

From many strands, a New Art arose; ‘a movement, a style, a way of life, a culture, an enterprise that belonged to modern times’2. The New Art articulated the pressures of modern life, particularly the rapid changes taking place in society due to new technologies and the increasing emancipation of women. Traditional male and female roles were brought into question; female sexuality, a taboo subject, became a hot topic. The New Art responded to rising nationalism, an identity crisis having been brought about by industrialization, urbanization and internationalism. A crisis in conventional faith led to many seeking alternatives, spiritualism and mysticism. As a cultural phenomenon the New Art dared to break with convention: this was the shock of the new.

Architects and designers were united by the mission to create a modern style that expressed the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. The divisions that separated the different genres of art, painting, sculpture, architecture and the decorative or applied arts were torn down. Architects now engaged in all facets of design, from window catches to wallpapers. Structure and ornament were conceived as an entity.

This New Art was both a local and global phenomenon, as seen in the myriad alternative terms coined at the time. It is known as Art Nouveau in France and Belgium. Jugendstil, literally ‘youth style’ in Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Budapest witnessed a Secession, a younger generation breaking away from traditional institutions. In Italy, Stile Liberty expressed Italian unification (Risorgimento), while in Catalonia Modernista architects were driven by a desire to forge an identity distinct from Castilian Spain. Clearly these different terms do not simply reflect linguistic alternatives; German Jugendstil is stylistically very different to Belgian/French Art Nouveau, while Catalonian Modernisme is framed by local, nationalistic imperatives.

Origins

The sources for the stylistic evolution of Art Nouveau/Jugendstil can be found in later Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist paintings, especially those of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82) and Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98); the later wallpaper and fabric patterns of William Morris (1834–96); the graphic designs of Walter Crane (1845–1915); Japonisme; and the craft revival. As a leading spokesperson for both the Arts and Crafts and the New Art, following Morris’ death in 1896, the role of Crane was crucial. His designs for illustrated books, notably Flora’s Feast A Masque of Flowers (1889), and his wallpapers, Woodnotes (1887, V&A) and Fairy Garden (1890, V&A) are often identified as ‘proto-Art Nouveau’. Peacock Garden (1889) won a Gold Medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. Now acknowledged as the pre-eminent Art Nouveau architect, Belgian architect Victor Horta (1861–1947) was familiar with Crane’s books and wallpapers, providing a link between London and Brussels. Horta’s l’Hotel Tassel (1892–93) is recognized as the first expression of the new architectural style. His ‘biomorphic whiplash’ epitomizes the curvilinear vocabulary associated with Belgian and French Art Nouveau. Brussels, rather than Paris, is seen as the ‘cradle’ of the New Art.

Crane, ‘Triton’s spear’, Flora’s Feast A Masque of Flowers, London: Cassell & Co., (1889).

Horta, l’Hotel Frison, Sablon, Brussels (1894).

Eiffel Tower, entrance to the Exposition Universelle, Paris (1887–89).

Trade card for Stollwerck’s Chocolate, Palace of Electricity, Exposition Universelle, Paris (1900).

In France, a turning point was reached at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. The Eiffel Tower encapsulates a new era of iron and glass, materials that were transformed from utilitarian into beautiful architectural forms. These materials, already commonplace for railway stations and warehouses, were now daringly used in civic and domestic buildings. Iron provided not only the structure but also the embellishment in the form of balconies and awnings. Ceramics were used both externally and internally, and stained glass brought colour and light. The defining technology was electric light or ‘artificial sunshine’; some six million light bulbs were used at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle.

Breaking with the Past?

All the New Art movements shared one priority, the desire to come up with something fresh that broke with rehashed historical styles that were seen to be both outmoded and inappropriate. According to Franco-German entrepreneur Samuel Siegfried Bing (1838–1905), the originator of the term l’Art Nouveau, innovators were driven by ‘the hatred of stagnation’ that had paralysed art for the best part of the century3. Historicism, which saw the revival of architectural styles as diverse as neo-Romanesque and neo-Rococo, had dominated the mid-nineteenth century; the famous Ring in Vienna exemplifies this architectural melange with a neo-Attic parliament (1874–83, Theophil Edvard von Hansen), a neo-Gothic city hall (1872–83, Friedrich Schmidt) and a neo-Renaissance opera house (1861–69, August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll). In the era of ‘Iron and Glass’, a period often referred to as the Second Industrial Revolution (c.1870–1914), such architectural forms seemed entirely misplaced.

von Hansen, Parliament, Ringstrasse, Vienna (1874–83).

Schmidt, City Hall, Ringstrasse, Vienna (1872–83).

While all agreed that historic styles were no longer relevant to modern life, it was still possible to learn from the past. Horta argued one should ‘study the past as much as one can, to discover its acquired truths, the fundamental principles, to use them as part of a common heritage of knowledge’. But ‘he had no right to copy’4. Horta would have consulted the publications of French architectural theorist, Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), who spent his life studying Gothic architecture. His firsthand knowledge came from restoring many iconic buildings damaged during the French Revolution: Notre-Dame de Paris, Amiens Cathedral and Carcassonne. Viollet-le-Duc’s encyclopaedic Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (Reasoned Dictionary of French Architecture 11th–16th century) (1854–68), which contained a wealth of exact structural data plus extensive design analysis, provided the intellectual impetus for the French Gothic Revival. He championed the Gothic as he believed it to be the national style of France: ‘What we want, messieurs, is the return of an art which was born in our country. . . Leave to Rome what belongs to Rome, and to Athens what belongs to Athens. Rome didn’t want our Gothic (and was perhaps the only one in Europe to reject it) and they were right, because when one has the good fortune to possess a national architecture, the best thing is to keep it’5. This desire to create a ‘national style’ underpins the differing manifestations of Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. In Nancy, eighteenth-century Rococo forms provided a tangible link to a previous golden age, while Catalonian Modernisme drew on both its medieval and Islamic past.

Horta, chair designed for l’Hotel Aubecq, Brussels (1899–1902). Musée Fin-de-Siècle, Brussels.

The influence of neo-Rococo can be clearly seen in Horta’s designs for furniture; ‘The most widespread style of interior decoration from 1830 almost to the end of the century, the domestic qualities of its rounded and comfortable forms outweighed the virtues of Gothic, the Renaissance and Classicism’6. Horta’s style was likened to ‘Louis XV, but slimmer and more austere, a Calvinist Louis XV’7. Comparisons to neo-Rococo scrolls and curlicues or Gothic fan vaulting suggested continuity, an evolution or re-imagining, rather than an abrupt break with the past. Seen in this way, Art Nouveau could be viewed as a natural progression and accepted into the great pantheon of European styles.

Rational Architecture

Viollet-le-Duc argued Gothic principles could be expressed in modern materials – cast iron, brick and tiles. These materials should be used honestly, they ‘should indicate their function by the form they are given; that stone clearly appears as stone, iron as iron, wood as wood; that these materials as well as taking the forms which suit their nature, are in harmony with each other’8. He advocated the use of iron skeletal frames, providing they kept the original balance of forces found in medieval structures. Honesty demanded that supporting iron beams should be exposed. The exterior façade ought to reflect the interior plan; practicality and convenience outweighed symmetry. Above all he argued architectural forms should be adapted to their function, rather than conforming to a style. Viollet-le-Duc’s concept of ‘rational architecture’ had a profound impact on succeeding generations. His Entretiens sur l’architecture et Dictionnaire du mobilier (Conversations on Architecture and Dictionary of Furniture), published 1858–72, translated into English as Discourses on Architecture (1874–81), systematized his architectural philosophy. The concept of ‘form follows function’ would be invoked by many Modernist architects, although the phrase is attributed to Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (1856–1924).

Viollet-le-Duc, design for a concert hall (1864) published in Entretiens sur l’architecture et Dictionnaire du mobilier (1863–72).

Nature as a Cipher for Change

To shake off ‘old memories’, the way to rejuvenate all branches of the arts was to take nature as a ‘trustworthy guide’9. Many designers equated the natural world with modernity, seeing human civilization as a ‘cosmic regime of advance, following evolutionist tendencies . . . with movement through time and the physical and metaphysical transformation of society’; their ‘ideologically driven-vision of nature’ embodied the struggle of human existence10. Phytomorphic or plant-forms were abstracted into sinuous flowing lines seen to embody energy or the life force. The cycle of death and rejuvenation appealed to the fin de siècle mindset, the dying century on the cusp of renewal.

The line, curvilinear and linear, defines both Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. Horta and Hector Guimard (1867–1942) epitomize Art Nouveau’s floral/curvilinear language, with its reliance on coup de fouet or whiplash curls. The posters of Czech-born Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), with their Pre-Raphaelite-inspired femmes fatales caught in a tangle of plant forms, have come to exemplify the style. With her downcast eyes and enigmatic smile, his sculpture La Nature (1899–1900, Musée Fin-de-Siècle, Brussels) embodies the femme idéale of the fin de siècle. Shown at numerous international exhibitions, La Nature was transformed into an icon. The Parisian jeweller René Lalique (1860–1945) exploited the concept of metamorphosis, the female form caught on the cusp of transformation. Although a femme fragile emerging from a flower appears benign, transmuted into dragonflies or serpents Lalique’s femmes fatales are clearly dangerous. Broadly speaking the most excessive floral forms appear to peter out after 1905, as a more restrained linearity takes over.

Guimard, entrance to Castel Béranger, 16th arrondissement, Paris (1895–98).

Mucha, bronze sculpture La Nature (1899–1900), Musée Finde-Siècle, Brussels.

Hankar, Maison Ciamberlani, Rue Defacqz 48, Saint-Gilles, Brussels (1897).

Contemporaries of Horta in Brussels, Paul Hankar (1859–1901), Henry van de Velde (1863–1957) and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858–1910) had already opted for a controlled use of line and abstract forms such as compass-inscribed profiles and geometric shapes. This use of line was inspired by Japonisme, while the sobriety was instilled by the English Arts and Crafts movement. The geometric idiom was absorbed by the architects and designers of the Vienna Secession, notably Otto Wagner (1841–1918) and Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956), who were also influenced by the refined linearity of the Glasgow school led by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928). At the time Bing noted two parallel currents, ‘the system of floral elements’ and a system of ‘purely ornamental lines’11. The Belgian/French curvilinear school, the ‘French twist’ as it was nicknamed in America, and the Scottish/German/Viennese linear-geometric school are now defined as Floral Art Nouveau and Geometric or Perpendicular Art Nouveau/Jugendstil. With Mackintosh and Hoffmann favouring the square, the grid or checkerboard came to dominate their way of thinking. The linear approach is seen as pre-figuring both post-War Art Deco and Modernism.

Bing, ‘Industrial Design. Gourd tendrils on a chequered ground’, Artistic Japan Illustrations and Essays, No.4, August 1888, plate DD.

The International National Style

Driven by a nationalistic impulse, theorists encouraged architects and designers to invent their own brand of Modernism rather than importing foreign forms; Alexander Koch (1860–1939), founder of the influential arts magazine Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration (1897–1935), feared German artists and craftsmen were ‘being held spellbound by a foreign language of form; the idiom of a domestic, individually German art language is in danger of being lost’12. Following the 1900 Paris Exposition, architectural historian and theorist, Hermann Muthesius (1861–1927) began to search for a new Volkskunst, a people’s art that was distinctly German and not dependent on the delicate Rococo-inspired forms of Belgian-French Art Nouveau. Germany needed to develop its own modern style. This was a matter of national pride as well as economic survival. Searching for ‘Germanness’ inevitably encouraged an interest in folk art and the handicrafts.

The search for a modern national style was often directed by a visionary architect; Horta in Brussels; Guimard in Paris; Mackintosh in Glasgow; Wagner and Hoffmann in Vienna; Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867–1908) and Peter Behrens in Darmstadt; Ödön Lechner in Budapest (1845–1914); Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850–1923) and Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852–1926) in Barcelona and Louis Sullivan in Chicago all developed their own distinctive voice or brand13. Working in partnership, Herman Gesellius (1874–1916), Armas Lindgren (1872–1929), and Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950) shaped the Jugendstil architecture of the Finnish capital, Helsinki. Riga was transformed by Konstantīns Pēkšēns (1859–1928) and Russian-born Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein (1861–1921). The Latvian capital Riga boasts the highest concentration of Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture anywhere in the world. Roughly one-third of all the buildings, mostly multi-storey apartments, in the centre of Riga are in the new style. This building boom (1904–14) was fuelled by economic prosperity. It also reflects the ‘Latvian National Awakening’, the desire to express a distinct Latvian identity through art and architecture.

Eisenstein, Lyebedinskiy apartment building, Alberta iela 4 (Alberta Street), Riga (c.1904).

Encompassing a great variety of personal expressions, consistently anti-rationalist, flamboyant and even subversive, the New Art’s strength lies in its diversity and divergencies. Creative freedom, allowing the imagination full reign, sanctioned ‘each individual to impress his personality upon the places in which he passes his life’14. In contrast Art Deco, which fully emerged after the First World War, is characterized by international conformity. Based on straight lines and geometric forms, a machine aesthetic that celebrates speed, Art Deco buildings look much the same whether in New York, Miami, Napier (New Zealand) or London. The New Art was bound to be denigrated by post-war era rationalists and Modernists who lauded functionalism and objected to unnecessary ornamentation.

International Exhibitions and the Media

National differences become apparent at the international exhibitions held in Barcelona (1888), Paris (1889), Chicago (1893), Venice Biennale (1895), Brussels (1897), Paris (1900), Vienna (1900), Glasgow (1901), and Turin (1902), an exemplary ‘modern’ city15. Art Nouveau made its debut at the 1897 Brussels International Exhibition; twenty-seven countries participated. The attendance figures exceeded 7.5 million people. Although Leopold, King of the Belgians, was not a fan of Art Nouveau, he appreciated its potential; it was both eye-catching and provocative. It was Edmond van Eetvelde, General Administrator of Foreign Affairs of the Congo Free State, who opened Leopold’s eyes to Art Nouveau. As a result, he commissioned the Colonial Palace at Tervuren to celebrate the opportunities offered by the Congo, at that time his personal fiefdom. The exhibition’s four sections were entrusted to Hankar, van de Velde, Serrurier-Bovy and Georges Hobé. A hall of honour designed by Hankar was dedicated to chryselephantine sculpture: here you could admire the combination of ivory carving with silver or bronze, a concept perfected by Pierre-Charles Van der Stappen and Philippe Wolfers. Henri Privat-Livemont, nicknamed the Belgian Mucha, produced posters for the exposition.

Hankar, Palace of the Colonies, International Exposition, Tervuren, Brussels (1897).

Wagner, ‘Golden House’, apartment block on Wienzeile, Naschmarkt, Vienna (1898).

Olbrich, Ernst Ludwig Haus, Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt (1900–01).

Sneyers, Marjolaine, rue de la Madeleine, Brussels (1904).

Exhibitions generated an international dialogue; Wagner encountered Hankar’s l’Art nouveau géométrique at the Colonial Palace. On returning to Vienna, Wagner developed his own Modernist idiom exemplified by the so-called Golden House, Wienzeile 38. Olbrich, who developed his style working on Wagner’s Wiener Stadtbahn projects, left for Darmstadt in 1899, playing a major role in the development of German Jugendstil. Encountering the work of Olbrich and Hoffmann at the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna (First International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts) held in Turin (1902), Léon Sneyers (1877–1949) and Paul Hamesse (1877–1956), Hankar’s protégés, took Jugendstil/Secession geometric-linear forms back to Brussels. This complicated toing and froing illustrates the complex relationship between different design schools.

Magazines

New magazines also played a significant role in spreading the word. Launched in 1893, The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art, which gave almost equal weight to the fine and decorative arts, ushered in a new generation of avantgarde magazines. Following his retirement from the wool and silk trades, Charles Holme (1848–1923), the founder and editor, devoted his energies to promoting modern art. Travelling extensively, ‘the idea of an art magazine crystallized around his recurring observation that the chief barrier between countries was language’16. The first edition carried articles on the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872–98) and the Arts and Crafts architect C. F. A. Voysey (1857–1941). Also published in Paris, the magazine was international in scope, promoting both the Arts and Crafts and the New Art; it introduced Voysey and Mackintosh to a European audience. The American edition, The International Studio had its own editorial staff. It carried different content although many articles from the English edition were reprinted. It was published in New York by John Lane & Company from May 1897; it is an important source for documenting the international exhibitions.

The Studio, Vol. 1, 15 September 1893, cover designed by Aubrey Beardsley.

Jugend, front cover, 30 May 1896, designed by Hans Pfaff.

Support for modernity flourished with astonishing vigor. In Berlin the art critic Julius Meier-Graefe (1867–1935) and the poet Richard Dehmel founded Pan (1895–1900), a literary and visual arts magazine. In January 1896 Jugend: Illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben (Youth: The illustrated weekly magazine of art and lifestyle) was launched in Munich; it gave its name to the New Art movement in Germany, Jugendstil. Drawing inspiration from international currents, its founder George Hirth (1841–1916) endorsed a national rebirth of the arts. Darmstadt had its own ‘media activist’, Alexander Koch. Marrying the daughter of Carl Hochstätter, a wallpaper manufacturer, Koch took a keen interest in contemporary interior design, developing several influential trade journals. The Tapeten-Zeitung (Wallpaper News) appeared from 1888, while Zeitschrift für Innendekoration (Interior Decoration) launched two years later. Van de Velde contributed to Innendekoration, highlighting the transnational character of the New Art; for a few years a French language edition of the journal was available. Koch himself showed a preference for British design, being especially fond of Mackintosh and the Arts and Crafts architect Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865–1945). In the first issue of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, launched in 1897, Koch urged his readers to integrate art into their daily lives. Following Arts and Crafts precepts, he railed against shoddy mass-produced commodities, advocating craftsmanship and the use of high-quality materials.

Gesamtkunstwerk, or Total Artwork

While for many consumers the New Art was just another passing fashion, for those who fully embraced the ethos it was a lifestyle choice. The New Art was all-encompassing, a ‘Renouveau dans l’Art’ – ‘the Revival of Art’ that sought to revitalize literature and music, painting and sculpture, architecture and interior décor, dress and jewellery17. All artistic manifestations now had equal rank.

A life lived in art could only be achieved by uniting all the arts, a synthesis expressed as a gesamtkunstwerk. This ethos sought to unify all the elements of a building into a complete whole; a building as a ‘total artwork’. An architectural term, its origins lie in the aesthetic ideals of the German opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–83). In his 1849 essays ‘Art and Revolution’ and ‘The Artwork of the Future’, he speaks of unifying all works of art through the theatre, a synthesis of the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts. The individual arts are subordinated to a common purpose, creating a totally immersive experience. Thus, the perfect interior was to engage all the senses of the body: sight, hearing, touch, smell and even taste. The concept of the ‘total artwork’ transformed both public institutions and private homes. Paintings, furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass and textiles were integrated into a harmonious ensemble. In Vienna the Raumkunst concept (room art) privileged ‘beautiful space’; this way of thinking encouraged fewer objects. Decluttering meant individual objects could be properly appreciated and experienced; they became ‘key notes’.

The quest for unity encouraged architects to design or control all aspects of interior décor, especially furniture and lighting. Exteriors, interiors, furnishings, and even the landscape were to be orchestrated by the vision of one man – the architect. This impulse can be traced back to the neo-Classical architect Robert Adam (1728–92) and the neo-Gothic architect Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–52) who fashioned completely unified ensembles, extending to the choice or design of table silver, china and glassware.

However, a building and every aspect of its design did not have to be the work of a single hand. Some architects chose to collaborate, bringing in colleagues to design furniture, fabrics and light fittings, for example architect Philip Webb (1831–1915) working alongside Morris & Co. Nevertheless, the goal was the same: to create a stylistically harmonious work of art. Each project, which could be likened to a musical composition, was to be unique. Mackintosh exemplifies this desire to achieve an over-arching harmonization, or toutes ensemble, which could extend to the choice of cutlery and table linens.

Perfection or Tyranny?

While the gesamtkunstwerk expressed the originality of the architect-designer, it rarely allowed the patron to exert his own preferences. Baillie Scott feared the homeowner might ruin his conception: ‘It is a painful thing for an architect to design a mantlepiece for which he dares not hope to choose the ornaments, and which may become a resting place for he knows not what atrocities in china and glass’18.

Henry van de Velde, ‘Reformed Dress’, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Band X, April–Sept 1902, p.378.

In their own homes, architect-designers even attempted to integrate the occupants through dress and accessories. Maria van der Velde, wife of the architect, was harmonized through the patterns on her attire to the point where one speculates that she was trapped in the gesamtkunstwerk19! The Viennese architect and designer Adolf Loos (1870–1933) loathed the gesamtkunstwerk as pursued by his contemporaries Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser (1868–1918), founders of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops). Loos penned a salutatory warning; in the Poor Little Rich Man (1900), a rich man, having everything but art in his life, transforms his house into a work of art. His architect, who extols the virtues of the gesamtkunstwerk, designs every detail of the rich man’s home, covering every surface with elaborate ornament; he anticipates everything, even the pattern on the rich man’s slippers. But when the rich man’s family ply him with birthday presents, bought at the most approved establishments, the architect, summoned to find correct places for them in his composition, is furious. His client has dared to accept presents about which he, the architect, has not been consulted, for the house was finished, as was his client: he was complete!

The Cult of Japan

The taste for Japanese art was ‘the most important single external influence on the European decorative and applied arts in the second half of the nineteenth century’20. This influence falls into clearly defined phases. During the 1850s and 1860s it was an enthusiasm shared by connoisseurs and collectors. By the 1870s Japonisme was in full swing amongst the fashion conscious, underpinning the so-called Art or Aesthetic movement (c.1860–1890); designers either tried to capture the spirit of Japanese design or appropriated indicative motifs – bamboo, cranes, fans, carp and patterns derived from silk kimonos popped up on ceramics, metalwork and textiles. Absorbed into popular culture, Japonisme became a craze and every household, high or low, was bedecked with Japanese paper fans and parasols and blue and white china. Japonisme was given a new lease of life in the 1890s thanks to the Parisian dealer Samuel Bing, the decisive turning point for Art Nouveau/Jugendstil being the exhibition ‘Maitres de l’estampe japonaise’ held at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris from 25 April to 22 May 1890. Unlike several earlier exhibitions, where a range of Japanese art and crafts objects had been shown together, Bing used this opportunity to concentrate exclusively on the art of the ukiyo-e (floating world) woodcut with a display of over a thousand illustrated books and individual prints.

Turning Japanese

With the signing of the first commercial treaty between Japan and America in 1854, more than 200 years of Japanese seclusion came to an end. Import shops quickly sprung up in Paris: J. G. Houssaye’s À la porte chinoise (At the Chinese Gate) was established on Rue Vivienne by 1855. Avant-garde artists were fascinated by ukiyo-e woodcut prints by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). They admired the bold asymmetrical compositions, the clarity of line and colour, and the lightness and airiness of Japanese prints. So novel was the art of East Asia that the distinction between Japanese and Chinese traditions was blurred into the catch-all term, Japonisme.

Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1829–33), private collection.

At the 1862 London International Exhibition, the retired first Consul-General to Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock (1809–97) showed his personal collection. It created a sensation. The exotic Japanese treasures – handcrafted pottery, lacquer, netsuke (button-like toggles) and inrō (crafted boxes) – seemed exquisite to the eyes of a public weary of tawdry mass-produced wares. Farmer and Rogers purchased much of the collection for resale in their new ‘Oriental Warehouse’. Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843–1917), who joined the company in 1862, found his vocation: ‘It was the only shop in London that then dealt in things from the East. The products of Japan were then an absolute novelty, and they attracted the attention of the artistic world’21. Liberty opened his own establishment on Regent Street in 1875; the first catalogue, disseminating Oriental wares and styles to a wide audience, was issued in 1881.

The most popular commodities were textiles, notably silks. Brocades and embroidery offered a rich source of traditional patterns, many of which also bore a symbolic resonance. Normally a single motif is repeated: the ‘Wave Crest’ (Seigaiha), rows of concentric arches forming a fan pattern, represented good luck; ‘Hemp Leaf’ (Asanoha), which resembles a hemp leaf, recalled durability, while ‘Tortoise Shell’ (Kikkou) symbolized longevity. The mon tradition, where objects are adopted as crests, identifying a person or family, influenced Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864–1933). The best-known crest is the Imperial Seal of Japan or Chrysanthemum Flower Seal, a sixteen-petal chrysanthemum with sixteen tips of another row of petals showing behind. The architect Edward William Godwin (1833–86) adapted the Crane crest of the Mori clan for his peacock wallpaper (1872, V&A).

Godwin, Whistler and Dresser

Godwin, one of the leaders of the Aesthetic movement, made the quantum leap from polychromatic ‘Ruskinian Gothic’ (Northampton Guild Hall, 1861–64) to Anglo-Japanese. Godwin’s fame rests on two commissions, the White House on Tite Street, Chelsea (1877–78, demolished in the 1960s) for the painter James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), another wellknown connoisseur of Japanese prints, and the interiors of Oscar Wilde’s (1854–1900) house, also on Tite Street (1884–85). Godwin invoked the spirit of Japanese art, coordinating individual rooms through the variation of a single colour. Wilde’s white dining room was one of the first of its kind; the poet and playwright described the dining room chairs as ‘sonnets in ivory’ and the table as a ‘masterpiece in pearl’22. The spirit of Japan, linearity and minimalism, is expressed in a black cabinet Godwin designed for himself in 1867 (V&A). The grid, based on Japanese checker and grille patterns, was also adopted for the glazing bars of the windows for Whistler’s White House and Keats House, also on Tite Street (1879–80), for the artist Frank Miles. Another source for the grid was the shoji, a door, window or room divider, traditionally a lattice of wood or bamboo covered with translucent paper. The checkerboard/grid also underpins Hankar’s geometric Art Nouveau, Mackintosh’s Glasgow style and Hoffmann’s Viennese Secession forms.

Godwin, sideboard, made by William Watt & Co. (1867–70), V&A, London.

While on display at the 1862 London International Exhibition the designer and theorist Christopher Dresser (1834–1904) was able to see Japanese objets d’art at first hand. In 1877 Dresser was one of the first artists to visit Japan; he was commissioned by Tiffany of New York to acquire Japanese objects on their behalf. Dresser recorded his impressions in Japan, its Architecture, Art and Art-Manufactures (1882). In 1879 Dresser went into partnership with Charles Holme, opening ‘a new and very expensive emporium of Oriental manufactures.’ In 1882 Holme would visit Japan himself in the company of Liberty and the artist Alfred East, who had been commissioned to paint the landscape and its people.

Samuel Bing

Retiring from his business dealings, Holme became a champion of modern design, founding The Studio magazine in 1893. Bing’s career follows a similar trajectory, initially promoting oriental art before founding L’Art Nouveau in 1895. Bing’s promotion of Japanese art was crucial to the development of Art Nouveau; his monthly journal, Le Japon Artistique, first published in 1888, ran to three volumes. Published in French, English, and German editions, the articles considered a wide variety of Japanese arts including architecture, painting, woodblock printing, pottery, and even poetry and theatre. The magazine’s reproductions served as models for artists and designers. Nearly every issue has plant and flower images – gourd, fern, iris, lily, peony, chrysanthemum – with an emphasis on stalk forms. Cranes, swallows, butterflies or splayed fans are set against check, grille or other patterns.

Bing, Artistic Japan, front cover, Vol.1, May 1888.

Masters of the Japanese Print

A turning point was initiated by Bing’s ‘Maitres de l’estampe japonaise’ (1890) as both European artists and the general public discovered the works of the Japanese masters. Bing showcased the full range of ukiyo-e, presenting the art of the woodcut within an evolutionary historical framework. The later masters, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kunisada, were preceded by the ‘classical’ generation, Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815) and Kitagawa Utamaro (c.1753–1806). To these were added a whole new stratum, the ’primitive’ artists Suzuki Harunobu (1724–70), Isoda Koryūsai (1735–90), and above all Hishikawa Moronobu (1618–94). Their works appeared more graphically conceived than those of later printmakers, relying on strength of line and even further divorced from European illusionistic art, eschewing the naturalistic use of colour and paying little respect to perspective. In addition to pictorial minimalism, Moronobu used a broad sinuous line, referred to as his ‘singing line’, to delineate the curvature of the human form, as seen in his shunga (erotica). The effect of this line was further pronounced by his preference for black and white. Commenting on Moronobu, Bing observed, ‘At no later time can one find a richer, livelier, firmer stroke. His graphic compositions are as sculptural reliefs. The stroke speaks alone but says it all; the stroke alone suffices to convey form, far better than the most skilful shading’23. According to Klaus Berger, Moronobu’s curvilinear graphic forms ‘paved the way for the convoluted arabesque of Jugendstil and Art Nouveau; his abstract linear patterns led to the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and the ornamental patterning of Gustav Klimt’24.

Moronobu, Two Lovers (c.1675–80) Met Museum, NY.

The exhibition Maitres de l’estampe japonaise attracted artists from home and abroad; Mucha from Prague, Edvard Munch from Norway, Jan Toorop from Holland and August Endell from Munich. Apparently, they all fell ‘under the spell of the power of line that they had discovered in the Japanese “primitives”’25. For those unable to travel to Paris, Bing’s expansionist spirit led him to show his best Hokusais in London (1890) and his masterpieces in Boston (1894). In 1893, another extravaganza organized by Bing showcased Utamaro and Hiroshige at the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel, the great impresario of the Impressionists, revealing the link between Japanese woodcuts and modern painting.

Guimard, banquette de fumoir for the billiard room of Albert Roy (1897–98), Musée d’Orsay.

In the years following Bing’s exhibitions, the New Art blossomed. The asymmetrical linear forms of Guimard, the creator of the Paris Métro, were clearly informed by the ‘pure line’ of Japanese art:

Line in Guimard, just as in his Japanese guides, is a living incarnation of natural laws. Thus, in an old Japanese manual, there is a catalogue of eighteen different types of line, with such descriptions as ‘floating silk thread’, ‘ropes’, ‘water lines’ or ‘bent metal wire’. . . [Guimard] had an inborn sense of the inner tension of line.26

The expressive power of the line inevitably led to abstraction, arabesques dominating his textiles, furniture, stained glass and metalwork for the Castel Béranger, Paris (1895–98). His banquette de fumoir for the billiard room of the pharmacist Albert Roy (1897–98), now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, appears to have been inspired by Hokusai’s famous print Under the Wave off Kanagawa (1830–33). Japonisme allowed architects and designers to cast off Historicism and imitation.

Democratic Style

It has been claimed that the New Art was a truly democratic style as it went beyond elite, enlightened avantgarde circles, reshaping the lives of ordinary people. It was in all senses popular, encompassing posters and printers and even commercial packaging; boxes of biscuits or packets of tea now carried distinctive Mucha-style women with masses of hair and elusive expressions. Public buildings were transformed: schools, hospitals, town halls and railway stations were all modernized. This was not just a question of functionality or utility but also beauty. Streets were transformed with stunning façades, covered with tiles, mosaics and sculptures. Department stores and cafés were now palaces of art. Art transformed all aspects of life. This is seen most clearly in Barcelona, where Modernisme was a social and political as well as artistic movement. Domènech was both an architect and a politican with a single desire to regenerate and modernize his country. While the latest European models were to be imported, everything that could be identified with Catalan culture had to be recovered: its history, its culture, its language, in effect its identity. Modernista objects carry symbols of Catalan identity, the national flag and St George, the patron saint of Catalonia, alongside dragons and roses, predominate. A mythic past was reinvented in the name of patriotism. Thus, Catalonia Modernisme was expressly Art for the People. Domènech buildings spoke to this democratic ideal. The Hospital de Sant Pau and the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona and the Insitut Pere Matta in Reus are all public institutions: a hospital, concert hall and psychiatric centre. The health of the nation, both physical and spiritual, was an expression of the will to modernize. However, these institutions were not funded by the State but through numerous associations and individual philanthropists. There is not a single town or city in Catalonia without a Modernist building of some kind: a factory, a school or apartment block. As champions of modernity, architects and designers were determined to embrace the twentieth century.

Domènech i Montaner, Hospital de Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona (1902–30).

Decline

While Paris 1900 marks the apex of Art Nouveau, it also signals a decline. According to Bing, ‘the insistent scourge of tortured, swollen and tentacular lines grew more and more aggravated thus causing an abuse most harmful to the reputation of L’Art Nouveau’27. ‘Counterfeited by the army of profit-seekers’, the style was bastardized and exploited by commercial manufacturers, the market flooded with crudely designed and poorly made commodities. The ‘leaders of industry’ were responsible for exaggerating forms, lines ‘interlacing in all directions, writhing into fantastic expansions, meeting in snail-spirals’; a gullible public accepted ‘this product under the official title which assured its success’28. Art Nouveau became equated with eccentricity and excess.

There was bound to be a reaction amongst the upper echelons. Art critics argued that rather than copying French stylistic forms, nations needed to develop their own modern idiom. Such national trends, Glasgow style, Jugendstil, Secession and Liberty, were fully expressed at Turin 1902. This shift could be said to give the New Art a second wind, with architects moving away from curvilinear to linear and geometric forms, precursors of Art Deco and Modernism.

Behrens, Hamburger Vorhalle des Deutschen Reiches, at the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna, Turin, 1902. Deutsch Kunst und Dekoration, Band X, April–Sept 1902, p.599.

Notes

1. Fahr-Becker, Gabriele, Art Nouveau, Potsdam: h. f. Ullmann, 2015, p.6.

2. Berger, Klaus, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.238.

3. Bing, Samuel, ‘l’Art Nouveau’, The Craftsman, Vol. V, No.1, October 1903, p.229, reprinted in Robert Koch, Artistic America, Tiffany Glass and Art Nouveau, Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Press.

4. Dierkens-Aubry, F., The Horta Museum, Saint-Gilles, Brussels: Musea Nostra, 1990, p.37.

5. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, Du style Gothique au Dix-Neuvieme Siècle (June 1846) at Project Gutenberg, accessed July 2019.

6. Thornton, Peter, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior 1620–1920, London: Crescent Books, 1993, p.216.

7.Le Peuple, 1899, referring to Maison du Peuple; Dierkens-Aubry, p.40.

8.Entretien, p.472; Dierkens-Aubry, p.32.

9. Bing, 1903, p.229.

10. Greenhalgh, Paul (ed.), Art Nouveau 1890–1914, London: V&A Publications, 2000, p.21.

11. Bing, 1903, p.236.

12. Ulmer, Renate, Jugendstil in Darmstadt, Darmstadt: Eduard Roether Verlag, 1997, p.52.

13. Howard, Jeremy, Art Nouveau: International and National Styles in Europe, Manchester/New York: Manchester University, 1996.

14. Bing, 1903, p.236.

15. The headquarters of Fiat Automobiles was established in Turin in 1899.

16. Holme, Bryan, The Studio: A Bibliography. The First Fifty Years 1893–1943. London: Simms and Reed, 1978, p.5.

17. Bing, Samuel, ‘l’Art Nouveau’, The Architectural Record, Vol. 12, 1902, p.216, reprinted in Robert Koch, Artistic America, Tiffany Glass and Art Nouveau, Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Press.

18. Baillie Scott, Mackay Hugh, ‘The Fireplace of the Suburban House’, The Studio, Vol. 6, 1896, p.105.

19. Anderson, Anne, ‘“She weaves by night and day, a magic web with colours gay”: trapped in the Gesamtkunstwerk or the dangers of unifying dress and interiors’, Alla Myzelev and John Potvin (eds.), Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010, pp.43–66.

20. Aslin, Elizabeth, E. W. Godwin Furniture and Interior Decoration, London: The Fine Arts Society, 1986, p.9.

21. Ashmore, Sonia, ‘Lasenby Liberty (1843–1917) and Japan’, Hugh Cortazzi (ed.),