Art Nouveau Design Style
Springing out of the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau design style came to the fore in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Industrialization was taking a hold at an increasing rate and there was a great fear that, in the process of mechanization, individuality and respect for the work of the artisan would be lost.
The Arts and Crafts movement sought to redress the balance and to stress the value of natural forms, the integrity of the hand-crafted article and the honesty of materials.
Viewed in retrospect. Art Nouveau design style slots happily into the traditional idiom, but at the time it must have been seen in a very different light. By the 1890s Victorian decoration was reaching what can only be described as a stage of excess. Rooms were dark, heavily draped, over-embellished and filled beyond reason.
The New Art ideas of flooding rooms with light, of presenting materials in their natural state and of clearing away the clutter must have seemed quite revolutionary at that time, to be attempted only by the brave. Interestingly enough, after the excesses of the late twentieth century. the Art Nouveau interior is once again looking fresh and appropriate.
Unlike many previous fashions, an Art Nouveau design borrowed little from historical styles. Medieval and Celtic influences are there, but merely hinted at. The rest was the creation of such designers as Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland; Voysey and Morris in England; Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright and L. C. Tiffany in America; Georges de Feure in France; and Josef Hoffmann in Austria. Other countries notable for embracing the art nouveau style were Italy, Spain, Germany and Belgium.
Two distinct threads can be identified within the Art Nouveau design. On the one hand there is the essential fluid, curvilinear nature of the designs depicting natural forms, and on the other, strongly disciplined, geometric forms with the emphasis on vertical lines as exemplified by the furniture and architecture of Mackintosh and the Glasgow School.
It is the combination of these paradoxical aspects that creates such a stimulating style.
Few extravagant or exotic materials were used in the Art Nouveau interior. Oak, formerly the material of country craftsmen, was taken to town and used for furniture, paneling and floors. Window treatments tended towards the mean and walls were most often painted white or a shade of off-white.
Faux finishes were seen as pretentious and were banished, being so totally at odds with the belief in the honesty of materials. The Art Nouveau style is typified by the depiction of natural subjects – in particular, striated images of flowers and foliage. Flowers such as lilies, roses and irises were strongly featured, as were twining stems with tendrils enveloping whatever they were emblazoned upon. These rounded forms contrasted sharply with the vertically exaggerated shapes promoted by Mackintosh.
Although there was originally an intention for Art Nouveau designs to be reflected in the exterior as well as the interior of buildings, most people opted for doing little more than importing the motifs and interior furnishings suggested by the style.
Stained-glass windows were introduced and many fireplace surrounds designed in the Art Nouveau style. Stair balustrades also often featured the florid forms. Liberty, the London store, did much to promote the idiom, producing and selling furniture, wallpaper, textiles and accessories that reflected the movement’s image.