15 Impressive Art Nouveau Facts For Kids

In this article, we are going to go through an art style called Art Nouveau.

With origins in France, from 1890-1910, Art Nouveau is a phenomenon where real subjects were imitated with flowing and twisting lines and shapes of nature. The Art Nouveau design has highly organic ornamental features which took inspiration from the flowing lines in Japanese prints.

Often found in the features of Japanese woodwork prints, simple muted colors enriched the two-dimensional imagery of this era of paintings. The arts and crafts movement's emphasis on hand-craftsmanship and highly expressive paintings of posts impressionists inspired art nouveau artists.

Common features of Art Nouveau are muted colors like carnation pink, olive green, and periwinkle blue. Swirling lines, natural imagery, nature illustrations of deep-sea creatures, along with flora and fauna, were used in these works of art.

Plants depicted by botanists were especially used in these motifs. An example of this new style of art can be found in all art forms during this time: sculpture and painting of course but also architecture, jewelry, household items, furniture design, and graphic art.

This generation of artists challenged the notion that paintings and sculptures were superior to other crafts. In the artists' minds, they were equal art forms and often intermingled with each other.

Artists strove for harmony and continuity in décor as this movement made innovations towards interior design. These artists wanted to exchange the mishmash of mass-produced items, antiques, and classical imitations with well-made original decorations and furniture.

The creation of Art Nouveau was the dawn of graphic art. It was the first art movement that made poster art and graphic art recognizable as an art form.

The immensely popular posters designed by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, for example, contained illustrations and decorative lettering that emphasized graphic design. The posters were a benchmark for how graphic design started to develop.

It became a regular feature in catalogs and book covers that wanted Art Nouveau on their covers. Artists like Louis Comfort Tiffany contributed greatly to the Art Nouveau style.

Tiffany's glass art designs included imagery taken directly from the natural world are prime examples of Art Nouveau. Tiffany's artistic stained glass lamps and windows are special because unlike typical glass, which is created by painting on clear glass, Tiffany's glass featured subtly dyed opalescent glass.

The ornamental nature of famed Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, whose work is another example of Art Nouveau's finest collection at its most dominant.

His work is decorative, colorful, and contains gold leaf. The painting 'The Kiss' and 'The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer's' leaves no space unadorned.

The twisting organic lines of Art Nouveau can also be seen in the paintings and illustrations of Czech artist Alphonse Mukha. His elongated depictions of actresses and fantasy women decorated advertisements, theater posters, and more.

One of Mukha's best-known works is a set of decorative panels that depicts the seasons. The panels personify the seasons as sensuous women that illustrate both a character of each season individually and also harmonize the seasons throughout the year.

What is Art Nouveau?

Art Nouveau is an ornamental style of art that flourished primarily in Europe and North America between 1890 and 1910.

• This fine art influenced art nouveau architecture, interior design, jewelry, glass design, posters, and illustration.
• Art Nouveau is a French term that translates to mean 'new art', in English.
• The development of Art Nouveau was a deliberate attempt to modernize art by creating a new artistic style that was free of historic imitation that dominated much of 19th-century design.

Origin And History Of Art Nouveau

This period made the most impact, in terms of art history. It left a long-lasting impression despite being active for only 20 years.

Art Nouveau became very popular and even though it lasted only 20 years, the production during this period made a lasting impression on the art world. Towards the end of Art Nouveau's heyday, the prevailing aesthetic eventually gave way to the more industrial lines of modernism.

The more geometric forms of Art Deco still influence the appreciation of Art Noveau's organic forms and prolific ornamentation.

• How was Art Nouveau created? By the time European artists entered the late 1800s, Art Nouveau became a serious academic form of art that became an essential part of the school curriculum. Every artist had to go through this to be considered a serious artist.
• They needed to stay committed to a rigorous study of line, shape, form, and texture. The ultimate purpose of this was to manufacture paintings of idealized figures and landscapes which made most of the artists think that academic art was rubbish.
• They believed art isn't meant to be studied like science or math. These artists thought art flowed from the soul, twisted through the consciousness, and decorated life with its beauty.
• These rebels were driven to impart their style within the art world: these were the innovators of the very short but highly influential art movement, known as Art Nouveau.
• The total work of art or the idea of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' was prominently featured in the movement. Artists as well as designers sought to unify fine arts and applied arts in their creations. This design was seen in modern arts, architecture, graphic designs, and applied arts. Such examples were seen in decoration, ceramic tile, jewelry, and glass.
• In the second half of the 19th century, the members of the British Arts and Crafts movement countered the Industrial Revolution by returning to the craftsmanship of medieval masters and folk traditions.
• How did Art Nouveau end? As the First World War emerged, Art Nouveau's reign started to decline and by the 1920s it was replaced by Art Deco.

Features Of Art Nouveau

Unity of all arts was advocated by the Art Nouveau style and it also argued against the discrimination between fine art(paintings and sculptures) and decorative arts. The elements of rippling lines, that evoked the impression of movement or arabesque, was a linear artistic decoration also prevailed in paintings, new urban buildings, and decorative arts.

• Because of the quality and quantity of this artistic style, the historic center of Riga, Latvia was famed with the title of having 'the finest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe,' and was inscribed in 1997.
• Art Nouveau architecture brilliantly illustrated the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in society, art, and thought.
• Another brilliant example of Art Nouveau architecture is 'Four Brussels townhouses' by Victor Horta which was included in the year 2000 and was described as a work of human creative genius.
• UNESCO has recognized various Art Nouveau buildings on their World Heritage Site list as significant contributors to cultural heritage.

Significance Of Art Nouveau

Although transnational in compass, Art Nouveau was a short-lived movement whose brief luminescence was a precursor to euphemism, which emphasized function over form and the elimination of redundant garnishment.

Although a response to major revivalism, it brought puritanical surpluses to a dramatic fin-de-siècle top. Its influence has been far-reaching. It is apparent in Art Deco cabinetwork designs, whose satiny shells are amended by fantastic wood veneers and cosmetic inlays.

• Dramatic Art Nouveau-inspired plates became popular in the turbulent social and political terrain of the 1960s, among a new generation of conventional tastes and ideas.
• Art Nouveau style was particularly associated with France, where it was called similarly Style Jules Verne, Le Style Métro(after Hector Guimard’s iron and glass shelter entrances), Art belle époque, and Art fin de siècle.
• In Paris, it captured the imagination of the public at large at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the last and grandest of a series of expositions organized every eleven times since 1798.
• Colorful structures showcased the innovative style, including the Porte Monumentale entrance, an elaborate chromatic pate with electronic lights designed by René Binet(1866–1911); the Pavillon Bleu, an eatery alongside the Pont d’Iena at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower featuring the work of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy(1858–1910); Art Nouveau Bing, a series of six domestic innards that included Symbolist art; and the kiosk of the Union Centrale des Trades Décoratifs, an association devoted to the reanimation and modernization of the ornamental trades. The kiosk of the Union Centrale des Trades Décoratifsas was a profitable encouragement and expression of public identity that offered an important display of ornamental objects.
• Participating rudiments of the French Rococo(and its 19th-century renewals), included stylized motifs deduced from nature, fantasy, and Japanese art. The furnishings displayed were produced in the new taste and yet eternalized an acclaimed tradition of French artificer.
• The use of luxury veneers and finely cast gilt mounts in the cabinetwork of leading cabinetmakers Georges de Feure(1868–1943), Louis Majorelle(1859–1926), Edward Colonna(1862–1948), and Eugène Gaillard(1862–1933), indicated the Neo-Rococo influence of François Linke(1855–1946).
• The Exposition Universelle was followed by two shows at which numerous luminaries of European Art Nouveau were displayed. They included the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901 that featured the fantastical Russian belvederes of Fyodor Shekhtel(1859–1926) and the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna at Turin in 1902. It showcased the work of cabinetwork developer Carlo Bugatti of Milan.
• What is the difference between Art Nouveau and Art Deco? The main difference between these two styles is that the previous celebrates the elegance of curves and long lines while the latter comprises geometrical shapes and sharp lines.

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