The
Vienna Secession or (also known as Secessionsstil, or Sezessionsstil in Austria) was part of that highly varied movement that is now covered by the general term Art Nouveau. Sezessionsstil architects liked to decorate the surface of their buildings with linear ornamentation in a form commonly called whiplash or eel styles. Otto Wagner's Majolika Haus in Vienna (c. 1898) is a significant example of the Austrian use of line.
Otto Wagner's way of modifying Art Nouveau decoration in a classical manner did not find favour with some of his pupils who broke away to form the Secessionists. One was Josef Hoffmann who left to form the Wiener Werkst???¤tte, an Austrian equivalent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A good example of his work is the Stoclet House in Brussels (1905).
Other figures of the Vienna Secession are
Gustav Klimt,
Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser and Oskar Kokoschka.
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (French for "new art") is an art and design style that peaked in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century. Other, more localized terms for the cluster of self-consciously radical, somewhat mannered reformist chic that formed a prelude to 20th-century modernism, included "Jugendstil" in Germany, named for the snappy avant-garde periodical Jugend ('Youth') or "Sezessionsstil" in Vienna, where forward-looking artists and designers seceded from the mainstream salon exhibitions, to exhibit on their own in more congenial surroundings.
In Russia, the movement revolved around the art magazine World of Art, which spawned the revolutionary Ballets Russes. In Italy, "Stile Liberty" was named for the London shop, Liberty & Co, which distributed modern design emanating from the Arts and Crafts movement, a sign both of the Art Nouveau's commercial aspect and the "imported" character that it always retained in Italy. In Catalonia, the movement was centred in Barcelona and was known as "modernisme", with Antoni Gaud??? as the most noteworthy practitioner.
Career of Art Nouveau
Though Art Nouveau climaxed in the years 1892 to 1902, the first stirrings of an Art Nouveau can be recognized in the 1880s, in a handful of progressive designs influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, such as the architect-designer Arthur Mackmurdo's often-illustrated bookcover design for his essay on the city churches of Sir Christopher Wren, published in 1883. Some free-flowing wrought iron from the 1880s could also be adduced, or some flat floral textile designs, most of which owed some impetus to vegetal-derived patterns of High Victorian design.
The name "Art Nouveau" derived from the name of a shop in Paris, Maison de l'Art Nouveau, at the time run by Samuel Bing, that showcased objects that followed this approach to design.
A high point in the evolution of Art Nouveau was the Universal Exposition of 1900 in Paris, in which the "modern style" triumphed in every medium. In the following decade, mass-production so trivialized Art Nouveau that it was scorned after about 1907, and the term was ascribed a pejorative meaning.
Character of Art Nouveau
Dynamic, undulating and flowing, curved "whiplash" lines of syncopated rhythm characterize much of Art Nouveau. Another feature is usage of hyperbolas and parabolas. Conventional moldings seem to spring to life and "grow" into plant-derived forms.
As an art movement it has affinities with the
Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolism movement, and artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Alfons Mucha,
Edward Burne-Jones,
Gustav Klimt and Jan Toorop could be classed in more than one of these styles. Unlike Symbolist painting, however, Art Nouveau has a distinctive visual look; and unlike the backwards-looking
Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau artists quickly used new materials, machined surfaces, and abstraction in the service of pure design.
Art Nouveau in architecture and interior design eschewed the eclectic historicism of the
Victorian era. Though, Art Nouveau designers selected and "modernized" some of the more abstract elements of
Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures, in place of the historically-derived and basically tectonic or realistic naturalistic ornament of high
Victorian styles, Art Nouveau advocated the use of highly-stylized nature as the source of inspiration and expanded the "natural" repertoire to embrace seaweed, grasses, and insects. Correspondingly organic forms, curved lines, especially floral or vegetal, and the like, were used.
Japanese wood-block prints with their curved lines, patterned surfaces and contrasting voids, and flatness of their picture-plane, also inspired Art Nouveau. Some line and curve patterns became graphic clich???©s that were later found in works of artists from all parts of the world.
Art Nouveau did not negate the machine, as other movements such as the Arts and Crafts Movement, but used it to an advantage. For sculpture the principle materials employed were glass and wrought iron, leading to sculpturesque quality even in architecture.
Art Nouveau is considered a "total" style, meaning that it encompasses a hierarchy of scales in design ???‚¬??? architecture, interior design, jewellery, furniture and textile design, utensils and art objects, lighting, and etc.
Art Nouveau is viewed as a forerunner of innovative cultural movements of the 20th century, such as
expressionism, cubism, surrealism and Art Deco.
Art Deco
Art Deco (French: Exposition Internationale des Arts D???©coratifs et Industriels Modernes) was an early twentieth century movement in the decorative arts, that also grew in influence to affect architecture, fashion and the visual arts.
Overview
Art Deco derived its name from the World's fair held in Paris in 1925, formally titled the Exposition Internationale des Arts D???©coratifs et Industriels Modernes, which showcased French luxury goods and reassured the world that Paris remained the international center of style after World War I. Art Deco did not originate with the Exposition; it was a major style in Europe from the early 1920s, though it did not catch on in the U.S. until about 1928, when it quickly modulated into the Moderne during the 1930s, the decade with which Americanized Art Deco is most strongly associated today.
Paris remained the center of the high end of Art Deco design, epitomized in furniture by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, the best-known of Art Deco furniture designers and perhaps the last of the traditional Parisian ???©b???©nistes, and Jean-Jacques Rateau, the firm of S????e et Mare, the screens of Eileen Gray, wrought iron of Edgar Brandt, metalwork and lacquer of Jean Dunand, the glass of Ren???© Lalique and Maurice Marinot, clocks and jewelry by Cartier.
The term Art Deco was coined during the Exposition of 1925 but did not receive wider usage until it was re-evaluated in the 1960s. Its practitioners were not working as a coherent community. It is considered to be eclectic, being influenced by a variety of sources, to name a few:
Early work from the Wiener Werkst???¤tte; functional industrial design
"Primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, or Aztec Mexico
Ancient Greek sculpture and pottery design of the less naturalistic "archaic period"
L???©on Bakst's sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
Fractionated, crystalline, facetted form of decorative
Cubism and Futurism
Fauve color palette
Severe forms of
Neoclassicism: Boull???©e, Schinkel
Everything associated with Jazz, Jazz Age or "jazzy"
Animal motifs and forms; tropical foliage; ziggurats; crystals; "sunbursts"; stylized fountain motifs
Lithe athletic "modern" female forms; flappers' bobbed haircuts
"Machine age" technology such as the radio and skyscraper.
Corresponding to these influences, the Art Deco is characterised by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin, and zebraskin. The bold use of zigzag and stepped forms, and sweeping curves (unlike the sinuous curves of the Art nouveau), chevron patterns, and the sunburst motif. Some of these motifs were ubiquitous- for example the sunburst motif was used in such varied contexts as a lady's shoe, a radiator grille, the auditorium of the Radio City Music Hall and the spire of the Chrysler Building. Art Deco was an opulent style and this opulence is attributed as a reaction to the forced austerity during the years of World War I. Art Deco was a popular style for interiors of cinema theatres and ocean liners such as the Ile de France and Normandie.
A parallel movement following close behind, the Streamline or Streamline Moderne, was influenced by manufacturing and streamlining techniques arising from science and mass production- shape of bullet, liners, etc., where aerodynamics are involved. Once the Chrysler Air-Flo design of 1933 was successful, "streamlined" forms began to be used even for objects such as pencil sharpeners and refrigerators. In architecture, this style was characterised by rounded corners, used predominantly for buildings at road junctions.
Some historians see Art Deco as a type of or early form of Modernism.
Art Deco slowly lost patronage in the West after reaching mass production, where it began to be derided as gaudy and presenting a false image of luxury. Eventually the style was cut short by the austerities of World War II. In colonial countries such as India, it became a gateway for Modernism and continued to be used well into the 1960s. A resurgence of interest in Art Deco came with graphic design in the 1980s, where its association with film noir and 1930s glamour led to its use in ads for jewelry and fashion. This is still the image of Art Deco held in the minds of most Americans.
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