Art Nouveaumetmuseum.org /toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm

Jardinière, ca. 1893Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer (French, 18651953); Clément Massier (French, 18441917)Golfe-Juan, FranceEarthenware with metallic glaze; H. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm)Purchase, Funds from various donors, The Charles E. Sampson Memorial Fund, and Jerome M. Cohen and TheIsak and Rose Weinman Foundation Inc. Gifts, 2005 (2005.220)

Vase, 18991900Designer: Georges Hoentschel (French, 18551915);Probable Maker: Emile Grittel (French, 18701953)France; Saint-Armand-en-PuisayeGlazed stoneware; H. 44 1/2 in. (113 cm)Purchase, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation Gift, 2007(2007.27)

Panel, ca. 1900Hector Guimard (French, 18671942)Silk and paint on silk; 27 x 18 in. (68.6 x 45.7 cm)Gift of Mrs. Hector Guimard, 1949 (49.85.11)

Vase, ca. 1885Maker: Olivier de Sorra; Factory: PierrefondsFrench (Pierrefonds)Stoneware; H. 11 3/4 in. (29.8 cm)Marks: PH, a helmet between (impressed on underside);PIERREFONDS (below); 1; 42Gift of Lloyd and Barbara Macklowe, 1991 (1991.390.1)

Hanging cabinet , ca. 1890Émile Gallé (French, 18461904)French (Nancy)Beechwood, various marquetry woods; H. 40 in. (101.6 cm), W. 12 in. (30.5 cm), D. 48 in. (121.9 cm)Anonymous Gift, 1982 (1982.246)

Vase, 189396Designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 18481933);Made by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company(18921902)American; Made in Mid-Atlantic, Corona, New York, AmericaFavrile glass; 14 1/8 x 11 1/2 in. (35.9 x 29.2 cm)Gift of H. O. Havemeyer, 1896 (96.17.10)

Washstand , 1904Charles Rennie Mackintosh (Scottish, 1868–1928), DesignerOak, ceramic tile, colored and mirror glass, and lead; 63 1/4x 51 1/4 x 20 3/8 in. (160.7 x 130.2 x 51.8 cm)Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1994 (1994.120)

Vase, ca. 1896Designer: Philippe Wolfers (Belgian, 18581929), by PhilippeWolfers & Wolfers FrèresBelgian (Brussels)Silver, partly gilded; H. 8 1/2 in. (21.5 cm)Maker's mark: three stars in triangle for Philippe Wolfers &Wolfers Frères; alloy mark: "800"; assay mark: crescent andcrown in rectangle for Germany, ca. 18951900 (applied whenthe vase was imported to Germany)Purchase, Friends of European Sculpture and DecorativeArts Gifts, 2003 (2003.236)

Tea service, ca. 1910Josef Hoffmann (Austrian, 18701956)Silver, ebony, amethyst, carnelian; H. (large teapot) 5 3/8 in. (13.7 cm)Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky Fund, 2000 (2000.278.1.9)

Side chair (part of a set ), ca. 1899Edward Colonna (18621948), for L'Art Nouveau Bing, ParisFrenchPalissander wood, damask upholstery; 35 1/4 x 16 7/8 x 15in. (89.5 x 42.9 x 38.1 cm)Purchase, Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1926 (26.228.5)

Pitcher, ca. 1899Edward Colonna (German, 18621948) (silver mounts only); Potter: Alexandre Bigot (French, 18621927)FrenchStoneware, grès flammé, with silver mounts; H. 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm)Purchase, Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1926 (26.228.7)

The Scream, 1895Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 18631944)Lithograph; image: 14 1/16 x 9 5/16 in. (35.7 x 23.6 cm);sheet: 20 1/4 x 15 5/8 in. (51.4 x 39.7 cm)Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982 (1984.1203.1)

Cabinet -vit rine, 1899Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (Belgian, 18581910)Belgian (Liège)Red narra wood, ash, copper, enamel, glass; 98 x 84 x 25in. (248.9 x 213.4 x 63.5 cm)Marks: SERRURIER/LIEGE (stamped on back three times)Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Macklowe, 1981 (1981.512.4)

Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, 1891Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 18641901)Lithograph printed in four colors; three sheets of wove paper;74 13/16 x 45 7/8 in. (189.99 x 116.51 cm)Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932 (32.88.12)

Vase, ca. 1899

Designer: Max Läuger (German, 18641952); Factory:Kandern TonwerkeGerman (Baden)Earthenware; H. 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm)Marks: .MUSTERGESETZL.GES[CHTZT]; 184; MLK andBavarian Shield in square (Läuger Kandern mark)Gift of Robert L. Isaacson, 1991 (1991.182.1)

Brooch, ca. 1900Manufacturer: Georges Fouquet (French, 18621957);Designer: Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 18601939)Gold, enamel, mother-of-pearl, opal, emerald, coloredstones, gold paint; Diam. 1/2 in. (1.3 cm)Gift of Eva and Michael Chow, 2003 (2003.560)

Inkwell, ca. 1900Maker: Pierre-Adriene Dalpayrat (French, 18441910); Mountmaker: Édouard Colonna (18621948); Firm: L'ArtNouveau BingFrench (Bourg- la-Reine)Glazed earthenware, gilt bronze; 3 15/16 x 5 5/8 in. (10 x 14.3 cm)Marks: (stamped on unglazed bottom) ART NOUVEAU/BING; (painted in dark brown on bottom) 3Rogers Fund, 1999 (1999.398.3)

Pendant , ca. 1901René-Jules Lalique (French, 18601945)French (Paris)Gold, enamel, opal, pearl, diamondsMark: LALIQUE (stamped on bottom edge)Gift of Clare Le Corbeiller, 1991 (1991.164)

Jardinière, ca. 1902Henry van de Velde (Belgian, 18631957); Manufacturer: Theodore Muller, WeimarSilver; 4 1/8 x 14 in. (10.5 x 35.6 cm)Purchase, Cynthia Hazen Polsky Gift, 2000 (2000.350)

Cof fee service, 19001904Designer: Léon Kann (French, active 1896ca. 1915; active at Sèvres 189698, 19001908); Sèvres Manufactory(French, 1740present)Hard-paste porcelain; H. 7 in. (17.8 cm)Marks: [1] S / 1900 in a triangle printed in underglaze black (factory year mark indicating pâte nouvelle); [2]incised marksGift of Diane R. Wolf, 1988 (1988.287.1a,b)

Armchair, ca. 1905

Designer: Henri- Jules-Ferdinand Bellery-Desfontaines(French, 18671910); possibly by Gagnant; possibly carvedby Léon-Albert Jallot (French, 18741967); tapestry coverspossibly by factory of Antoine Jorrand, AubussonFrench (Paris)Walnut, copper, brass, tapestry covers, brown plush; 56 1/2x 23 3/8 x 26 in. (143.5 x 59.4 x 66 cm)Purchase, Friends of European Sculpture and DecorativeArts Gifts, 1990 (1990.213)

Vase, ca. 19016Designer: Max Läuger (German, 18641952); Maker: WalterSherf; Manufacturer: Metallwarenfabrik für KleinkunstGerman (Baden)Glass, pewter; H. 5 in. (12.7 cm)Gift of Robert L. Isaacson, 1991 (1991.182.2)

Maude Adams (18721953) as Joan of Arc , 1909Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 18601939)Oil on canvas; 82 1/4 x 30 in. (208.9 x 76.2 cm)Signed, dated, and inscribed: (lower left) Mucha / 1909;(bottom) MAUDE ADAMS as JOAN of ARCGift of A. J. Kobler, 1920 (20.33)

Mäda Primavesi (1903–2000), 1912Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918)Oil on canvasSigned (lower right): GVSTAV / KLIMTGift of André and Clara Mertens, in memory of her mother,Jenny Pulitzer Steiner, 1964 (64.148)

From the 1880s until the First World War, western Europe and theUnited States witnessed the development of Art Nouveau ("NewArt"). Taking inspiration from the unruly aspects of the naturalworld, Art Nouveau influenced art and architecture especially inthe applied arts, graphic work, and illustration. Sinuous lines and"whiplash" curves were derived, in part, from botanical studiesand illustrations of deep-sea organisms such as those byGerman biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (18341919) inKunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature, 1899). Otherpublications, including Floriated Ornament (1849) by GothicRevivalist Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (18121852) and TheGrammar of Ornament (1856) by British architect and theoristOwen Jones (18091874), advocated nature as the primarysource of inspiration for a generation of artists seeking to breakaway from past styles. The unfolding of Art Nouveau's flowingline may be understood as a metaphor for the freedom andrelease sought by its practitioners and admirers from the weightof artistic tradition and critical expectations.

Additionally, the new style was an outgrowth of two nineteenth-century English developments for which design reform (a reactionto prevailing art education, industrialized mass production, andthe debasement of historic styles) was a leitmotifthe Arts andCrafts movement and the Aesthetic movement. The formeremphasized a return to handcraftsmanship and traditionaltechniques. The latter promoted a similar credo of "art for art's

sake" that provided the foundation for non-narrative paintings, forinstance, Whistler's Nocturnes. It further drew upon elements ofJapanese art ("japonisme"), which flooded Western markets,mainly in the form of prints, after trading rights were establishedwith Japan in the 1860s. Indeed, the gamut of late nineteenth-century artistic trends prior to World War I, including those inpainting and the early designs of the Wiener Werkstätte, may bedefined loosely under the rubric of Art Nouveau.

The term art nouveau first appeared in the 1880s in the Belgianjournal L'Art Moderne to describe the work of Les Vingt, twentypainters and sculptors seeking reform through art. Les Vingt, likemuch of the artistic community throughout Europe and America,responded to leading nineteenth-century theoreticians such asFrench Gothic Revival architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet- le-Duc (18141879) and British art critic John Ruskin (18191900), whoadvocated the unity of all the arts, arguing against segregationbetween the fine arts of painting and sculpture and the so-calledlesser decorative arts. Deeply influenced by the socially awareteachings of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement,Art Nouveau designers endeavored to achieve the synthesis ofart and craft, and further, the creation of the spiritually upliftingGesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art") encompassing a variety ofmedia. The successful unification of the fine and applied artswas achieved in many such complete designed environments asVictor Horta and Henry van de Velde's Hotel Tassel and VanEetvelde House (Brussels, 189395), Charles Rennie Mackintoshand Margaret Macdonald's design of the Hill House(Helensburgh, near Glasgow, 19034), and Josef Hoffmann andGustav Klimt's Palais Stocklet dining room (Brussels, 190511)(2000.350; 1994.120; 2000.278.1- .9).

Painting styles such as Post- Impressionism and Symbolism (the"Nabis") shared close ties with Art Nouveau and each waspracticed by designers who adapted them for the applied arts,architecture, interior designs, furnishings, and patterns. Theycontributed to an overall expressiveness and the formation of acohesive style (64.148).

In December 1895, German-born Paris art dealer Siegfried Bingopened a gallery called L'Art Nouveau for the contemporarydécor he exhibited and sold there (1999.398.3). Though Bing'sgallery is credited with the popularization of the movement andits name, Art Nouveau style reached an international audiencethrough the vibrant graphic arts printed in such periodicals asThe Savoy, La Plume, Jugend, Dekorative Kunst, The YellowBook, and The Studio. The Studio featured the bold, Symbolist-inspired linear drawings of Aubrey Beardsley (18721898).Beardsley's flamboyant black and white block print J'ai baisé tabouche lokanaan for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1894), with itsbrilliant incorporation of Japanese two-dimensional composition,may be regarded as a highlight of the Aesthetic movement andan early manifestation of Art Nouveau taste in England. Otherinfluential graphic artists included Alphonse Mucha, Jules Chéret,and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose vibrant poster art oftenexpressed the variety of roles of women in belle époquesocietyfrom femme nouvelle (a "new woman" who rejected the

conventional ideals of femininity, domesticity, and subservience)to demimonde (20.33; 32.88.12). Female figures were oftenincorporated as fairies or sirens in the jewelry of René Lalique,Georges Fouquet, and Philippe Wolfers (1991.164; 2003.560;2003.236).

Art Nouveau style was particularly associated with France, whereit was called variously Style Jules Verne, Le Style Métro (afterHector Guimard's iron and glass subway entrances), Art belleépoque, and Art fin de siècle (49.85.11). In Paris, it captured theimagination of the public at large at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the last and grandest of a series of fairs organizedevery eleven years from 1798. Various structures showcased the innovative style, including the Porte Monumentaleentrance, an elaborate polychromatic dome with electronic lights designed by René Binet (18661911); the Pavillon Bleu,a restaurant alongside the Pont d'Iena at the foot of the Eiffel Tower featuring the work of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy(18581910) (1981.512.4); Art Nouveau Bing, a series of six domestic interiors which included Symbolist art (26.228.5); andthe pavilion of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, an organization dedicated to the revival and modernization of thedecorative arts as an economic stimulus and expression of national identity which offered an important display ofdecorative objects (1991.182.2; 26.228.7; 1988.287.1a,b). Sharing elements of the French Rococo (and its nineteenth-century revivals), including stylized motifs derived from nature, fantasy, and Japanese art, the furnishings exhibited wereproduced in the new taste and yet perpetuated an acclaimed tradition of French craftsmanship. The use of luxuryveneers and finely cast gilt mounts in the furniture of leading cabinetmakers Georges de Feure (18681943), LouisMajorelle (18591926), Édouard Colonna (18621948), and Eugène Gaillard (18621933) indicated the Neo-Rococoinfluence of François Linke (18551946) (26.228.5).

The Exposition Universelle was followed by two shows at which many luminaries of European Art Nouveau exhibited.They included the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901 that featured the fantastical Russian pavilions of FyodorShekhtel' (18591926) and the Esposiz ione Internaz ionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna at Turin in 1902 that showcased thework of furniture designer Carlo Bugatti of Milan (69.69).

As in France, the "new art" was called by different names in the various style centers where it developed throughoutEurope. In Belgium, it was called Style nouille or Style coup de fouet. In Germany, it was Jugendstil or "young style," afterthe popular journal Die Jugend (1991.182.2). Part of the broader Modernista movement in Barcelona, its chief exponentwas the architect and redesigner of the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) cathedral (Barcelona, begun 1882), Antoni Gaudí(18521926). In Italy, it was named Arte nuova, Stile floreale, or La Stile Liberty after the London firm of Liberty & Co., whichsupplied Oriental ceramics and textiles to aesthetically aware Londoners in the 1870s and produced English ArtNouveau objects such as the Celtic Revival "Cymric" and "Tudric" ranges of silver by Archibald Knox (18641933). Otherstyle centers included Austria and Hungary, where Art Nouveau was called the Sezessionstil. In Russia, Saint Petersburgand Moscow were the two centers of production for Stil' modern. "Tiffany Style" in the United States was named for thelegendary Favrile glass designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Although international in scope, Art Nouveau was a short- lived movement whose brief incandescence was a precursorof modernism, which emphasized function over form and the elimination of superfluous ornament. Although a reaction tohistoric revivalism, it brought Victorian excesses to a dramatic fin-de-siècle crescendo. Its influence has been farreaching and is evident in Art Deco furniture designs, whose sleek surfaces are enriched by exotic wood veneers andornamental inlays. Dramatic Art Nouveauinspired graphics became popular in the turbulent social and political milieu ofthe 1960s, among a new generation challenging conventional taste and ideas.

Cybele GontarDepartment of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Citation

Gontar, Cybele. "Art Nouveau". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm (October 2006)

These related Museum Bulletin orJournal articles may or may notrepresent the most currentscholarship.

Baetjer, Katharine "About Mäda." MetropolitanMuseum Journal, Vol. 40 (2005).

Further Reading

Arwas, Victor Art Nouveau: The French Aesthetic. London: AndreasPapadakis, 2002.

Escritt, Stephen Art Nouveau. London: Phaidon, 2000 .Fahr-Becker, Gabriele Art Nouveau. Cologne: Könemann, 1997.Greenhalgh, Paul, ed. Art Nouveau, 18901914. Exhibition

catalogue.. London: V&A Publications, 2000.Weisberg, Gabriel P. Art Nouveau Bing: Paris Style 1900.

Exhibition catalogue.. New York: Abrams, 1986.Weisberg, Gabriel P., Edwin Becker, and Évelyne Possémé, eds.

The Origins of L'Art Nouveau: The Bing Empire. Exhibition catalogue..Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2004.

Related exhibitions and online features

Museum Journal, Vol. 40 (2005).JSTOR | PDF

Karpinski, Caroline "Munch and Lautrec." TheMetropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 23, no. 3(November, 1964). .JSTOR | PDF