Art Nouveau
Started: 1890
Ended: 1905
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THE ART STORY
 | Jugendstil Movement Page |
 | The Vienna Secession Movement Page |
 | Art Deco Movement Page |
 | The Wiener Werkstätte Movement Page |
KEY ARTISTS
 | Gustav Klimt Quick View Artist Page |
| Gustav Klimt |  |
| Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was the most renowned advocator of Art Nouveau in Vienna, and is remembered as one of the greatest decorative painters of the twentieth century. He also produced one of the century's most significant bodies of erotic art. Art Story: Gustav Klimt Artist Page | ||
 | Hector Guimard Quick View Artist Page |
| Hector Guimard | |
| Guimard was a leading figure in the Art Nouveau movement and the buildings that he designed exemplified the aims of the movement with their organic curves, unity of decorative arts, and natural elements. He made his greatest mark in Paris where in 1900 he designed the entrances to most of the city's metro stations. Art Story: Hector Guimard Artist Page | ||
 | Victor Horta Quick View Artist Page |
| Victor Horta | |
| Synonymous with Art Nouveau, Horta was one of the greatest innovators and pioneers of the movement, designing flamboyant, lush, and organic houses, buildings, and offices. His works are marked by their curvilinear botanic forms, most of which can still be seen in the city of Brussels. Art Story: Victor Horta Artist Page | ||
 | Charles Rennie Mackintosh Quick View Artist Page |
| Charles Rennie Mackintosh | |
| Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, sculptor and decorative artistwho is best known as the United Kingdom's greatest proponent of Art Nouveau and founder of the Glasgow Style. Art Story: Charles Rennie Mackintosh Artist Page | ||
 | Aubrey Beardsley Quick View Artist Page |
| Aubrey Beardsley | |
| Aubrey Beardsley was a nineteenth-century English illustrator and author. In black ink he created highly erotic, grotesque, and decadant drawings, much in the style of Japanese woodcuts. Beardsley's work was part of the Aesthetic movement, and was highly influential to the subsequent Art Nouveau movement of the early-twentieth century. Art Story: Aubrey Beardsley Artist Page | ||
 | Alphonse Mucha Quick View Artist Page |
| Alphonse Mucha | |
| Alphonse Mucha was a Czech painter, designer and illustrator commonly associated with the Art Nouveau movement. Although largely forgotten in the annals of decorative art, Mucha is perhaps best known for his outspoken Slavic nationalism, which greatly informed his work. In particular, Mucha's The Slav Epic, a series of 20 large paintings depicting the history of Czech and Slav peoples, survives as the artist's greatest masterpiece. Art Story: Alphonse Mucha Artist Page | ||
"Art is a line around your thoughts."
Summary of Art Nouveau
Generating enthusiasts in the decorative and graphic arts and architecture throughout Europe and beyond, Art Nouveau appeared in a wide variety of strands, and, consequently, it is known by various names, such as the Glasgow Style, or, in the German-speaking world, Jugendstil. Art Nouveau was aimed at modernizing design, seeking to escape the eclectic historical styles that had previously been popular. Artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric forms, evolving elegant designs that united flowing, natural forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants. The emphasis on linear contours took precedence over color, which was usually represented with hues such as muted greens, browns, yellows, and blues. The movement was committed to abolishing the traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed the so-called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture, as superior to craft-based decorative arts. The style went out of fashion for the most part long before the First World War, paving the way for the development of Art Deco in the 1920s, but it experienced a popular revival in the 1960s, and it is now seen as an important predecessor - if not an integral component - of modernism.
Key Ideas
Gustav Klimt famously said, “Enough of censorship…I refuse every form of support from the state, I’ll do without all of it,” – because he was attacked for his work’s swirling erotic forms, he went on pioneer his Gold Period – one of the highlights of Art Nouveau.
Important Art and Artists of Art Nouveau | |
  | Cover design for Wren's City Churches (1883)Artist: Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo Artwork description & Analysis: Mackmurdo's woodcut is an example of the influence of English design, particularly the Arts and Crafts movement, on Art Nouveau. The woodcut as a genre points to the handcrafted, unique quality of the work and the simplicity of Mackmurdo's use of positive and negative space both contribute to this association. Meanwhile, Mackmurdo's abstract-cum-naturalistic forms and the trademark whiplash curves are characteristic of the visual sense of free movement and energy that would eventually define Art Nouveau. The emphasis on the floral and vegetal imagery adorning the cover which refuses any real consonance with the professed subject matter of the book also highlights its purposefully decorative quality, hinting at how Mackmurdo's work is of an experimental nature rather than a definitive, mature example of Art Nouveau. The woodcut proves far more valuable than the actual content, which consists of a rambling, loose description of the architecture of the Baroque London churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Woodcut on handmade paper |
 | La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891)Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Artwork description & Analysis: Toulouse-Lautrec is one of Art Nouveau's most important graphic artists who were responsible for raising the poster from the realm of advertising ephemera to high art during the 1890s (the same decade that saw the establishment of artistic magazines solely dedicated to this medium). Lautrec and his fellow graphic artists understood that they were innovative, though the stylistic label "Art Nouveau" was probably never applied to them until after Lautrec's death in 1901. Lithograph - Philadelphia Museum of Art |
 | The Peacock Skirt (1894)Artist: Aubrey Beardsley Artwork description & Analysis: Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt is an illustration made for Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Salome, based on the Biblical narrative centered on Salome's order to behead and serve on a platter the head of John the Baptist. (Salome was a popular subject for many other Art Nouveau artists, including Victor Prouvé.) Beardsley's Salome is comparatively tame in comparison with some of the illustrator's more erotic and nearly pornographic works. It is a fine example of how many artists influenced by Art Nouveau laid great emphasis on line, often abstracting their figures to produce the fashionable sinuous curves so characteristic of the style. One might also take it as an example of how the formal vocabulary of the style could be used with exuberant excess, a quality that would later attract criticism. The influence of Japonese prints on Art Nouveau is also evident in Beardsley's work in its flattened rendition of form. But this illustration might also be taken as an example of the contemporaneous Aesthetic movement, and in that respect it demonstrates how Art Nouveau overlapped and interacted with various other period styles. Ink illustration |
More Art Nouveau Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Peter Clericuzio
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Peter Clericuzio
Available from:
First published on 21 Jan 2012. Updated and modified regularly. 
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