page_title: History of art
section_title: Art Nouveau (c. 1890–1915)
hierarchical_section_title: History of art / Western art after 1770 / Art Nouveau (c. 1890–1915)
caption_attribution_description: English: An image of the Peacock Room featuring the Princess in the Land of Porcelain painting by James McNeill Whistler
context_page_description: The history of art focuses on objects made by humans in visual form for aesthetic purposes. Visual art can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating fine arts from applied arts; inclusively focusing on human creativity; or focusing on different media such as architecture, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and graphic arts. In recent years, technological advances have led to video art, computer art, Performance art, animation, television, and videogames.
  The history of art is often told as a chronology of masterpieces created during each civilization. It can thus be framed as a story of high culture, epitomized by the Wonders of the World. On the other hand, vernacular art expressions can also be integrated into art historical narratives, referred to as folk arts or craft. The more closely that an art historian engages with these latter forms of low culture, the more likely it is that they will identify their work as examining visual culture or material culture, or as contributing to fields related to art history, such as anthropology or archaeology. In the latter cases, art objects may be referred to as archeological artifacts.
context_section_description: Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, characterised by its two main sources of inspiration: use of plant-shaped ornaments (sinuous curves); and historical art styles (like Gothic, Celtic, Byzantine, Rococo and Baroque), especially Japanese art.
  The cult of nature, with its sinuous curves and tendrils of ivy that almost appear to take root within an item of furniture or decorative arts, was a popular theme for Art Nouveau. It was through this medium that women were most often portrayed as stylised objects rather than people. Through the use of nature as an idiom, designers hoped to incorporate all aspects of life into a single object or interior: the outside was brought inside and the human relationship with the environment was explored.
  In Spain, Italy, Russia and the US artists and designers added to the novel and fascinating interpretations of Art Nouveau. Every culture drew on different sources of inspiration including Gothic, Celtic, Byzantine, Rococo and Baroque. While historical influences were present they could not be justified unless they were approached with innovation rather than tradition. The portrayal of women in art at the turn of the century highlights another important challenge to contemporary societies. In many instances women were depicted as fantasy figures, interplaying with nature, united with it. By contrast, the gritty realism of paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec demonstrated that women could be portrayed as genuine people involved in mundane aspects of their daily lives.
  The earliest influences of Art Nouveau began to emerge in England among figures such as John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, which paralleled some aspects of symbolist sensibilities in France and Belgium at that time. Art Nouveau is closely allied and intermingled with symbolism. The term Art Nouveau is most often applied to architecture, crafts, and decorative arts, while symbolism is more commonly used for fine arts like painting and sculpture as well as poetry and literature, however there are no hard, defining lines between the two. Art Nouveau was an international movement that spread throughout Europe and North America reaching its peak around 1890–1905. It perhaps found its greatest expressions in architecture, influenced by theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, and seen in the work of Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, Louis Sullivan, and Antoni Gaudí. However extraordinary examples of the style appeared in interior design, furniture, wallpaper, textiles, mosaics, ceramics, metalworking, jewelry, art glass, stain glass windows, and other decorative and applied arts produced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Peter Carl Fabergé, Émile Gallé, René Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and many others. Japanese art, particularly the woodcut prints, with design concepts that were new to Europeans began to appear and found receptive audiences there, where graphic artist such as Aubrey Beardsley, Jules Chéret, Walter Crane, Eugène Grasset, Alphonse Mucha, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec designed innovative posters, advertising, fashions, book binding, frontispieces, and illustrations.
  Art Nouveau often abandoned geometric forms and angles in favor of arabesque lines suggestive of vegetation, winding vines, and other elements of nature. Many artisans sought to breakdown the divide between fine art, applied art, and decorative art and merge them all into every aspect of daily life. Individual artist frequently moved back and forth between various disciplines and worked in several media. It was not unusual for architects to produce the furniture and other furnishings for the houses and building they designed, for painters to design advertising posters and book illustrations, or jewelers to produce art glass, and stain glass windows.
caption: The Peacock Room; by James McNeil Whistler; 1876–1877; Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., USA)
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