Art Nouveau Most Important Art and Artists | The Art Story La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891) Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Artwork description & Analysis: Toulouse-Lautrec is not typically associated with the vast number of Art Nouveau artists, but some of his later work deserves consideration as an example of the movement's output. His late lithographic posters in particular bear comparison to the Japanese prints that so widely influenced Art Nouveau. La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge takes the flourish and messiness of a French can-can dancer's dress and breaks it down to a few simple, rhythmic lines. The way in which the poster sacrifices spatial depth to create a bold impression of linear surface design is also typical of the movement. Lithograph - Philadelphia Museum of Art The Peacock Skirt (1894) Artist: Aubrey Beardsley Artwork description & Analysis: Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt, an illustration made for Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Salome, is comparatively polite in comparison with some of the illustrator's more erotic, borderline pornographic, works.

It is a fine example of how many artists influenced by Art Nouveau laid great emphasis on surface design, often abstracting their figures to produce the fashionable sinuous lines 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 Japonisme on Art Nouveau is also evident in Beardsley's work. 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 Like The Art Story on Facebook Art Nouveau and More at Online Auctions The Museum of Applied Arts (1893-96) Artist: Odon Lechner and Gyula Partos Artwork description & Analysis: The Museum of Applied Arts is characteristic of both the Art Nouveau architectural style (precise lines, ornate decorations and grand scale) and the architectural style popularized by the Hungarian Odon Lechner, who was known for infusing his designs with elements drawn from Hungarian folk art.

Lechner was an early representative of the Hungarian Secession, a fringe movement of the Vienna Secession, and his late-19th and turn-of-the-century work can be found throughout Budapest and other eastern European cities. - Budapest, Hungary Interior of dome of the Grand Palais, Paris (1897-1900) Artist: Henri Delagne, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault Artwork description & Analysis: The Grand Palais, like many Parisian buildings erected during that time, is a wonderful example of modern architecture finding its style. While it is in some respects typical of older, Beaux Arts design, the architects' use of reinforced concrete and steel framing, and the glass vault ceiling in particular, are all examples of attempts to find modern solutions to old problems. The dome ceiling itself - reinforced with steel that both supports and complements it visually - resembles a grandiose flower in bloom. - Paris, France Hope II (1907-08) Artist: Gustav Klimt Artwork description & Analysis: With the exception of Picasso, no other modern artist could be said to have produced so many definitive early-century works of art as Gustav Klimt.

Known primarily for his occasionally somber, occasionally ecstatic, but always visually luscious paintings of women, Klimt's Hope II is an example of the artist's unique combination of the figurative, the decorative and the abstract. Although commonly associated with Art Nouveau, Klimt's paintings could very well represent the movement's demise. Art Nouveau's influence is evident in Hope II and similar works, but so is the overelaboration that, to many critics, seemed like a betrayal of the movement's original desire to match a work's forms to its function. Oil and gold leaf on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York Entrance Gate to Paris Subway Station (1900) Artist: Hector Guimard Artwork description & Analysis: When Hector Guimard was commissioned to design these famous subway station gates, Paris was only the second city in the world (after London) to have constructed an underground railway. Guimard's design answered the desire to celebrate and promote this new infrastructure with a bold structure that would be clearly visible on the Paris streetscape.

The gate utilizes the sinuous, organic forms that are so typical of the Art Nouveau style, yet while it appears at first to be a single component, it is in fact made up of several parts that could be easily mass produced in Paris. In effect, Guimard had concealed an aspect of the object's modernity beneath its soft forms, a strategy that is symptomatic of Art Nouveau's ambivalent attitude to the modern age. Ironically, perhaps, Guimard's design was instrumental in popularizing Art Nouveau, and making the style an important early stage in the evolution of modernist design. Painted cast iron, glazed lava, and glass - The Museum of Modern Art, New York Hotel Tassel (1893-4) Artist: Victor Horta Artwork description & Analysis: Victor Horta's reputation as one of the foremost influences on Art Nouveau is based in part on the Hotel Tassel, a townhouse he built for the scientist Emile Tassel. Most distinctive is its decoration, whose curvy forms avoid the references to historical styles that has been so prevalent throughout most of the 19th century.

But Horta also introduced innovations in the plan, effectively splitting the building down the center and using modern materials to create a steel and glass-covered ceiling that let light down into stairs and landings which link the rooms together. The Hotel exemplifies the Art Nouveau desire for a total approach to design, since Horta designed every element of it, from the mosaic flooring to the stained glass. As a feat of creation, it is stunningly successful, though its rich embellishment made it less useful as a template for popular design. Nevertheless, it is thought to have been an important influence on the French designer Hector Guimard. In 2000, along with three other Brussels townhouses designed by Horta, the Hotel Tassel was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

- Brussels, Belgium Including Overviews, Key Ideas, The Development and Growth of Art Nouveau, Useful Resources and Related Topics to Art Nouveau Related Art and Artists Movement: Symbolism Artist: Gustave Moreau Artwork description & Analysis: This painting illustrates the myth that tells of the love between Jupiter, the divine king of the gods, and Semele (the embodiment of that which is earthly), who upon the suggestion of Jupiter's wife Juno, asks Jupiter to make love to her in his divine radiance. Jupiter cannot resist the temptation of her beauty, with the acknowledgment that she will be consumed by his light and the fire of his divinity (he is crowned with thunderbolts). Thus the painting is symbolic of humanity's union with the divine that ends in death. However, as the artist wrote, "all is transformed, purified, idealized. Immortality begins, the Divine pervades everything." Themes of death, corruption, and resurrection all make their appearance. As in this painting, Moreau followed the example of Wagner's music, composing pictures in the style of symphonic poems in their richness of detail and color, although that same characteristic prevented him from emphasizing the more modern aspects of Symbolism.

The artist expressed himself in a more traditional style, but true to Symbolism, meaning evolves from the forms themselves; humanity is small-scaled and vulnerable in its fleshy voluptuousness. The androgynous figure of Jupiter suggests the isolation of the dreaming artist and the life of ideas. Moreau, central to any discussion of Symbolism, contributed to the more literary aspects of Symbolism, choosing his subjects from the Bible or, as here, mythology - at the same time that he was able to point out some of the neuroses of the modern age. Oil on canvas - Gustave Moeau Museum, Paris L'Indolence (Laziness) (1896) Movement: Les Nabis Artist: Félix Vallotton Artwork description & Analysis: Félix Vallotton's woodcut style was novel in its starkly reductive opposition of large masses of undifferentiated black and areas of unmodulated white. Vallotton emphasized outline and flat patterns, and generally eliminated the gradations of traditional modeling.

In this work he was especially influenced by the Japanese woodcut; in fact, a large exhibition of these prints had been shown at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1890, and Vallotton, like many artists of his era, admired and collected them. As in this example, the figure is not individualized, but serves as an image of an idea - indolence. The mood is quiet and the overall effect somewhat decorative, but executed with an economy of means. To the Nabi group Valloton contributed his work in the form of the modern woodcut. The many woodcuts he produced during the 1890s were recognized as innovative, and established him as a leader in the revival of true woodcut as an artistic medium rather than as a mere means of reproducing a drawn or painted work. Vallotton's woodcuts were widely disseminated in periodicals and books in Europe as well as in the United States, and have been suggested as a significant influence on the graphic art of Edvard Munch, Aubrey Beardsley, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Woodcut on paper - Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Gustav Klimt Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Like The Art Story on Facebook Follow The Art Story on Google+ "Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want." Synopsis Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was Vienna's most renowned advocator of Art Nouveau, or, as the style was known in Germany, Jugendstil ("youth style"). He is remembered as one of the greatest decorative painters of the twentieth century, and he also produced one of the century's most significant bodies of erotic art. Initially successful as a conventional academic painter, his encounter with more modern trends in European art encouraged him to develop his own eclectic and often fantastic style. His position as the co-founder and first president of the Vienna Secession also ensured that this style would become widely influential - though Klimt's direct influence on other artists was limited. He never courted scandal, but it dogged his career, and although he never married, he is said to have fathered fourteen children.

Key Ideas Klimt first achieved acclaim as a conventional academic painter, and received many commissions to paint public buildings. He later abandoned both the realism, and the approach to historical subject matter, that were characteristic of the 19th century. However, his interest in the decorative possibilities of painting could be seen as typical of the period's love of grandeur and elaboration. It might also be interpreted as an attempt to reconcile the natural and the artificial, a typical preoccupation of the 19th century, as modern technology began to transform the world beyond recognition. While some of Klimt's contemporaries were vigorously opposed to decoration, Klimt was surely the period's most outstanding exponent. He strongly believed in the equality of fine and decorative art, and some of his work shows his ambition to create a Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), a union of the visual arts that might be created through ornament. He was also closely associated with the Wiener Werkstatte, the design studio which worked to improve the quality of everyday objects. Klimt was one of the most influential exponents of Art Nouveau, the movement which spread throughout Europe in the late 19th century.

His approach was inspired by the ethereal atmosphere of work by artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, and by some aspects of Impressionist technique; it was also determinedly eclectic, borrowing motifs from Byzantine, Greek and Egyptian art. Although his art is now widely popular, it was neglected for much of the 20th century, and provoked opposition in his own day, facing charges of obscenity and objections to his lightly allusive approach to symbolism. His treatment of erotic themes was generally delicate and veiled in his paintings, but his drawings gave full expression to his considerable sexual appetite. Most Important Art Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) Of all the many women Klimt painted from life, Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Viennese banker (and Klimt's lover). This, the first of the two portraits, is considered by many to be his finest work. The sitter is adorned with precious materials and ancient artifacts, suggesting her wealth and power; but her stare, and her grasping hands, also suggest that she is fragile (the disfigured finger on her right hand is concealed).

Despite these features, Klimt was largely unconcerned at this time with depicting his sitter's character, and even less so with providing location and context, omissions that were common in all of Klimt's earlier portraits. Klimt's biographer, Frank Whitford, has described the picture as "the most elaborate example of the tyranny of the decorative" in the artist's work. Klimt gives over almost every space on the canvas to ornament, and leaves only the woman's hands and upper body to describe her appearance. Like many artists around this period who were experimenting with abstraction, Klimt was faced with the possibility of crossing into pure form, and leaving depicted objects behind. That this picture marked an important turning point, and that he chose to turn back from this extreme, is indicated by his second portrait of Bloch-Bauer, produced in 1912, in which her body stands out much more substantially against the background.

Oil, gold and silver leaf on canvas - Neue Galerie, New York Like The Art Story on Facebook Biography Childhood Born to Ernst Klimt, a gold engraver and Bohemian immigrant, and Anna Finster, an aspiring but unsuccessful musical performer, Gustav Klimt was the second of seven children raised in the small suburb of Baumgarten, southwest of Vienna. The Klimt family was poor, as work was scarce in the early years of the Habsburg Empire, especially for immigrants, due in large part to the 1873 stock market crash. Between 1862 and 1884, the Klimt family moved frequently, living at no fewer than five different addresses, always seeking cheaper housing. In addition to financial hardships, the family experienced much tragedy at home. In 1874 Klimt's younger sister, Anna, died at the age of five following a long illness. Not long after, his sister Klara suffered a mental breakdown after succumbing to religious fervor. At an early age, Klimt and his two brothers Ernst and Georg displayed obvious artistic gifts as draftsmen, painters and craftsmen.

Gustav, however, was singled out by his instructors as an exceptional draftsman while attending secondary school. In October 1876, when he was fourteen, a relative encouraged him to take the entrance examination for the Kunstgewerbeschule, the Viennese School of Arts and Crafts, and he passed with distinction. He later said that he had intended to become a drawing master and take a teaching position at a Burgerschule, the 19th-century Viennese equivalent of a basic public secondary school, which he had attended. Klimt began his formal training in Vienna at a time known as the Ringstrasse Era, when the city was undergoing massive change. The center was constructed as one giant ring, and the bourgeois class was patronizing the arts as never before. Along with the newly constructed municipal railway, the arrival of electric street lamps, and city engineers rerouting the Danube River in order to avoid flooding, Vienna was entering its Golden Age of industry, research, and science. One thing Vienna did not yet have, however, was a revolutionary spirit towards the arts.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Training and Early Success The Kunstgewerbeschule's curriculum and teaching methods were fairly traditional for their time, something Klimt never questioned or challenged. Through an intensive training in drawing, he was charged with faithfully copying decorations, designs, and plaster casts of classic sculptures. Once he proved himself in this regard, only then was he permitted to draw figures from life. Klimt impressed his instructors from the very beginning, soon joining a special class with a focus on painting. Here too, Klimt displayed masterful gifts for painting life figures and for working with a variety of tools, including the brush and soft pencil. The young artist's training also included close studies of the works of Titian, Rubens, and Hans Makart, the most famous Viennese historical painter of the Ringstrasse Era. Klimt became a huge admirer of Makart, and particularly his technique, which employed dramatic effects of light and an evident love for theatricality and pageantry.

At one point, while still a student, Klimt reportedly bribed one of Makart's servants to let him into the painter's studio so that Klimt might study the latest works in progress. Shortly before leaving the Kunstgewerbeschule, Klimt's painting class was joined by his younger brother Ernst and a young painter named Franz Matsch, another gifted Viennese artist who specialized in large-scale decorative works. Klimt and Matsch both ended their studies in 1883, and together the two rented a large studio in Vienna. Despite this move and his early success, Klimt maintained residence with his parents and surviving sisters. Klimt and Matsch soon became artists in high demand among the city's cultural elite, including prominent architects, society figures, and public officials. As early as 1880, Klimt and Matsch were recommended by their painting professor, Ferdinand Laufberger, to undertake a four-painting commission on behalf of a Viennese architectural firm specializing in theater design. In 1888, the Vienna City Council commissioned each artist to create a painting as a historical record of the city's old Burgtheater, which was slated for demolition.

(Meanwhile, the new Burgtheater had already been constructed inside Vienna's Ringstrasse; Klimt and Matsch would soon be asked to decorate this theater as well.) Klimt's painting, The Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater (1888-89), employed a unique perspective by painting the auditorium from the vantage point of the stage rather than the auditorium itself. Mature Period By the end of 1892, both Ernst junior and senior had died, the former quite suddenly from a bout of pericarditis. These deaths profoundly affected Klimt, who was now left financially responsible for his mother, sisters, brother's widow, and their infant daughter. Ernst's widow, Helene Floge, and her middle class family, had homes in both the city and country, where Klimt became a frequent guest. During these visits, Klimt began an intimate friendship with Helene's sister, Emilie Floge, which would last for the remainder of his life. Klimt's pace of work slowed following the deaths of his brother and father.

The artist also began questioning the conventions of academic painting, which resulted in a rift between Klimt and his long-time partner Matsch. In 1893, the Artistic Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Education approached Matsch for a commission to decorate the ceiling of the newly built Great Hall of the University of Vienna. Klimt did eventually join the project (whether at the request of Matsch or the Ministry), but this collaboration would be the last between the two men. In the end, Klimt produced some thirty-nine ceiling paintings for the Great Hall, including Medicine (1900-07), Philosophy (1899-1907), and Jurisprudence (1897-98), all of which employed a highly decorative symbolism, marking a significant turn in Klimt's attitude toward painting and art in general. All three paintings were destroyed in 1945 by retreating German forces. Much controversy arose over Klimt's University paintings, due in part to the nudity of some of the figures in Medicine, and in part to accusations that his use of symbolism was vague.

In 1897 he renounced his membership of the Kunstlerhaus, Vienna's leading association of artists, of which he had been a member since 1891, (he complained of their monopoly of art sales and exhibitions). And this encouraged him to help found the Vienna Secession (also known as The Union of Austrian Artists), along with Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Joseph Maria Olbrich, who designed and built the Secession Building in 1897. Klimt was made the Secession's founding president. Its founding principles were as follows: to provide young and unconventional artists with an outlet to show their work; to expose Vienna to the great works of foreign artists (namely the French Impressionists, which the Kunstlerhaus had failed to do); and to publish a periodical, eventually titled Sacred Spring. The initial Secession exhibitions received wide acclaim from the public, and they elicited surprisingly little controversy, given that the Viennese had little to no exposure to modern art. In 1902 the Secessionists held their 14th Vienna Exhibition, a celebration of the composer Ludwig von Beethoven.

For this exhibition Klimt painted his famous Beethoven Frieze (1902), a massive and complex work that, paradoxically, made no explicit reference to any of Beethoven's compositions. Instead, it was seen as a complex, lyrical, and highly ornate allegory of the artist as God. Klimt produced some of his most celebrated paintings during his time with the Secession, which lasted until 1908. These works include the portraits Judith I (1901) and Adele Bloch-Bauer I (c.1907), Field of Poppies (1907), and The Kiss (1907-08), all of which comprised the artist's so-called "Golden Phase." Klimt's personal style, which richly combined elements of both the pre-modern and modern eras, had fully matured by this time.

His use of gold and silver leaf recalled Byzantine mosaics; his application of repeated coils and whorls suggested both abstraction and Mycenaean ornamentation; and his portraits of women - such as Expectation (1905-09) - often combined a modern sensuality with the motifs of Oriental art and Japanese "pillar prints," of which Klimt was a devout collector. Late Period and Death In the last decade or so of his life, Klimt divided much of his time between his studio and garden in Heitzing, and the country home of the Floge family, where he and Emilie spent many days together. Although there was unquestionably a romantic bond between them, it is widely believed the two never gave in to physical desire. During these summers Klimt produced many of his stunning, yet largely underappreciated plein air landscape paintings, such as The Park (1909-10), often from the vantage point of a row boat or an open field. In addition to being a devoted family man, Klimt had two loves: painting and women, and his appetite for both was seemingly insatiable.

While Klimt did not alter his subject matter during his final years, his painterly style did undergo significant changes. Largely doing away with the use of gold and silver leaf, and ornamentation in general, the artist began using subtle mixtures of color, such as lilac, coral, salmon and yellow. Klimt also produced a staggering number of drawings and studies during this time, the majority of which were of female nudes, some so erotic that to this day they are seldom exhibited. Additionally, many of Klimt's later portraits of women have been praised for the artist's greater attention to character and a supposed new concern for likeness. These features are evident in his second portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1912), a portrait of the young Mada Primavesi (1913), and the strangely erotic The Friends (c.1916-17), which portrays what appears to be a lesbian couple - one naked and the other clothed - against a stylized backdrop of birds and flowers. On January 11, 1918, Klimt suffered a stroke, which left him paralyzed on his right side.

Bedridden and no longer able to paint or even sketch, Klimt evidently lost his will to live, and on February 6th he died from influenza. By the time of his death, abstract painting, not to mention Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Constructivism, had all captured the imaginations (and wallets) of Europeans across the continent. Gustav Klimt's body of work was by then considered part of a bygone era in painting, which still focused on human and natural forms rather than a deconstruction, or outright renunciation, of those very things. Legacy Gustav Klimt never married; never painted a single self-portrait; and never claimed to be revolutionizing art in any way. He seldom left his native Austria, and on the one occasion he visited Paris, he left thoroughly unimpressed. With the groundbreaking Secession, Klimt's primary aim was to call attention to underappreciated Viennese artists and in turn to call their attention to the much broader world of modern art beyond Austria's borders. In this sense Klimt is responsible for helping to transform Vienna into a leading center for culture and the arts at the turn of the century.

But his influence on other artists and subsequent movements was quite limited. Much in the way Klimt revered Hans Makart but eventually deviated from that style, younger Viennese artists like Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka revered Klimt early on, only to mature into more quasi-abstract and Expressionistic forms of painting. While some critics and historians contend that Klimt's work should not be included in the canon of modern art, his oeuvre - particularly his paintings postdating 1900 - remains striking for its visual combinations of the old and the modern, the real and the abstract. Klimt produced his greatest work during a time of change and radical ideas, and these traits are clearly evident in his paintings. Influences and Connections 7 Greatest Art Nouveau Masterpieces - History Lists HISTORY LISTS You are here: History Lists · Art · 7 Greatest Art Nouveau Masterpieces 7 Greatest Art Nouveau Masterpieces Art Nouveau emerged in England and spread throughout Europe and the United States. In Germany, it was called Judendstil, Sezession in Austria and Modernismo in Spain.

Art Nouveau artists broke up with the 19th century historicism and used the world around them as a source of inspiration. Most artists turned to the natural world but they often also chosen erotic themes. The style flourished from 1890 to about 1910 when it was replaced by other modernist styles such as Expressionism and surrealism. Education (Chittenden Memorial Window) by Louis Comfort Tiffany Thirty foot wide stained glass window was made by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Glass Company in 1889-90. It was installed at the Yale University’s new library that was built in memory of Mary Harwell Lusk, a daughter of the University’s patron Simon Baldwin Chittenden. Tiffany’s Education was removed in 1970 as a safety precaution before the protests in New Haven Green. It then misidentified and forgotten for a number of years. And it was the misidentification which is thought to save the masterpiece because stained glass that has been mistakenly labeled as Tiffany meanwhile disappeared from the University’s basement. Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi Officially named Basilica I Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia is the finest creation of the renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.

The architect devoted over four decades to the church but at the time of his death in 1926, the spectacular building remained uncompleted. In fact, it is scheduled to be completed only in 2026, on the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. But despite the fact that it is not finished, the Sagrada Familia is an UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984 and Barcelona’s prime tourist attraction for decades. Gismonda by Alphonse Mucha Lithograph poster by the celebrated Czech Art Nouveau artist reveals Mucha’s distinct style which had a major influence on Art Nouveau movement. The 216 x 74.5 cm poster was created in 1894 for the Victorien Sardou’s play Gismonda featuring Sarah Bernhardt. She is depicted on the poster wearing a costume from the last, fourth act of the play. Mucha’s Gismonda can be seen as a part of the exhibition Alphonse Mucha: An Insight into the Artist in Tokyo, Japan, from early March 2013. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt The painting marks the height of the artist’s “golden period”.

Klimt painted one of his greatest masterpieces between 1907 and 1908, using the traditional oil paint and gold leaf layers. But despite the spectacular depiction, the only features are virtually the faces and hands of the two lovers who are kissing on the edge of a cliff. The painting is owned by the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria, where it is currently featured in a special exhibition in honor of the 150th anniversary of Klimt’s birth. The Dancer's Reward (Salome) by Aubrey Beardsley The illustration for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome depicts Salome with the head of John the Baptist and justifies Beardsley’s reputation as one of the most controversial artists of the Art Nouveau movement. His black ink drawings were dominated by dark themes and grotesque erotica featuring large genitalia, especially those that have been inspired by Japanese shunga. Nevertheless, he had a major influence on other Art Nouveau artists of his era as well as many later artists.

Reclining Woman with Green Stockings by Egon Schiele The painting that was created in 1917, one year before the artist’s death belongs to the classics of the so-called Schile’s women. It emphasizes female sexuality in both appealing and controversial way. His style that also includes elements of Expressionism caused a lot of controversy and even got him in trouble. In 1912, he was imprisoned for his sexual portrays of very young female models that were viewed as obscene. Schiele’s Reclining Woman with Green Stockings is in private collection. At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec The oil-on-canvas painting depicts the Moulin Rouge cabaret that opened in 1889. The painting portraits three men and two women sitting at a table, the artist himself with his cousin and physician Gabriel Tapie de Celeyran in the background, the French can-can dancer La Goulue in the background and English singer May Milton in the foreground. The section that shows the singer’s face was at some point removed from the rest of the painting either by Lautrec or his dealer but it was later reattached.

The painting that was created between 1892 and 1895 is a part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Art Nouveau Design: Characteristics, History, Artists sculptors: Best Artists of All Time . Art Nouveau is usually deemed a matter of 'style' rather than a philosophy: but, in fact, distinctive ideas and not only fanciful desires prompted its appearance. Common to all the most consistently Art Nouveau creators was a determination to push beyond the bounds of historicism - that exaggerated concern with the notions of the past which characterises the greater part of 19th-century design: they sought, in a fresh analysis of function and a close study of natural forms, a new aesthetic. It is true that the outer reaches of Art Nouveau are full of mindless pattern-making but there was, at and around the centre, a marvellous sequence of works in which the decorative and the functional fuse to novel and compelling effect.

Art Nouveau means much more than a single look or mood: we are reminded of tall grasses in light wind, or swirling lines of stormy water, or intricate vegetation - all stemming from organic nature: an interest in which should be understood as proceeding from a sense of life's order lost or perverted amidst urban industrial stress. NOTE: For other art and design movements similar to Art Nouveau, see Art Movements, Periods, Schools (from about 100 BCE). ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS In addition to those mentioned in the text, here is a short list of noted Art Nouveau designers. Artus Van Briggle (1869-1904) Definition, Characteristics There is no single definition or meaning of Art Nouveau. But the following are distinguishing factors. (1) Art Nouveau philosophy was in favour of applying artistic designs to everyday objects, in order to make beautiful things available to everyone. No object was too utilitarian to be "beautified". (2) Art Nouveau saw no separation in principle between fine art (painting and sculpture) and applied or decorative arts (ceramics, furniture, and other practical objects).

(3) In content, the style was a reaction to a world of art which was dominated by the precise geometry of Neoclassical forms. It sought a new graphic design language, as far away as possible from the historical and classical models employed by the arts academies. (4) Art Nouveau remains something of an umbrella term which embraces a variety of stylistic interpretations: some artists used new low-cost materials and mass production methods while others used more expensive materials and valued high craftsmanship. Types of Designs In line with with the Art Nouveau philosophy that art should become part of everyday life, it employed flat, decorative patterns that could be used in all art forms. Typical decorative elements include leaf and tendril motifs, intertwined organic forms, mostly curvaceous in shape, although right-angled designs were also prevalent in Scotland and in Austria. Art made in this style typically depicted lavish birds, flowers, insects and other zoomorphs, as well as the hair and curvaceous bodies of beautiful women.

For Art Nouveau architectural designs, see the exaggerated bulbous forms of the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), and the stylistic Parisian Metro entrances of Hector Guimard (1867-1942). History of Art Nouveau The term "Art Nouveau" stemmed from the name of the Parisian art gallery, called "La Maison de l'Art Nouveau", owned by the avant-garde art-collector Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), which showcased works created in the Art Nouveau style. The gallery's reputation and fame was considerably boosted by its installations of modern furniture, tapestries and objets d'art at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, after which the gallery's name became almost synonymous with the style.

At the same time, in Belgium the style was promoted by Les Vingt and La Libre Esthetique, while in Germany the style was popularized and promoted by a magazine called Jugend: Münchner illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben (Youth: the illustrated weekly magazine of art and lifestyle of Munich), which is why German Art Nouveau - along with that of the Netherlands, the Baltic and the Nordic countries - has since been known as "Jugendstil" (youth-style). In Austria, Art Nouveau was first popularized by artists of the Vienna Secession movement, leading to the adoption of the name "Sezessionstil". In fact, the Vienna Secessionists, like Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908), influenced art and architecture throughout Austria-Hungary. In Germany, after the Munich Secession (1892) and the Berlin Secession (1898), many of its leading practitioners came together again in 1907 as members of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation). Other temporary names were used which reflected the novelty of the style, or its ribbon-like curvilinear designs.

For example, in France it was also known as "le style moderne" or "le style nouille" (noodle style); in Spain, "arte joven" (young art); in Italy "arte nuova" and in the Netherlands "Nieuwe kunst" (both, new art). The style was also named after certain of its exponents or promoters. For instance, Hector Guimard's Parisian Metro entrances led to the temporary name "Style Metro"; in America the movement was called the "Tiffany style" due to its connection with the Art Nouveau glassmaker and jeweller Louis Comfort Tiffany. Evolution of Art Nouveau The origins of Art Nouveau are unclear, although most art historians agree that its roots lay in the English Arts and Crafts Movement , championed by the medievalist William Morris , as well as the flat-perspective and strong colours of Japanese woodcuts. This idiom was reinforced by the wave of Japonism that swept through Europe in the 1880s and 1890s, and by the decorative painting styles of Synthetism (Gauguin) and Cloisonnism (Bernard, Anquetin) developed at the Pont-Aven School in Brittany.

For more details, please see: Post Impressionist Painting (1880-95). As a movement, Art Nouveau shared certain features with Romanticism , the Pre-Raphaelites , the Symbolists, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, although each differed in various ways. For example, unlike Symbolist painting, Art Nouveau has a distinctive visual look; and, in contrast to the artisan-oriented Arts & Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau artists readily employed new materials, and did not turn their backs on mass-produced or machined surfaces. Connections were also forged between practitioners of Jugendstil and Celtic-style artists, notably in the area of abstract patternwork. Christopher Dresser's Unity in Variety (1859) - a treatise on botany for artists, was also influential. But it is Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851-1942) who is often identified as the first designer in whom historical precedents were sufficiently subdued for the new mode to show clearly. Indeed, the earliest example of Art Nouveau was the variety of rhythmic floral patterns used by Mackmurdo in his book-cover for Sir Christopher Wren's City Churches (1883).

His buildings, furniture, graphics and textiles derive definitely, though not exclusively, from the natural world, convey a strong sense of their materials, and are structurally elemental. Mackmurdo accepted a good deal of Ruskin's involvement with the social and economic conditions of art and turned eventually to the composition of political tracts. Whatever its exact origins, Art Nouveau benefited enormously from the exposure it received at international exhibitions such as the Paris Exposition Universelle (1900) and the Turin Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna (1902), as well as individual outlets such as London's Liberty & Co and Siegfried Bing's "Maison de l'Art Nouveau". The style has been said to end in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), a key figure in the Glasgow School of Painting (1880-1915). Painter, architect and designer, he was initially attracted by the creative freedom of Art Nouveau and its encouragement of the fanciful, but he used a cooler treatment. The essentials of his passage may be traced in one place, the Glasgow School of Art.

A system of repeated curving forms in the main building (1897-9) gave way to regimented verticals and horizontals in the library (1907-9): the new order fell to a new orderliness. From then on, the need and the wish for economy of means, a desire to exploit easy mechanical replication, became dominant. Both architecture and the applied arts contrived an ethic and an aesthetic based on meaner notions of utility. Applications Art Nouveau designs were most common in glassware, jewellery, and other decorative objects like ceramics. But the style was also applied to textiles, household silver, domestic utensils, cigarette cases, furniture and lighting, as well as drawing, poster art, painting and book illustration . Theatrical design of sets and costumes was another area in which the new style flourished. The best examples are the designs created by Leon Bakst (1866-1924) and Alexander Benois (1870-1960) for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes . Art Nouveau also had a strong application in the field of architecture and interior design.

In this area it exemplified a more humanistic and less functionalist approach to the urban environment. Hyperbolas and parabolas in windows, arches, and doors were typical as were plant-derived forms for moldings. Art Nouveau interior designers updated some of the more abstract elements of Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures, and also employed highly stylized organic forms, expanding the 'natural' repertoire to include seaweed, grasses, and insects. Art Nouveau architectural designs made broad use of exposed iron and large, irregular pieces of glass. Art Nouveau Decorative Glass and Jewellery In both these areas, Art Nouveau found tremendous expression, as exemplified in works by Louis Comfort Tiffany in New York, Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow and Emile Galle and the Daum brothers in Nancy, France. Jewellery of the Art Nouveau period saw new levels of virtuosity in enameling as well as the introduction of new materials such as moulded glass, horn, and ivory. The growth of interest in Japanese art (a fashion known as Japonisme), along with increased respect for Japanese metalworking skills, also stimulated new themes and approaches to ornamentation.

As a result, jewellers stopped seeing themselves as mere craftsmen whose task was to provide settings for precious stones like diamonds, and began seeing themselves as artist-designers. A new type of Art Nouveau jewellery emerged that depended less on its gemstone content and more on its designwork. The jewellers of Paris and Brussels were at the forefront of the Art Nouveau movement and it was in these cities that it achieved the greatest success. In America, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-92) was an adventurous creator of luxury objects, mainly in glass, often utilising the shot-silk glow of metallic iridescence, and inspired by flower and feather. Tiffany's firm was enormously successful and his goods were much imitated. Art Nouveau Architecture Art Nouveau architecture was one of the great ubiquitous cultural impulses, appearing virtually throughout Europe and Scandinavia, and in America too.

A very vigorous strain developed in Belgium, where Henri van de Velde (1863-1937) pared away the conventions of art and architecture in favour of a rather rigid floral style (his house at Uccle, 1895), while Victor Horta (1861-1947) seems to have passed the rule-book through a maze of botanical fact (the Hotel Tassel, 1892-3, and the Maison du Peuple, 1896-9 in Brussels). Horta was widely admired for his readiness to reconsider basic design problems and for the fluency of his adaptations of organic principle. For the Tassel house he opened up the centre into a sort of conservatory space in which the exposed cast iron supports are themselves stylised plants. And the Maison du Peuple he constructed around a sinuous iron frame, every decorative element of which arose from the containment of stresses. It was said that 'he follows the secret law obeyed by vegetation, which grows in immutable and ever harmonious forms, but he compels himself never to draw a motif, nor to describe a solitary curve which could be seen as a pastiche of natural form'.

In France, Art Nouveau-style nineteenth century architecture had the State's seal of approval when Guimard's designs for the Paris Metro stations were accepted, and above the subways (1898-1900) sprouted elaborate arrangements of iron and glass resembling large bean shoots and seed-pods. Hector Guimard (1867-1942) had liked Horta's work in Brussels and hoped to extend its radical disruption of expected architectural behaviour. But the most spectacular results of the decision to rethink design from the ground up, so to speak, are to be found in Spain. Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) conceived for Barcelona a series of architectural extravaganzas, apparently pervaded by thoughts of nature in its less attractive manifestations - the rabbit warren or termite hill, reptilean anatomy, weeds on the rampage. The Palacio Guell (1885-9) has already the ebb and flow, the rhythmic asymmetry of his mature efforts, but is relatively urbane.

The Casa Mila (1905-07) is a riotous assembly of pitted stone and twisting iron, with a ground plan which altogether ignores the right-angle. And the Church of the Sagrada Familia (1884, uncompleted) bemuses the visitor, with its four towers like monster decaying cucumbers: it resembles, on the whole, a vegetable garden in the grip of some ferocious virus and mutating freely. Meanwhile, in America, the giant office blocks of Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) - the Wainwright Building, St Louis (1890), the Guaranty Building, Buffalo (1894), the Carson, Pirie & Scott Store, Chicago (1899-1904) - reveal in their facades, their honeycomb insides and the strips and panels which divide the cells a riot of plant-like ornament. Art Nouveau architectural designs were widespread throughout many parts of central and eastern Europe, including Latvia (Riga), the Czech Republic (Prague), Poland (Krakow), Slovenia (Ljubljana), as well as Italy.

Leading Art Nouveau architects and designers included the Hungarian architect Odon Lechner (18451914), the French architect Hector Guimard (1867-1942), the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), the Belgian architect Victor Horta (1861-1947), and the Viennese designers Otto Wagner (1841-1918) and Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908), to name but a few. Further afield, examples of Art Nouveau-style buildings can be seen in South America (Uraguay's Montevideo) and Australia. Famous Art Nouveau Artists The two greatest graphic artists of the Art Nouveau movement were the French lithographer Jules Cheret (1836-1932) whose invention of "3-stone chromolithography" made Art Nouveau poster art feasible, and the Czech lithographer and designer Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) whose celebrated posters epitomized the Art Nouveau idiom.

Emile Galle of France and Louis Comfort Tiffany of the United States were famous for their colourful Art Nouveau glassware, as were the English artists Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Crane for their wonderful Art Nouveau drawings. Other famous artists involved in the "new art" included: the French jewellery designer Rene Lalique, the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt, the Polish theatrical designer and stained glass artist Stanislaw Wyspianski, and the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), leader of the Glasgow School. Legacy & Influence of Art Nouveau While Art Nouveau promoted a more widespread adoption of "beautiful" design, it did not diminish the value of the machine or mass-production (as the Arts and Crafts Movement did), but instead took advantage of many technological innovations from the late 19th century. Even so, by World War I, it too succumbed to the more streamlined design processes that were beginning to become available.

Possibly its greatest influence was on (1) 20th-century advocates of integrated design, such as the German Bauhaus design school and the Dutch design movement De Stijl ; and (2) Graphic art such as illustration and poster-design. Nowadays, Art Nouveau is viewed as an important bridge between Neoclassicism and modernism, and a number of its monuments are on the UNESCO World Heritage List, notably the historic centre of Riga, Latvia with over 750 buildings in the Art Nouveau style.  For information about 20th century design, see: Homepage . ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART HISTORY Art Nouveau, Art History & Styles of Art - Art.com Wiki Art Nouveau was an all-encompassing movement that swept the world of decorative arts and architecture from the 1880s until World War I. The foundation of this movement was the belief that art was a way of life. Art Nouveau L’Art Moderne, a Belgian journal in the 1880s, first coined the term Art Nouveau. It was used to describe the work of a collection of painters and sculptors who were seeking a reformation in the art community.

This movement drew inspiration from the wild aspects of the natural world. The lashing curves often seen in the art of this movement are believed to be drawn in part from the groundbreaking botanical and zoological discoveries of the time. Artists were inspired by the unruly ways of nature and fled the confines of past styles. Credited with being the first modern style, the movement looked to start anew rather than emulate the past. The style also included clean lines and intricate detailing. The ultimate goal of the movement was to create a total work of art or “Gesamtkunstwerk.” Such a work fused art and craft into one piece. The movement gained popularity through works published internationally in periodicals. These publications featured vibrant graphic designs by artists like Aubrey Beardsley. Poster art was another major help in the spread of this art style . These posters were eye-catching with their bright coloring and modern subjects, many of them women. This flamboyant look soon spread to other modes of art like jewelry, where fairies and sirens were featured. Art Nouveau was a diverse movement, taking almost every medium of art by storm, from painting to woodworking.

The scale of the style can be seen across Europe from the Villa Marjorelle in France to Jugendstilsenteret in Norway. Both buildings feature exteriors with the trademark style of the movement along with the intricate interiors of that time. The diversity of work made it possible to have a house entirely fashioned in the style from the outside facade to the smallest details inside. In fact, the famous Tiffany lamps, with their vibrant coloring and careful lines, were created during this time. While widespread across art, the movement was short lived and soon faded in favor of more modern looks. Contents Art Nouveau Art Nouveau Late 19th Century to Early 20th Century Art Nouveau is an elegant decorative art style characterized by intricate patterns of curving lines. Its origins somewhat rooted in the British Arts and Crafts Movement of William Morris , Art Nouveau was popular across Europe and in the United States as well. Art Nouveau remained popular until around the time of World War I, and was ultimately replaced by the Art Deco style. Art Nouveau Art Nouveau Key Dates: 1800- This describes a decorative style popular from the last decade of the 19th century to the beginning of the First World War.

It was characterised by an elaborate ornamental style based on asymmetrical lines, frequently depicting flowers, leaves or tendrils, or in the flowing hair of a female. It can be seen most effectively in the decorative arts, for example interior design, glasswork and jewellery. However, it was also seen in posters and illustration as well as certain paintings and sculptures of the period. The movement took its name from La Maison de l’Art Nouveau in Paris, a shop keen to promote modern ideas in art. It was influenced by the Symbolists most obviously in their shared preference for exotic detail, as well as by Celtic and Japanese art. Art Nouveau flourished in Britain with its progressive Arts and Crafts movement, but was highly successful all around the world. The leading exponents included the illustrators Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Crane in England; the architects Henry van de Velde and Victor Horta in Belgium; the jewellery designer René Lalique in France; the painter Gustav Klimt in Austria; the architect Antonio Gaudí in Spain; and the glassware designer Louis C. Tiffany and the architect Louis Sullivan in the United States.

Its most common themes were symbolic and frequently erotic and the movement, despite not lasting beyond 1914 was important in terms of the development of abstract art. Representative Artists: WriteDesign - Historical and Cultural Context - Art Nouveau Historical and Cultural Context Events that shaped the arts from 1860's to 1914. | Art Nouveau - Artists Art Nouveau (1880's-1914) Art Nouveau is an elegant decorative art style characterized by intricately detailed patterns of curving lines. Somewhat rooted in the British Arts and Crafts Movement of William Morris, Art Nouveau became popular across Europe and in the United States. Leading practitioners included Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, and the American glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany. Art Nouveau remained popular until about the time of World War I, and was ultimately replaced by the Art Deco style. Artcyclopedia - Designed by William Morris (1834-1896) for Morris & Company - Strawberry Thief Chintz - 1883 - See Impressionist and Post-Impressionist for additional events.

| Top 1851 - The Great Exhibition opened in London's Hyde Park in the Crystal Palace , a million square feet of glass on a framework of bare iron forming its walls and roof. The Great Exhibition celebrated the height of civilization to which the whole of mankind had risen (WH, pp. 546-547). 1854 - After 250 years of almost no contact with the industrialized countries of the world, American Commodore Matthew Perry coerced Japan into opening it's doors to Western trade and diplomacy (WH, p. 584). 1859 - Englishman, Henry Bessemer developed a less costly way to make steel. He forced blasts of hot air through the molten iron to burn out impurities. Bessemer began using his new "blast furnace" in 1859 in his factories at Sheffield (WH, p. 594). 1865 - Lewis Carroll's first edtion of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland appeared. Both Tenniel, the illustrator, and Carroll condemned the book because the pictures were printed poorly.

Some of these 2000 copies were given by Carroll to hospitals and institutions where he thought the book might be enjoyed and some were sold in America. It was six years later that Through the Looking Glass was published ( 1874 - First impressionist exhibition held in Paris. 1879 - Thomas Alva Edison developed the first practical electric light bulb (WH, p. 595). 1884 - Brussels - Term "art nouveau" appears in print for the first time, describing the Belgian artists' group "Les XX" ( ). 1889 - The invention of the electric elevator made possible a new kind of building for crowded cities -- the skyscraper. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel - The Eiffel Tower is built for the Paris World's Fair. However, the controversial tower elicited some strong reactions, and a petition of 300 names -- including those of Maupassant, Emile Zola, Charles Garnier (architect of the Opéra Garnier), and Dumas the Younger -- was presented to the city government, protesting its construction.

The petition read, "We, the writers, painters, sculptors, architects and lovers of the beauty of Paris, do protest with all our vigour and all our indignation, in the name of French taste and endangered French art and history, against the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower." 1893 - Great Britain - Aubrey Beardsley design published in the first issue of the magazine The Studio. Paris - Japanese prints exhibition organized by Siegfried Bing. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec paints Jane Avril at the Jardin de Paris. Brussels - Victor Horta designs the Tassel House. Chicago - Columbian World's Fair; Adler and Sullivan design the Transportation Building. Women win the right to vote in New Zealand, the first country to embrace female suffrage. In Belgium universal male suffrage is adopted ( ). 1900 - When the authorities planned to open the brand new Parisian metro in 1900, a design competition was organized for the entryways kiosks. A certain Hector Guimard, young architect of 32 years old, who had adapted Art Nouveau, (he discovered and learned in Brussels from Victor Horta) won the contest.

Guimard's idea was to brighten up a little bit the daily monotony of the crowds going to work, jammed in public transports. Hector Germain Guimard - Paris Metropolitain entryway kiosk - 1900 - Top 1908 - D'Arcy made the first oil strike in the Middle East. Soon his company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, controlled the industry in Iran (WH, p. 669). 1910 - A revolution begins in Mexico, overthrowing President Porfirio Diaz the following year. The United States sends military forces, changing the nature of U.S.-Mexican relations. The trans-Andean railroad between Argentina and Chile opens. The Portugese monarchy ends after a revolution in Lisbon. Edward VII of Great Britain dies and is succeeded by his son, who is crowned George V. China abolishes slavery ( ). 1911 - A revolution in China ends the 267-year Qing dynasty and introduces liberal reforms. Nationalist leaderSun Yat-Sen returns from exile and is elected president of the new republic. American banana shipper Samuel Zemurray sponsors a coup in Honduras to establish a government more favorable to banana growers.

Revolutionary leader Francisco Madero becomes the new president of Mexico, succeeding ousted dictator Porfirio Diaz. The Supreme Court orders the breakup of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, citing the monopoly has engaged in unreasonable restraint of trade in the oil industry. German novelist Thomas Mann publishes his classic novella Death in Venice. Irving Berlin's song Alexander's Ragtime Band popularizes ragtime for mass audiences ( ). Top Sarah Bernhardt - "The Divine Sarah", is the woman who is perhaps most responsible for popularizing the classic mousquetaire style of glove in America and Europe during the late 1870's and early 1880's. Sarah Bernhardt made her first successful film, a hand-colored two-reeler of La Dame aux Camellias, better known to American audiences as Camille. She flat-out did this for the money, an impressive $30,000. Co-starring her new young discovery Lou Tellegen, the film attracted a higher class of audiences to the moving picture houses.

One critic wrote that "Bernhardt is the perfect mistress of gesture, pose and expression, and the pictures make the story thrillingly plain." ( ) 1912 - New Mexico and Arizona are admitted as states, the last new states to be admitted to the union until 1959. RMS Titanic - 1912 - also see The Titanic sinks on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. 1,513 passengers are lost, 711 are rescued. Pravda first appears as the official publication of the Russian Communist party. In the movie industry, Universal Pictures is founded by several film producers including German Carl Laemmle, who later heads the company ( ).

Question: The artists Beardsley, Klimt, and Tiffany were leading figures in which art movement?
Answer: ART NOUVEAU