Art Nouveau
The Art Nouveau style was slow to emerge, starting around 1815 with the decline of the Empire Style, decorative ornament and furniture began to go through changes and by 1900, the new decorative art movement truly began. The Art Nouveau movement was a product of boredom of the same repetitive forms, cliches and eternal imitation of the past, partnered with the desire to make art unique and assert independence in the new era. The expression “Art Nouveau” fails to designate a uniform trend, varying from country to country and subject to prevailing taste. The movement was known by various names, including Liberty, Jugendstil, Secessionstil, Arte Joven, and more, all emphasizing its novelty and break from historical styles. Art Nouveau reached its peak around 1900 but then quickly declined in popularity.
England, Belgium and France were all major players in starting the Art Nouveau movement; The English movement was driven by architects and was truly a national movement; Belgium followed closely behind and contributed significantly, especially through furniture. From England and Belgium, the movement then extended to northern countries such as France, the United States, and Germany. In France, the approach to Art Nouveau differed, with a focus on floral ornamentation. Alphonse Mucha, a Moravian-born artist perfected this style and is one of the many defining artists of the movement.
Alphonse Mucha Pavilion Menu
Alphonse Mucha's work, particularly the style of his posters, played a crucial role in defining the visual language of Art Nouveau. His successful work for Sarah Bernhardt earned Mucha a large number of orders for other posters; His idealised feminine type became immediately recognisable as he continued to employ it in all manner of advertisements. This menu design for the Bosnian Pavilion Restaurant at the Paris Exhibition 1900 is just one of many posters he made for this event using his iconic style which utilizes elegant lines, flowing forms, and idealized figures, often adorned with naturalistic motifs.
Georges Fouquet jewelry store
Pictured here is a storefront in which Alphonse Mucha helped to design an Art Nouveau sculpture that was on the Storefront of the Georges Fouquet jewelry store (another well-known Art Nouveau artist). Alphonse Mucha collaborated with Parisian jeweller Georges Fouquet for three years and their partnership culminated in the opening of the jewelry shop pictured here located on rue Royale, Paris. This storefront embodies the Art Nouveau style extremely well with its curved lines and whimiscal feel.
Glass bathtub
Otto Koloman Wagner was an Austrian architect and urban planner. He was a prominent member in the Vienna Secession movement of architecture, founded in 1897, Vienna’s own Art Nouveau movement. The entire bathroom he had designed for his own apartment in Vienna was displayed at the 1900 Paris Exposition, but it was the transparent glass bathtub that caught people’s attention; This idea was new, some viewing it as “scandalous” at the time, but reflected Wagner’s style which utilized new materials and forms to represent society’s ongoing change.
Austrian Pavillion Poster: Mucha
This decorative poster illustrated by Alphonse Mucha demonstrates both the ornamentality and beauty of the Art Nouveau movement as well as the intertwined and complicated relationships between the Slavic countries that were the backdrop to this iconic movement. Mucha’s home country of Moravia was absorbed and annexed into the Austro-Hungarian government. Mucha’s art style, identity and the ins and outs of the Paris exposition. This poster advertised the Austrian pavilion in its beautiful style.