Art Nouveau 1890-1914

What is Art Nouveau? A consciously mystical and illogical continuation of the Romantic tradition? "A logical opposition with a rationalist foundation", firmly rooted in the scientific achievements of the nineteenth century? A concrete expression of social science? A turning inward - materially and psychologically - of a decadent and capital driven bourgeoisie? A style centrally concerned with public life? A government-based, pragmatic money making strategy? A non-conformist artistic revolt intent on "defeating the establishment order"? An idealistic crusade, composed of a number of international styles? A movement by artists and their institutional sponsors who shared a contemporary nationalist ideal? There are a lot of often contradictory definitions of Art Nouveau, which are reflections of its multiple facets.

 Art Nouveau stands for: "a style in the visual arts that was a powerful presence in Europe and North America from the early 1890s until the First World War. The style emerged from the intense activity of a collection of movements, manufacturers, public institutions, publishing houses, individual artists, entrepreneurs and patrons, located all over the urban, industrial world. It existed in all genres, but the decorative arts were centrally responsible for its inventions and its fullest expression." The key motivation was modernity in the arts as a recognition and expression of a technically, economically and politically changing world. The German Art Nouveau intellectual Julius Meier-Graefe stated that "if the uses of art change, art itself must change." One aspect was the equality among the arts and their orchestration into unified ensembles: Gesamtkunstwerk was the keyword (a term first applied in the fin-de-siècle context to the music of Richard Wagner). 

One of the first representatives of the Art Nouveau style was German-born French entrepreneur Siegfried Bing who opened a gallery and shop in Paris in 1895. The gallery L'Art Nouveau subsequently expanded to include workshops and ateliers. Hermann Obrist in Germany, Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland, Emile Gallé in France and Louis Comfort Tiffany in the United States are a few other early names of the style, which, in its second phase from 1895 to 1900, spread to many urban centers in Europe and North America.