A.De Sando KCAI process blog: art nouveau. process post 2+3.

NAME.

la nouvelle nuit

STATEMENT.

Art Nouveau brought us out of the dark pent-up energy of the industrial revolution to reflect our inner desires and share experiences with others.

GENERAL INFORMATION.

Art Nouveau was an international art movement during the late 1800's that focused on decorative arts such as glasswork, interior design and jewelry, along with other departures from tradition in design, painting and sculpture. The movement was characterized by an elaborate ornate style of flowing curvilinear forms that frequently depicted leaves and flowers.

FRENCH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

1852–1870 Napoleon III organized a Coup d’état and declared himself Emperor. During his first years of this rule he imposed censorship and repressed the power of anyone who disagreed with him. After 10 years of strict enforcement, he slowly loosened his censorship and most power that he repressed. Napoleon III then reconstructed Paris, building parks and other public projects, updated the French banking system, expanded the railroads and gave French workers the right to stroke and the right to organize.

COLOR.

Art Nouveau focuses heavily on warm colors, with cool tones only used to highlight or accent. Particularly, Art Nouveau artists loved yellow. Loved it in every shade. On top of that, you'll notice that none of these colors are super-saturated. They all look faded and dusty. When you add warm colors + lack of saturation, you get this very romantic, nostalgic, dreamy sort of feel to your piece, which was not only very referential to Japanese prints (which are all done on yellowed paper with no stark whites, similar to Art Nouveau), but was exactly the mood these artists were going for.

CURVES/CIRCLES.

Curves and circles were used in all forms of art during Art Nouveau. These shapes were often used to reference growth, change, the female form and liberation. Rhythmic patterns of curvy lines are characteristic of this art style. Violent curves are curvy lines that connect the images in the art and can even be found in beautified plain items, such as dishes, eating utensils, hardware and furniture.

HAND LETTERING.

Although virtually every design era of the past has had some influence on typeface design, the Art Nouveau movement may have directly inspired more typefaces than any other. Art Nouveau typefaces are stylized, elegant display designs, and are frequently hand lettered. Art Nouveau type designs are usually extremely decorative, and can include embellished stroke endings, very high and low “waistlines,” diagonal and triangular character shapes, top- or bottom-weighted stresses, angled crossbars, and in some cases they have more than one of these distinctive traits. The posters of Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha and Joseph Kaspar Sattler, three renowned artists of this period, inspired many type designs during Art Nouveau.

LIBERATION.

Art Nouveau was interpreted as a style of liberation and a widespread questioning of values. Many pieces during this time displayed content of unfiltered social gatherings and a lot of advertisement for cigarettes and liquor. In contrast, most of them are in context of the upper social class and reflect luxurious ways of lush-living.

NATURE

Nature was a big inspiration for Art Nouveau, but not necessarily the 'pretty' side of nature — more its vital organic force that could be almost terrifying. Here, whiplash curves resembling vines literally overtake the house, and iron support columns are cast in the form of a stem or root that is bursting alive at the top.

Working in cities like Paris, Nancy and Brussels, Art Nouveau designers found greatest inspiration in nature—not necessarily nature's beauty, but instead its vital force, its never-changing life cycle of birth, life, decay and death. Nature sometimes took the role of a creepy otherworld, governed by dark uncontrollable forces.

PATTERNS.

An iconic element of the art nouveau style are flat, decorative patterns; intertwined organic forms such as stems or flowers; an emphasis on handcrafting as opposed to machine manufacturing; the use of new materials; and the rejection of earlier styles. This style became so iconic that some line and curve patterns actually became graphic clichés that were later found in works of artists from many parts of the world.

POSTER DESIGN.

The demi-monde of Parisian nightclubs was an important source and inspiration for Art Nouveau. In this poster, Toulouse-Lautrec depicts two famous performers watching a show at the club Le Divan Japonais. Note the independent woman, the sinuous lines, and the hand-drawn font. There is also the suggestion of depth emphasized by lighting, with the orchestra in silhouette, and the blocks of solid color, techniques inspired by Japanese graphic art, which was a major source for Art Nouveau designers. (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "Divan Japonais" color lithograph, Paris 1892, at the Victoria & Albert Museum.)

Hopefully this has helped define Art Nouveau style. Next week, we'll look at Art Deco and then compare the two styles side-by-side.

SEXUALITY

The act of selling sex in advertisements was widely used during Art Nouveau. Focus for many of these advertisements revolved around the notion that if a male bought a product then beautiful women would flock to him. During this time many of the ceramics were very curved, often abstractly representing a woman’s natural curves. Designers did not just aim to sell the promise of sexual fulfillment to a male audience, but also, and extremely significantly, they were selling the idea of a sophisticated, decorative and glamorous identity to women - increasingly the dominant consumers. As it was women who often held the domestic purse strings, it was they who came to be associated with shopping.

WOMEN

Also ambiguous was the role of women in Art Nouveau. As always, women were important muses for artists and designers, and at this time there was a lot of interest in famous performers like Sarah Bernhardt, the dancer Loie Fuller, the nightclub performer Jane Avril. But in an era when women were increasingly independent — struggling for suffrage, gaining the right to divorce, more visible in the public sphere than previous generations — the Art Nouveau woman had a menacing twist. She was alluringly sexual, but also scandalous, morally compromised, even mortally threatening.

Art Nouveau tended to see women as dangerously independent and sexual. The half-nude woman pictured here is in a state of voluptuous pleasure that would have been scandalous at the time. Her hair takes the form of whiplash curves (also scandalous at a time when women wore their hair up).

french industrial revolution walls.