Class 5 1/28/2016

Art Nouveau in Painting and Design

Architects-France
 Charles Garnier
 Gustave Eiffel
 Hector Guimard
Architects-U.S.
 H. H. Richardson
 Louis Sullivan
 Frank Lloyd Wright
Architects-Other
 Josef Hoffmann
 Victor Horta
 Antoni Gaudi

Art nouveau= “la style moderne”

Jugendstil (youth style)
The explosion of the decorative arts in the late 19th cent Paris was also related to
symbolist theory
Gustave Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, 1889 (image)
Iron structure
Art nouveau is a manifestation of Symbolism in the decorative arts
It also is a manifestation of new technologies
Art nouveau= undulating line (symbolism)
Whiplash line
Ex: Van Gogh and Gauguin’s art
Another Photography studio!
 August Endell, Atelier Elvira, Munich, Germany, 1897-98
 Artist wanted to be the latest thing so creates art inspired of Japanese style
 People see sea animals in it; sea horses
 Purple and green
 Inside of the study= has branches; looks as if it is growing; not looking in the
past= looking toward the future
British movements that foreshadowed Art Nouveau
The pre-Raphaelite
Arts and crafts in England
Whistler an American working in London, created décor for this British shipping
magnate Frederick R. Leyland
Peacock Room; now located in Washington DC
Peacocks symbolize vanity
Portrait of Mrs. Leyland= dressed like a Geisha girl; not dressed like a
fashionable woman in her time, but oriental style/look
Aubrey Beardsley, illustration from Oscar Wilde, Salome. 1893
India ink drawing on paper; later reported in line block print
Bible story= horrifying story but sexually interpreted in story by Wilde
 John the Baptist severed head being kissed by a woman and his blood flows
down to form a flower
Another important influence on art nouveau: changing status of women in France
 (Major part of labor force; new laws requiring women’s education)
 Looking as strong and becoming fearful women
Femme fatale= sexually powerful, somewhat fearful
Salome= Wilde
Madonna= Munch
References to darkness, night, the underworld; insects and reptiles
Hector Guimard
Paris, art nouveau architect and designer
Paris Metro Entrance. 1898-1901
Iron and glass
Exotic, spooky font
Light coming up from below; descending into hell/Hades
Cast iron made to appear organic like growing plant life
Swamp plant
Lights around the entrance; red almond shape that look like eyes in the dark
Also did carpentry; furniture but could only be bought by the upper class
Pear wood cabinet, 1900
Galle a French art nouveau glass artist; also furniture
 Emile Galle, Hand Vase, 1900
o Butterfly Bed, 1900= looks like a moth on it (moth man)
o butterfly-orgasm
 Butterfly over the city
Art Nouveau
Rene Lalique jewelry
Snake glasses= woman holding it
Adam and Eve
Louis Comfort Tiffany- American stained glassmaker with a major market in Paris
“Favrile Glass”= blowing the design then adding different colors during the
process
Made his name in Paris; America didn’t really mind his work at first
Henry Van de Velde (1863-1957)
Structure in flux
Belgium= wrote about symbolist theory
All line is in motion; more alive and more exciting
Velde= our environments should affect the moods of our everday lives
Van de Velde believed abstract line and form were direct lines to the emotions
Abstract Composition. 1890, Pastels
Impulse toward total abstraction
Textile wall hanging
Van de Velde followed Gauguin’s ideas about symbolism and the importance
of the decorative arts
Yellow Christ= example
Looking at these Japanese gowns; he designed aesthetic style gowns elaborated with
art nouveau curvilinear design
Femme nouveau= has been educated; stand on her own two feet; wear comfortable
clothes but still be incredibly stylish
Femme nouveau vs. femme fatale
Woman getting strength
Gustave Klimt (1862-1918)
Art nouveau + symbolism in Vienna
Jugendstil
Vienna secession founded in 1897
Klimt. The Kiss. 1907-08, o/c
Man is being absorbed into the woman
Just like Munch doing in Germany
Loved to cover his paintings with bright colors mixed with gold leaves
Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams; 1897-1900
Rooted in the subconscious
Published in Vienna
Klimt, Wall Mosaics in dining room of Joseph Hoffman’s Palais Stoclet, Brussels.
1905-09
Covered in tree forms; referred as the Tree of Life
The Kiss couple is in there with a third woman (signature of artist in her
arm)
Geisha woman
Viennese Session
He was part of
Movement
Working group of Viennese Session
Viennese style of art nouveau: no whiplash line, but same interest in surface
decoration and new materials
Example of Symbolism:
1. Color, line and shape important on their own apart from subject
2. Color, line, shape, … etc. affect our emotions without necessary recourse to
subject or story
3. Exotic cultural references
4. Symbolists theme: “tree of life” related to “ages of man” we have already seen
5. Vienna was the home town of Sigmund Freud
Architecture 1880-1914
Baron Haussmann- civic planner designed the city plan for Paris in the 1850s
Cut Paris in half to fix the mess in the city
Create big avenues; required all buildings to have same core design
Haussmann widened major avenues and sight lines between major urban
monuments
Preparing for cars and parades
In France, the Ecole fostered architecture and planning based on Renaissance and
Baroque models
Traditional in art as well as architecture
 Couldn’t be an artist without a degree/education here
Beaux Arts Style
Charles Garnier, L’Opera, Paris. 1861-74
Built in Baroque style
A whole lot of Roman and Persian style rolled into one
First sign of change came in the industrial capital of London
Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, London, 1851
Iron and Glass
He was a gardener who came up with the idea for this building
Interior= tapestries hanging
Gustave Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris. 1889, iron
World’s Fair symbol/center piece
Not really building that housed anything but it was a monument
Something new= nothing that was of traditional styles
Iron construction; lines an form
USA: The Chicago School
Henry Hobson Richardson= medievalist
Louis Henry Sullivan
Urban living was growing fast in America
Chicago- center for the US steel industry
Richardson was born in LA, went to Harvard then Paris Ecole
“Romanesque Revival”
Trinity Church, 1872-77
Makes it look thought out but draped in traditional/medieval style
Like Abbey of St. Pierre
Richardson. Marshall Field Warehouse, 1885-87; Chicago (demolished, 1930)
 No iron or steel frame; the innovation is in simplifying and opening up the
walls
 Romanesque arches
 Bearing-wall construction; wall holds the building up
Louis Sullivan, Wainwright Building, St. Louis, MO. 1890-91
“Skyscraper”
Irish man; Celtic style/ornate pattern
Sullivan a pioneer in the use of structural steel- NOT first to use it but used it
more extensively and in totally new ways
Still designed with Renaissance patterns on the outside
Modern because it made person look up with the lines
Sullivan: “Form Follows Function”
That means: building should be dictated by its program
Carson Pirie Scott and Co. Store, 1899-1904
Stretched out; window, not much window; modern
New building type: department stores
Steel frame, curtain wall
Store seem exciting; top was nice but bottom was decorative
Chicago Windows= vents in the window (tiny windows to big ones)
 First floor still had to appeal to the people
Art Nouveau Architecture
Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels. 1892-93; ironwork, mosaics, wall
painting
Curling of iron with whiplash on the walls
Swirl of forces
Whiplash line
Use of reinforced concrete
Auguste Perret, Rue Franklin apartments, 1902-3, Paris.
Concrete that had steel bars inside it to keep it strong
Used it to create the framing elements
In between concrete was a flower motif
Antonio Gaudi (1842-1926)
Spain
Glorifies the Middle Ages
Most of his life working on a church
La Sagrada Familia. Barcelona, 1883-1926
Organic shapes
Casa Mila, 1905-07. Barcelona: steel frame
Undulated walls
Knows of modern but gives us forms to other references
Gives us a natural organic quality to it; river bed eroding rocks
Apartment complex= steel frame!
Iron balconies; no straight lines or square rooms
Mosaic usage to chimney pots
Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
USA
Wright starts with the program and the plan
Suburb in Chicago
Ward Willits House, Highland Park, IL, 1900-02
Cross shape layout that would create rectangles with it
Japanese style; horizontal
Natural looking; thinking of foliage around the building
Wright was interested in, and collected Japanese prints and these influenced his
architecture
“Prairie style”
Flat and spread out; way he saw the Midwest
All done with wood, but rebuilt to be steel
Hearth the central pint for Wright’s residential plans
Center of his architecture of his design
House may look radical and new but his living space was traditional
Lighter stone
Wood construction, NOT steel and local stone and brick
slide structure; nothing closed off-= open room plan
Everything went together