Greetings and salutations, deviants! Today, by your choice, I bring you the fourth edition of the now quarterly series Art History Spotlight!

The Art History Spotlight Series will be exploring various artistic movements, the techniques used therein, major artists behind it and it's influence on dA!

The fourth edition focuses on Art Nouveau. You can find the previous editions here:

Abstract
Surrealism
Impressionism

So, without further ado, I bring to you:

Art Nouveau

[ahrt noo->voh]
as defined by dictionary.com

–noun (often initial capital letters) Fine Arts.
a style of fine and applied art current in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized chiefly by curvilinear motifs often derived from natural forms.

The highly stylized works within the Art Nouveau movements revolve around graceful lines that quite often have themes such as plants and flowers.

Origins

Art Nouveau, meaning new art in French appeared most intensely in the late Victorian era. The style was prevalent all over europe, and was known by different names in different countries. Jugendstil, as the Germans called it, was derived from the magazine Diejugend (Youth) published from 1896. ^[1] This style was inspired from Japanese woodblocks and predominantly decorative. It reached it's peak around 1900, but did not end until 1914; the beginning of the first World War. ^[2]


Title page of "Die Jugend", an issue printed in 1896^[3]

Seemingly a response to the clutter of the Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution, which introduced mass production of standard everyday objects, Art Nouveau embraced a high standard of craftsmanship to decor. Like the Arts and Crafts movement, it not only showed in applied art, but heavily in architecture, sculpture and many forms of functional decor. A very uniform art style; a strong belief was that all arts should work in harmony to create a "total work of art", or Gesamtkunstwerk:, where all things conformed to the principles of Art Nouveau. ^[4]


Stairway at Hôtel Tassel, by Victor Horta^[4], and Tiffany Lamp by Louis Comfort Tiffany^[5]

Notable artists within the Art Nouveau movement include Gustav Klimt, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Antoni Gaudi, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Alfonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley, to name a few.

Technique

Taking a focus on what composes an art nouveau piece, there are a few different running themes.^[6]

• An attention to the natural, mythical and fantastic. Much work done in this movement has a whimsical feeling to it.


• Asymmetrical design, with sweeping curves and lines.


• Many of the sculptural aspects used cast iron as a medium.


• Simplicity of composition; the removal of unnecessary decoration.


• Large inspiration from plant life and nature.

Art Nouveau from the Masters

The Goldfish Gustav Klimt

Castle Bastillo Antoni Gaudi

Reverie Alfonse Mucha

Bookcase Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Venus Aubrey Beardsley

Art Nouveau on dA

Work on dA inspired by Art Nouveau and it's respective artists

The voluptuous metalwork of ~ou8nrtist2


The natural and whimsical works of *puimun


The dark honest works of ~nati


Other work:




^{Sources:
[1] The Bulfinch Guide to Art History
[2] Art Lex: Art Nouveau
[3] Die Jugend
[4] NGA: Art Nouveau
[5] Met: Tiffany
[6] Q Design}