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From Lineal Organic Arts & Crafts to Naturally Whimsical Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is a whimsical, organic and plant-inspired decorative style that influenced art, accessories and architecture. Art Nouveau was obviously an off-shoot of the rebellious Arts and Crafts Movement, nurtured by the likes of British designer and furnishings producer, William Morris. While the Arts and Crafts school of design theory was indeed the parent of organic design, its clean straight lines lean a bit towards the more masculine side of nature. Art Nouveau, while also organic and nature-themed, could best be gendered as feminine; with its sweeping, curvaceous but symmetrical lines, alluring color schemes and floral and fairy motifs. 

For less than two decades the romantic “New Art” movement swept through Europe and the United States. While decorative artists like Tiffany, Lalique and Mackintosh all became household and then museum standards with their work in the new style, the bold and highly recognized graphics and artwork of Art Nouveau can be attributed to a surge in interest by Europeans in Japanese styles, or Japonisme. The wood block art of Japan had become highly desired, studied and copied by the Western consumer. With the rise of illustrated publications like books but especially magazines, the world of graphic artistry was flourishing.

 

The depiction of nature, whether real such as in insects and plant-life, or fantastical such as in imps and fairies, was seen in art for the home as well as wearable art in jewelry. Art Nouveau has a distinctive visually sinuous style. Although a spin-off of the great Arts and Crafts philosophy, the Art Nouveau movement was not as artisan-centric and in fact embraced using new materials and  machines to produce designs. By World War I the highly specific nature of  Art Noveau and its curvaceous whimsy was being replaced with the same rectilinear designs of its Arts and Crafts parent. The style was evolving into the geometry of Art Deco and then Modernism. Both were much cheaper to produce in machine made mass quantities, using new plastics and technology. Despite the efforts of purists like William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Industrial Revolution appeared to have been won.

Today, over one hundred years later, the Amish artists of Northern Indiana  bring to life the solid wood designs that gave birth to the Arts and Crafts offspring, Art Nouveau. As beautiful in homes today as in post-Victorian homes comes solid wood home furnishings in a variety of native hardwoods.

Tags: amish art nouveau, Amish Furniture, Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, lalique, mackintosh, Mission, tiffany, william morris

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 1:06 am and is filed under Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, History of Furniture Making. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.