Art Nouveau The Decorative Stylings of the Art Nouveau Movement

Table Of Content

• Japanese inspired flat perspective
• Aubrey Vincent Beardsley
• The Entrances to the Paris Metro ( by Hector Guimard
• De Arloy Typeface New Art Nouveau Style (TTF)
• Munich Secession and Jugendstil
• Art for the Street: Art Nouveau Posters
• Try the Art Nouveau Design on Stationery and Invitations
• PhotoVibrance Review: A Designer’s Perspective

Artists in the West became aware of ukiyo-e prints as trade and communication between Eastern and Western nations increased during the last half of the 19th century. Building upon the example of the Japanese, Art Nouveau designers made colour, rather than tonal modeling, the primary visual attribute of their graphics. The influence of William Morris and the Kelmscott Press upon graphic design, particularly book design, was remarkable. Morris’s concept of the well-designed page, his beautiful typefaces, and his sense of design unity—with the smallest detail relating to the total concept—inspired a new generation of graphic designers. His typographic pages, which formed the overwhelming majority of the pages in his books, were conceived and executed with readability in mind, another lesson heeded by younger designers. More commercial areas of graphic design, such as job printing and advertising, were similarly revitalized by the success of Morris.

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Japanese inspired flat perspective

Below we highlight the key artists, architects, graphic designers, and people who developed the Art Nouveau style. At the same time, Art Nouveau died down quickly, so although there weren’t any formal graphic designs per se, designers did get inspired by the movement and incorporated the style in contemporary times. You can still see the Art Nouveau style commonly used in posters, illustrations, and packaging.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley

Art Nouveau design shows us how embracing and combining different cultures with respect and appreciation can reinvent and revive traditional styles. It’s a classic style that has been preserved and is still celebrated in the art world today as it was so inclusive of all artists at the time. We see this today when brands use floral forms to convey a sense of luxury, vitality and femininity. Floral designs with an Art Nouveau twist are used anywhere from posters, packaging and product labels to logos and invitation designs celebrating events like weddings or baby showers.

The Entrances to the Paris Metro ( by Hector Guimard

One of the most innovative posters of the Art Nouveau movement was artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1893 poster of the dancer Jane Avril, who was then performing at the Jardin de Paris. In this poster and others like it, Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lively atmosphere by reducing imagery to simple flat shapes that convey an expression of the performance and environment. Although Toulouse-Lautrec only produced about three dozen posters, his early application of the ukiyo-e influence propelled graphic design toward more reductive imagery that signified, rather than depicted, the subject. He often integrated lettering with his imagery by drawing it in the same casual technique as the pictorial elements. The jewellery of the art nouveau movement was rooted in an almost mystical, cottage-core style. As the main inspiration was nature, elements of enamel, semi-precious stones and opals were used in the designs.

De Arloy Typeface New Art Nouveau Style (TTF)

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The style was called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Floreale (or Stile Liberty) in Italy, and Modernismo (or Modernista) in Spain. Textile designer, writer and social activist William Morris’ floral designs, ideas and concepts were incredibly influential. Together with these designs, the Arts and Crafts movement that he created with his pupils was at the core of the art nouveau design style. The Arts and Crafts aesthetic of the time was characterised by romantic, folkish and medieval themes. Throughout Europe and far beyond, Art Nouveau designs and concepts generated a desire for decorative arts, architectural design, and style.

Munich Secession and Jugendstil

A yellow outfit with organic flower designs and circular forms encapsulates the figure. On the man’s shoulders is a robe of the same hue with delicate swirls and geometric motifs. We cannot see the man’s face because he is bending down and holding the woman’s face while kissing her cheek. The woman’s eyes are gently closed, her face is inclined toward the Kiss, and one arm is draped over his neck.

Art for the Street: Art Nouveau Posters

Through the gallery, Bing sold fabrics designed by William Morris and glassware by Tiffany, and showcased paintings and furniture in the Art Nouveau style. Although international in scope, Art Nouveau was a short-lived movement whose brief incandescence was a precursor of modernism, which emphasized function over form and the elimination of superfluous ornament. Although a reaction to historic revivalism, it brought Victorian excesses to a dramatic fin-de-siècle crescendo. Its influence has been far reaching and is evident in Art Deco furniture designs, whose sleek surfaces are enriched by exotic wood veneers and ornamental inlays. Dramatic Art Nouveau—inspired graphics became popular in the turbulent social and political milieu of the 1960s, among a new generation challenging conventional taste and ideas.

The most prevalent examples of the style can be observed in Art Nouveau architecture and Art Nouveau paintings. Two of the most influential art trends of the twentieth century were Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which had an impact on every aspect of visual culture. Art Deco has harsh angles, and geometric shapes in contrast to the curvy, organic forms celebrated in Art Nouveau.

Despite its brief life, Art Nouveau would prove influential in the 1960s and '70s to designers wishing to break free of the confining, austere, impersonal, and increasingly minimal aesthetic that prevailed in the graphic arts. If Art Nouveau quickly took Europe by storm in the last five years of the 19th century, artists, designers and architects abandoned it just as quickly in the first decade of the 20th century. Although many of its practitioners had made the doctrine that "form should follow function" central to their ethos, some designers tended to be lavish in their use of decoration, and the style began to be criticized for being overly elaborate. In a sense, as the style matured, it started to revert to the very habits it had scorned, and a growing number of opponents began to charge that rather than renewing design, it had merely swapped the old for the superficially new. Even using new mass-production methods, the intensive craftsmanship involved in much Art Nouveau design kept it from becoming truly accessible to a mass audience, as its exponents had initially hoped it might.

Art Nouveau is easily identified by its signature undulating asymmetrical line, reminiscent of natural forms such as flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect wings, and other flimsy, curved structures. This line may be classy and attractive or imbued with a forceful, rhythmic, whiplike energy. In the visual arts, the line takes precedence over everything else, including shape, texture, space, and color, for its aesthetic value.

Even at the Fouquet store on Rue Royale, he transformed shopping into an artistic performance using sculptures, fountains, mosaics, sculpture, and lighting. Ukiyo-e, which translates to “pictures of the floating world,” was the Japanese art movement that had the greatest impact on Art Nouveau. Ukiyo-e was a style of Japanese woodblock printing that relied on a laborious technique to achieve its characteristic flat perspectives. Art Nouveau’s use of space, vibrant colors and intricate patterns are all direct homages to Japanese aesthetic principles. The movement received its name in the 1960s from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, where its decidedly commercial nature was conveyed most simply.

Even now, you can see the influence of free-flowing lines in logo and package designs having a fluid, undulating quality. Even the architectural influence of Art Nouveau can be seen in the designs’ ornate and intricate elements. When the 1920s rolled around, Art Deco became the dominant architectural and decorative art style. As early as the late 1960s, the Art Nouveau style began receiving more positive recognition from critics. This trend accelerated with the inauguration of a major Hector Guimard display at the Museum of Art in 1970. Germany and Austria were the first to move away from Art Nouveau, with designers like Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser favoring a starker, more strictly geometric style as early as 1903.