Art Nouveau: The Nature of Dreams

Spectacular, decorative and sensual, Art Nouveau was an international style that emerged in the 1890s, first in London and then Brussels, and represented a transformation in design thinking. Meaning the new art, between 1893 and 1900 it spread across the cities of Europe, from Paris to Budapest, from Riga to Barcelona and from Ljubljana to Munich. It was synonymous with the modern metropolis, its elegant flowing forms drew much inspiration from a new approach to natural form and most of its designers were hugely interested in symbolism. It became very powerful in architecture, furniture, ceramic, jewellery, glass, fashion and was a dominant force by 1900 in graphic design. This exhibition, Art Nouveau, The Nature of Dreams, delves into the origins and evolution of this much-loved and sometimes controversial style. Exploring its roots in Victorian England, this exhibition looks at how Art Nouveau synthesised nature and human psychology to become a dominant force in European architecture and design after 1890. The mind was pulled together with the natural world. A number of English movements and personalities were vital influences for the formation of Art Nouveau. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the great designer and thinker William Morris and the arts and crafts movement, all of them British, provided imagery and ideas. Morris's approach to pattern and natural form in his wallpapers and fabrics was deeply admired in Brussels and Paris. He dismissed boundaries between high art and low art, applying the values of the highest art forms to commercial design, which was key in the evolution of design as we have it today. The 1890s saw rapid urbanisation in Europe, dramatically changing how its populations viewed the natural world and themselves in it. This new reality demanded a new art and among many artists that meant a rejection of reality altogether. Symbolist movements in art, literature and music, which had begun in the 1860s, came to fruition in the 1880s and 1890s and deeply influenced how a young generation of designers thought. One of the great figures in the symbolist universe was the painter Paul Gauguin, who also had interests in the decorative arts. The name Art Nouveau comes from a gallery opened in Paris in 1895 by Siegfried Bing, a brilliant entrepreneur and dealer. La Maison de l'Art Nouveau gave the new style its name. By 1900 the style twisted its way into dozens of urban centres. It gained a high level of legitimacy as it did this as a style simultaneously representative of modern life and individual national cultures. From around 1880 to 1900 Catalan artists fell under the influence of the pre-Raphaelite and arts and crafts schools as well as Britain's aesthetic movement. Businessmen and industrialists were also looking to England as a model for modernisation. One of the artists who contributed magnificently to the Art Nouveau phenomenon was Antoni Gaudi, whose spectacular organic architecture is still admired by millions of tourists who visit Barcelona every year. With a different character in each place it reached, Art Nouveau can be understood as a number of movements based almost entirely in cities that embraced a common visual language while developing their own particular take on the style. The style was then a collection of diverse movements. But this was not the case in England. The style owed much to English designers for its formation but there wasn't an Art Nouveau movement here as such. It never really came to fruition. Rather there were occasional highlights such as the Royal Arcade in Norwich and the food halls at Harrods in London with both buildings featuring the decorative tile of the artist It was a different story in Scotland where the Glasgow School developed its own approach to Art Nouveau which resonated across the whole of Europe. It was in Belgium and France that Art Nouveau first really blossomed and where many of its greatest masterpieces were created. The great architect Victor Horta's Tassel House in Brussels, completed in 1893, was the first building wholly in the style and in Paris architect Hector Guimard became a master of Art Nouveau, designing numerous buildings and the metro stations which still decorate the city. Artist Alphonse Mucha had instant success in 1894 after collaborating with the celebrated French actress and artist Sarah Bernhardt. Rendered in pale pastels, much of his work depicts beautiful young women draped in neoclassical robes, set amidst flowers, feathers and other sensuous natural forms. Perhaps the Art Nouveau line, as it was known, came to fullest expression in Mucha's work. Mucha went on to collaborate with Georges Fouquet, one of France's most innovative and brilliant jewelers. Mucha actually designed Fouquet's Parisian shop which still exists in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. The Orchid Brooch is among the finest examples of Fouquet's work. A flower favoured by the Art Nouveau designers, its curving sensuous naturalism marks it out as a beautiful example of the style. The Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris marked the height of Art Nouveau and its flowing spectacular forms inspired by nature. Theatre and dance were important for Art Nouveau. The American dancer Loie Fuller became an icon of the style. Her famous serpentine dance combined pioneering choreography, lighting design and silk costumes featuring swirling yards of silk. As she twirled, she seemed to metamorphose into elements from the natural world. The Art Nouveau style didn't actually survive until the First World War. 1912 saw the style itself beginning to fade, but not before leaving behind some of the most intensely ornamental buildings, furnishings, accessories and decoration in the entire history of art.