art nouveau

A photograph of the Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona, Spain, the unfinished work of Antonio Gaudí. The spire, because of its shape, has become known as the ‘Bishop's Mitre’, and the east facade, or ‘Nativity Facade’, is a remarkable example of Gaudí's fluid use of stone.

Decorative style in the visual arts, interior design, and architecture that flourished from 1890 to 1910. It is characterized by organic, sinuous patterns and ornamentations based usually on twisting plant forms. In England, it appears in the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley; in Scotland, in the interior and exterior designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh; in France, in the glass of René Lalique and the posters of Alphonse Mucha; and in the USA, in the lamps and metalwork of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Art nouveau took its name from a shop in Paris, which opened in 1895 to sell products in the new style. It was known as Jugendstil (‘youth style’) in Germany and Stile Liberty in Italy, after the Liberty department store, London, which sold art nouveau fabrics and wallpaper.

The roots of art nouveau go back to Romanticism and the English Arts and Crafts Movement, particularly the late Pre-Raphaelite floral patterns, as in the designs of William Morris. The style flourished particularly in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and Germany, where the influence of Morris and Beardsley was strongly felt and was propagated by early numbers of the Studio (1893), the first issue of which contained Beardsley's work.

The decorative and linear aspects of art nouveau became an element in the work of many painters and graphic artists of the period, among them Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Ferdinand Hodler, and even Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. In architecture, both interior and exterior, a new simplicity of design produced linear constructions of glass and iron which often combines with more decorative elements. Architects strongly influenced by art nouveau include Antonio Gaudí (Spain); Hector Guimard, who designed the entrances to the Paris Métro stations (France); and Victor Horta (Belgium).