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ROBERT SCHNUTZLER
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creeps!"
our appreciation
iy,
istic style
'
turn of the centun ace.
undergone a complete
Nowadays, collectors and museums pay high
works
or
prevalent
and numerous exhibitions
in this style
with the art of
this fascinating
and provocative
îave recently attracted the attention of a broad
Nouveau no longer needs :s
and
ideas;
extensive study of Art ,
interpreted. In this first
Nouveau published
in this
the author, Robert Schmutzler, undertakes to the history, development,
et
a$d
social
Aer, Art
artistic sense)
Nouveau
is
and meaning (both
of Art Nouveau. For
not a brief and bewildering
mainstream of
in the
t
its
however, these precepts and ideas
expounded and
to be
i
apologists to defend
artistic
development, nor
merely transitional stage on the road leading to
^e know
art as
l
icnt that
it
can take
its
and
art
istorical styles
today:
it
a style
is
and
a
rightful place beside the
movements.
author shows that Art Nouveau's roots and lents
go far back into the eighteenth century.
the idea that Art
s
Nouveau was an
He
artificially
development, and gives the reader an illuminat\ey of
its
evolution. Both the text and the ex-
chosen illustrations provide us with a better
ly
canding of one of the few complete movements listory of art, a :
painting, sculpture,
arts,
cture, sts
as
that
encompassed the erior decoration,
and objects for everyday use
and
architects in such distant
— developed
Paris.
dictions;
this
I
and diversified
Chicago and Glasgow, Vienna and
Ma and
y
movenun
Brussels,
Art Nouveau was nourished by
volume
discloses the
inner unity
beneath them.
Jêr.^1
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RETUlt MAH
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CIVIC
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Schmutzler, Robert Art nouveau
MARIN COUNTY LIBRARY
Art Nouveau
I
BERNHARD PANKOK
Endpaper for the
official catalogue of the exhibit of the
German Empire
at the /900 World's Fair in Paris
^
Robert Schmutzler
Aft NoUVCaii
r
Harry N. Abrams, iv.arin
New York
County Free Library
Civic Center Administration S?-,i
Inc. Publishers
Building
Rafael, California
J
10
The
front binding reproduces a design created by
Aubrey Beardsley
in
1896 for
the binding of Ernest Dowson's Verses (reproduced by courtesy of the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London).
The endpapers reproduce artist
a wallpaper design
by Henry van de Velde which the
conceived in 1894 or 1895. The original wallpaper was produced
in three
separate color schemes (reproduced by courtesy of the Library of the Ecole
Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture
et
des Arts Décoratifs de la Chambre,
Brussels).
English translation by Edouard Roditi
Library of Congress Catalog No. 64-10765
All rights reserved.
No
part of the contents of this book
may
be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers,
Harry N. Abrams Copyright 1962 Printed
in
in
Inc.,
New
York.
West Germany by Verlag Gerd Hat je, Stuttgart
West Germany
CONTENTS
The Phenomenon
Form and
Structure of Art
Nouveau
Historicism and Studio-Style
33
The
35
Origins of Art
Nouveau
William Blake
35
Proto-Art Nouveau About 1800
53
Nouveau
55
Latent Art
Early Art
Nouveau
Dante Gabriel
Rossetti
61
and His Circle
The Japanese Style
Preliminaries to Art
Nouveau
France
114
125
Brussels
125
Holland Paris and Nancy
152
141
London Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland
172
Barcelona
212
New York
191
227
Glasgow
239
Vienna
244
The
Significance of Art
Nouveau
Acknowledgments Notes
260
279 281
Selected Bibliography
299
of Plates and
308
List
"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" (1890)
in
97 109
High and Late Art Nouveau
Chicago and
Vignette from
61 73
The Masters of Industrial Design The Influence of William Blake
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
29
Index of
Names
Picture Credits
Illustrations
318 322
THE PHENOMENON
rt
Nouveau
is
the term generally used
for defining the style of art which,
around 1900, had long,
sensitive,
as its
sinuous
main theme 1 a line
that
re-
minds us of seaweed or of creeping Such a line might also be sugby the way the spots are scattered in a leopard skin or by the flick plants.
gested
of a whiplash, flowing or flaring up,
moderato or jurioso, always moving a sort of narcissistic self-delight.
likewise find
it
illustrated in the figures of
in
We
swans on a wallpaper,
or making the locks of nymphlike girls flow and undulate, or thrusting electrical blooms into space from lampstands
stems are as delicate as those of Historically speaking, Art
now known
as historicism
whose metal
lilies.
Nouveau developed between
and what
later
the style
developed as our
own
modern art. Like both of these, broadly speaking, Art Nouphenomenon of the Western world. "Between" does not mean that it was a style of transition: Art Nouveau, the German term for which is Jugendstil, its Viennese form being Sezessionsstil, and its Catalan version known as Modernista, also became known in Paris, in the nineties, under the name of "Modern Style," an Anglicism that is explained by its English origins. As a style, it carried its emphasis and its value, its center and its purpose within style of
veau
itself.
is
a
Seen in retrospect, styles generally appear rigorously defined.
In reality, however, their frontiers were often uncertain, representing a slow transition rather than a sudden break. In spite of the
countermovement of the pendulum which seems to govern all successions of styles, each style, in the living metamorphosis of art, grows out of the one that preceded it and begins immediately to develop the seeds of the one that is destined to replace it. The origins of Art Nouveau are thus to be found in historicism, just as Art Nouveau later became the point of departure of modern art, transcending itself with new aims and solutions. It is true that, while Art Nouveau lasted, one was aware only of what had preceded it and had already become fought against
it
so exhausted 2 that
Art Nouveau artists new forms and means of expresto achieve a new vision of beauty
in their desire for
sion, feeling themselves destined
and to find a form for new values and meanings. This creative will which inspired Art Nouveau found its area of expression mainly between London and Barcelona, between New York and Vienna, between Brussels and Munich, in a great number of works which achieved real perfection, even
if
the truly creative artists, here as
thus remain indistinct, each year being of great significance in such
when one
a confused period
Even
style dovetailed into another.
the nineties, truly creative works did not
all
in
necessarily belong to
Art Nouveau: Cezanne's paintings, for instance, stand apart, though they are of course closely related to other phenomena that likewise influenced the styles of Art Nouveau.
On
the whole, Art
Nouveau may not have culminated
any
in
"great art," being represented as a definite sdiool neither in easelpainting, so preponderantly popular in the nineteenth century, nor
work of
in the autotelic statue conceived as a
art in itself rather
we
than as a decorative element in some architectural whole; yet find the first specific features of Art
THOMAS THEODOR HEINE
Vignette from "Die Insel" (1900)
Nouveau
in the pictorial art
of Blake and Rossetti, though mainly in objects of applied art re-
produced
in their paintings.
The subject matter of the human figure
and the landscape in painting, the background by Art Nouveau, though
in sculpture, that of the portrait
elsewhere, were so rare that their style survived only for a short
were indeed relegated to
while.
these subjects all remained dear to the Impressionists,
Art Nouveau reached
its
maximum
diffusion
decade of the nineteenth century and
in the last
our own. Although
its
and concentration
it
produced
The
in the first years of
birth as a style can, in certain cases, be speci-
fied within a year, the art that
treated landscapes as
as a
whole cannot be
still-life,
if
one of Cezanne's two or three main
entirely missing in pure
Art Nouveau. Seen
morte arrangement of heterogeneous
lifeless objects
as a topic or as a
Horta the
interest to the adepts of a style that attached so
High Art Nouveau, appeared in 892 in Brussels, emerging completely armed like Athene from the head of Zeus. Jugendstil likewise came into being in Munich in 1894, 1
almost without any recognizable preliminary stage. In London,
however, whence the European continent drew its inspiration to a very great extent, the late form of Art Nouveau, with the organic life
that animated
its
curves, began as early as 1880, after having
much
even
means of
subjects,
is
as a whole, the nature
circumscribed with any exactitude. In the case of the architect style's richest phase,
who
they were handling portraits.
could not, either
distributing objects in space, be of
any
much importance
movement, to life and its sources, to "the springs of life," as William Blake had said prophetically. 3 Art Nouveau was indeed striving, in a single figure as well as in the integrated whole of an area, after a connected whole and, if possible, a structural homogeneity, to
the illustration of palpable objects always being of secondary im-
portance.
form in the middle of the century. However, even before 1900 a countermovement could also be detected: in 1898 or 1899, the more geometrical or cubic late Art
Art Nouveau's center of gravity thus shifts very distinctly in relationship both to academic painting and historicism, on the one hand, and to Impressionism on the other hand. The "free" individ-
Nouveau
ual
been preceded by a
earlier
thus began to appear in Vienna. It
is
true that Mackintosh
had already begun to develop something similar in Glasgow in the early nineties. But Gaudi, the greatest genius among Art Nouveau architects, created on the other hand, between 190$ and 1910, the most important examples of his undulating and sculptural architecture, the carved movements of which were inspired by living forms; and, as late as 1914, Van de Velde, a master gifted with such
abandon the field to those that are "determined" or "applied" or that must contribute toward a "synthesis." 4 Instead of anecdote and of description of the visible world, instead of comment and realistic reproduction, decorative and emblematic forms now appear. We recognize the decorative and applied arts as the basic concern of Art Nouveau, understood both in the arts
broadest sense, extending from the industrial product, such as wall-
"great art," being represented as a definite school neither in easel-
paper and furniture, to the whole of an interior and,
High Art Nouveau, seven years after Picasso had created Cubist painting and three years after the building of the Fagus Factory in which Gropius had given definitive expression to the forms of modern architecture. The chronological frontiers of Art Nouveau
sense,
of
a wider
even to "applied" or practical architecture or also to graphic
work, principally posters and book
and
in
illustrative or
illustrations,
whether symbolic
ornamental and almost abstract. The pulse of
Art Nouveau can thus be
felt to
beat at
its liveliest in
ornament.
This ornamental element determines the entire style, extending to
its
"free" painting
Nouveau
and "free" sculpture
expresses itself genetically, first of
too. In principle, all,
as
Art
an ornamental
surface-movement where the ornamental element remains dominant, even
if
applied to the representation of figures or of objects
situated in space.
Even
artists like
Gaudi, Tiffany, or Maillol,
have created extreme examples of three-dimensional form,
Nouveau
who
inter-
and foremost as a phenomenon of surface. On the other hand, ornament now began to dominate figures and objects set in space as an inner force too, imposing on them an ornamental structure. Since, by its very nature, this ornament is always flowing, its structure must reveal itself full of movement too. Horta's fragile and elegant linear framework of architecture pret Art
is
first
OTTO ECKMANN
from "Pan" (1896)
Vignette
ornamental, producing, so to speak, vibrating structures; Tif-
fany's
and Gallé's
vases,
with or without further ornament on their
become geometrical and, in Art Nouveau, the pulsation of life has come to a
the ornament has
phase of
this final standstill,
furniture likewise adopt the appearance of ornaments.
A
chair, for
Seen as a whole, such useful Art Nouveau objects as pieces of instance,
interpreted as
is
out stems and buds, 281), or as if
of
its
own
it
As a
expresses with elasticity
weights; in will
were made of a substance that puts
as Blake
had already designed
force
this, it
it
how
ready
to fulfill
it is
its
do when, simply by turning
his head,
he brings into play an
is
(i897)
Nouveau
signs, closely
why
lettering
be a fruitful field of activity for Art Nouveau; of Winter"
how
requires in order to resist tensions or to bear
with form, meaning, and symbols. This
Book
task or
exaggerates the effort, as a mannered athlete
not decorative or noncommittal; they are
Vignette from "The Evergreen: The
(plate
sort of parable of itself, such a chair
excessive apparatus of muscles. The ornaments of Art
ANNIE MACKIE
it
had become the abstract three-dimensional emblem
function.
much dynamic
if it
much
also,
are
connected
proved to
why
it
is
comparatively easy to force such a world of ornamental emblematic
forms to "speak" and deliver
its
message that
is
hidden behind the
pattern and even behind the consciously intended "content."
curved surfaces, are ornamental bodies
in
what appears
to be a
continuously flowing movement; the masses, swelling like sand
humped
dunes or
like a camel's back, that
provide the forms of
Gaudi's houses and cupolas, with their reptilious and iridescent
Human tion:
it
is
form, as far as
it
appears
in
Art Nouveau,
is
is
when he
represented in art but also in
animated from within by an almost vital morphology (plates 4, 13, and 14). In Perret's garage on the rue Ponthieu, which illustrates the limit between late Art Nouveau and modern architecture, the ornament still dominates (plate 317).
Not only planned
in
the central rose
window
but also the whole façade are
terms of a tense ornamental disk, stressed in
itself.
Here
is
of a distinctly "musical"
man marked by an ornamental
nature, so
developed
space,
no excep-
animated ornaments of Art Nouveau are open to the fourth dimension, to the flow of time that
surfaces of scale-like ceramics, are architectonic ornamental bodies in
is
likewise relegated to realms of ornament. 5 Just as the
life
character, not only
and, above
all, in
the
dance, where living man, set in motion by music, becomes a figure of art. "Then came the
first 'Girls,'
the Barrison Sisters, six or
seven of them; with their black-stockinged
legs,
they threw up their
long baby-dresses in rhythmical lines." With this the "Girls," the effect of the parallel
row
phenomenon of
also appeared, with the
by her contemporaries, but
Nouveau
also in innumerable other things,
Art
expressed the Manneristic principle of the figura serpen-
tinata in a self-evident
way which
differed from that of the sixteenth
century but was nevertheless carried by a genuinely manneristic
Metamorphosis, the
undercurrent.
vital
force
of
self-transfor-
mation, plays an essential role in the world of forms, patterns, and ideas of ler
Art Nouveau. What we have
confirms
first
just
and foremost the way
in
quoted about
Lo'ie Ful-
which the human figure
was then subjected to an alienation that created something nonhuman, nonanthropomorphic, a self-impelling ornament which reminds one
less
of a
human
glass.
One
have
so frequently inspired
being than of a jellyfish or of a Tiffany
should therefore not be surprised that
Lo'ie Fuller should themes for design and for sculpture.
Lautrec (plate 172), Bradley (plate
3 5),
Chéret, and Thomas Theodor
Heine have all made use of her figure in ever-renewed variations and abstract ornaments. Bronze statuettes that represent her emphasize the whirling
and gliding element
169), stylizing the
human
in her
dance (plates 168 and
figure, in the literal sense of the
an asymmetrical "plastic ornament," an idea those years.
LED
CANCER
nusj
SEPT2I
V1RC0
LIBRA
first
word,
conceived
as in
7
Art Nouveau expressed moreover an unmistakable preference for hybrid forms and figures of bastard origin, not only in the numerous mermaids that decorate its buildings or in its many pieces of furniture that are conceived as if they were plants, but also in the disappearance of a clear boundary line between its different fields of art,
when
it
created "plastic ornaments," for instance, or
fused the frame and the picture in an ornamental and undivided
HELEN HAY Summer"
Calendar leaf from "The Evergreen: The Book of
(1895)
whole that is full of significance, as had been anticipated by Rossetti and Whistler and was then achieved fully by Toorop, Munch, and Gauguin; that is why Art Nouveau also produced books and bindings in which the typography, the illustrations, and the
ornament
fuse in a small but fully integrated
work of
ornament and the "infinite regression" of pattern which remains valid from Blake and Rossetti to Hodler and Minne. "Or Lo'ie Fuller who, whirling on her own axis like
ensembles such as the "illuminated" books of Blake,
repetition of identical
raphy of pages of poems
in the
German
art.
in the
In
typog-
art periodical, Pan, or in
a corkscrew or a spinning top, with countless yards of veil-like
the fine bindings by Charles Ricketts, there arises, out of originally
materials shining in colored light like an iridiscent Tiffany vase,
heterogeneous elements, a calligraphic synthesis of homogeneous
became, in her increasingly audacious serpentines, a gigantic ornament; the metamorphosis it underwent, as it flared up or sank
forms and signs that are
again, being swallowed
seems to us now, as
we
up by darkness or by
the fall of the curtain,
look back, to have been the very symbol of
all
subjected to the same rhythm. Similarly,
Art Nouveau also achieved a synthesis of the
lettering
and the
picture or the lettering and the ornament in a poster. During this
period the poster thus acquired for the
Jugendstil." 6
that insured
The very metaphors used in order to reproduce this impression suggest facts which characterize the fundamental attitude of Art Nouveau. Not only in "the serpentine dancer," as she was called
the concise personal character
its
first
time the kind of clarity
being visible from a distance and, at the same time,
and
style of a signature.
The metamorphosis Art Nouveau was capable of achieving and its
indifference to the various genres of art not only facilitated the
10
by Van de Velde
"synthesis of art" (a term used
brought about the appearance of the
worked, a typical phenomenon, fields, for
in a
in Pan), 6 but also
"universal
number of
artist"
media or
different
various purposes and in various areas. The most
sided of these "universal artists"
who
many-
was Van de Velde who, outdoing
William Morris, produced designs for everything imaginable. From
written on gold paper, were then attached to the frames; and the titles
of Whistler's paintings, read in succession from a catalogue,
one after the other, sound pressed itself
kind of abstract poetry, devoid of
like a
was not fortuitously that Art Nouveau exmainly and most completely in book design, where
subject matter.
So
it
poetry and decoration achieved their closest relationship.
Nouveau
painting he went, through applied art and design, to book deco-
the most important Art
and typography, then to the abstract poster also, and to designs for packaging of industrial products; from the patterns for wallpapers, upholstery and decorating materials or carpets, to those for embroideries and fabrics for women's clothing; from designs for windows, skylights, individual pieces of furniture and ensembles, to architecture itself and even to the industrial designing
the theory and the practice of art.
of ocean liners, domestic utensils, crockery, silver flatware, candle-
ness
ration
lamps, jewelery, ceramics, and porcelain. In fact, there
sticks,
is
no
except sculpture in the round, in which Van de Velde did not
field,
own
express his
unmistakable sense of form. In the decoration of
rooms, he included murals by Maurice Denis and Ferdinand
his
Hodler, sculptures by Maillol or fountains by Minne; for the
work of
"total its
art"
(Gesamtkunstwerk) was thus destined to find
field of expression
tic
beyond the
limits of
Wagner's highly
conception of opera, so that man's whole
ioned and transformed into art. This
life
possible only
if
one abolished distinctions between the various genres of art, which Art Nouveau allowed since it viewed all things as sheer ornament, considering them
all
of equal value. The picture as ornament, the
human
figure as ornament, the structure as ornament, and also the ornaments of signification and of function, are brought to our attention in every domain. In such a fundamental attitude and so
typically "decorative" a style, the tendency to overstep all boundaries
was
latent
from the very
inner affinity""
tween genres.
On
start.
"Reciprocal osmosis through
achieved not only between forms, but also be-
is
the other hand, thanks to the "closed form" of
Art Nouveau, a kind of "closed system"
is
achieved in intercon-
nected ensembles that range from the interior decoration of rooms to the designing of books. This "reciprocal
affinity"
and
is
also brought about
literature.
number of
No
artists
osmosis through inner
between the graphic or
plastic arts
other period appears to have had a greater
endowed with dual
talents, such as painter-poets,
than can be found in the history and prehistory of Art Nouveau. Blake and Rossetti, William Morris, and Aubrey Beardsley have left us
poems of
painted pictures for poems and wrote poems on picSwinburne composed poems on paintings by Whistler which,
art. Rossetti
tures,
11
as great a value as their creations in the field of
of
have indeed also written on
From
Dresser and
Owen
Jones,
Morris and Walter Crane, to Obrist and Endell, Galle and Gui-
mard, Sullivan and Loos, they have their artistic creation, thereby
all
added
literary
works to
adding clarity to their work and
giving information to others or acting as teachers. Here too
Velde remains a leader
in the sheer
Van de
quantity and overall effective-
of his work. The same back-and-forth
movement
is
also
achieved between the graphic and plastic arts and music, and
between literature and music. Beardsley started out
Antoni Gaudi and
his
patron,
Count
Giiell,
as a pianist;
were enthusiastic
drawing entitled Wagnerites, and there exists a legend about the Palau Giiell in Barcelona which says that Gaudi constructed it around the music room. 10 The French Wagnerians; Beardsley has
left us a
Roman-
might be refash-
would become
artists
Many
CHARLES RICKETTS Pomegranates"
(i
891)
Vignette from Oscar Wilde's
"A House
of
form and
the one art in which
its
object are always one
from
the object cannot be separated
its
technical expression, in fact
an art that achieves most completely the stantly pursued
by
all
the other arts.
and where
which
artistic ideal
is
con-
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one
of the most sensitive minds of his age, noted briefly: "The time: 1892. Its spirit: the musical element." Whistler, moreover, as early as the seventies, already
gave
titles to his
the nature of the colors of his
was formulated tions, Scherzo,
JOSEF
HOFFMANN
Vignette from
"
Ver Sacrum" (1898)
Symbolistic Revue Wagnérienne was not intended for music cism,
mé's
its title
criti-
being merely metaphorical. Setting to music Mallar-
V Après-midi
d'un jaune and Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Méli-
sande and blending aural and visual elements, Debussy created a
mixed type of libretto for
ballet
and opera; Oscar Wilde's Salome became the
an opera composed by Richard Strauss; the young
Schonberg, a late Romantic
Nouveau, composed
his
who was by no means
a stranger to Art
Gurre-Lieder on poems by Jens Peter
Jacobsen, while typical Jugendstil poems of a minor sort constitute the text of his Pierrot Lunaire.
From
the very beginning, Stra-
vinsky tended toward "applied music," that synthesis of aural
and
visual elements.
His
is
to say ballet
titles,
and a
Oiseau de jeu,
Sacre du Printemps (a periodical was similarly entitled Ver Sac-
rum), are as intimately allied to Art
Nouveau
as Scriabin's
Poème
Thames landscapes and
but where terms taken from the field of music were colors:
Harmony
Nocturne
very predilection for talking or writing about such problems, creators artists
and supporters of
of higher than
ical analysis
of Art
cissistic style.
this style
Nouveau might
were, without exception,
also
However,
prove that
poetry."
a psychologit
was a nar-
The leitmotiv of the sinuous curve already gives us
the impression that such a line
moreover
who
average intelligence.
in parallel
is
phenomena
in love
with
itself. It is
as well as in a
reflected
"complementary
attitude," that of the mutual compatibility of positive and negative forms situated on either side of a common formal frontier. Un-
Nouveau was
influenced by no other mythical or
symbolical figure as strongly as by Narcissus.
12
all
point toward the reflecting and conscious attitude adopted by the
consciously Art
Toorop produced a drawing entitled Organ Tones; in his Cry, Munch painted sound waves, and his paintings in general were once described in Pan as "emotional hallucinations of music and
Blue and Green,
in Violet
methean fantasies" where the abstract totality of the work consists in tones, colors, and moving lights. There even exist paintings by the Lithuanian composer Ciurlionis representing "painted music" 11 land,
in
and Yellow. Whistler thus anticipated color harmonies which were to become typical of Art Nouveau: yellow, white, the combination of yellow and violet, and of blue and green, all carefully avoided by most artists both before and after this period. Such marriages of visual and aural elements, as well as the dual gift of the painter-poets and the quality of symbolism expressed in ornament, all prove the great inclination that Art Nouveau felt toward synthesis. Over and above all this, important theoretical works on art written by many of the Art Nouveau artists, and their White,
in
de jeu and Poème d'extase. Besides, Scriabin also composed "Pro-
which are almost abstract and very close to Art Nouveau. In Hol-
his portraits
in abstract and musical terms like Capriccio, Varia-
combined with names of
Symphony
pictures in which not only
One
of the master-
pieces of Jugendstil sculpture, Minne's fountain in the
Folkwang
Museum (plate 143), shows an adolescent looking at his reflected image in the water. The figure is represented five times, so that the poet Karel van de Woestijne has called the fountain "Narcissus in fivefold reflection." Without being conscious of
Nouveau movement was indeed a disciple pond in Oscar Wilde's famous parable:
"When
it,
the
whole Art
of Narcissus, like the
Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a
The extraordinary importance of music, and of an approximation of painting to music, in Gauguin's theory of art is widely known. Oscar Wilde claimed, as Baudelaire had done earlier, that
cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool
music was the ideal type of
and give
art, the lodestar for all the
other arts,
it
comfort.
12
Isskustva.
As
some short-lived
for Paris,
among
Symbolists first appeared there;
was
literary reviews of the
these, the
Revue Blanche,
became closely connected with an Art Nouveau movement in painting. But Symbolism and Art Nouveau were not identical. Though all Symbolistic poetry is not necessarily started in 1891,
later to
Art Nouveau poetry,
all
perceived by the eye
always Symbolistic. "Art
is
Nouveau
of the art of Art
that can be
at the
is
same time
both surface and symbol," Oscar Wilde had indeed affirmed.
The esoteric trend pursued by the Symbolists, among
whom
Mal-
larmé had declared, as a guiding principle, that "to be clear
is
to
rob the reader of three-quarters of his pleasure which consists in
slow guessing," and the very restricted number of copies of the Symbolistic reviews, which circulated only in limited
circles, her-
metically closed to profane elements,
all these characteristics
indeed
betray another inclination of Art
Nouveau toward an
intro-
version which
closely related to narcissism
is
opposed to exhibitionism. In
this context,
though
it
may seem
Walter Pater had said
that every heart guards, like a prisoner in solitary confinement,
own dream
of a world, indeed of a
Moreau managed
life
and
in fact to live,
such as the painter Gustave
Gray. The virtues of such a
Huysmans conand Wilde, too, for Do-
as the writer
ceived for his fictional hero Des Esseintes, rian
its
life
were also celebrated by the
followers of Stefan George and are expressed in the
Hebrew name
Nabi (meaning "prophet") that designated a group of French Post-
who
Impressionist painters
n'a que soi (page 14), both decorated with blossoms. Again,
and a withdrawal from the world express
introversion, narcissism,
of a periodical Die Insel (The Island), a
themselves
in
given to
"with the proud intention of isolation," by
it
the
title
Heymel was
Walter Heymel. Later, the
same name, and
mean something
like
in
midst of the
name
the creation of the its
pour
humdrum
l'art.
new
some other style of Art Nouveau. As Wolfflin said, one sees only what one wishes to see. But Cretan and Japanese art and to a certain degree the English style of Art Nouveau all reveal distinctive symptoms of an "insular" character: instability, a tendency toward asymmetrical arrangements, patterns, or ornaments, sug-
title
should be taken to
Indeed, a kind of island of art
sea of daily life.
Nouveau
applied
style;
as a geographical fact. Before
and Japan, another
arts, similarly
compared to Art Nouveau is that of the island of Crete in the Minoan period (plate 280), especially the palaces at Knossos which were first unearthed immediately after 1900, moreover by an Englishman, Sir Arthur Evans, two facts that now seem suspiciously significant. Obviously, Cretan art could no longer in any way influence Art Nouveau, but appeared on the contrary in the absurd guise of a consequence of
island, had,
in
with
exerted the greatest influence
on English Art Nouveau. In art history the style which can best be
15
(1884)
founder,
any other country, England had indeed played the decisive role
and
Hobby Horse"
house by
an ivory tower, a refuge for the aesthetes and
curious significance for Art
art
The Century Guild
its
In addition to this symbolical meaning, an island also has a
its
"
to call his publishing
both instances the
a place of exile for l'art in the
page from
in the art
the notion of isolation. It
On
Title
claimed to be Initiates or the Elect.
and literature of Art Nouveau one finds makes itself felt in the poet Hofmannsthal's motto, "I'm nothing to anybody, but nobody is anything to me," and in the titles of Fernand Khnoppf's bookplates, Mihi and
Everywhere
SELWYN IMAGE
it,
almost like the discovery of
gestions of the aquatic element in their patterns, with the squid or
the octopus painted on Cretan vases, submarine creatures such as also
appear
in
Japanese art where, as
in the
wood-block prints of
Hokusai, water, waterfalls, and waves play an important part, contrasting clearly with the more classical styles of Western
The case of Celtic
art,
all
art.
another element in the prehistory of Art
Nouveau, appears results are difficult
to be similar. If
even
Review of 1898, that
if
one
sees
one studies it
it,
however, exact
stated, in the Architectural
the Pre-Raphaelite painter
Edward Burne-
moreover, promoting the Scottish renaissance in
scripts. In this
was not only because he chose as themes Merlin and Vivien or other figures from Celtic legends which, like Tristram and Isolde, King Arthur, or goblins and fairies, all acquired a new life in the aura of Art Nouveau. Above all, the Architectural Review refers here to the style of Burne- Jones and to the type of beauty of his figures.
Nouveau
Art Nouveau as the
The
early Celtic reliefs (plate 185).
Irish poet
in
William Butler Yeats, the leader of the "Celtic literature,
inaugurated his Celtic renaissance in
1889 with the publication of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, and then published in 1893 a volume of lyric poetry, The
Not only was he much concerned with William Blake, whose work was a determining factor in the genesis of Art Nouveau, but Yeats also belonged to the group who declared, Celtic Twilight.
though
it
can never be proved, that Blake had been of Irish and
consequently of Celtic origin. Oscar Wilde, in the
full
splendor of
and Ossianic name, Oscar Finghal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde, was indeed Irish. The Scottish review, The Evergreen, was, his Celtic
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Title
page from "Van
Nu
en Straks" (1893)
Celtic form;
poems such as Anima Celtica were published there with initial letters and ornaments in the style of early Celtic illuminated manu-
Jones helped the Celtic element in art to gain a victory. 15 But this
movement"
its
lacing:
ornamental element, that also reveals purely Art
forms,
we
find the Celtic structural pattern of inter-
the irregular inter-turning of curved,
ribbon-like lines,
forms of details of the human body or of animals that grow out of
known
in
whip" could already be found
in
abstract ornaments (page 114). Finally, even the curve
Around
"flick of the
was launched in London, that is to say for goblets and ornaments made after Celtic models. In Germany, Pan even reprinted a "Celtic" poster. 16 Hol1900, a fashion for "Cymric silver"
brook Jackson devotes to the Celtic element a whole chapter
in his
book The Eighteen-Nineties, which is so instructive from the standpoint of the history of ideas and of culture. An article published in 1 89 1 in The Fortnightly Review gives us moreover the impression that the Celtic influence was then dominant in every artistic activity of the day. 17 Even Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia, Gaudi's region, was said to be the most "Celtic" Spanish province! Gauguin, whose style of painting tended toward Art Nouveau, was not closest to Jugendstil in the pictures that he painted earlier in Paris or later in Tahiti, but in those that he created during his
stay in Pont-Aven, in Brittany, the most purely Celtic of
provinces. first
One
thus has good reason to assert that Art
all
French
Nouveau
allowed, after a long eclipse, the Celtic element to reassert
European art. Whatever appears strange, bizzarre, or alien in Art Nouveau, so different from the conventional European element, comes perhaps from this Celtic source. But we must first examine in greater detail the essentially artistic character of Art Nouveau, clarifying its form and its structure. If Malraux, in reply to the question "What is art?" gives what he believes to be the only correct answer, "That whidi creates a style itself in
out of forms," 18
we may
say here, as
if in
can be recognized by what supports
contradiction, that a style
it,
by form and
its
inner
structure.
16
i
17
LOUIS COMFORT TIF]
\M
Glasjbowl (before 189e)
i
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
3
VICTOR HORTA
4
LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY EMILE GALLE
"Cromer
Bird," decorative fabric {circa 1884)
Inkstand {circa 1900) Glass vases
and candlestick
Small glass goblets (circa 1900)
5
ADRIEN DALPAYRAT
6
Persian
7
Bowl
Vase (circa
1
900)
(thirteenth century)
LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the façade of the & Co. Department Store, Chicago (1899-1904)
8
EMIL RUDOLF WEISS
9
KWANSHOSAI TOYO
Carson Pine Scott
Endpaper for "Gugeline" (1899) Lid of a Japanese lacquer box (nineteenth
century) 10
CHARLES RICKETTS
Binding for
"
A House
of Pomegranates" (1891)
*v'»v\ -
/ (
\
lj
1
HECTOR GUIMARD
12
VICTOR HORTA room
23
Detail of a small table (circa 1908)
Detail of the main chandelier in the dining
of the Solvay residence, Brussels
(1
895-1 900)
H i
-
t ij
t*
'•-r.
\
;•;
•
si
v
h
/4'X
29 V. i.,
<
W -
_-J
1
Opposite: 13
ANTONI GAUDI
Cupola of the
porter's lodge,
Park
Giiell, Bar-
celona (before 1906)
'.4
VICTOR HORTA
15
VICTOR HORTA residence, Brussels
(
Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)
1
Glass
dome above
the staircase of the
Aubecq
900)
M
15
Pages 26 16
27:
ANTON GAUDi I
Giiell,
17
&
Balustrade of the terrace in the Park
Barcelona (before 1906)
ANTONI GAUDÎ Familia (area 1910)
Detail of the
Church of
the Sagrada
I
I
'
.6
26
27
i8
18
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Mirror for the
"Room
de
luxe" of Willow Tea-Rooms, Glasgow (1904) 19
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Wall-bracket lighting
fixture (1900-02)
28
FORM AND STRUCTURE OF ART NOUVEAU
By
its
very nature Art Nouveau remains an ornamental and de-
corative style, which at least offers a concept that
understand
and
variations
all its
veau expresses
possibilities.
itself in the surface,
though
may
Above
it is
allow us to
all,
Art Nou-
by no means always
a superficial style. But, almost without exception,
its
principles
find their full application only in the creation of bodily ap-
pearances and of spaces which, so to speak, must
pass through a
which limits them to two dimensions. In the beginning, there
filter is
first
thus the surface, then movement, too, within this surface.
Scarcely any
work could be more
Marcus Behmer's drawing
typical of Art
Nouveau than
Aubrey Beardsley, pubmain feature of unsteady curves from the burning
in the style of
lished 1903 (at left). Its absolute flatness reveals the
the swinging line that flows in
candle. This linear
flow that
it
movement
can change
its
is
so far extended in
its
uninterrupted
direction several times, filling consider-
able areas of the surface. In contrast, other areas, equally im-
MARCUS BEHMER
Drawing from Oscar Wilde's "Salome" (1903)
movement of
portant, remain intentionally empty. The undulating
curves
is
curiously
flat, its
two
lines as
forth within soft curves.
narrow course it
shifting slowly back
repeatedly changes
its
and
direction in
The whole remains, however, as well as every detail Observation of nature is yet suggested, as if
too, quite asymmetric.
from a great tation has lost
distance, though the figurative element of represenits
value, merely allowing a play with forms pursued
pure harmony of
as a
picture
lines.
somehow conveys an
Half ornament, half
still-life,
the
uncertain meaning, a hidden symbolic
content.
The limits of the strongly simplified and clear-cut forms are planned so as to allow the adjacent background to be activated too. The intended or positive forms of objects and the negative forms of the empty spaces become interchangeable, as do the black and white elements too, in a complementary relationship 19 that is founded to a great extent on the disappearance of any perceptible element of representation. Emil Rudolf Weiss developed all this to
its
logical conclusion in a design for the
(plate 8)
endpapers of a book
where one can scarcely distinguish the pattern from the
background, or the positive from negative forms. Largely abstracted forms are
filled
with zoomorphic and plant-like shapes; they
can thus undergo a complete metamorphosis in one and the same stroke. Everything
power of
is
shown
at close range, but the
whole
retains
from a distance. Limitation
to
the dimensions of the surface, at the cost of any illusion created
by
the
a poster that
is
seen
sculpture in the round or by space, thus becomes an absolute rule.
In the same rigorous
pure
29
line or clearly
way
the artist pursues his aims
by means of
circumscribed and uniform elements of surface.
of them homogeneous in themselves, which have been called
all
"surface-bodies."
20
As
a
means of representation
in terms of space,
of secondary importance. Being nonstructural and non-
color
is
static,
such forms elude the law of gravity so that there
difference between top and bottom.
and
is
is
often
little
Asymmetry remains dominant
even emphasized. But even symmetrical forms cannot con-
more wraithe-like than human. The rhythm expressed of Art Nouveau in
its
full-blown period
in itself
is
in the
curves
unequal, varying,
"asymmetrical," a rhythm of extended, undulating, and gliding curves which, before they end, rear themselves again very high a closed spiral, like a musical beat that as possible, articulations are
As
finally syncopated.
is
avoided and uninterrupted
in
far
lines are
born of a basically asymmetrical impulse;
generally the rule. In the endless flow of similar lines which are
composed of single asymmetrical elements, they seem to have emerged from a reflected reduplication or from the radical torsion
transformed as they develop, movement and rhythm tend toward
ceal that they are in fact
a reaffirmation of infinite relationship.
of asymmetrical details of forms.
An
example of the alternation between positive and negative shift from rigid symmetry to forms of organic life is given by the star-like flower at the bottom of a Tiffany bowl (plate i). The ebb and flow of the lines finds itself repeated in the increase and decrease of their width, which varies from that of a ribbon to that of a thread. Around the central forms and of the subtle
flower-like pattern an area of carded texture
symmetry, changes
spite of all
is
and paths of design
Its characteristic is that
behavior of the so-called "Belgian
by not
really being a line but
path or a linear "surface-body,"
in
density ceaselessly, like the pat-
its
tern in a zebra skin. Individual radiating lines illustrate here the typical
formed which,
it
becomes thicker
curves where the change of direction
is
most
more
However
in
Terms of Line and Volume
Nouveau, two basic attitudes nevertheless confront eadi other here: linear Art Nouveau and the three-dimensional Art Nouveau, concepts that hold true independently of real dimensions of surface, body, and space. These diametrically opposed possibilities may, however, penetrate eadi other and blend, but in works of high quality they are developed great the similarities in Art
individually, in
all their
purity.
a sort of
he character of linear Art
narrow
in the
stressed,
line."
Art Nouveau
veau that occurs
and thinner
again in those curves that swing more widely. In the marginal area of the Tiffany
ornament
is
bowl the structure of
revealed in the points of the flower-star wiu-, ^re
already been discussed:
line
must not be understood
broader context.
outward and inward. This structure of ornament shows a tendency to reverse and repeat the curves in spirals so that ultimately the two-dimensional pattern suggests an incursion into the realm of three-dimensional space. Moreover, the two-dimensional ornament occurs on a curved surface, in the curvature of the bowl, yet the flat and graphic elements, even as purely represented
in
of the so-called "Belgian"
whole design may
hand,
drawn
in the
course of blowing
it,
"meaning": an
and within the
something
like the pulsating
organism
its
interior
in the gelatinous
and
In creations such as this Tiffany bowl, the paper designed E. R. Weiss, or the
much
omy
Behmer drawing, Art Nouveau appears very seem to reveal to us the whole anatAs in High and late Art Nouveau, the propor-
simplified. Indeed, they
of their style.
tions are here elongated, stretdied.and
made narrow,
which
so as to
and reminds one of lessly, so to
by
appear
surfaces,
on the other in
terms of
elements of form the nature of
total
trans-
in
itself,
line.
Nou-
"surface-bodies," smoothly closed
becomes
parent wrapping that sheathes the body of a Medusa jellyfish.
Art
"Three-dimensional"
organic flower design has grown out of the inorganic glass, out of the threads
are indeed
narrow strips of uneven somewhat in the sense
width,
veau reveals
curvature of the bowl the flower-like design of
We
to that of
an element of space. Ambiguous as the form and its
in
width from that of a hair
structure of the
also
its
dealing here with lines that can
vary
as here, include
is
surface
has
the geometrical sense, but in a
its
directed both
be, so
in the
Nou-
work
as
it
in
itself
homogeneous
develops, almost seam-
speak, into the next such element of form in a given
series. Besides, these
mentary.
intarsia
is
No
"surface-bodies" are nearly always comple-
form and, consequently, no "surface-body"
lies
on a
neutral ground, each "surface-body" being integrated within the
ground of the surface in turn, a closely
itself.
The surrounding surface thus becomes,
connected "surface-body" too,
its
shape being
30
determined by the edge of the adjoining "surface-body" or surfaceAgain,
section.
we
find an unrivaled example of this in the blue
and green endpapers designed by Emil Rudolf Weiss (plate 8), where the frontiers of the various areas are distinguishable from both points of view. The light green forms as well as the darker blue ones are punctuated by dark or light dots or drops and are so inter-
woven
that one can never be sure whether the small spirals, like
rounded meanders, are green and penetrate into the blue, or whether the opposite
However,
true.
is
the pattern
is
not entirely abstract
but only represents strongly abstracted or, as the period called "stylized," peacocks light forms,
inasmuch
which are barely possible as
it,
to recognize in the
which on the whole preceded
it
An example
chronologically.
r
isToulouse-Lauti-ec'sZ,oi'e/ «//er('/ /), which
is
of this
and simplified
stylized
to the point of becoming an abstract pattern (plate 172). The ho-
mogeneous
smooth simplified limits without which neither the complementary attitude nor the "surface-bodies" would have been possible, all require a large and simple form and do not lend themselves to figurative representation. Far more than curved or linear Art Nouveau, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau thus anticipates the abstract geometrical late phase of Art Nouveau; and in terms of historical evolution, the intermediary attitude adopted by it is only logical. surface, the large closed form,
its
they are the "intended" ones and dominate
the darker connecting forms. But the principle of the desired alter-
native effect
is
not affected thereby. The "surface-bodies" here re-
frain from having separate linear contours. Yet the force of the line makes its influence felt also in "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau,
whether
it
expresses itself as a surface or in space. The uninterrupted
jointless cohesion of the "surface-bodies"
indeed produces a kind
Body and Space The
can also be found, appropriately modified, bodies and of space. Linear Art
of "negative" line in the continuous margin between the lighter and
ducing, on
darker areas. This
architectonic structures.
is
a subtle device particularly characteristic of
those forms of "three-dimensional" Art
development either
Nouveau which
find their
as defined bodies or in purely spatial areas. In
both instances the completely closed form, whether as a unit or as a detail,
with
its
that space has
— on which
smoothly flowing margins no hold at all assumes, in
—
it
would seem
turn, an indirectly linear
its
Nouveau
own, both sculptural and
is
as if
its
line
lines like
have an
But
in such cases, the
The peacocks in the paper designed by Weiss seem to have no skeleton and no joints, and glide like darting flames, magic fire, or whirling waves, whereas the stripes in a wallpaper by Van de Velde, reproduced here as the endpapers "elastic" character.
spirals,
and luminescent rays of
solid substance
stance,
if
had escaped from the confines of
assume "substance"; generally as for instance in a Ricketts
ized this
it
its
very nature, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau
—
whether ornament or in figurative decoration always had a strong tendency to become more abstract than linear Art Nouveau, in
31
its
surface
—
is
As
1).
it
obliged to
lines are vital-
characteristics
and dimensions, can
be achieved in different ways. In the astonishing serpentine vase by
Camille Gauthier (plate 157), the space element
introduced within the linear structure, as
By
like
(plate 10). This transubstantiation,
ton-like constructions,
symbolic language of dynamics.
surface (plate
Nouveau
bookbinding where the
by an organic substance developing of linear body
But these "surface-bodies," charged with energy and stretching
who, by abstracting or disciplining the passively gliding or the vaguely organic element in Art Nouveau, transformed it into a
lines,
of
also did this in terms of surface,
they would not have suggested the steel-like vibrations of a spring. like
in flowers
the flower design of his glass bowl, for in-
achieved by a kind of pleating
Van de Vclde
end
light (plate 12). Tiffany's vases reach up in whirling
of this book, are definitely articulated, like elbow joints, otherwise
ribbons or tracks, belong to the individual style of
by Horta takes off had sprung into space
frozen fireworks; lines or sheaves of lines twist like
penetrates the third dimension, linear Art
articulations
and
(plate 130). Horta's lighting fixtures radiate in space with lumi-
nous
For surface, body, and space, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau manages practically without any articulations. On the other hand,
Art Nouveau cannot always avoid them, as for instance, due
conceptions of
A door handle designed
from the surface of the door
bodies in space, as
to reasons of construction, in architecture.
in its
indeed capable of pro-
spatial elements, bodies
function.
linear
Art Nouveau
qualities characterizing the surface designs of
in the glass.
membranes
mined the form had themselves
In
in
the lines
more open or
is
skele-
that were often of glass could be if
the lines which deter-
infiltrated the surfaces that
had
thus been filled.
Art Nouveau architecture two different conceptions are again confronted, those of line or of volume. As Art Nouveau evolved from ornament and decoration, its architecture is often concerned first and foremost with interior space. Art Nouveau architecture thus grows from the inside to the outside, from the
Even
in
and from the relationship between the rooms and floors of a building to its exterior structure, where the disposition of the rooms and the intentionally conceived differences of their levels
(plate 14): glass partitions separate the
can be detected. Just as such a plan of the inner arrangement can be
labyrinthine character to the total disposition of the rooms.
interior
seen
from the outside of the building,
so also can
its
construction as
other and from the staircase that also has a glass roof. This use of glass allows
one to see through a building
fusing opacity
is
parency of such a building,
clearly revealed (plates 131, 136), or, encased in stucco, are then
intentions of Art
moment
radiating great
Van de Velde's dynamic symbolism. Horta was truly a master in knowing how to achieve the possibilities of linear Art Nouveau. His buildings linear structures,
energy, as in
forms, or rooms
— develop
—
like
flower stems, spider webs, or the
15, 135). The iron framework, borrowed from hothouse construction, provided the technical basis for
wings of dragonflies (plates
the glass-roofed railroad station, the covered municipal market, the
exhibition hall, and
was even applied
to the private
home. The
functional element, however, transcended all material necessity and was transformed into a decorative symbol. The linear rooms, bodies,
and
structures of
impression of flexibility
Art Nouveau not only tend to give an or impermanence, but also one of trans-
parency. The whole façade of the Maison du Peuple to a linear
framework
filled
is
thus reduced
with glass surfaces (plate 137). In the
Solvay residence, the main floor
is
literally constructed
of glass
in vistas
which give a
A
con-
thus achieved which, in spite of the actual trans-
such become visible. The structural parts are, as with Horta, either interpreted as an abstract and ornamental
drawing rooms from each
is
again characteristic of the ambiguous
Nouveau. The polarity between linear and "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau appears perhaps in its most extreme form in architecture, which is concerned with volumes and where the whole building, each room and every detail, must be conceived almost as a sculpture, as
something modeled out of the mass. The most important
representative of this tendency
massive sculptural bodies in
Antoni Gaudi. His buildings are which the rooms, like caverns, repreis
sent, so to speak, negative sculptural bodies.
and domes are which can be molded
Because walls, sup-
formed of a soft substance at will, such a style can produce grandiose swinging effects both in the ground plan and in the vertical or horizontal planes. The architecture of linear Art Nouveau could metaphorically be likened to flower stems or to the extended wings
ports,
all
treated as
if
of a dragonfly, but the plastic quality of Gaudi's buildings makes us think of caverns or dunes, of organic substances,
the
wind
and forms that
creates in sand or that the water erodes in rocks.
KOLOMAN MOSER
Vignette from "Ver
Sacrum" (1899)
32
HISTORICISM
AND STUDIO-STYLE
Art Nouveau was an intentionally created
claimed
style that
very seriously to be a "new art" (Art Nouveau) and a "modern
was indeed a protest against the repetition of old styles and the taking over of form details that originated in organisms closed in themselves and now preserved, even if no longer vital in the history of art. Art Nouveau, on the contrary, strove to create a new "style" in which forms appear as the organic result of a process of growth which is accomplished, so to speak, before the very eyes of the spectator. However, this wish to create a personal style presupposes a way of thinking in "styles" and certainly carries hisstyle." It
toricism's older
the past
way
had had
toricism itself
its
of thinking one step forward: as every age of
own
style
—the present
— excepting,
it
seems, the age of his-
had to develop a
also
style of
its
own.
The characteristics of the new style become particularly clear when compared with those of the preceding one that had aroused its outspoken hostility. One thus discovers that Art Nouveau and historicism are, in matters of form, opposed to each other in almost
everything. For historicism, great
not only a matter of imitating a
it is
number of extremely varied
styles of the past.
The historicism
of the nineteenth century reveals a specific attitude to style.
Its
imitations of styles of the past, for instance, are rarely archeolo-
would thus be extrapolated from one unit and inserted in another unit as a sort of form quotation. Owing to different ways of using and even of technologically producing these form details, such forms adopted from the past assumed a new character. Over and above this, the middle decades especially the latter half of the nineteenth century had ideals of form which remain independent of those of other ages and, in
gically faithful copies. Certain details
—
—
this respect, peculiar to itself as a
period (plates 20-23, 86-88, 296).
In general, the age of historicism
was dominated by a preference
for powerfully sculptural forms developed in terms of space, for the "open" form, for complicated outlines and, on the whole, for
deep
reliefs
favoring contrasts of light and shadow. This
is
true of
actual three-dimensional creations as well as of surface creations
where these
qualities are attained
by deceptive means that some-
times go as far as using trompe-l'oeil effects. Art Nouveau, on the
contrary, tends to produce closed forms which in
— Art
all cases lie
within
—
Nouveau's true dimensions and favors a flat and delicate relief. Historicism, and the syncretistic studio-style
the surfaces
that
was
its
continuation, had a special liking for combined forms
with hard and crustlike surfaces which, throughout an interior for instance, tend to conflict, while
JEAN MIDOLLE (1834-35)
33
Initials
from "Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre'
Art Nouveau
desires things to re-
spond, to be consonant, and to complete each other. The forms of the period which
had preceded
it
had generally been heavy, hard,
and of
thick; those of
little
warm, were
Art Nouveau, on the contrary, are slender and
weight. The colors of the preceding style had been dark,
dimmed, and "toned"; those of Art Nouveau unpainterly, clear, and set in juxtaposition or hard
artistically
light, cool,
contrast.
Horror vacui
opposed to amor vacui, accumulation
as
opposed to synthesis, multiplicity as opposed to unity,
as
statics as
opposed to dynamics; structures hidden by surface ornaments as opposed to structures freely displayed and ornamental in themwith a historical or naturalistic character
selves; traditional forms,
but emptied of
life,
as
opposed to biomorphic forms;
rigid
and
hardened forms as opposed to flowing, gliding, supple, or springing forms.
Historicism it
is
a far richer and
more
diversified
has appeared to us to be until now.
Still, if
phenomenon than
we oppose
it
to
Art
Nouveau, we may consider the various phases of historicism that relieve each other in terms of their unity.
But only
in the eighties
did the studio-style undergo changes that already imply suggestions of Art Nouveau, though
"composition"
less clearly in
the separate form than in
The studio-style then tended to create rooms that were, however, not yet homogeneously
in general.
unified effects in
arranged according to these suggested effects; at the same time, also
it
began to suggest the strange atmosphere of cavern-like rooms
that can likewise be found in Art
Nouveau.
A
taste for
asymmetry
can then be clearly detected in the studio-style too, at least in the
whole system of an arrangement, if not in the form and in the individual figures. The tendency to-
relationship of the detail of its
ward
GOTTLIEB LEBERECHT CRUSIUS
Capriccio {circa 1760)
toward the festive and the intoxicated, reminding one more of Dionysus than of Apollo, is thus common to both the studio-style and to Art Nouveau, even if the studio-style proceeds by summarizing or accumulating, by "arrangements" and the exceptional,
"picturesque" lighting, whereas in Art
"form" from the
interior
and appears
But, in the relationship of Art
Nouveau
in
this
Nouveau
to historicism
studio-style, the sharply formulated reaction of
what appears most dominant.
On
tendency takes
every single object.
and
to the
Art Nouveau
the Continent, Art
is
Nouveau does
not develop logically out of the preceding style, by gradual transformation, as Rococo did out of Baroque.
Of two
entirely
opposed
art, one abruptly replaced the other. Direct relations between the two existed only in England, where Art Nouveau had long been prepared beneath the visible surface and where its roots
conceptions of
reach surprisingly far back in time.
34
THE ORIGINS OF ART NOUVEAU
William Blake Our
search for the origins of Art
Nouveau
leads us back to the
turn of the eighteenth century, to the visionary painter-poet Wil-
liam Blake (1757-1827), 21
who
anticipated the leitmotiv of Art
Nouveau completely. An extended flowing movement,
singularly
asymmetry and a closed graphic form, in his drawings or illustrations, where a biomorphic figurative substance has recently been observed. The laws of gravity and of perspective seem abolished, bodies are scarcely rounded, light casts almost no shadow. Blake's imaginary world gliding rhythms, as well as all
these appear
everywhere
remains two-dimensional as far as this
and
is
possible for figurative art
become Art Nouveau.
a pure outline or a surface
as long as the latter does not
silhouette as
Many
it
did in
elements fuse in the art of Blake, which yet remains origi-
nal to such a degree that only recently has one begun to detect the
WILLIAM BLAKE (>789)
'
The Divine Image" from "Songs of Innocence"
presence there of certain influences. 22 All that especially in his form. There
is
is
essential
is
genuine,
not a single feature in his work that
does not bear the sign of exaggeration
— "exuberance
is
beauty"
and only seldom is a disconcertingly amateurish trait missing. Art, for him, was "a means of conversing with paradise"; in his pictures one breathes the atmosphere of an undiscovered planet. Like poems, they are visions and, as an
art,
his
imaginative to the highest
from within and nourished on the elements of another world. But Blake's fairy-like, ecstatic world of images is at the same time ruled by a strange elegance and an instinct that delights in ornament and decoration. The art of Blake is at once ingenuous and sentimental, weak and strong, simple and sophisticated. It is eminently romantic: on the one hand it is filled with sweetness and an exalted child-like faith in fairy tales an art "for angels" 23 on the other hand it expresses all the violence and discord of the German Sturm unci Drang of Blake's own age. degree, springing
—
—
Blake's pictorial art
is
extremely literary and always refers to a
text or to lettering, his images being frequently
characters.
Many
erably from the Besides, a great
of his subjects were chosen from the Bible
—
—pref-
Old Testament from Milton, or from Dante. number of his graphic works illustrate his own
lyrical or prophetic
poems.
It is
a religious art, but of a rebellious
kind, individualistic and heretical: "I
anity and
combined with
know
of no other Christi-
of no other gospel than the liberty both of
body and mind and
to exercise the divine arts of Imagination: Imagination, the real
world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow." Behind the forms of nature Blake perceived the sources of eternal
life;
35
beyond the established forms of material appearances, he
rec-
!
ognized the ever-renewed spiritual drives whereby everything
is
constantly being metamorphosed.
The
so that even linear intersections scarcely ever occur, and, as in
of Blake's illuminated pages, text
Blake's earliest
charm of the small book-page, Infant Joy (plate 27), world of children's songs which characterized period. The illustration that surrounds the poem is
poems
poem
graphical methods. 24
and the idea of the illustration displays the same kind of benevolent fantasy as the form which expresses and sustains it. as lyrical as the
itself,
most
subservient to design.
This page comes from the Songs of Innocence, one of Blake's most
fairy-tale
leads us back to the
is
-
beautiful "illuminated books." Blake not only illustrated his
them himself according
here, but printed
He was
to his
own
own
typo-
conscious of having invented a device
The idea of the fire-flower is one of Blake's own creations. The heavy flower is carried here by a frail stem that is curved in the form of a C and grows out of a lawn which slopes down on one side. The balance of the composition seems uncertain. The mass of
and the illustration from the same more "ornamental" and "uniform" than had ever been used before. In addition to rendering the text and the illustration uniform and equal in value, Blake made the content of the page appear clear and complete. It is not the text alone, but the uniformity of text and illustration that conveys the whole meaning
open and thereby translated into movement, so compact forms harmonize with the delicate cha-
poetic inspiration occurred very often simultaneously with visual
the flower that
its
is
split
relatively
racter of the other elements of the picture. their jagged
page
and feathery edges, not only
in the sense of a
The small
fill
leaves,
with
intervene between the
movement
itself.
and the geometrical and bodies, the outline of the arabesque forms a square which, although open on all sides and not definitely framed, can yet be recognized as a square and, across an empty space, maintains its distance from the limits of the page. This device was later developed into a distinctive style by Art Nouveau, but remained totally unknown in the more selfconscious style of eighteenth-century Rocaille (plate 29) and was first
in the figure
With
its
curved
lines
used by Blake.
The
sensitiveness of the organism both to neighboring forms
and
complementary form that Nouveau. In the jagged lines of white background that interlock with the canopy of flowers above the woman's figure, in the pointed negative forms between the leaping petal-flames, above and on the right-hand side, in the lancet-shaped empty spaces that introduce themselves above the horizontal chalices from the opposite direction in reversed but identical form, everywhere, more or less clearly, the outline forms two figures, delineating them both with equal ambiguity. The intervals, at least where they approach the positive forms, acquire the nature of empty reflected forms. This is brought about by a bold, simplifying, and ornamental outline, as the "realistic" contour of the little group attests. Here, the empty space outside the contour of the group is not recognizable as an opposed form; all that remains is a kind of "form scrap" of passive background. But, apart from the figurative scene, everything is conceived as if there were neither space nor so typical of Art
light,
juxtaposed or superimposed
to us, both having been conceived at the
same
time.
With Blake,
inspiration. 25
The meaning of Infant Joy may be understood on several
levels:
— represented
as the
the scene taking place in the flower
firstly,
which the dialogue between the two stanzas occurs and the flower itself as a decorative, fairy-like figure, can both be understood as the very atmosphere of the lyrical poem. But from Blake's system of symbols, we may also deduce a more precise meaning for this content, as an "annunciation" that occurs in the "flower of love." In a deeper sense too, the flamboyant flower signifies the "chalice of the womb" itself, into which the angel with situation in
the "butterfly-wings of Resurrection" has penetrated as "life-agent
of the father" in order to participate there in the holy act of pro-
to the limits of the page gives birth to the is
plate, in a style
the lower half of the
compelling need for decoration, but also
rectangle of the page
for simultaneous printing of the text
in a
pattern in terms of surface,
by arousing to life, through a question which must be answered, the unborn child in the womb of the mother, who is both Mater and Matter. 26 The burning flower as the "chalice of the womb" is not merely creation
a poetical metaphor;
though
less
it
also suggests that all preceding
differentiated
and of
lesser value,
is still
life,
even
present within
the most highly developed species. One thus feels inclined to break open the hard, closed form of existence in order to attain the stream of life and penetrate the mystery of ever-renewed conception of growth. With Blake, a plant or one of the elements can symbolize the organic principle of something pre-human or within man himself. The meaning conveyed here relates not only physical substance and movement, but also the same substance and movement of the spirit, the still unreflected unity of substance and idea, analogous to the aesthetic and more evident unity of text and image. St. Francis
of Assisi had already preached to the birds; but Blake included
the tian
amoeba and even primordial protoplasm
in his vision
of Chris-
life.
36
a*
20
37
LOUIS JACQUES
i
ilMÉ
MANDÉ DAGUKRRF.
St,ll Life
(1839)
21
22
2i
LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY York
22
Hamilton Fish
residence,
New
(circa 1880)
Anonymous photographer Before
the Ball (between 1854
and 1864)
Opposite: 23
CHARLES GARNIER (1861-75)
Grand
staircase of the Paris
Opéra
38
26
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41
MATTHIAS LOCK
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LÉON BAKST
Vaslav Nijinsky in "L'Après-midi d'un
jaune" (191 2) 31
NICCOLO DELL'ABBATE
The Frogman (third
quarter of sixteenth century) 32
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Mission of Virgil (1824-27)
Opposite: I
LLI AM BLA K E The Great Red Dragon and the m Clothed with the Sun (between 1805 and 18 10?)
r
«-,
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42 .*>»
34 34
WILLIAM BLAKL Lovers in
Tioe
Paolo and Franccsca in
35
WILLIAM H. BRADLEY Tlie
Serpentine Dancer
(1894-95)
36
LOUIS
COMFORT
TIFFANY Vase (before 1900)
37
WILLIAM BLAKE Lot and
his
Daughters
(detail) {circa
1
820)
Whirlwind
of
Circle of the Lustful (1824-27)
36
35
the
17
Sometimes, but only rarely, Blake considers nature only from the
and represents undertakes to do so, as
exterior
it,
for instance, in a landscape. If ever he
and bucolic woodcuts of his rhythm is quite asymbe of a soft and animated basic
in the lyrical
was obviously the
be created, provides a decisive indication
first to
(plate 26): here, for the first time, there appears one of Blake's
flame-arabesques, though
it still
reveals itself frankly as a derivative
small Virgilian landscapes (plate 38), their
element, borrowed from Rocaille style.
and nearly all seem to substance where objective forms are only
the lettering and both of
metrical
half-differentiated, scarce-
ly yet crystallized in their variegated consistence. In these noc-
A
Rocaille form adheres to
them are thereby transformed.
What had Blake discovered? The Rocaille style (plate 29) is an animated and dynamically tense ornamentation where asymmetry
turnal scenes the topographical facts also seem to bathe in a general
is
element of nature into which
can penetrate. The art of repre-
which, in fact, as they follow their courses, join in S-shaped curves
one of space, the painting of landscapes pre-
but remain, as individual curves, exactly demarcated. At the same
senting landscape
is
life
supposing a primary interest in what occurs in space and in
its
unyielding structure, as well as in the appearances of a given reality.
Nouveau
Neither Blake nor Art to reproduce nature in
The poetry of Blake, an artist, reveals to us
wrote about
his
felt this interest;
they both prefer
more symbolical forms. in addition to the
how
prophetic
testimony of his work as
he evaluated nature and her forces.
poem Europe: "The whole poem
is
He an
Nature during the eighteen hundred years and the awaking of forgotten joy, when 'nature felt through all her pores the enormous revelry.'" 27 In Jerusalem, Blake says: "No individual can conform to rules, for they mean death to every energy of man and seal the sources of life"; and, in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "Jesus was all virtue and acted from impulse, not from rules" and, again, "Energy is eternal .
.
.
delight."
Blake and Rocaille
The fire-flower, the "watery flames," the almost nonobjective still expressive tangle of lines, and the whirlwind, all these are patterns that developed quite logically out of Blake's own handbut
writing as an
artist.
beginning of his
Chronologically too, they stand at the very
own
art, that
is
to say of his mystic style. In
Blake's earliest works, however, these features are missing close affinity
with Art Nouveau
is
and
his
not yet apparent. These earlier
works are figurative compositions where the tame classicism of the is aped again in an amateurish and half-skilled way. What was it that suddenly unsealed the secret sources of Blake's inspira-
period
tion
and then allowed
The time of
own
this
his
own
change
style to
in his style
flow and develop freely? is
well established. Blake's
style is first revealed in the pages of his collection of poems, Songs of Innocence (plates 25-27), produced in 1789, the first year of the French Revolution. The title page of this volume, which
45
time, there
is
mainly of C-shaped curves
rhythmic play of constant starting and
in Rocaille a
stopping, of seeking and avoiding, of curves which are alternately
concave or convex, narrow or broad. Entirely closed on one
side,
open up like fans on ends curl backward and roll upward in
these curves frequently bifurcate, radiate or
allegory of the sleep of
of the Christian era
stressed to the utmost. It consists
the other side, while their the
manner of
and function, may develop or
less
owing to its nature most variegated forms of more
volutes. This abstract basic figure,
figurative patterns.
into the
On
the whole, the characteristic element
consists in the complicated interruptions of the design
and the
composed of many smaller parts. Rocaille conceives of ornament in plastic terms. Whether carved in the wood of wall panels, cast in ormolu, or modeled in stucco, it remains a body of ornament, developing in three-dimensional space. Even if applied to the surface of a panel, it appears in relief, with strong contrasts of light and shadow. Owing to its richly differentiated, sharp-cornered, and streamlined profile, it appears, even if more subtle and jewel-like, as a variety of the "mass in movement" of the Baroque style. Its sculptural substance is broken up in narrow, curved ridges and ruts that, almost blending into each extremely open form which
is
other, are often juxtaposed in a parallel arrangement of sheaves.
The delicacy of
filigree
work here seems
to unite with a
more
slug-
though there were something shapeless and doughy underneath the hard surface of the metal. Only on the surface, not gish quality, as
within the mass
itself, is
the substance supporting the outer surface
differentiated; beneath the accurate diiseled modeling of the outer relief the
bulk of the inner mass remains amorphous.
Blake was unable to achieve so complicated and ingenious an idiom. Wishing to give his illustrative scene,
of fashion.
What
title
page an ornament
in
addition to the
he had reverted to Rocaille, which had been out he finally
made
of
it
seems at
first to
be nothing
but an incredible vulgarization or simplification of Rocaille; but
something
What now
are
is
else
had
also occurred.
different
and absolutely new here
is
that Rocaille forms
united with lettering. Pure Rocaille could never be com-
bined with lettering because the latter had always consisted of linear signs set
on a one-dimensional surface whereas,
in
engravings
or other prints, Rocaille had always been represented as relief in
an
three-dimensional style.
illusionistic
ornament
in relief,
As Blake did not conceive
but had transformed Rocaille into a broadly
superficial idiom of form, the basic condition for blending lettering or calligraphy
However
it is
was brought
it
with
to fulfillment.
impossible to translate the effects of three-dimen-
The transformation achieved by
to Blake (and to
an event
and polyphonic form of Rocaille, all that matters Art Nouveau) is the clear legibility of the form as
in itself.
The transformation that began in the title page of Songs of Innocence (plate 26) continued throughout the other pages of the book. Without the key provided by the title page, one would scarcely be able to detect a relationship to Rocaille in the pages de-
sional relief as such into the effects of a two-dimensional plane surface.
fused, painterly,
this leveling also brings
about other transformations, and Blake thereby rendered Rocaille
signed only a short while later. In Cradle Song (plate 114), there a
still
is
greater dispersion of forms appearing in the chaos of creation,
whereas on the page entitled The Divine Image (plate 25) a great flaming tree surges with magnificent clarity. These forms, liberated
for
from anything that might shroud or hide them, soar upward like the pure vital spark, or the impulse of life itself. But Rocaille, especially late and naturalistically interpreted Rocaille like the hollow tree stump (page 34) from a series of copperplate engravings by Crusius, suggests something that has been left over and cast off; in fact it is like the negative of a form wherein the substance which had once lived has literally rotted like old wood. Even in its heyday, Rocaille had something indeed autumnal about it, like rustling leaves, whereas in Blake's work (plate 281) the vigorous and vernal
instance, his transformation of the acanthus capitals of slim pillars
branches, or the luscious acanthus volutes in the back of an armchair,
less
active
by softening
its
outer and inner contours. The delicately
chiseled relief melted, thereby reducing the internal pressure of the
surface tension that had been maintained within the form of swel-
With the disintegration of the rigid relief, the slughad been imprisoned within its rounded surfaces was set free. As it escaped it flowed beyond the confines which before had been so stringent and exacting, and this caused the curled-in ling substance.
gish
mass that
terminals to unfold. In general, Blake liked to ease the tension of
rounded patterns by devising into the tops of living
palm
his
forms in
flat
bands, such
as,
remind one of
trees.
In a French design for a carpet, dating from around 1750 (plate 24), we may observe made it less sharp as
examples that
is
same type of softening of Rocaille that the design unfolded. This is one of the rare
this
not by Blake, and
it
clarifies
how
far these trans-
formations result automatically, so to speak, from this transposition in
terms of surface. In this carpet design
we may
see the relief-like
nature of Rocaille not so much illustrated literally as expressed, to
his
beloved "source of
life."
Five years after the creation of Blake's
new one
first significant title
page,
now combined
Songs of Innocence and of Experience (plate 28) shows that no longer can the trace of Rocaille the
for the
be detected. Here
it is
clear that the process of transformation has
been completed. In abolishing Rocaille, Blake found his
own
guage of form. Thus, from a historical point of view,
his
illustrates the transition
lan-
work
between Rocaille and Art Nouveau.
a certain degree, within a two-dimensional plane. In this carpet design one also finds, besides the rudiments of a hard surface, the
curves of the soft substance of Rocaille overflow their more rigid
and broken edges. The tenseness of the relief relaxes and form and rhythm begin to enjoy more freedom. Obviously, such a design is already very closely related to Art Nouveau.
Blake and Mannerism In this alchemy of structure,
still
another factor appears: the
lationships of positive
and forma serpentinata of Mannerism, contained in Rocaille, are liberated. Both the art of Blake and Art Nouveau are supported by this fundamental current that was latent in anti-Classicism and in
with partiality.
anti-Baroque
In Rocaille there were already hints of the complementary re-
his later
in the
and negative forms. Blake exaggerates these In the flames and flame-shaped intervals of one of
works, such a reciprocal relationship
way Blake
liked. In the catalogue for
is
clearly developed
an exhibition of
his
and precision have been the chief obunmudded by oil, and firm and determined lineaments unbroken by shadows which ought to display and not to hide form." As against the voluntarily con-
pictures, he says: "Clearness jects in
painting these pictures. Clear colors
linea
art.
Around
1800, Blake's curves which, as
we
see in
had at first been somewhat more closely allied and consisted of small elements, now became, under the influence of high Classicism, more continuous and with a closed outline. Blake even says: "The more distinct, sharp and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art." Becoming increasingly simple, Blake's figures show with ever increasing clarity the flaming flowers, to Rocaille
46
and creatures of hybrid origin employed
the Manneristic instability of their structure, their Manneristic lack
able mermaids, Undines,
of space, and their Manneristic reliance on torsion too. Great surging
by Art Nouveau and includingToorop's women "with ectoplasmic hair" 30 (plates 116 and 117).
tracks twist,
more are we
now
No
forming lasso-like curves (plates 34 and no). what is superimposed or underlying, and
sure of
it is
forms could be twisted in any direction, which suggests same feeling we also experience with many sixteenthcentury paintings. The figures that are either plunging downward or hanging as if weightless in the void (plates 33, 34, no, and 301), the parallelograms of limbs and their distribution in space as if the
to us the
which
we cannot comprehend
rationally, all these are, with Blake,
from Mannerism. The setting of Blake's pictures is indeed so narrow and so flat, though conceived in terms of trompe-l'oeil in those compositions where there are figures, that these serpentine-shaped figures can scarcely turn around and seem features inherited
flattened
out.
movement
In
Blake tends to transpose a surging
general,
in space into a
two-dimensional surface movement and
to treat the subject matter of a picture as if
preparation pressed between two glass
it
were a microscope
slides.
The substance with which or out of whidi Blake created his forms can also be suspected of having a close relationship to those "ectoplasm-like convolutions" which figures created
André Malraux recognized
in the
by Primaticcio, Rosso Fiorentino, or Niccolo delP-
Abbate. 28 They also remind us of qualities that Aldous Huxley saw in the figures of El
Greco:
of El Greco's universe filled
it.
is
Everything here
"No
less
disquieting than the narrowness
the quality of the forms with which he is
organic, but organic
organic at a point well below the limit of
we
life's
on a low
perfection ... In
a
little
when
uncanny when thought of
in the
context of real
but not
life.
El Greco clothes his boneless creatures, their draperies
And
become
pure abstractions, having the form of something indeterminately physiological." 29
Blake's creatures seem to be
made
because of this material nature that Blake's figures could so
easily be melted to
form many-figured ornaments. His supple, elasticity that bodies with bones and
draped figures move with an
why, in spite of the ornaments made of narrow heraldic rigidity of its symmetry, his stripes seem to find themselves in constant flux, like sprays of water
joints could never achieve. This also explains
where the form remains unchanged while their mass flows conHowever, as Blake wished to represent bodies like those of Michelangelo, the overdistinctly modeled muscles and tendons
stantly.
were freely exposed, through the close-fitting garment that reveals rather than conceals the anatomy, in accordance with the forms of Mannerism. project, as if they
In
its
appearance and substance, the
by Blake
is
human
figure as conceived
related to the anti-Classical figure of
Mannerism.
of a similar matter and,
and more space
(plate 33). Turning
away from
the "normal," such a
trend leads to the kind of eccentricity, perversity, or lasciviousness that
Mannerism and Art Nouveau knew how
to suggest with the
wiles of a Satanic seducer.
in
Blake and Art Nouveau
The substance of Blake's forms also explains how the symbiosis of lettering, ornament, and illustration that he achieved had been
The fusion of lettering and Rocaille created in 1789 page of Songs of Innocence produced also a transformation (plate 26) in the style of lettering when Blake forced the at all possible. in the title
anonymous and perfect calligraphy of the eighteenth century to become an individual handwriting and made the sharp engraved lines of etching much more similar to the thicker strokes of a woodcut engraving. His characters appear to us to contain likewise the
movement, and
organisms like the "sea anemone tree" in one of his watercolor
pulsation of biomorphic substance and
illustrations for Dante's Purgatorio, the character of his
page of 1794 (plate Clearly, the same kind of stroke delineates both lettering and
reveals itself clearly as being related to the substance that
matter
lies
under
the reptilian surface of Rocaille,
and renders possible the hybrid forms created both by Blake and by Art Nouveau: the flameflowers and the water-flames, and, on the other hand, the innumer-
47
A
cold-blooded amphibian ideal was opposed to the heavily corporeal humanistic figure as represented by Raphael, or to the warmblooded fleshy types painted by Rubens, whom Blake hated. In contrast to the normal human figure, hybrid forms occupy more
life
by protoplasm in the raw or by individual organs separated from the organism as a whole. But it is with forms suggestive of precisely such objects that El Greco fills his pictures. Under his brush the human body, when naked, loses its bony framework and even its musculature, and becomes a thing of ectoplasm in its strange pictorial context,
is
level,
are not attracted
—beautifully appropriate
It
their writhing
morphosis
is
also
completed
in his title
this
meta28). fig-
urative representation, both of which twist and turn with the same movement and appear to send out the same kind of shoots. Just as Art Nouveau ornament was born in Blake's work, so can
)
CMffl£R
*<&m o
and of
their relationships to the intervals,
have been solved here according to a theoretical principle.
On
Song seems to be filled with immoderate extravagance of genius. The whole page flickers as if with flames; all is one, just as the child in the poem is still one with the universal spirit. A message is slumbering in the germs of the ornament, and the words seem to have only just condensed as an articulate communication. If, in Art Nouveau, on the all
the other hand, Blake's Cradle
the
one hand, the form
is
elevated to the level of rational clarity and
of the transparency conferred by technical perfection, Blake, on the other hand, renders transparent the primitive
germ and the more rigorous development of the principle of form thus consists of a certain emptiness; as Voysey had stated in The Studio as early as 1893: "We have a language of « ornament and yet nothing to say."
process of creation. The price of the
THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE
page for "Almanack: Cahier de
Title
Vers d'Emile Verhaeren" (1895)
But Blake did not anticipate Art Nouveau only in ornament, illustration, and lettering, nor indeed in the ensembles of books and structures, in rhythm, conception, and signification. He indeed anticipated, or at least forestalled, most of
we
also detect .there the birth of
Art Nouveau
lettering.
The
latter
indeed developed out of the same creative association of a substance and a
new rhythm,
new
achieving thereby the transformation
of the dissimilar into the similar and the fusion of lettering, orna-
ment, and illustration into a single homogeneous ensemble. erating the distinctions between text and picture, is
intellectual
any of the
with what
artists
who
is
visual,
By
oblit-
by fusing what
Blake went even further than
followed him chronologically. If one com-
pares individual works of Blake and of Art offer significant similarities, Blake's style
Nouveau
now
artists
which
seems more purely
Art Nouveau than Art Nouveau In a
title
itself (plate 114 and page 48). page that Van Rysselberghe designed for an Almanach
features too.
Were one
other characteristic
its
to think of him, in the terms used
by William
who was not only poet, painter, book his own works, but who might also have
Morris, as a universal artist illustrator,
and printer of
designed furniture and everything else for the home, one would be able to visualize
all
these various objects only as
most imaginative forms of Art Nouveau. In seldom depicted an interior and furnished
it
borrowing the
his pictures,
Blake
even then but sum-
marily, with Biblical parsimony. But in these rare cases
we
find
"combined pieces of furniture" of a surprisingly independent and inventive style, and objects too, such as the vase-like pitcher on Lot's table, which Galle or Tiffany might have
36 and
37).
Twisted and serpentine
dreamed of
in themselves,
(plates
with uninter-
of 1895, a bunch of long-stemmed morning glories grows out of the
ruptedly flowing outlines and obliquely revolving whirls of opal-
L in
escent materials, bulging or extremely extended or, in another
the
title,
enclosing on the one side the asymmetrically displaced
blocks of the lettering in
and surface-bodies
its
embrace. Ornaments and lettering,
lines
are, to a great extent, all assimilated. In the
four flowers in the middle of the page, the reckoning of form and
counterform causes the inversion that assigns an active role among the dark forms to the interior design formed by the star-shaped
blanks of the white background. Blake had also tried his hand at such inverting of positive and negative forms, but never went as far in their exploitation. all
Notwithstanding their mutual assimilation,
the forms in this Art
and
isolated one
curves, each line
Nouveau
design are perfectly developed
from the other and, is
sharply defined.
in spite of the softness of the
One
feels that the
problems of
place, ending in a sharp point, these objects
still
retain the forms of
blown glass, with the same kind of organically dynamic growth. They thus belong, like distant relatives who yet know nothing of one another, to one and the same general family of forms. The flower-shaped stools in Blake's Garden of Paradise (plate 281) are also creations that belong to a world where nothing inanimate exists and to which Baudelaire's often-quoted fantasy might apply: "The furniture seems to be dreaming ... as if endowed with the somnambulistic life of plants." Indeed, such objects have a constructive logic of their own and seem not so much to have been constructed as to have grown like plants, exactly like some of the
48
38
WILLIAM BLAKE
Illustration for
"JIjc Pastorals of Virgil" (1821)
39
EDWARD CALVLRT O God! Thy Bride Seeketb Thee (1828)
40
49
SAMUEL PALMER Tl)c Thick with Com (1825)
Valley
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42 43
JOHN PALMER
Lansdown
CHARLES DOUDELET
Crescent, Bath (1794)
Illustration for the
poem, "Trois soeurs
aveugles" (detail) (1896)
Opposite: 41
THOMAS JEFFERSON Virginia (1823)
Wall on the campus of the University of
46
44
44
RICHARD OVEY
45
English
Pitcher (circa 1820)
46
English
Jug
The Scarlet
(circa 1820)
Ground White
Passion Flower Chintz
(
1
802)
and the buildings of 1900 in which this fundamental idea of Art Nouveau was most perfectly developed. The Gothic way of conceiving construction as a system of living and forceful lines was certainly adopted by Blake as his starting point, and finally also by Art Nouveau. Blake even states, in his characteristically emphatic manner: "Grecian is Mathematic Form; Gothic is Living Form." furniture
—
domain of Classicism but already blending the elements of the Antique and the Gothic between the end of Rococo and the beginning of the more complex style of historicism, we find the exact spot where Blake's art is to be situated in terms of art history. It is here that, carried by a wave of timeless Mannerism, In the
—
an anticipation of Art
Nouveau
justified the notion of a "proto-
Art Nouveau" 31 which already contained of Art
Nouveau
all
the latent possibilities
itself.
tures which are filled with the repressed tenderness of Pan-like eroti-
cism, the idyllic earthly paradise at time's beginning being his subject matter.
His lettering also goes back to the origins of writing:
Calvert was the only
artist of his
period to use a kind of runic
script.
Samuel Palmer's landscapes are as lyrical and as soft, but of a more closed, less manneristic or elegant form (plate 40). Palmer surrounds his hills, fields, and haystacks with simplifying black contours.
He
integrates similarly filled areas in his compositions,
such as bushes, with the
same
foliage; or fields with the
a single unit which, as a picture,
all in
is
same crops,
organized in flat sections
looking like those of a stained glass window. Yet Palmer and Cal-
more pictorial sense than Blake. Their tones are shaded and they sense space-values, though, like Blake, they both express space more or less in terms of a two-dimensional plane, juxtaposing or superimposing things upon it instead of showing them succesvert have
sively in perspective.
Blake's successors were forgotten as he too
Proto-Art Nouveau About 1800 Blake's proto-Art
Nouveau was not unique
in his time. In the
Nouveau appeared independently in England, Italy, France, and Germany, all emphasizing the super-personal character of this new conception of style. True, some other works with a close relationship to Art Nouveau decades before 1800, various features of Art
were also born under the immediate influence of Blake. During the last years of his life, Blake was indeed surrounded by a whole group of very sensitive, Romantic-minded artists his disciples
and whose exquisite
at first forgotten.
any influence on the early phases of Art Nouveau. In the realm of High Art Nouveau, they were only rediscovered as a consequence of the
art sprang
who admired him mainly from
his
as
own.
rediscovery of Blake, their ideas being then further developed in the works, for instance, of Charles Ricketts and
But the work of Philipp Otto Runge (1777-18 10) had no influence at all on Art Nouveau or, more specifically, on German /«gendstil. 33
Runge,
However
in a curious
great the difference between the
way,
is
artists,
same
no
is
knew anything about
other. Independently of each other, they artistic intentions.
two
closely related to Blake; but there
reason to believe that either of them
Edward Calvert (1799-1883) and of Samuel Palmer (1805-81), the two most important artists of this group. 32 Their of
Thomas Sturge
Moore.
Blake's Virgil landscapes (plate 38) were thus the source of the art
was
But, unlike Blake, they were not destined, even later, to exert
the
were both guided by the
For Runge, the symbol of law and order
the seemingly tangled life of nature
is
in
the arabesque, which he
work was mostly graphic in character and they both, though perhaps more or less unconsciously, exalted likewise the instinctive
Runge, leaves and flowers whidi are true to nature also lead back
fecundity of nature.
to the basic patterns of their
In Calvert's fine pictures (plate 39), the Manneristic element
even more obvious than
in Blake's.
The lawns of
is
his landscapes are
illustrates in the
exemplary forms of plant
all his
(page 98). But, with
growth and development and,
same time, reveal the geometry that nature. In spite of
life
is
at the
concealed within the laws of
stylization in order to achieve ornamental
covered with strange mushroom-like flowers that have no stems.
elements, the abstract and ideal image of the plant appears in every
Vine branches with grapes hanging from them, some so
heavy that they drip with trunks.
juice, are
and
one of
entwined around mossy
tree
baroque plurality of "foliage" into the forms of
The thatched roofs of hidden cottages somehow adapt
themselves to the soft outline of the
gardens or wooden beams
in
hills
and the treetops; fences of
an interior make us vaguely think of
biomorphic forms. Milk and honey seem to flow
53
Runge
full
in Calvert's pic-
his concrete forms. Like Blake,
also breaks
up the
single, isolated
where design and draftsmanship dominate the summary way of visualizing things from the optic and painterly point of view which diaracterizes the eighteenth century, from Watteau to leaves
Gainsborough, and also the nineteenth, from Constable to Renoir.
This
new
style of design asserted itself,
however, not only
in
paintings or in the depicting of pieces of furniture or of other objects
—we
might, for instance, mention, in addition to Blake's
works, the plant-like and budding supports for a table top of
Henry
Fuseli's pictures
—but
one
in
also in objects created in the field
of the applied arts and even in the architecture of around 1800.
An
English chintz of 1802 (plate 44) is printed with a pattern of long, flowing stems and soft leaves and star-like flowers, the simpli-
JOHN FLAXMAN
Illustration
from the
series illustrating the Tragedies
fied
and closed forms of which are disposed on a two-dimensional
plane. Firmly outlined, they even seem to present a double outline,
of Aeschylus (1795)
the full spaces of the intervals being set apart from the figurative
From
the grotesque designs of the Louis
turn stem from those of Mannerism,
ornaments that are
all alien to
XVI
period, which in
Runge develops symmetrical
nature out of
human
figures which,
however, are not reduced to a figurative ornament as
is
forms of the design by white edging. Here we find a very early example of the complementary relationship which is so typical of
Art Nouveau. Proto-Art Nouveau even adopts the appearance of abstraction
the case
with Blake. Runge then arranges them on a plane in the foreground
two English
of his picture, set against a background of a landscape of great
about 1820 (plates 45, 46) which regress to the basic forms of the jug and the bottle. The craftsman
depth (plate 282). Children emerge from flowers or are integrated
who made them may
into subterranean roots. In his symbiosis of plants
Runge
also refers to the
mystery residing
and
in the identity of
man and
acter that reminds one of Art
entirely independent char-
A
soft
and gliding rhythm
contours as well as in the flowing and undu-
which produce the pattern. The ornament, developed from the inorganic material and the technique of its production,
lating stripes
favorite themes of Jugendstil, can already be found in
are disposed in a preordained relationship to each other are deter-
Runge's work.
He
a design for a
unity with the frame, to-
scale, a total
work of
grown
together, the
art. Lilies,
two
conceived a fantastic floral type of architecture
monument
that might well have been invented
around 1900. A simple shoot, a plant in its natural relationship, is transformed by him in his sketches into ornaments that one might well imagine having seen in
Even
itself felt in the
glass-
poppies, and
form, on a small
in
makes
have an Nouveau.
still
Roman
At the same already find an anticipation of the strong dynamic lines of High Art Nouveau: parallel and complementary stripes which
its
gether from the point of view of content;
all
indeed have thought of antique
ware, but these two pieces
life.
for the first time painting achieves
swans,
glass vessels of
children,
The grotesque element reappears here in the allegorical, symbolical, hermetic, and decorative character of the frames with whidi he surrounds his pictures. Here nature, in the unity of all organic
in
Ossian's
Pan or
in
(1780-1867) 34 belongs to
this
time,
life.
we
mined by the material itself, being genuine "surface-bodies." Decisive features of Art Nouveau thus appear in these pieces of glassware without adiieving the typical mood of Art Nouveau in the sense of the
work of Tiffany or of
Galle.
In pieces of furniture designed by Schinkel, and in an upright
Die Jugend.
Dream by Jean Auguste Dominique
approximates the delicate irregularities of organic
Ingres
domain. The cloud of figures with
parallels, its melting outlines, its ectoplasmic substance, and its whole bizarre and fabulous atmosphere, despite all individual dissimilarities, also stands halfway between Mannerism and Art Nouveau, like Blake's and Calvert's works. But the figures of Ingres and of Runge are more corporeal, more modeled and compact (even if they are floating), and more static, more closely its
connected with the solid structure of the picture as a whole.
A
piano of 1830 (plate 284), we again find forms which approach those of Art Nouveau. In the balustrade of a staircase in Canova's
Tempio Canoviano (18 19), there are metal relaxed curves. The
"stripes" hanging in
row of houses of Lansdown Crescent
in
Bath
(1794) cuts through the landscape like a whiplash (plate 42). Sugby the English crescents of the eighteenth century, with their
gested
houses built in a semicircle facing an open square, this street
adapts
itself to the
of an English park.
in
Bath
topographical situation like the winding paths It is
an undulating wall, softened
in itself, like
national constant, the English inclination for weightless, almost
the one that the illustrator Doudelet invented a hundred years later
unsubstantial and unstatic figures, finds
one of Maeterlinck's poems (plate 43); after 1900, Gaudi also achieved this effect in the terrace of the Giiell Park
in the
very
flat
its
most extreme expression
and unstable creations of Blake.
35
to illustrate
54
Casa Milà (plate 218). The and the denuded forms that one finds so often in Art Nouveau appear moreover in an almost grotesque manner in the Exerzierbaus in Berlin, built in 1800 by David Gilly. The body of the building looks like a form that has been carved, as if the building had been produced by slicing it from a mass of dough. (plate
1
6) as well as in the façade of the
flexible substance
Nouveau has a closed, simplified, and fluid form, approaching more or less closely the characteristic rhythm and the curves of High Art Nouveau. Figures disposed in a plane In general, proto-Art
ricism shifted in various forms
from the Gothic
we
naissance, then to Baroque; in interiors,
Rococo and,
in the eighties
extent with Art
Nouveau
and
style
Re-
to
often see a return to
nineties, concurrently to
some
or Jugendstil. The nineteenth century
culminated in the syncretism of the studio-style, where the entire
masquerade
historicizing
is
away
carried
in a whirling confusion
of various periods.
are treated in surface, the single forms appearing as "surface-
any contours, manner of forms that have been cut out and mounted. As
bodies," either with firm outlines or without
in the
to the
Nouveau
significance of such a picture's content, proto-Art
tends
power of instincts and of growth inherent in communicate to us a sense of the relationships existing
to emphasize the
nature and to
in all organic life. In this,
proto-Art Nouveau
is
closely allied to
Romantic attitude toward nature; in spite of a preference for pure, clear, simple, closed, and graphic forms, proto-Art Nouveau form thus generally remained within the limits imposed both by Classicism and by the contemporary neo-Gothic style. In his watercolor, Angels Hovering over the Body of Christ (plate 301), William Blake even makes a Gothic broken-vault ornament out of the the
bodies of the angels. To a certain extent, proto-Art
Nouveau
During the long interval between the proto-Art Nouveau of around 1800 and real Art Nouveau of the end of the century or early English Art Nouveau that first appeared in 1849, various symptoms can be detected, between 1830 and 1890, which prove that Art Nouveau continued to subsist as a kind of underground current. The applied and graphic arts appear to be more receptive to in
its
often
new
style of architecture in the
works of Ledoux,
Gilly,
it
often
its
comparative "pureness"
reveals
now
itself
an
in
"impure" form, adulterated by historicism or naturalism. Ob-
elements.
appears, on the other hand, an equally extreme but utterly geo-
Nouveau,
vious features of Art
by
Simultaneously with the extreme swing of Blake's curves, there
influences. But, in opposition to
proto-Art
seems literally to be founded on a fusion of Classicistic and Gothic
metrical
Nouveau
Latent Art
entirely different
anonymous
Nouveau then mix with elements suggested criteria. Nearly always of more modest ano
origin, such
Art Nouveau only
works can express otherwise latent dominated by the historicism
in areas that are
of the period.
The
glass vase,
taken from Felix Summerly's Art Manufactures 38
lindrical
of about 1847, was designed by Redgrave (plate 47) and can be distinguished from an example of High Art Nouveau only by a
staircase balustrade.
touch of early Victorian
and Canova. The Tempio Canoviano reveals both
styles: the
cy-
body of the building and the sweeping curves of the Around 1800, two possibilities are thus presented which were later destined to represent the limits and alternatives imposed or offered to Art Nouveau. In English early Art Nouveau, the curved and the geometrical lines are indeed developed
side
by
side; later,
they relieve each other in the linear curves
High Art Nouveau, which
of
is
primarily decorative, and
metrical and rectangular late Art
by
Nouveau,
in
geo-
so strongly influenced
architecture.
The new
style of
concentrated form
proto-Art Nouveau in
is
to be
found
in its
most
Blake, but appears also in some independent
The closed flowing outline, the extremely prolonged neck and the curved mouth leave nothing to style.
from the standpoint of Art Nouveau, which makes its presence felt in the long, stylized, and streaming leaves and in the wreath of flowers. Only the gilded rim of the mouth a^d the
desire
pattern of the base reveal that the vase
is
in early Victorian style.
In a silver christening mug, also designed by Redgrave for Summerly's Art Manufactures, another resemblance to Art Nouveau appears, in spite of something early Victorian in its predilection for the Gothic (plate 49).
Almost
in the spirit
row of
of Blake
works, though without noticeably affecting our general conception
(plate 112), although in high relief, a
of the period around 1800. After 1830, however, these features
an ornamental manner. Their gliding and relatively closed forms,
became submerged in historicism. Without any clear separations, and with much overlapping of periods and many transitions, histo-
the bulbous
55
angels
and swinging curves between the
is
presented in
angels, the praying
children, kneeling over flowers in the style of
Runge (and
thus
RICHARD REDGRAVE
47
Water decanter
(circa 1847)
expressing the symbolic "language" of the vase), and above
handle, twisted like a snake and divided into
two
skeins in
all
the
lower
its
remind us of Art Nouveau. Features of Art Nouveau
part, all
expressed in the neo-Gothic style are also to be seen on the façade of the Sayn foundry in the Rhineland, where the framework
only openly displayed in
ornamental effects and
as
its
different parts, but
is
not
also used for
an expression of symbolical energy.
London Universal Exhibition of
In the
is
1
85
1,
a style entirely
opposed to any form of Art Nouveau seemed to dominate (plates 87, 88),
though
full
of the latent
symptoms
that
anticipated
The difference between some ceramic pitchers produced at that time by Grainger & Co. (plate 50), and similar vessels
this style.
manufactured around 1900 is indeed difficult to define: a closed form, a curved outline, the syncopated rhythm of the whiplash suggested in some handles, a seemingly fluid and organic substance,
and the
floral decorations.
At most,
fortable,
and early Victorian
note, or the literal imitation of forms
a
somewhat candid, com-
existing in nature, distinguish these objects
from those of Art
Nouveau. The same
is
true of an easy chair of papier-mâché called
romantic name of "day dreamer" (at at the top of the back,
other hand, all
its
left). Its outline,
by the
especially
reminds one vividly of Art Nouveau; on the
unwieldy and clumsy form places
it
very far from
the stylistic experiments of the end of the century, while the
symbolism of children and angels sleeping among flowers curiously recalls
Runge's famous allegories on the times of day. The co-
existence of such complete independence
and of so strikingly Baroque a closed forms of Art
H. FITZ
COOK
Easy
chair,
"The
Day Dreamer"
{circa 1850)
Nouveau
is
from
all historical
examples
basic attitude transposed into the
particularly remarkable here.
Just as, around 1900, the neo-Baroque style later invaded Art
Nouveau, when
and small three-dimensional had been usual in the Baroque (plates 168, 183), so did latent Art Nouveau manifest its presence with particular ease in neo-Baroque objects. A glass bowl from the eighties in the Victoria and Albert Museum bears a striking resemblance to Art Nouveau, most of all especially containers
objects of art revealed a treatment of the mass which
in its
undefinably organic and flesh-like substance. With
its
spiral
and ruffled rim of the mouth, the different kinds of glass used for the feet out of which grow tree stems and flowers, this bowl (plate 53) might almost have been made by Galle himself (plate 266). Its Far Eastern allusions are moreover halfway between the chinoiseries of the eighteenth century and the Japanese note in Early, and also in High, Art Nouveau. Taking this into account, this bowl of the eighties has smaller details and is more twist, the jagged
56
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48
Molding from a doorframe grave
Room
at
in the
Walde-
Strawberry Hill (before
.762)
49
RICHARD REDGRAVE Cup
50
5°
Christening
(1848)
GRAINGER
Pitchers {circa 1850)
5
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s;
PETER COOPER WII
1
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Rocking chair (circa I
S
Melbury Road, London
Frieze (circa
1
860)
from a mantlepiece
in a
house in
1875-80)
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53
English
Bowl
(circa i860)
60
open,
less
balanced, but also heavier, and
Nouveau
contours of Art
are
still
more compact. The even
missing.
The velvet lining of an American case for a photograph or tintype (plate 285) has a strongly stylized flower imprinted on
it;
and leaves flow into each other and the floral element is no longer shown in a natural aspect but in unnatural abbreviation, thus producing a pure and mobile surface. On the binding of a the stem
catalogue
move
made
for the
in the curves of
London Exhibition of
185
1,
small leaves
Art Nouveau, and forms even more closely
related to the latter appear in the carved decorations of the
door
for Strawberry Hill (plate 48). 37 Thonet
frames
made around 1760
chairs,
with their entirely transparent and linear structure and
and streamlined form, also bear, but not yet fully, the mark of Art Nouveau, though without the increase or the decrease of Art Nouveau's curves. their already closed
Actually, Art possibilities
Nouveau
for design
artists
made no
significant use of the
and construction offered by
artificially
curved or bent woods, as in the traditional nineteenth-century
American rocking chair. But the architectural uses of cast iron toward the middle of the nineteenth century in many intricate details already anticipated the structural ideas of Art Nouveau, even in the heyday of historicism. The best-known examples of
this are to
be found in Viollet-le-
Duc's designs for iron supports, published in
tendency expresses
Nouveau was
872 (at right). This
with the greatest elegance in the iron
itself
skeleton of the Eiffel
1
Tower
(plate 302), built at a time
when Art
beginning to assert itself. The first architects in works Art Nouveau appears and then develops as opposed to the incoherent, single works of latent Art Nouveau we have mentioned so as finally to blossom as High Art Nouveau, are Gaudi in Barcelona and Furness in Philadelphia. They both first reveal this in ornaments: Furness, after 1872, in
whose
just
large-scale
—
—
ornaments cut
in stone (plate 231),
the end of the seventies, in
and Gaudi, beginning toward
wrought iron or
in
wood
carving (plates
23J and 330).
EUGÈNE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC "Entretiens sur l'architecture" (1872)
61
Illustration
from
EARLY ART NOUVEAU
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle "Not
a
drop of her blood was human
But she was made
woman." Lady Lilith
like a soft sweet
Dante Gabriel
Rossetti,
In 1849, the young poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) 38
painted his
and 288).
The Girlhood of
first picture,
It started
movement
a
in
Mary
London
Virgin (plates 54 which leads uninter-
ruptedly and logically through half a century to Art Nouveau, thus marking a turning point in art history. For the latent tendencies that their existence
were to be realized
known and emerged from
in
first time, the
Art Nouveau made
prehistory into a histori-
cally comprehensible phase which deserves to be called "Early
Art
Nouveau."
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
We Title
page for Christina
see here for the first time fancifully invented accessory ob-
Rossetti's
forms, and ornaments that could easily be imagined in an in-
jects,
"Goblin Market and Other Poems" (1862)
about 1900, decorated in the Art Nouveau style of England, Holland, or Vienna. The ceramic vase on the pile of terior of
books, the glass vase on the balustrade, and the
©
I®
represent an early Art
forms
GOBLIN MARKET
in
Nouveau
style,
oil
lamp beside
it
with a return to simple basic
which nothing refers to historical examples; their closed
and gliding
outlines
and
their elongated proportions reveal their
absolute opposition to the Victorian or Continental style which
and other poems
characterizes the applied arts of the middle of the nineteenth cen-
ty CtriftmaRofletti
tury.
The abstract ornaments of the handled
vase, with their linear
ramifications as well as the geometrical ornaments at the upper
border of the balustrade, come very close to the style of Scottish or Viennese High Art
Nouveau and already tend toward
the
complementary attitude that was to become such a special feature of Art Nouveau. In addition, the openwork of the balustrade's lower part has Gothic patterns; an individually interpreted Gothic style, simplified, it is true, to the point of almost resembling the Gothic of concrete castings of the
end of the century such as Anatole de Baudot
actually used in the nineties in his Church of Saint Jean, on the
Place des Abbesses in Montmartre. In Rossetti's painting, the objects
%
Cotderj
j
head by
_
qolâ.cr)
pe,a.3J2.
thing had to be represented in as the painters before
London and Cambridge /^cmiilan and Co. 1862
m
he represents and the style he adopts are entirely new. Ac-
cording to the aims pursued by the Pre-Raphaelite school, everyits
WJL
is
with the utmost realism,
Raphael had done; but what materializes
a result of this realism of details
The scene that
details
is
as
a purely imaginative creation.
represented, the objects,
and the new type of
beauty in the faces of the figures are a personal invention of Ros-
62
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
and the whole
setti's
character of
and
clear
its
own
picture, in
its
formal construction too, has a
that cannot be overlooked. Closed, simplified,
forms dominate the plane surface. Single forms, with the
here for the
complexes of closed forms; the balustrade, the curtain, the books,
Once
the embroidery frame, file,
and even the figure of the
moreover, everything that might appear is
girl seen in
pro-
are not only arranged parallel to the plane of the picture but,
reduced as far as possible to the flat
in
three-dimensional relief
and two-dimensional plane.
Despite the realistic alternation of light and shadow, one can detect
an endeavor to create homogeneous complexes closed
by
linear contours
and
set against
themselves
in
each other in stark contrast.
These structures are not yet "surface-bodies," flat forms
geneous in themselves, but tend
in this direction;
homo-
one might even
say that the real surface-bodies of the ornaments offer us the key for the interpretation of all the forms.
forms an ornament; the picture
itself
and horizontal
dicular
Even is
the composition in
constructed in perpen-
lines as well as right angles, so that the
symbol of the Christian Cross, instead of being baldly represented, is
manner of
integrated within the structure. The dry, unpainterly
applying the color as in a poster, and the
artist's
narrow, long, linear forms, differs from what the period
and
is
is
predilection for
usual in the art of
already essentially related to Art Nouveau.
mini, which Rossetti painted in 1850 (plate 57). Rossetti gave that, like the
ornaments
in his first
work, matches the
of the painting; in the shape of a substantial
it
a
style
wooden frame,
the
painted objects of applied art emerge from the imagined space of
Not only
the picture into the three-dimensional space of reality.
unframed window, strangely recalling forms in and the lamp in Art Nouveau style, attract our attention, the forms (in reality consisting of fabrics but looking like
background
boards) behind the bed and in the folded embroidery in front, which
The bed's perspective, receding into space while
at the
time functioning as the line which separates the figures, gerated that girl's
it
practically
makes space turn
head, painted realistically in the same
into a plane.
way
is
maintained
in
right
same
so exag-
Even
the
as the angel in the
Girlhood of Mary Virgin and a portrait of the painter's poet Christina Rossetti,
is
sister,
the
two-dimensionality by the
disk of the halo, arranged as a parallel in the picture. The tendency to
asymmetry, to parallels and to narrow, ribbon-like figures and
forms
is
stronger here than in the Girlhood of
feature characteristic of the
63
Mary
874)
droop of the head. In England, girl then remained constant that leads up to High Art Nouveau.
art
Domini
as that of Antiquity, the costumes
and
subsequent paintings assume a late medi-
in Rossetti's
Forms and
structures,
however,
remain untouched by
this; on the contrary, the parallelism of the narrow forms, the transversal axis, and the closed single forms can nowhere be more clearly observed than in Rossetti's watercolor, Dante Drawing an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death (plate 55). The decorations and objects already so close to Art Nouveau continue to appear: for instance, the frieze of angels' heads reminding one of Blake, the swinging curve of the lamp on the ex-
treme
right, the pieces of furniture constructed like chests or cassoni,
the freely invented shape of the
window, and the mazelike
distribu-
tion of space in the left-hand corner.
Suggestions from Rossetti's earlier period were followed by John
Everett Millais (1829-96) 39 ly.
The sketch for
who
then developed them independent-
his large painting Christ in the
House of His
Parents (plate 287) shows the characteristic features of Rossetti's style in a harder
and more
reticent
manner. Hidden behind the
to discern in the final painting itself; but, in the sketch,
with
ornamental and geometric
work
Virgin.
A
whole Pre-Raphaelite school appears
qualities, the structure
of the
its is
The strangely unnatural expressive gestures favored by the Pre-Raphaelites become evident here, for example, in the rectangularly geometrical and very alien figure of the carpenter on laid bare.
the
left;
quite significantly, this figure
formation
angle.
1
type of young
eval or Pre-Raphaelitic character.
produced from
form of a
(
the attitude of timeless simplicity in Ecce Ancilla
the curve of the
are set in relationship to each other in the strict
this
presumably understood
concrete,
but also
signature
exaggerated realism of the details, these features are more difficult
Do-
These qualities stand out even more clearly in Ecce Ancilla
frame
is
artist's
time: the singular
whole tradition of
in a
exception of the small leaves in the bower, are assembled in larger
first
on the Continent,
as
The
in the
more
underwent the greatest trans-
naturalistic painting that Millais finally
The ghost-like flute player on the right was not included in the painting, but might well have been designed by Toorop, just as, in general, the sketch as a whole seems to bear the mark of this Dutch painter's style (plate 147). But after this painting Millais soon deviated toward a dull and meretricious style; this sketch.
in his beginnings,
been a
member
when he was
fascinated by Rossetti, he had
of the group of creative artists to
early English style of Art
whom we owe
still
the
Nouveau.
The painted wardrobe (plate 286) that Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98)'° painted five years after Rossetti's Dante Drawing an Angel reveals how closely another admiring disciple of Rossetti still clung to the master's setti
style.
The immediate connection between Ros-
or Burne-Jones and Bcardsley, on the one hand, and
intosh
and the Macdonald
sisters,
Mack-
on the other, becomes very
clear.
54
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
The Girlhood of
Mary
Virgin
(detail) (1849)
its
CHARLES RICKETTS
source in Rossetti,
Only Vignette from Oscar Wilde's
"A House
of
this
was a variant of the Pre-Raphaelite
style.
branch of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, setting
41
itself
entirely new aims, was still considered Pre-Raphaelitic on the European Continent around 1 900. When we now find, even on the
Pomegranates" (1891)
cover designs of French magazines, the cool, chaste princesses of the English Pre-Raphaelites (instead of the usual erotic petite femme),
But the
illustrator,
Charles Ricketts, and the Belgian painter, Fer-
nand Khnopff (plates 64 and 66), also hark back to Rossetti and Burne-Jones and continue this tradition into the decade around 1900. Walter Crane, however, with his simpler and unpretentious means, was most successful in later popularizing the style of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones and his lifelong friend and
Morris originally met
in 1855,
artistic
partner William
when they were both studying
these are intended to suggest to us the
Burne-Jones.
women
of Rossetti and
42
CHARLES RICKETTS
Illustration
from Oscar Wilde's "A House of
Pomegranates" (1891)
the-
ology at Oxford. Lectures held by Ruskin attracted their attention to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
One
of Rossetti's illustrations
Maids of Elfinmere enchanted Burne-Jones to such an extent that he and Morris decided to devote themselves entirely to painting. In 1856, they called on Rossetti in London. The master then lavished on them so much generous kindness and encouragement that they moved to London and began to paint under his stimulating guidance. The picture on the wardrobe designed by Philip Webb (plate 286) is also one of the earliest examples of the art of Burne-Jones and likewise a memorial to the union between Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Morris which was destined to become so important for the development of Art Nouveau. for Allingham's The
Whereas Burne-Jones remained faithful to the narrow, ascetic, but somewhat languid figures and forms of the period of his early relationship with Rossetti (plates 63 and 107), Rossetti himself, beginning in the sixties, began to enter a new phase of more opulently swelling forms. These later works differ from his early paintings in the outline, in the richer pictorial technique and in the types of his human models. Much in this world of luxuriant forms already tends toward the ecstatic movement of High Art Nouveau. Typically enough, Rossetti invented a vase in 1863, in his painting Fazio's Mistress (plate 61), that one can consider as one of the earliest
Philip
examples of High Art Nouveau. The
Webb
(the architect
Green Dining
London
Room
who
in the
built
Red House
for Morris) for the
former South Kensington
are inspired, in their style,
by
ceilings designed
from the same
Museum sources.
in
The
room had been entrusted to the firm of Morris and Company and was the fruit of the collaboration of Morris, Webb, and Burne-Jones. What has now survived of this complete ensemble reveals that the ornamental-decorative style, which has decoration of this
64
^^
I
T
i
•
-
s?
émuà
n 1
7
I •«r*
'M
s
\
Pif'm fir
R
—
*. m
m •".
V^M
55
55
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Dante Drawing
an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death (i853)
DWARD BURNE- JONES
Painted cabinet (i860)
57
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Ecce Ancilla
Domini
Anmtnci.it ion)
ho)
67
(71)e
S
S
59
PHILIP WEBB Red House, PHILIP WEBB
Staircase
Bexley Heath (1859)
Bexley Hcatb(iS S9 )
and landing
in
Red House,
68
60
EDWARD BURNE-JONES
61
DAXTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Drawing
(after 1884)
Aurelia
/
Fazio's Mistress (detail)
(1863 and 1873) 62
PHILIP WEBB Stenciled ceiling frieze from Room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
the
Green Dining
(1866-67) 61
62
f -
r>
c^Tp^© «$m
63
6-,
64 65
1
!
DWARIMU RM JON1S I
RNAND KHNOPFF
Lock
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI Lilia (detail)
66
/
lh\ru-iu}< (after 18S4)
My Door Upon
Myself (1891)
The Blessed Damozel—Sancta
(1874)
FERNAND KHNOPFE
Tenderness (189$)
65
66
6? 68
6y
Anonymous photographer Mrs. William Morris
(circa i860)
68
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
(1866)
Monna Vanna
The Japanese
Style
"In the citron wing of the pale butterfly,
with
its
dainty spots of orange
." .
.
James McNeill Whistler, Lecture at Ten O'Clock
"We must art
.
.
.
first
gratefully
in the
Evening
remember Japan, a land whose wonderful
pointed out to us the right path. But," Otto Eckmann's
preface 43 to a series of Jugendstil designs then adds, "only England
knew how
new
ideas
and
them to its innate national character, thus deriving ." from the Japanese style
real
to assimilate
and transform
this
wealth of
to adapt
profit
.
.
How this came about has been told many times: how the engraver Bracquemond discovered some Japanese colored woodcuts in 1856 which had been used as wrapping paper; how he communicated his enthusiasm to Baudelaire, Manet, the Goncourt brothers, and Degas; how Whistler who, until 1859, had studied in Paris, then brought to London his love for Japanese art and, around 1863, painted the Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine, a major work among his japonneries. In 1862, Manet had painted Zola against a background of Japanese decorations and colored woodcuts which later appeared also in paintings by Degas, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. In 1862, shops dealing in Japanese and Chinese objects were first opened: La Porte Chinoise in Paris, and Farmer and Rogers' Oriental Warehouse in London. Farmer and Rogers had taken over the stocks that Japan had sent to London for the International Exhibition of 1862 the first Western exhibition where the Japanese Empire was represented.
—
On the advice of his friend William Morris, the manager of Farmer and Rogers, Arthur Lasenby Liberty, then founded his own firm in 1875. Th e new ^ irm was successful, mainly on account of its Oriental and Oriental-inspired fabrics with their light colors and flat, stylized
patterns. Its success
was
so great that in
Germany,
"national lamentations were to be heard concerning the mass im-
portation of English materials for decoration." 44
And
in
Italy,
where Art Nouveau was never really able to gain a footing and remained an imported style, the term "Stile Liberty" was invented. 45 whole
whose shop in Paris, L'Art Nouveau, gave its name to the style, had likewise begun as an importer of Japanese arts and
crafts.
He
S.
Bing,
also
was the owner of one of the most important private
collections of japonnerie, and, after 1888, published the series of his
Japanischer Formenschatz in German, French, and English. To rhose
"who
feel
an interest
in the future of
doing creative work"
73
in this field,
our applied arts" or
Bing promised,
who
"are
in the preface,
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Caricature of James McNeill Whistler (1893)
that
"among
worthy
these forms, they will find examples
respect of being followed."
in
every
46
The Japanese element became so inherent to the mature style of Art Nouveau that only in rare cases can one distinguish or separate
movement. In 1888, Louis Gonse wrote on Japanese art: "A drop of their blood has mixed with our blood and no power on earth can eliminate it." 47 Even where Art Nouveau refers directly back to Japanese art, it is at the same time founded on works of an intermediate phase in which, during the process of it
from the
entire
long years, a synthesis of the Japanese and the European elements
had been achieved and remained decisive
every respect.
in
James McNeill Whistler The composition and
Peacock
Skirt,
an
drawing (opposite) The Salome of 1894, can cer-
style of Beardsley's
illustration for Wilde's
tainly be interpreted only as having sprung
from a knowledge of
woodcuts by Utamaro and other Japanese artists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This type of asymmetrical distribution of masses, these curving lines, this absence of compactness,
space, or light
and shadow
in the picture, all
indeed come from
Japan. Here, however, a direct influence blends with an indirect one: Beardsley's work is already founded on the Japanese style of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). 48 In 1891, Beardsley had seen Whistler's famous Peacock Room, created in 1876 to 1877 (plate 49 The pattern of the peacock feathers in the tail and the scale70). like pattern in the tler's
Peacock
plumage occur
Room
in
numberless variations in Whis-
as well as in Beardsley's
Peacock
and background, the works of both these
Skirt.
deliberate ambiguity of design
so typical of
Nouveau,
artists.
The Art
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
"
The Peacock Skirt" from Oscar Wilde's
"Salome" (1894)
William H. Bradley borrowed
it
from him (page 229). With acro-
batic virtuosity, Beardsley developed the asymmetrical distribution
of the areas of white and the contrast of black spaces by using small
in colors frequently
Even Beardsley's characteristic stippled or dotted manner (often compared to that of Celtic and Irish manuscripts) had been anticipated by Whistler: similar concentric circular arcs and scales designed in dotted lines, so as to form the spread tail of the peacock on the back of Salome's cape, are to be found in the woodwork of the bookshelves and wall panels of the Peacock Room. On the other hand, the "arrowheads" at the terminals of
leave spaces forming decorative fabric patterns that also reappear
long flowing quills of Salome's headdress are taken from Whistler's
ley's
also appears in
Salome, designed with clear-cut
ambiguity
is
lines in
In Beards-
black and white, this
achieved in the train of the cape; on Whistler's painted
walls and shutters, the golden design on a blue ground alternates
with a blue design on a gold ground. In the same manner, Japanese colored woodcuts with black outlines enclosing interior surfaces that are printed homogeneously in white
as positive designs in
and
white against a colored ground.
where peacocks un-Occidental manner, and in
Whistler's sketch (opposite page, bottom are distributed in space in an entirely
left),
sizes quite as unusual, there appears, as a novelty, the filling
up
device of
certain areas of pure linear design with solid black.
Beardsley carried this method further, and the American painter
over-rich ornaments.
provocative book of 1890, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, in which one sees butterflies (page j6) armed with a whiplash "sting." Whistler's admiration for Japanese art
ready reflected
in the pictures
and applied
he painted during the
arts
sixties:
is
al-
Prin-
du Pays de la Porcelaine (1863-64), Lady of the Lange Lijsen (1864), The Golden Screen (1 865), and others which are all filled
cesse
74
with complete
still-life
who
arrangements of Japanese objets
among
d'art.
Be-
and vases are always clad in gorgeous kimonos. These exotic accessories are no doubt included in the picture for their own value and are depicted sides, the girls
dwell
these screens, fans,
means; but, even in these early works, had already been clearly grasped. Soon Whistler refrained more and more from representing Japanese obwith an Occidental
artist's
the spirit of an alien art
jects,
to
penetrating instead into the substance of Japanese art in order
make
its
In his
Old
essence his
own.
Battersea Bridge: Nocturne in Blue
and Gold, painted
about 1865 (plate 69), a theme taken from everyday life in London is filled with poetic enchantment and seen entirely as if through the eyes of a Japanese artist. inspired
it,
its
doubt Hiroshige's paintings of bridges
but the whole picture's generally Japanese character
more important: forms,
No
its
lack of depth, the whole absence of
is
modeled
asymmetrical balance, the significance of the ornaments
and the peculiarly graceful
—
silhouette, its decorative conception
from an intensive study of Japanese art and then generated their effects right up to Art Nouveau. Whistler did what Oscar Wilde (who borrowed the idea from him) later expressed in words: "And so, if you desire to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go to Tokyo. and rigorous
selectivity
all
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER "The Peacock
Room"
these result
Preliminary sketch for a decoration for
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
'The Toilet of Salome" from Oscar Wilde's
"Salome" (1894)
(1876)
On
the contrary, you will stay at
work
home and steep yourself in the when you have absorbed
of certain Japanese artists, and then,
and caught their imaginative manner of some afternoon and sit in the Park or stroll down Picadilly, and if you cannot see an absolutely Japanese effect there, you will not see it anywhere." 50 However it becomes apparent, both from the impressionistic attitude and from the fact that "all lies so far behind the window of the frame and is so bathed in air," 51 that, much as Whistler's pictures may be related to Art Nouveau, there is still much that distinguishes them from it. the spirit of their style, vision,
r
\
'
>
you
will go
But, even as an Impressionist, Whistler painted differently closer to the Japanese
and
contemporaries
An
in Paris.
to the
Art Nouveau style
— than
his
Impressionist of the night, of dusk and
of mist rather than of daylight, he removed his landscapes and his portraits to a distant
ing
them
and poetical
unreality, at the
to be used as elegant decorations:
same time allow-
"And when
the evening
mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor
75
é\
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
from
Butterflies
*
The Gentle Art of
Making Enemies" (1890)
yç? chimneys
Whistler began to design simple, rectilinear frames with parallel
become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and ." the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us So runs the most celebrated passage of Whistler's Lecture at Ten O'Clock in the Evening that he gave in London, Oxford, and Cambridge in 1885 and had the honor of later seeing adapted into French by Mallarmé. Instead of dissolving in a flurry of brushstrokes, Whistler's painting now consisted of large and homogeneous blots grouped around a skeleton of tracks and ridges. Especially in his Thames Nocturnes (being fully conscious of their attractiveness) he worked around empty and almost monochrome areas. At the same time, he carried the decorative and impressionistic element
moldings, sometimes even repeating on them a corresponding pat-
dun
buildings lose themselves in the
sky,
and the
tall
.
.
where he anticipated Kandinsky's "absolute painting" by more than three decades. About 1874, Whistler created what, visually speaking, might well be called the first abstract painting: The Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black and Gold (plate 289). In the Grosvenor Gallery, which was above all a rostrum for Whistler and Burne- Jones and where the ladies of the Aesthetic Movement wore Pre-Raphaelitic gowns since, after all, they could not dress this painting aroused Ruskin's fury, causing him to as a Nocturne
to a point
—
—
declare that face." 52
Ruskin
it
was
like "flinging a
The outcome of
this
was
pot of paint in the public's
a lawsuit in
which Whistler sued
in the first recorded legal proceedings concerning the value
pattern in dark turquoise-blue on gold (plate 69). In the Peacock
Room, 54 Whistler went an enlarged frame for
whole room (plate 70) Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine and
so far as to treat a
his
adapt the form and color of the room to
as
to
even though
this painting,
the old and valuable Spanish leather on the walls had to be painted over,
and the border of
had
a Persian rug
away
to be cut
colors were unsuitable. Before Whistler, Rossetti
already put forward the idea of co-ordinating a picture,
and the
artistic effect
as the
and Morris had its
frame,
of a whole room in a single unit, although
their conception of the latter
was
less fully
integrated.
The example
room reinforced and Art Nouveau then adopted it as a basic principle.
of the entirely co-ordinated unity of a Japanese this conception,
Whistler, the most consistent advocate of l'art pour
off "blue-and-white china" and launched
topher Dresser and
many
others,
Wilde
his collection of "blue-and-white."
it
dined
as a fashion; like Chris-
also,
With
l'art,
of course, had to have
his
yellow table napkins,
Whistler likewise introduced the yellow tint of the brimstone (or Cloudless Sulphur) butterfly which
low Book, was
to give the
name
later,
through Beardsley's Yel-
of "Yellow Nineties" to the whole
Beardsley epoch. Whistler's yellow napkins were embroidered with the same butterflies in the Japanese style as those that he also used
work of
art;
as a signature
artist.
In Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black
and Gold
it is
decorative, ornamental,
formed into a
and musical. The picture
is is
it
suggests a
tude" through light and dark forms.
Owing
is
proportions (above and below). The floors of his rooms were covered
trans-
"complementary to the unique
fluttered asymmetrically over the borders
made
sort of rhythmically formless ornament. In spite of
entirely pictorial treatment,
and that
of the book pages designed by him according to Japanese notions of
(the title also
almost abstract), Whistler's fundamental attitude to his art
its
thus framed with a Japanese scale
and although Whistler won
temporary ruin of the
clear:
is
he was awarded damages of one farthing which led to the
(or the worthlessness) of a this suit,
tern in the main color harmonies of the picture. Old Battersea Bridge,
seen with almost Japanese eyes,
atti-
way
in
which "impressionistic" and ornamental or graphic qualities unite in the art of the Far East, 53 the latter could inspire both the Impressionists and the pioneers of Art Nouveau. Both of these components become equally effective in Whistler's art. However, most nine-
with Japanese tatami mats, the walls of the winding staircase
White House, which Godwin had
built for
him
(plate 71),
in the
were
covered, according to Japanese taste, with gold paper and, except
when meals were served, a single lily or a Chinese bowl with goldfish swimming in it was always on the dining-room table.
We
a
see in Whistler's later pictures that in addition to accessories,
enclosing their works; the Impressionists, and even the Cubists,
and established forms, his decorations also adopted the conception from which they had sprung. The most revolutionary doctrine imported from Japan was an emphasis on simplicity, lightness, clarity. "A few movable screens ... a few vases for flowers
continued to use Baroque or Rococo frames for their paintings. In
and a few small
Art Nouveau, however, the frame became of primary importance too, and was designed in harmony with the picture and understood
Japanese
teenth-century painters were not at
as a "field of
all
concerned with the frame
approach" to the picture, or even
as a
kind of orna-
mental border for a printed page (compare plates 147, 205, and 276.) Following the example that Rossetti had set as early as 1849,
patterns,
objects of daily use
.
.
.
are the decoration that a
room He does not know of the multitude of unnecessary things that crowd our houses accumulation is alien to his feelings and he likes air, light and .
.
man
of taste deems sufficient for his
.
.
.
.
unencumbered space." Whistler himself lived
in
rooms that con-
trasted very sharply with the taste for the overloaded splendor of
76
77
69
JAMKS McNEILL WHISTLER Old
Battersea Bridge: Nocturne in Blue
and Gold
{circa 1865)
'
*
I
H #
1 !
fKl !
I
y
frt
«
-,
7
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
Decoration for the Peacock
Room
of the Leyland residence, London (1876-77) (Now in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.) 71 7i
EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN (1874)
72
White House, London (1877) Chair (circa i%itf and small table
7i
EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN
Sideboard (circa 1877)
Opposite: 74
EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN
75
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
Designs for furniture {area 1876)
Teapot (circa 1880)
80
/•
<8»
p 74
75
81
fi
rvy/n
\
11
jr
I
I
? Vi?
80
81
^^"•^pw 76
Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen
77
Japanese
78
Chinese
Boivl (eighteenth century)
79
Russian
BovjI (end of nineteenth century)
80
Japanese
Covered Vase
{circa
1900)
Silk brocade (eighteenth century)
Silk brocade for the costume of an actor in a
Noh
play
(eighteenth century) Si
82
ALFXANDRF DF RIQUFR DANTF GABRIFL ROSSETT1 (1865)
Binding for "Crisantcmes" (1899) Binding for " Atalanta in Calydon" S:
83
OGATA KORIN
84
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Screen (circa lyoo)
Binding for "Verses" (1896)
84
his age; but, in spite of this, a certain
Room
structured Peacock
sumptuousness
in the finely
cannot be overlooked. Following the
rooms were almost bare; on their white or egg-yellow wa'Is, only a few pictures or drawings were framed with very wide mats in the narrowest of black frames. A few simple
Japanese
style, Whistler's
pieces of antique furniture
out the
many
room and
were asymmetrically distributed through-
shifted from time to time. The backgrounds of
show
method of decoration, so fundamentally different from the chocolate-brown and dark red, the heavy acanthus patterns of the wallpapers, and the somber splendor of late Victorian interiors. Whistler anticipated the amor vacui, the refined sparseness, the white and the light colors that were introduced around 1900 by Mackintosh and Voysey together with a new style of ornament and in fascinating contrast to Whisof Whistler's portraits
own
tler's
his
conceptions.
The Japanese Style from Rossetti
to all English creations in the Japanese style
the
more cosmopolitan or metropolitan
the binding that Rossetti designed in 1881 for the first edition of his
own
Ballads and Sonnets (plate 292), he developed even further
the decorative principles set forth in the binding for Swinburne's
poems, except that rectangular patterns formed of small
was certainly conscious of a desire to épater le bourgeois. He is thus remembered as the first and most brilliant promoter of the Japanese style in London. Rossetti's interJapanese
tion. Yet, in
art,
not being quite so one-sided, attracted
1865, Rossetti also dressed one
feminine figures, The Beloved, in a rich
less
atten-
voluptuous
of his
gown embroidered with
Japanese bamboo leaves; moreover,
this fair and utterly English Song of Songs wears in her hair a fantastic Chinese ornament made of gold and red enamel. Stimulated by Whis-
bride illustrating the
tler, Rossetti, in
the sixties, also began to collect Chinese porcelain
and Japanese woodcuts. Long before Whistler and Morris thought of illustrating books, Rossetti thus designed in 1865 the binding for
Swinburne's drama, Atalanta in Calydon (plate 82), in Japanese style, so that
by virtue of
its
striking binding alone the
attract the attention so greatly needed
The balance of
by the
still
book would
unknown
poet. 55
this design, its effective use of space, the circular
ornaments arranged near
its
edges, the
theme of the two disks partly
covering each other, and of the peacock feathers with their contrasted curves, are
Did
this
all
inspired by Japanese lacquerware.
bookbinding have an immediate influence?
Whistler's paintings (plate 69). These small circling spirals and their
rows stem from the decorations on blue-and-white Nanking porcelain, as Whistler reproduced them for a collector's arrangement
in
catalogue in an inimitable manner (plate 290).
its period, though not to Rossetti's art. With the frame for Ecce Ancilla Domini, Rossetti had indeed come surprising-
ly close to the Japanese style
was
still
own, even though the specific lacking. But this binding design has
on
his
such a flavor, as well as the delicately worldly elegance that belongs
85
On
the other hand,
on the title page that Rossetti drew in 1862 for Goblin Market, a volume of poems by his sister Christina (page 62). For the type he used lettering whose spontaneity reveals that the characters had been hand drawn, thus following the example set by Blake. Burne- Jones likewise combined Pre-Raphaelitism and the Japanese style and, here and there, a similarly dancing flower pattern already appears
A
timid early form of Art
Nouveau can even
be detected in his Oxford pencil drawing of 1875 (plate 109), or in a sketched-out pattern for an embroidery design
where the related
pattern of the decorative design emphasizes the intervals between
empty spaces. But, at the same time, the artist seems to be somewhat at a loss, accustomed as he still was to think in terms of more figurative designs. Even Greek elements can blend with Japanese ones: to the Japanese style of his binding for Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (plate 82), Rossetti not only added a Celtic ornament in the shape of a circular form at the top right, but Greek patterns too. The palmette inscribed in the disk at the bottom right is borrowed from Attic vases of the fifth century b.c. The example of this unexpected combination was followed in subsequent English design, where it the peacocks as
Art Nouveau. In many of Whistler's pictures, above all in his Symphony in White, No. IV: The Tlnce Girls (187679) (plate 293), we find young girls with a distinctly Greek type of beauty, their hair arranged in Attic fashion, wearing draped chitons and posing in Greek attitudes. But the chitons are narrow and simfinally leads into
and the maidens, holding parasols, are standing on Japanese mats with cherry-tree branches blossoming near them. The Ten O'Clock Lecture of 1885, a confession in which every word had been carefully weighed by Whistler, winds up with the words: "The
plified It strikes
one as too alien to
flavor of the latter
now
seems to have imposed a Japanese rhythm on his flamboyant Gothic
to Beardsley
deliberate dandy, Whistler
est in
circles
take the place of disks, as also in the patterns of the frames of
flowers and shrubs.
A
which later influenced Art Nouveau. In
style of
story of the beautiful
—
is
already complete
— hewn
the Parthenon and broidered, with the Hokusai at the foot of the Fusi-Yama
—
in the
marbles of
birds,
upon the fan of
(sic)."
Edward William
more profound
justification
to be
is
found
"pleasant estrangement" 58 on which Art
in the principle
Nouveau
to a great extent. Similar features can be seen in the Ricketts, for instance in the illustrations
that he designed for Oscar Wilde's at left).
CHARLES RICKETTS
"
architect of Whistler's
White House, who
also
of the
founded
work of Charles
and the binding of the book
poem The Sphinx
1894 (seen The representation of the room in which Chloe is pining in
Daphnis (see below), with its refined bareness and its distribution and proportions that remind one of Le Corbusier, could scarcely have been conceived without some Japanese influence. for
The Moon-Horned Io" from Oscar Wilde's
"The Sphinx" (1894)
Godwin, the
is
also dec-
orated the interior of Oscar Wilde's house, not only staged Greek
dramas, but
had designed "AngloJapanese" furniture (plates 73 and 74) and "Greek chairs" which look more Japanese than Greek. 56 As early as 1862, he hung Japanese woodcuts on the walls of his own very un-Victorian, simple, bare rooms, and dressed his wife and daughter in Japanese kimonos; also,
ever since the
sixties,
but, in the midst of all this, he also
added a copy of the Venus de
Milo.
Walter Crane tells us how much he learned from the Japanese, from 1865 on, for the illustrations of his children's books. 57 In The Beauty and the Beast and Baby's Own Aesop, he included Greek elements, in the representation of objects as well as in the treatment
of his form, in his illustrations and ornaments. For an endpaper of 1887, Walter Crane took ivy shoots from Attic vases of the fifth
and sixth
centuries,
shown there
as alternating
waves of
leaves;
spreading them out as a surface-pattern, Crane then arranged them
CHARLES RICKETTS
and suggested the outline with dots, in Japanese style. The design was thus adapted to an alternating rhythm of forms and counterforms and placed behind the delicate trellis of a bower that reminds one of something Far Eastern. The secret rela-
Edward William Godwin
"Chloe" from "Daphnis and Chloe" (1896)
objectively in rows
tionships between heterogeneous areas of art are thereby stressed so as to create something
new which enchants
us
by
its
freshness
and
whose
graceful simplicity.
We know
Chloe's
room might have
architect,
existed in Whistler's
Edward William Godwin
Japanese qualities with English
responding to the Greek technique of linear silhouettes, to the sharp,
lack of architectonic structure, lightness,
and streamlined contour of the shadowless and spaceless Greek vases. In his illustrations to Lysistrata, Beardsley enriched erotic themes borrowed from Attic vases with similar ones borrowed from Utamaro; he thus "perverted" a Greek subject by treating it in the Japanese style. This "perversion" must
ment.
precise,
pictures that decorated
not be understood only in the sense of fin de siècle decadence;
its
(1833-86), 59 was, with
Whistler, the first of the English artists to learn from Japan and to
combined Japanese elements with stylistic and ornamental features which he found in pictures painted on vases by the Attic vase painter, Douris. Beardsley could not avoid that Beardsley
White House,
employ
significantly
what he
learned.
He knew how
to
combine
of flat surfaces and a narrow proportions, and long, linear, straight forms. English and Japanese art also have in common a propensity for a cool atmosphere and for understatetaste, a sense
In Godwin's White House, built in 1877 for his friend Whistler
Chelsea (plate 71), the Japanese note did not immediately meet the eye, but expressed itself rather as purism or as in Tite Street in
86
understatement. Without the cornices that had to be added later,
Chelsea, almost opposite the White House}'
as a result of a regulation of the building authorities, the outside
color schemes for the rooms and supervised the painters while they
of the house appeared at
first as a
cubic block of closed form: a
kind of box with delicate surfaces and reticent articulations, as it
if
had renounced any traditional Occidental notion of tectonic ar-
rangement. The supine rectangle of the façade the surface of wall,
by
subdivided, like
is
a perpendicular ridge emphasized according
mixed the colors and applied them yellow was used:
the
main floor and the top floor and the rounded ledge of the
slightly
protruding top floor (neither of which
fiable) reveal that this
is
a matter of
is
functionally justi-
form for the sake of form,
in
in
course, pale
one of the bed-
—
this
if
and
Of
from that of any Victorian home, and indeed became so. With the exception of some antiques Wilde used for instance the table at which Carlyle had worked, and also had a collection of
they are built at various levels. But the horizontal strip between
seems as
in thin coats.
in the hall, the staircase,
different
paper appeared
it
Whistler suggested the
rooms. The furnishing was intended to be quite out of the ordinary,
two small houses had been built together. A predilection for asymmetry and a pretended fortuitousness determine the sensitive rhythm in the disposition of the strongly simplified doors and windows; one has the impression that the distribution of the various rooms is thus indicated, and that to the English tradition, so that
1
"blue-and-white"
— Godwin designed everything for the house. In
a letter to him, Wilde praises the exquisite quality of a recently delivered "Japanese couch"; large quantities of Japanese gold-leaf in the bills.
Even
the
bathroom was decorated with
gold paper.
The spacious drawing room occupied a whole floor and could be partitioned off with Japanese folding doors. It had white lacquered dadoes: above them the walls were flesh-pink, with a frieze of
reinforced concrete architecture and already suggests the restricted
lemon-colored gold, hung with drawings by Burne-Jones and another Pre-Raphaelite, Simeon Solomon, and etchings by Whistler;
forms which the Viennese architect Adolf Loos was to introduce a
Japanese leather decorated the borders of the
quarter of a century later (plates 260, 263).
ing room, above
fact
new
an entirely
One
decorative detail that comes close to modern
can well understand that this house must have seemed
ghost-like in
its
time: strange, without being really Japanese, since
Japanese houses were known to be quite different. But here lies Godwin's true achievement: he did not borrow prefigured forms as
even historicism finally did from the Japanese style too;
it is
more
Far Eastern element had sent out some radiation so as to the very essence of the structure. Yet the building also fol-
walls above were a dull chalk-white, while the furniture was
ivory-white. The furniture
remained empty. However,
alter
this luxurious
by
with
its
flat front finished off hori-
pediment and enlivened only by its proporwindows, and the carefully weighed relationships between the apertures and the walls. The use of white paint on such façades even dates from the period when Nash built his zontally
its
tions, the size
attic
of
its
houses in late neo-Classical style.
Only England has known how
to
and blend it with its own innate White House has nothing in common with the fluctuating line of Art Nouveau, but it already reveals definite symptoms of late Art Nouveau. Its cubic construction, its great economy in decoration and molding and, last but not least, its labyrinthine asymmetry and interlacing were adapted by others decades later, but most specifically by Mackintosh, who knew how to employ these features to their greatest advantage. "assimilate the Japanese element
national individuality." 60 The
Whistler and
Godwin were
again associated
home (1884-85) of Oscar and Constance Wilde
87
in
decorating the
in Tite Street in
was mainly
built-in,
according to Japa-
nese fashion, so as to appear integrated with the walls (plate 294), while the middle of the room, contrary to the tradition of Victorian interiors,
since the eighteenth century,
But the din-
all, being entirely white, made visitors think the house bizarre. The panels were lacquered with white enamel, the
as if the
lows the tradition of the English town house, refined and simplified
ceiling.
this
pretended simplicity and
understatement were expensive enough and, when
lived in, all this white
Wilde then wrote
proved too
in a letter to
delicate. With friendly irony, Godwin: "Of course we miss you,
but the white furniture reminds us of you, and leaf can be laid
a white one can.
In the
sixties,
we
find that a rose
on the ivory table without scratching
it
— at
least
"'''-'
before creating these works of architecture,
win made designs
God-
for "Anglo-Japanese furniture," as he repeatedly
it in a kind of illustrated catalogue of 1877 (plates 73, 74). Being comparable to Pre-Raphaelite furniture in this respect (plate
calls
56),
Godwin's works are
flat surfaces, their
Godwin
also conceived in straight lines.
They have
forms being those of rectangular boxes. But
form of all conventional aspect and reduces a piece of furniture to the basic rule of its construction. Like the White House, these pieces of furniture are not disguised in
is
radical in liberating the
order to appear Japanese, which happens occasionally as
accident however; but the Japanese influence has
formation
in their
worked
if
by
a trans-
very construction. Furniture becomes elongated,
8
linear, concise,
and
and tense
surfaces,
in itself.
With
light;
it
reduced to a system of active
is
and the whole
this, essential
is
stylized to
lines
become an ornament
Nouveau
elements of Art
are first
introduced, even though the results are not yet characteristic of
Art Nouveau.
Not only stressed
and
tables
chairs,
but cabinets too are
and loosely subdivided
struction thus appears in
its
in their different parts.
On
cage-like purity.
framework and the
the contrast between the
now
emphasized; on the other hand,
it
may
full
elastically
The con-
the one hand,
planes
may
be
paradoxically be under-
The parallelism between the rectangular structure and the
stated.
and surfaces of the cabinet unite a whole. In Godwin's big sideboard
concise relationships of structure its
heterogeneous elements in
(plate 73), even the silver-plated hinges
the black
wood, looking
like
lie
flush to the surface of
an ornamental incrustation; like the
delicate handle rings, they are a pure
and functional ornament.
Seen next to one of Godwin's box-like forms in straight
lines,
Ber-
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
j
can be folded, are stored
Decorative fabric (1883)
cupboards after their tempoThese cupboards which have fusumas (sliding doors) con-
rary use.
in built-in
stitute part of the architecture itself.
Objects that remind one of
European furniture are to be found only in affluent households, where they are not movable. Built-in bookcases, small cabinets, and writing desks are then combined and introduced asymmetrically
Out
into the arrangement of the room.
Godwin, who had
nations
of these structural combi-
also designed wallpapers in the Japanese
style for industrial purposes,
developed a world of
In 1859, books began to appear in England dealing with every aspect of Japanese
on Household
life
art. 64
and Japanese
As
early as 1869, Hints
Taste, Charles Eastlake's influential
rules for arranging flowers, unfamiliar until then in
constantly discussed in periodicals, so that the
unmistakably
furniture designer of a slightly older generation,
and by Van de Velde can likewise be anticipated
we
Godwin's work in one of
Godwin's mantelpieces (plate 295), or the entire linear system of one of his pieces of furniture (plate 74), already anticipate the verve of the later phase of Art Nouveau. After the elimination of cism, a
new kind
all
the European accessories of histori-
of intricacy could at last be developed on the
newly recovered foundations. The proportions are then
so well cal-
culated, in every case, that the forms appear weightless, as if they
indeed consisted of
lines.
Beardsley understood this when, like
Godwin, he exaggerated the lines of the furniture in his pictures, without however making it appear improbable (page 75). For all their playfulness, grace, and apparent fragility, Godwin's pieces of furniture are strict, serious, and carefully considered. They can even be understood as an engineer's constructions in wood. The synthesis of Japanese and European elements was particularly
fruitful,
the
temptation of counterfeiting
small, since a Japanese in
Europe.
A
great
home
it
ignores furniture such as
number of Godwin's
particularly
it is
conceived
sketches refer to Chinese
prototypes, just as the total Japanese style throughout the West
was strongly influenced by China. Neither chairs nor beds as we know them exist in Japan, to say nothing of dressers and other such pieces; in empty rooms, one squats on mats spread on the floor. Small movable objects such as screens, stands, or small tables which
England, were
work of
the most
important "artist-designers" was inspired by Japanese examples,
of a century apart. But the furniture designed by Serrurier-Bovy in
book on English
interior decoration, called attention to Japanese models. Japanese
as can be quite
curved wooden bands
and grace-
ful forms.
lage's writing table in Dutch Jugendstil (plate 152) looks like its younger brother; one could scarcely guess that they are a quarter
as future possibilities. Certain
virile
(plate 100). In the
felt in
works of Bruce
J.
Mackmurdo
the creations of Talbert, the
most celebrated
who
died in 1881,
already find suggestions of the Japanese style; he designed
wallpapers, silk damasks, and fine chintzes, decorated with flowers
arranged taste
is
in
flat surface-designs in the
Japanese
Japanese
style.
indeed opposed to naturalistic trompe-Voeil patterns, to
modeling bodies
in space, to
heaviness and overloading of the
form, to an exaggerated number of details, and to dull, dark, or painterly colors, in fact to
of Victorian
all
that
was most
favor in the heyday
in
taste.
In 1876 Christopher Dresser went to Japan as an official representative of the British government.
the most important
public
among
more familiar with
He
then published,
the books that were
meant
to
in
1882,
make
the
the East: Japan, Its Architecture, Art,
and Art Manufactures. Dresser designed wallpapers of comparatively
furniture, fabrics,
lesser interest;
and
but he achieved re-
and other vessels (plates 90, 92). Between 1879 and 1882 there appeared the first undecorated Art Nouveau vases and vessels which, although ornaments in themselves, were at the same time conceived in terms of their function. They were the first real Art Nouveau objects, though Rossetti had already prefigured some in paintings as early as 1849 (plates 54, 61). Again, and as is always the case in its early markable
results in the designing of pitchers, vases,
English phases and antecedents, Art
Nouveau
occurs both in the
curving or organic, and in the geometrical form, of which the for-
mer
leads to
High Art Nouveau and
the latter to late Art
Nouveau.
88
S6
JOSEPH ANGELL
Sy
English
Carpet design
(circa 1850)
88
English
Carpet design
(circa 1850)
Pitcher (1854-55)
87
88
90
8
89
OWEN JONES
90
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
91
Damask
(circa 1870)
Pitcher (1S79)
9
91
WtLLIAM BUTTERFIELD
92
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
93
GEORGE WALTON
94
KATE GREENAWAY
95
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Dressing table and mirror (circa 18 55) Vase (1892-96)
Vase(i8 9 6)
Design for a
tile
(
1
864)
Glass skylight in
Folkwang Museum,
Hagen (1901) 96
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
9i
92
93
Writing desk (1886)
96
93
97
OWEN JONES of
"Horse Chestnut Leaves," from "The Grammar
Ornament" (1856)
9S
CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY
}$
WILLIAM MORRIS
100
" Pimpernel"
"Tokyo" wallpaper (1893) wallpaper {1876)
ARTHUR HEYGATEMACKMURDO
Screen (1884)
97
98
99
94
loi
95
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
"Plans and Elevations of Flowers'
from "The Grammar of Ornament" (1856)
j
loi
CHARLES^ANNl
103
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
104
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
SI
I
Y
VOYSEY
"Cereus" wallpaper (1886)
Force and Energy (1870)
Design for a stained-glass
window
(-8/3)
102
103
104
96
Japanese conceptions of form which
made
form, were not, however, the main or decisive element. The technique of the old Japanese handicrafts which,
compared
to those of
Europe, had developed to an "unbelievable, mysterious degree of
and
technical
65
also imposed some renewed Under Japanese guidance the tech-
aesthetic perfection,"
consideration or re-evaluation.
England not only preceded other countries by several decades
the closed, clearly
recognizable form triumph over the open, indistinct, or multiple
accepting the example offered by Japan, but also underwent influence over a
much longer
Japanese
art. Rossetti
a while, Whistler too,
ing with the accepted notions of their times, took an interest in objects of daily use
aspects of
England was leading in the art of surface-decoration and furniture designing, the European continent and North America achieved remarkable results in the field of ceramics, thanks to their acquaintance with Japanese forms and Japanese methods of pro-
of Art Nouveau,
glass objects artists,
York and Galle
in
Nancy both produced
which became prototypes of Art Nouveau. Both these
moreover, went through periods when they were influenced
by Japanese
owed
New
its
The Royal Porcelain Factory
styles.
revival
and
success to the influence of
in
Copenhagen
Japan (plate
j6).
06
High Art Nouveau had spread as a general style, the Danish factory's china belonged to the few things of the time that could be admired by the aesthetes, who "quivered with enthusiasm down to their innermost being" as Van de Velde reSince 1888, long before
marked.
87
The most important Northern European manufacturers,
Bing and GrondahPs porcelain factory in Denmark, Rorstrand in
Sweden, and the Rozenburger factory Japanese example
set
in The Hague, followed the by Copenhagen. As early as 1890, the Royal
came close to Jugendstil with its Chinese and Japanese forms and glazes. The Rockwood Pottery Company of Cincinnati owed its success to the collaboration of Japanese-born specialists, and the masters of French ceramics in Art Nouveau style, Jean Carries and Auguste Delaherche, were among
possible because a
and his friends Burne-Jones, Morris, and, for were among the first painters who, disagree-
of the object became sources of inspiration or invention.
duction. Tiffany in
was
decorative universalism existed in England before the discovery of
nique of production, the materials, and even the ultimate function
If
period. This
in its
life.
and
set
out to confer harmony on
This attitude later became typical of
many
of
all
all
the artists
whom
then gave up painting entirely.
had originally been painters who The former Post-Impressionist Van
de Velde designed embroidery patterns for the Pre-Raphaelitic kimono-like gowns of his ladies and in
—
making us feel Godwin's or Whistler's house thirty years earlier
nese stencil prints
on
his walls (plate 142)
we were
as if
— hung Japa-
which demonstrate one of
the sources of his "Belgian" line. Such prints were reproduced in Bing's Japanischer
F ormenschatz ;
periodical, devoted a first issue in
imported Japanese lines,
whole
1895, Pan,
in 1899,
issue to
in Berlin,
tissue
Ver Sacrum,
Viennese
a.
them and, beginning with
protected
its
papers decorated with patterns of
rhythmically distributed dots, and rosettes:
its
color prints with
wavy
wavy
lines in the
High Art Nouveau and stylized concentric flower-rosettes in the taste of late Art Nouveau. Once again, the close relationship and the joint origin of the organically animated High Art Nouveau and the geometrical late Art Nouveau are clearly demonstrated. taste of
Porcelain Factory in Berlin
the first to "seek to revive stoneware under the influence of Chinese and Japanese examples." 68 A strongly Japanese-influenced style of Art Nouveau is also to be found even in those places where there had been no local antecedents for this development, and where Art
Nouveau had
actually been adopted as a kind of "store-bought"
is particularly true of the workshops that produced wares for the Russian Imperial Court in St. Petersburg (plate 79) and those in Constantinople, and especially in the work of
importation. This
Carl Fabergé, a great virtuosic craftsman working in Russia, who, at
one time, also adopted the Art Nouveau style for his jewelry and
objets d'art
made
of precious metals, precious or semiprecious
enamelwork. However, the majority of Fabergé's pieces for the Court itself were in a historistic Slavic style.
stones, or
97
The Masters
of Industrial Design
Independently of the Pre-Raphaelites and of the adepts of the Japanese influence,
who
both wished to surround
life
with an
England became, toward the middle of the nineteenth century, a battleground for those who set out to educate and transform the public's taste and to liberate the form and the decoration of useful objects from their traditional designs in other artistic setting,
—
words, to help a
On
new
style to establish itself.
World Exhibition of 1851 and its utter pandemonium of conflicting styles (plates 87, 88), Henry Cole wrote: "The absence of any fixed principles in ornamental design is ." 69 The young William Morris apparent (1834-96) turned away in horror from products that were machine-made but were inspired in their design by the richest and most decadent styles of the occasion of the
.
.
the best of inevitable compromises. In order to react effectively
against the chaos of forms which appeared in such profusion in
London's Great Exhibition of 185 1, Henry Cole founded the South Museum (from which Morris derived many ideas) as a
Kensington
kind of instructive exhibit of the most remarkable products of the applied arts of
times and peoples. For, as
all
it
was
said in 1901,
"one had begun to realize in London that what one had retained of
OTTO RUNGE
PHILIPP
Geometric drawing of the cornflower (1808)
the techniques of the crafts of previous centuries less
than
all
had forgotten."
that one
museum were not meant
He came
the past.
to the conclusion that
machine work had to be
entirely avoided. Like Ruskin, he considered the
from an
ethical point of view; he then put Ruskin's theories into
becoming an artisan or craftsman
practice,
the later
problem of form
in the sense of those of
Middle Ages.
gether logical, since machines were not responsible for the choice of
form and design. Still, the Art Nouveau artists directly or indirectly followed the example of Morris, even though around 1900 his theories were scarcely applied any longer. With the exception of textiles,
wallpapers, and book illustrations, practically
all
works of
was indeed
far
The collections in Cole's styles that were to be
models of
ways and means They were also built up in the hope of of the public and of artists by exhibiting objects
imitated; they were to offer didactic examples of
of achieving one's
own
educating the taste
ideas.
of the highest quality in the field of the applied arts so as to establish
The conclusion that Morris drew from the aesthetically doubtful and often technically bad quality of contemporary industrial arts and crafts (namely, to renounce the use of machines) was not alto-
to suggest
70
more ambitious
criteria.
In order to give a systematic schooling to those
work
for industry,
Henry Cole
who would
later
created the "Schools of Design"
which were attached to the South Kensington Museum in 1857. George Moore wrote, not without irony: "The schools were primarily intended as schools of design where the sons and the daughters of the people would be taught how to design wallpapers." 71 But these schools soon enjoyed extraordinary success:
the
number of French
designers
employed
Art Nouveau were made by hand, frequently by the designer himself. Every vase and every piece of furniture by Galle was called an étude and signed by the artist himself. Every piece of glass by Tiffany was an individual, unique work of art. Tiffany even
been reduced by a half; a few years
introduced the term favrile glass, derived from the Latin faber
of design. 73
later,
in
"As early
as i860,
English industry had
France had been entirely
driven out of this field." 72 This newly gained independence from the historical conception of French designers in
who
mostly thought
terms of "Louis styles" was attributed exclusively to the schools
arts.
Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), 74 who later became so famous for her children's books, offers us an example of the style taught in these schools. For an examination in 1864, she had to submit designs for glazed tiles and won a prize for one of them (plate 94). In a symmetrical circular ornament, flowers, tendrils, and leaves are
a high standard of craftsmanship a technical require-
reduced fully to a surface-design and, rigorously abstract, repre-
ment in Art Nouveau, but also one of the very sources of its forms and its style, which explains the deterioration of its quality wherever Art Nouveau was produced industrially and in large quantities.
sented in lines and two-dimensional bodies with an obvious sense
(artisan).
Gaudi's ironwork, Obrist's embroideries, Horta's or Gui-
mard's furniture were not conceived for industrial mass-production.
daily
Art Nouveau adherents wanted to transform every object of life
into a
work of
art.
Its
very style was based on the
conception of the decorative arts as the equals of the "free"
Not only was
for the
complementary relationships of forms and intervals. This moreover what George Moore, who kept on the
sketch illustrates
side of the Impressionists, said ironically about the schooling during
more the drawing looked like a problem in a book of Euclid, the more the examiner was pleased." 75 Indeed, the painterly element is as absent from this work as all representative or narrative realism. Without great expenditure of imagination, the young Kate Greenaway produced a pattern which is typical of the style of the schools and indicates the sixties: "The harder
Henry Cole and
the "Schools of Design"
more aristocratic path that Morris chose, there existed other trends which aimed rather at a broad and more anonymous diffusion of their tastes and ideas and even tried to make In addition to the
and
finer the outline, the
98
that an early English Art sixties
Nouveau began
outside of Rossetti's domain.
A
also to develop in the
comparison with a work by
Van de Velde (plate 95) shows what the two artists have in common and what separates them: seen beside Kate Greenaway's ornamental design of 1 864, so obedient to the rules and so void of expression, Van de Velde's kaleidoscope-like window unfolds with both
Whatever its rational motivation, a new and absolutely different style was trying to impose itself. It was therefore natural that, in The Grammar of Ornament, the most important work on decoration published in the middle of the century (in 1910 it had gone through nine editions), the flat ornament in the Oriental style should play a preponderant
role. Flat
Moorish origin are represented Egyptian decorations are cited
and delicacy. Forms which remind us of both butterfly wings and flower-like shapes seem to pass through metamorphoses that lead them from the crystalline ornament to animated organic life. The transformable structure has found an ideal medium in the stained glass through which the light filters; it is
ornamentation of Greek vases
entirely conceived in terms of glass, while the technically indispen-
in
infinite force
comtwo disparity between High and early Art Nouveau:
sable leadings provide the outlines required
by the
style.
This
parison not only reveals the difference in the quality of the
works, but also the surging
but flowering according to the laws of nature, in
life,
richly differentiated
rhythms, as opposed to the systematic rigor of
a mere pattern. Yet, in the realm of Victorian taste,
away's design
is
extremely progressive:
it
is
Kate Green-
flat, linear,
simple,
easy to understand, and free from any attempt to imitate reality.
Owen
Jones and the
Grammar of Ornament
dian, Persian, or
dozens of plates.
ornaments of Chinese, In-
is
and the
linear
more
An
too,
opinion
is
always given
non-value of the ornament, and
favor of a sign or symbol which
in
distinctly preferred to the
three-dimensional style of the Romans. as to the value or the
Grammar
in the
is
always
it is
developed on the plane of the
surface without any attempt at depth. Prehistoric decorative forms
are
shown
as well as
many examples
of Celtic book ornaments,
from the Gothic to the "The world has become weary of the eternal repetition of the same conventional while the traditional Western
Baroque, take up comparatively
styles, little
space.
forms which have been borrowed from
away."
It
was not
in 1896,
but in 1856
styles
which have passed
when
that statement
was
made,
as well as the following: "The principles discoverable in the works of the past belong to us; not so the results." 78 In the domain of High Art Nouveau, Samuel Bing makes the same claim: "We must seek the spark of new life beneath the ashes of older
systems." 79
Kate Greenaway's ornament corresponded to such theoretical demands as Owen Jones (1809-74) had formulated in his Grammar of Ornament. "All ornament should be based on geometrical .": this was aimed as a blow to illusionistic naturalconstruction .
.
ism. "All junctions of curved lines with lines
with straight
(lines),
curved
(lines),
or of curved
should be tangential with each other
.
.
.":
blow at intersections in perspective. "Colour is used to assist in the development of form, and to distinguish objects or parts of objects one from another...": a blow at painterly or confused
a
tonalities. 76
Jones'
Grammar and
mous influence on
its
theses
which exercised an enor-
the taste of his times were
teachings of the South Kensington schools. of advocating flatness in decoration. It
Owen
among
the basic
Jones never tired
was a world of faded
re-
which heavy flowers bloomed on wallpapers and carpets, and where most of the floor coverings resembled a jungle of forms liefs, in
in
which one's
of
woven
feet
foliage.
seemed
to sink as
However,
as early as
following began to be expressed: floor,
is
also the
one waded through the thickets
"A
ground from which
1856, opinions like the
carpet, whilst all
should therefore be treated as a flat surface." 77
99
it
covers the
furniture [arises] ...
it
Owen as
an
Jones, an industrial designer
architect,
conducted
and
interior decorator as well
his fight against three-dimensional
orna-
ment in decoration of the flat surface with two weapons, one of which was the complement of the other. In addition to his theoretical demands and their illustration in instructive examples, he introduced sketches for actual use. True, the
silk
fabrics of the
period around 1870 (monochrome blue on blue, in a damask weave, plate 89) clearly reached back to the Gothic style, but, as an inde-
from historicism, as understood in the fullest sense of the word, and point distinctly in the direction of Art Nouveau. In the forms of plants, Jones senses forces of vegetative growth and movements that seem to create the pattern out of thempendent development,
selves as in
shift
an almost abstract manifestation of energies. Stylized
and gliding movement, without relief or inner design, but sharply confined and maintained in the flatness of the plane except for unimportant intersections, forms and complementary counter-forms of almost equal size are densely and coninto flat bodies in a soft
cisely united. Despite the smallness of the forms' details
change from blunt to smooth and from dark to though uninterrupted, breaks, precisely for
and the
light which, al-
this reason, the
con-
—
movement and the large, lively curves the leitmotiv give an impression of almost static calm. of Art Nouveau tinuity of the
—
On
the subject of forms
Ornament
insists
borrowed from nature, The Grammar of
on demonstrating that "in the best periods of art
ornament was rather based upon an observation of the principles which regulate the arrangement of form in nature than on an attempt to imitate the absolute forms of these works." 80 Jones atall
taches great importance to the relationship
structure
and
between forms, to their
development, and refuses to pursue the
their natural
He
demonstrates
this principle in a design of chestnut leaves (plate 97)
which are not
imitative representation of existing examples.
an ornament
in
themselves but can be used as the starting point for
an ornamental pattern: spread out rhythm. Here we
stressed
flat,
with precise outlines and
development at
see the beginnings of a
the culmination of which we find Van de Velde's stained glass window, Voysey's wallpapers, or other works of Art Nouveau. At the same time, there is an anticipation of the Japanese style of the nineties in Jones' design of chestnut leaves which shows how early this type of Eastern style had taken root in English design, thereby
preparing the
Nor
way
for
its full
way
Grammar
did Morris (who frequently consulted The
nament) copy anything fabrics
flowering almost four decades
and
his
existing,
even though at
wallpapers look surprisingly
(plate 99).
He
rich, in
likewise derived his forms
essence of the figure than
from
its
first
in Morris' designs
style out of it
its
and
lines.
of Or-
sight his
the Victorian
more from
the
appearance. Plant patterns,
Art Nouveau was already contained
that his disciples had to do was to lift his weave of small parts in order to transpose
all
intricate
from a polyphonic orchestration into a tune for a and colorplate VII).
single voice
(plates 85, 98,
In a series of watercolors that he began soon after the publication of The
Grammar
curtains, furniture,
of Ornament, Rossetti has covered gowns, and sometimes even the background with a
repeated pattern of
little
flowers, circles or hearts, geometrical
forms (above right) as they appear on the one hand tions of The
Grammar
furniture, the rooms,
in
illustra-
and, on the other hand, around 1900, in the
and the
textiles of Baillie Scott. In Rossetti's
ornament, the pattern and poetry of the essentially
combine
flower
artistic
Carpet design (1861)
Christopher Dresser
later.
arranged in front view or in profile, are transformed into orna-
ments by clearly curving
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
element
Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), 81 like Henry Cole and Owen Jones, was primarily concerned with exerting an educational influence. Since 1859, he
had been on the
staff of teachers at the
Schools of Design attached to the South Kensington Museum. At first
he gave lectures and wrote works on botanical subjects;
from 1862 (when
later,
book The Art of Decorative Design was number of works on the principles of decorative and ornamental design. But in opposition to Cole and Jones, Dresser devoted himself mainly to practical work. His designs for furniture, ceramics, glass, metalware, wallpapers, and fabrics range from the strictly functional to the somewhat eccentric. Now and then, we find him bound by close ties to historicism; elsewhere, he achieves pure Art Nouveau. The colorplate with "Plans and Elevations of Flowers" (plate 1 01) that Dresser designed for Jones' Grammar of Ornament was his
published) until the eighties, he wrote a great
intended to demonstrate that "the basis of
all
form
is
geometry." 82
In contrast to the painterly and soft forms of Victorian surfacedecorations, with their illusionistic renderings of bodies and space,
here a closed and clearly discernible form
is
predicted, by reducing
harmony. Together with the form-structure, the diarm
the forms of nature to a structure-system. The elements of an orna-
of fairy tales and romance which had been lacking in the more prac-
ment like an emblem or signature are already contained and developed in this system. Dresser's basic principle was this: "Flowers and other natural objects should not be used as ornaments, but
tical
in
work of
the "artist-designers" thus
came
to life again
1900, not only in Baillie Scott's work, but in almost
Nouveau.
all
around of Art
conventional representations founded on them." 83 The natural
100
form therefore had art.
Much
as
to be transposed into
Runge had already done
in a
an ornamental form of
style, Dresser's design, instead
flower sketch (page 9$}.
moniously balanced,
Dresser's page of flower patterns established a geometrical
for the structure of the design.
Compared
n
to Dresser's later a
truly artistic designs, this page, lacking sensuousness
•
it
and emotion
offers a kind of hygienic instruction in design rather than anythii artistic
or ornamental.
In the
work of Christopher
the University of Jena, one
Dresser,
may
studied botany ar
perhaps detect the starting point
Nouveau
of the preference that Art
who had
revealed for floral patterns.
In 1859, Dresser published Unity in Variety, the fundamental idea
of which
mon,
is
to lay bare the one element that all plants
in their habitats, in the
way
have
in
com-
they grow, and in the principles
:s
of
life,"
of creating a pattern that
his illustrations are true precursors
of the symbolic and sign-like
symbols of organic
ser himself, in his
refers constantly
As early
as
1
in fact,
life.
Dres-
decorative designs that soon followed this book,
back to the book's patterns of botanical structure.
862, he then recognized the "line of life" in the energy-
laden curves and the linear rhythm of nature and, in 1859, in the
preliminary remarks of one of his publications, he stated that
endowed with the power of growth. 84 This view both anticipates and establishes the dynamic plants are organized living creatures,
views and symbolism of Art Nouveau. To give preference to the general pattern rather than to the particular visual appearance of the different kinds of plants or indeed of "individual" flowers
much more
typical of Art
Nouveau than
the
more
is
superficial use
of certain forms of flowers and their representation, however sty-
even
may
have determined the more floral character of Art Nouveau. Eugène Grasset's famous work La Plante lized,
if this
et ses applications
at times
ornementales began to appear only in 1896 and
in no way one of the sources of the more plant-loving forms of Art Nouveau, being rather founded on their already accomplished is
and publications began to appear nearly half a century earlier and thus created a real tradition and continuity which reached right up to the Art Nouveau of around 1900. style. Dresser's designs
In 1870, an unusual ornamental design
was published under the
perhaps even more unusual name of Force and Energy (plate 103), a title that reminds us of Van de Velde; Dresser attempted here,
above ity. 85
all,
to
embody
the idea of force, energy, power,
This conception could not have been surpassed by
and vitalHigh Art
Nouveau, though the design itself bears the still incomplete character of early Art Nouveau. Conceived in about the same period as Owen Jones' fabric (plate 89) and likewise based on the Gothic
101
har-
or motive powers of organic growth. The subject
itself
some Frank Furness (plate 233), s Sullivan (plate 236), Gaudi (plate 217), and Viollet-le-Duc e U n 61) also developed their dynamic botanical Art Nouveau forms from the plant-like vigor of the Gothic style; Furness and Sullivan were almost certainly influenced by Dresser, presumably the preference of the times for historicism determined to
at this regression to the Gothic style.
rv
Gau
r
Fi
simul
oo. '8
•
ï
folio vo!u
.)
1876, Dresser's Studies in Design were published
in
London,
Paris,
and
New
ith fine color lithographs, in a
York,
way
as a sene.
the continuât
of their structure. The patterns, ideal figures, and essential forms of
ornaments of Art Nouveau;
is
strives rather to elucidate the rays of energy,
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER Botany" (1859)
Illustration for " The
Rudiments of
1
(
of Jones'
Grammar
of Ornament. In addition to the great
number
of 18 j
(plate 86).
1
Toward
the end of the seventies
of patterns of Arabic, Moorish, Indian, and Chinese origin and
ning of the eighties, High Art
some
pletely
plates of "pure Celtic" or "purest ancient Persian" style,
it
also included definitions such as "medieval in conception," "in the
of certain Gothic ornaments," or "Greek, but used with some
spirit
freedom." Although, without exception, the forms are
posed into the
flat surface
— inasmuch
trans-
all
examples of
as historical
two-dimensional forms have not been altogether preferred
—and
although Dresser stresses
it
in the text the fact that in all cases
a matter of expressing his individual feelings, faithful, in a
88
he
still
"two
circular compositions in the
ments
in the
remains
broader sense, to historicism. But, here and there,
already find a few plates defined as "a frieze in the
new
Kate Greenaway's
style,"
though
new
style," or
this style
was
new
we
style,"
"marginal orna-
remains very close to
ornament (plate 94). Art Nouveau indeed the same irresolute and feeble manner, with all
tile
reveals itself here in
and repeated patterns that refer back to frost flowers on iced windowpanes, Dresser writes about the origins of this "new style": "For some the shyness of an early phase. Dealing with ornaments
eighteen years frost as
it
I
had been
in the habit of sketching designs of the
generally appears in winter on the
rooms. But only eight years later [that
that
new
was now elaborated
windows of our
to say ten years before
would mean 1864] did I recogornament." 87 This was the style
the publication of his book, which nize in these sketches a
is
style of
in the designs of
1874 (plate 104).
These ornaments do not reveal a return to any historical
style,
but proceed from forms that exist in nature and are subsequently
developed into forms of
art.
They
still
lack,
however, the true
ments of Art Nouveau, for instance that graceful flow from line,
though Dresser had postulated
it
as early as 1862.
rounded curves and forms that are otherwise so in the surface-patterns of early English
ele-
line to
The softly
easily to be
found
Art Nouveau, especially
in
works of Morris and Jones, nevertheless are achieved by Dresser in three-dimensional bodies rather than in the surface-plane. His glassware and ceramics and his glass pitcher in its metal setting the
(plates 90, 92) are (setting aside those already painted setti)
the first real Art
Nouveau three-dimensional
by Ros-
and completely closed forms have curved and unbroken ideal and smoothly flowing forms are not only dominant
molded or blown glass, but also in objects made of metal and ceramics. With their extraordinary simplicity and their smooth, undecorated surfaces, where the ornaments are only due to the structure and spring from the technique of fabrication, these vessels stood in absolute contrast to those shown in the Exhibition here in
in its full purity,
and
for the first time, also in high relief.
Almost without exception, the three-dimensional works of the had prepared the way for the rectangular or geometrical late phase of Art Nouveau. The first examples of the latter are to be found in the box-shaped pieces of furniture and other objects of interior decoration that were depicted by Rossetti in his paintings and carried out in three-dimensional reality by his friends Morris, Burne-Jones, and Webb. But we discover yet another and very curious parallel: the architect William Butterearly English phase
who
and decorated some of the most satisfying neo-Gothic churches in his own austere and personal taste, has left us a small number of pieces of furniture designed around 1855 (plate 91). Without any contact with the Pre-Raphaelites, these works were developed from the same sources of English field
(1814-1900),
built
neo-Gothic style and certainly Butterfield's big mirror might
have existed tation,
with
in its
one of Rossetti's early pictures: the inlaid ornamengeometrical, two-dimensional design,
54).
style
its
is
closely relat-
Girlhood of Mary Virgin (plate Such furniture does not refer directly to any style of the past;
ed to that of the balustrade
might
in the
at best be defined as early Victorian interpreted after
manner of the Pre-Raphaelites, but surprises one by the simplicand lightness of its construction. It appears modest and serviceable, and though its forms are in the grand manner the economical decoration stresses only the points of articulation and is integrated with refinement and taste. Comparing it to the manneristic Baroque sideboard at the Exhibition of 18 ji, with its deep shadows the
ity
caused by a disrupted high
relief
concealing
its
structure (plate
how much "younger" Butterfield's pieces of how much more distinctly they point toward Art
296), one sees clearly
furniture are,
Nouveau. Butterfield anticipated by decades the and Webb and even those of Godwin.
ideas of Morris
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
objects. Their
simplified outlines;
and
and the beginitself com-
Nouveau manifested
In the early eighties, Arthur Heygate 88
Mackmurdo (1851-1942)
Among
the pieces of his furwent even further in this direction. niture that have survived, the small writing desk (plate 96) in the Morris Gallery is probably his most original work. Utterly simple and lacking any outward adornment, owing to its clearly displayed structure and unusual proportions, it is as though this desk was an ornament in itself. The exaggeratedly long legs are intended to raise
102
and feature the top portion of the desk. This theme of concentrating the mass of the writing surface (which ends in a protruding ledge) is repeated again in the construction of the drawers and pigeonholes.
The supports extend upward throughout the unit at the rear about an even closer integration of the upper part and the
to bring
writing surface
itself;
projecting square plates cover the terminals
of the supports like the capitals of columns. In 1886 this theme
is
taken up again by Mackintosh in the celebrated pavilion he built for the exhibition in Liverpool, which
was praised
in the British
Ar-
and welcomed as a protest against Renaissance historicism. 89 Later, it was Mackmurdo's disciple, Voysey, who especially took over the peculiar pattern of the supports rising above the body of chitect
and covered them with a panel (plate 319). This Mackmurdo's then reappears in works of Mackintosh (plate 244) and, more or less modified, in the Continental High Art Nouveau, as Mackmurdo's influence can, in general, certainly be traced in works of Serrurier-Bovy and Horta. a piece of furniture idea of
metrical climbing plant swings boldly upward, like a fan
and sending out almost
is crossed several times by a second sheaf of shoots from the same stem and swinging over the whole surface in an S-shaped movement which rises to the top of the chair back with blossoms or darting leaf ends and then turns downward again. This whole formal development occurs exclusively within the sur-
face.
The separate shoots show the
.
ment
only in the diminishing line of the legs and the abrupt flaring out of the knobs at
its feet.
Most of Mackmurdo's
pieces of furniture
are of the rectangular, straight-lined kind that anticipates late Art
Nouveau. However, suggestions of
in the feet of the writing
High Art Nouveau
in
some of
desk there exist slight his other creations: in
vitality of organic life: the
and dodging movement whereby we can so easily recognize High Art Nouveau. An exemplary feature is that form and counterform complete each other, that they are developed from dark areas and intervals entirely in a graphic sense in the same way as, two years later, Mackmurdo designed with graphic means the title page of his book Wren's City Churches (page m). Mackmurdo achieved what Owen Jones had demanded in theory in 1856: "Beauty of form is produced by lines growing out one ." Owen Jones also defrom the other in gradual undulations sluggish gliding
branch and root."
Art Nouveau curves or rhythms appear
wave-
like shoots
of the extended supports with the flat surfaces that serve as limits to the cabinetwork. Typical
stems unfolding
originating
With the exception of the circular drawer-pulls, right angles Mackmurdo's writing desk, together with the shifts from the horizontal to the vertical of the sharp-edged shafts
prevail throughout
its
parallel shoots. This fan of
.
clared: "In surface decoration all line should flow out of a parent
stem. Every ornament,
is
90
however
distant, should be traced to
its
The abstract character of the chair back ornais only one small step missing
indeed so obvious that there
ornament of Art Nouveau and the abstract "Belgian" line. If Art Nouveau expresses itself simply, powerfully, and with an almost ascetic note in the works of Dresser, Mackmurdo handles it luxuriantly, with a more powerful imagination and with the hedonism of the later Continental Art Nouveau. between
this floral
Mackmurdo came
of a Scottish family.
As
in Morris' case, fifteen
the outline of a chest of drawers, for instance, or in the curve of the
years earlier, Ruskin's prominent personality gained a decisive in-
canopy and
Mackmurdo during the years of his studies in Oxford. In 1873, Mackmurdo joined the staff of an architect's studio in London and made friends with Philip Webb and Norman Shaw, the latter being the leading architect working in the Queen Anne
cabinet, or,
in the sculpturally
conceived capitals of a large music
more pronouncedly and determining the whole form,
in
a small vertical cabinet of 1887. The shafts at the four corners of this
narrow
cabinet are placed diagonally after the fashion of
little
fluence over
Borromini and curve gently outward, becoming thicker above the
style.
cabinet itself and then curving strongly inward so as to support a
whole group of
shelf or tray at their
appears
works in his
it
in the third
reveals
its
narrowest point. Here, High Art Nouveau
finest
famous chair (plate
reproduction
in the
the style, though
Mackmurdo's other development in surface-structures. Even 297) of 1881 (known to us only from its
dimension, whereas in
1899
issue of
all
The Studio) the characteristics of
High Art Nouveau, openwork ornamentation of the back of the chair. Apart from this, its form is simple and conventional, corresponding perhaps to the Queen Anne style that was still the ideal of the time. From a base that suggests the design of waves, an asymit
are limited to the
103
heralds the beginning of
Mackmurdo's house soon became
the meeting place for a
The poets Laurence Binyon and William Butler Yeats, both of whom wrote definitive works on the art of William Blake, were regular visitors; Mackmurdo discovered and encouraged the painter Frank Brangwyn and offered him a studio. artists.
Charles Annesley Voysey, in the early eighties, worked under Mack-
murdo's direction. Madtmurdo knew Whistler and Oscar Wilde, and was even so deeply impressed by Whistler's ideas concerning decoration and colors that his stand at the Liverpool Exhibition of 1886 was painted in bright yellow, Whistler's favorite color.
The different currents of early Art Nouveau and of the initial phase of High Art Nouveau were everywhere connected in Eng-
HEYWOOD SUMNER la
Vignette from Friedrich de
Motte-Fouqué's "Undine" (1888)
and Rossetti, there also existed a relationship between Mackmurdo and Whistler and the Japanese style, and another one between Mackmurdo and Morris and the land. Just as between Whistler
Mackmurdo was
Pre-Raphaelites. Like Dresser,
studies of nature; for his rare architectural
had been greatly helped by animals, and the
human
all
works he even wrote he
his studies of organic structure in plants,
figure. 91 In 1882,
Century Guild, a workshop render
stimulated by his
Mackmurdo founded
the
for interior decoration, in order "... to
branches of art the sphere no longer of the tradesman
but of the
artist.
It
would
restore building,
decoration, glass-
painting, pottery, woodcarving
and metal to their right place beside 92 painting and sculpture." Here again is an endeaver to place the applied arts or crafts on the same level as the "free" arts of painting and sculpture. In friendly competition with the Morris Company, the Century Guild pursued similar aims, though its forms owed much less to the Gothic Style. Herbert Home, Selwyn Image, Frederick Shields, and Clement Heaton, an artist who worked in metal and enamel, were among the founders; the potter William de Morgan and the many-sided Heywood Sumner were also associated with the Guild.
attention
its
somewhat on
the
narrow
field of artisan virtues as
Ruskin had understood them, simplicity, usefulness, and functionality. The Arts and Crafts thus already carried in themselves the
toward a modern objectivity, which finally transcended High Art Nouveau. The shelf and cabinet style of Arts and Crafts was in turn influenced by the atmosphere of cultivated simplicity which surrounded Morris and Webb, and doubtless also by Godwin's elegant Anglo-Japanese furniture with seeds of certain tendencies
its
transparent structures; in the seventies, the Queen
Anne
style
had its effect on Arts and Crafts too. This return to the and comfort of the English house of the beginning of the eighteenth century, long before the styles of Chippendale and Rococo, was initiated in architecture with Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) as its most important advocate. 94 His style is purest in the Old Swan House, which he built in Chelsea in 1876 (plate 298) and which, with Webb's Red House, built for Morris (plate 58), certainly
simplicity
and Godwin's White House, built for Whistler (plate 71), is one of the most original works that English architecture produced during the second half of the century. Shaw, like the other two abovementioned architects, in no way turned his back entirely on tradition, but likewise referred back to the English town house of the early eighteenth century, though avoiding exterior imitations of
Arts and Crafts
style
that
During the whole second half of the nineteenth century, not only Morris but a number of other "artist-designers" were thus at work; they were not industrial designers, but independent artists with manifold capacities and
interests, 93
men who were
all
As
opposed to
went by, they became increasingly conscious of the force that drove them to create a new style. The last quarter of the century was then dominated by these artist-designers, who brought about a noticeable change in industrially produced wares for daily use; the style they had invented subsequently gained influence until it dominated industrial production
all
and to
historical imitations.
the years
Though the Old Swan House never suggests any of the swinging curves of High Art Nouveau, it yet reveals influences of a trend that ran parallel to it in England and was represented by the architects Mackmurdo, Voysey, Ashbee, Baillie Scott, Lethaby, and, last but not least, by Mackintosh and late Art Nouveau. Several brick wall surfaces that have been left bare of any revetment are superimposed or protrude so they
all
structure of gest
as to suggest terrace effects in the façade;
seem to consist of thinly stretched membranes, revealing a
new and
slightly exaggerated proportions
Art Nouveau only
in a
narrow windows on the main
of Europe.
The individual currents, in many ways already connected with each other, and the activity of more or less independent masters like Dresser, finally fused in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1883. Its very successful exhibitions greatly reinforced these attempts. It was indeed the Arts and Crafts that later became so popular on the Continent, bearing fruit, above all, in Belgium. But, during the nineties, the same Arts and Crafts rather discouraged High Art Nouveau the solution of aesthetic
and deriving from the valid principles of the past a quality was peculiar to himself and belonged to his own time.
in
England, being
less
concerned with
and formal problems and concentrating
which sug-
broader sense. The unusually floor, the
tall
and
broad wall surfaces between
them, the shaft-like, angular bay windows that protrude over delicate corbels like shelves in a piece of cabinetwork, the
laid out in a horizontal
band of windows, and,
upper story
finally, the sharply
protruding and cubic dormer windows reaching round the corner, all
these are very characteristic features.
A
window
pattern, like
that leading round the corner of the dormer windows,
is
repeated
and developed in 1907 in Olbrich's Hochzeitsturm in Darmstadt (plate 258), and is also typical of many buildings of the twentieth century. From the point of view of style, the Old Swan House
104
105
io6
105
ROBERT BLAKE
106
FREDERICK SHIELDS H Like" (1880)
The King and the Queen 0) the Fairies (1787)
Binding for "Life and Works of William
107
io8
107
EDWARD BURNE-JONES Ue Golden Stairs
108
WILLIAM BLAKE
The
Dream
(1880)
of Jaeob (1808)
Opposite: 109 1
10
EDWARD BURNE-JONLS WILLIAM BLAKE
Orpheus (1875)
Then the Lord answered Job out of the Whirl-
wind (1825) .
1
1
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI How Sir Percival iverc
Died by 112
the
Way
Fed with
Sir
Galahad, Sir Bars and
the Sancgreal; But Sir Percival's Sister
(1S64)
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Chorus of the Skies (1796)
106
109
I
12
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107
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lovely infanta hftaa
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'leep xl«<*.j>naj>py ct _] creation siepVaita! a smile! Sleep aleeo. V»i£y /flee» S5^iy*'\ulr o'er thee tfiy motnef wee •y^i
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114
n6 113
HEYWOOD SUMNER
Binding for "Undine"
(1888) 114
WILLIAM BLAKE A
115
HEYWOOD SUMNER
Cradle Song (1799) Binding for "Cinderella"
(1882) 116
WILLIAM BLAKE
Christ Ministered to by Angels
(1807 or 1808) 1 1
JAN TOOROP
Sketch for
"
77?e
7W
Brides"
(.892)
*
'
'.
,
'
l
.
*'l
•
1
.
.
»
offers a close parallel to
Mackmurdo's
which had been designed ten years
The revolutionary character of tecture if
and
we compare
it
to a
this
William Blake was forgotten for more
contemporaneous building that represents the
was considered mad. His anticipation of Art Nouveau remained, for the time being, without any consequence. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the first to rediscover Blake's genius, perhaps because Rossetti himself possessed what Laurence Binyon expressed in the
effects,
and the forms of the
in
which deter-
details, as well as of the
whole, remain closed; one's general impression
is
thus of coolness,
objectivity, sobriety, with something slightly bizarre,
however, in-
herent in the proportions, which seem to suggest that the house was
phantoms represented
and Burne- Jones' rooms of Shaw's building were originally full of paintings by these two masters and decorated with wallpapers, carpets, and other elements designed by pictures rather than for
human
in Rossetti's
beings. Indeed, the
A splendid, pompous example of historicism, the Paris
Company. Opéra stands
Loud, booming, even thundering
in its sugges-
Morris, as well as with furniture created by the Morris
at the opposite pole.
in 1827,
than twenty years. His visionary art seemed episodic; he himself
Paris (plate 23). The pure forms of simple geometry
built for the
Influence of William Blake
After his death
otherwise unobtrusive archi-
dominant trend of the times: Charles Garnier's Grand Opéra
mined Shaw's
The
earlier.
Nouveau become doubly evident
relationship to Art
its
writing desk (plate 96),
little
whole building
tions of violent motion, the
as well as the
number-
"A
following words:
which has
in
to judge of
it
it
the
subtle fluid streams through Blake's
germ of intoxication; hence people find
its
hard
without a certain extravagance, either of admiration
or repulsion. Possibly indeed a 'sane' estimation of thing of
work, it
it
misses some-
essence." 95
At the age of eighteen, Rossetti admired the Songs of Innocence and was looking for originals by Blake when, in 1873, the Notebook (later called the Rossetti Manuscript) was offered to him for purchase a paper-covered book filled with a great many poems, notes, watercolors, and sketches. At first, Rossetti felt it con-
—
firmed his
own
convictions, seeing Blake's violent rejection of
relief.
Baroque painting and his fierce attacks against Rubens, Rembrandt, and Reynolds, all of them "balsam to Rossetti's soul and grist to his
fusing
mill," 96
less
individual forms are
all
conceived in the deepest possible
The general effect of the massive building is deliberately conand bewildering, that of an assemblage of the very heterogeneous forms, but with Baroque principles which are developed with imagination and quality.
At
and
it is
well to note that Rossetti bought Blake's
two years before he painted
his
own
first pictures.
the notes, the sketches in the manuscript
form
comparison might seem unjust; not only does it oppose a middle-class town house to a public, imperial, and repre-
to
sentative building, but also the outside of a building to a room, even
as a strong influence of Blake's poetry
though the room corresponds exactly to the exterior of the house. But the objection is not justified insofar as every style has its spe-
poem The
first sight this
cific task, its
favorite themes. In the staircase of the Paris Opéra,
found its ultimate and triumphant realization. Here, employ a certain style has expressed itself most com-
its
his conceptions of a style entirely
forms developing upon a Blessed
flat surface
Damozel of
1847,
reveal analogies to Blake's style
played a preponderant role
was
97
may have
Notebook
In addition to
helped Rossetti
opposed to Baroque, with
and merely outlined. Just is
to be felt in Rossetti's
so also
do
his early paintings
and subjects. Blake's example thus development of Rossetti's own
in the
to influence an entire school. William
historicism has
style just as the latter
the wish to
Michael Rossetti was thus justified when he wrote of the Notebook:
pletely
and with the greatest perfection, whilst the diametrically opposed conception of the English avant-garde revealed itself most
Dante Gabriel's "ownership of raphaelite (sic) movement." 98
purely in a simple town house. Since the nineties the tradition of the
The Rossetti brothers came into contact with Blake's biographer Alexander Gilchrist and also became acquainted with the few col-
English house was
felt to
tinent too, especially
(with
its
be an example to be followed on the Con-
when
the influence of
curves) began to decline.
A
High Art Nouveau
fine testimony to this appre-
was given by Hermann Muthesius in English Contemporary Architecture (1902) and his three illustrated volumes of The English House (1904-05). ciation
this
volume conduced
to the Pre-
which in those days still preserved the relatively undispersed works of Blake. William Michael even prepared a descriptive catalogue of them for Gilchrist, in most cases after having perlections
sonally seen and studied the individual works. After Gilchrist's
death, the Rossettis completed his
work and published
with pictor ignotus as
This volume comprises a great
its subtitle.
it
in
1864
number of reproductions and many vignettes are scattered over title pages and sometimes in the text: flames, clouds, and floating
109
sylphs, figures in
which Blake came very
close to those of
Art
over the Body of Jesus or Christ Ministered to by Angels (plates
Nouveau.
301, 116). Millais' sketch reminds us of Blake's symmetrical ara-
During the fifties and sixties, this kind of rapport between Rosand Blake's ideas and art continued uninterrupted, if only in the themes and details borrowed by Rossetti from Blake. The angel inserted by Blake in a corner of a cloud is repeated in one of Rossetti's works in almost every detail, though Rossetti's figure is more
besques of floating and loosely connected figures, of his unbroken
setti
three-dimensional. Blake's phantoms here assume flesh and color
and, to a certain degree, acquire physical weight. But the general
theme remains the same
in
both Blake and Rossetti: the gesture of
Art Nouveau rhythms, and of the synthesis he achieved out of the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. Millais' design had been conceived for a real stone window, but Blake, too, had written that he
wanted some of fresco, as
drawings to be carried out on a large
murals to decorate the altar of a church.
Edward and
his
Burne-Jones, the most highly paid painter of the sixties
seventies, shared Rossetti's admiration for Blake.
the angel's arms, the turning of the head, the level profile, and the
panied Rossetti on
enclosing wings, with their tips crossed in front of the body.
had passages from Blake's works read
Not only was
Rossetti receptive to the entranced atmophere, the
disposition of the forms in the flat surface,
and the narrow scene
of action of Blake's picture, but he also understood Blake's idea of conceiving the
human
figure as an
grated these conceptions into his
ornament
in itself. Rossetti inte-
own work which was more
ob-
and more realistic in its details; long after him, Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters, increasingly
jectively presented
up
in fact
to
abstracted
human
portant
Art Nouveau. In several variations, Rossetti created
in
ornamental
figure-ornaments became more and more im-
uniform figures arranged on a level with the picture's surface, something that since the age of Mannerism had friezes of
ceased to occur.
He was
m
altogether fascinated
by Blake's love of
and 112): the parallel character of limbs, of outlines which made the form appear as a narrow, ribbon-like, two-dimensional body, and the parallelisms too between the movements of different figures. The unbroken and flexible axis and long flowing garments made the human figure particularly fit for the parallelisms (plates
expression of ornamental gestures. Blake's profile
way
of disposing the
and the axis of an inclined head horizontally became typical
of Rossetti's art too (plate 57). This bend of the head in a strange and almost gliding movement (plates 109, 126) was then considered
was also generally adopted by Art Nouveau artists on the European continent." Rossetti introduced the members and friends of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to Blake's work. Their age thus became haunted by Blake, merely because Rossetti had rediscovered him. 100 More-
essentially Pre-Raphaelitic, until
it
over, Blake produced this effect in a dual manner: on the one hand,
by being
felt in Rossetti's
very influential work, on the other hand,
own work which also had been made known by Rossetti. The Design for a Gothic Window (plate 300), which John Everett
through Millais style,
his
drew
in
1853,
when he most
closely emulated Rossetti's
reminds one of Blake's watercolors such as Angels Hovering
scale in
101
visits to Gilchrist,
He accom-
Blake's biographer, and later
him aloud while he was working. In many elements that he borrowed from the great visionary, one can feel their close affinity at both the formal and the intellectual level. In the whirl of delicate lines which the lamenting Orpheus traverses, and in the liquid loops and spirals which flow around him (plate 109), Burne-Jones embodied (artistically smoothed out and less violent) a motif suggesting the storm out of which the Lord speaks to Job (plate no). In 1875, Burne-Jones' Orpheus series already reveals features of early English Art Nouveau. In one of his most famous paintings, The Golden Stairs (plate 107), a picture filled with mysticism, symbolism, and to
102
a strangely asceticized sensualism, the spiral construction could scarcely be imagined without
The
Dream
some influence of Blake's watercolor,
of Jacob (plate 108), with
and of the small
figures descending
its
spiral of Jacob's ladder
and ascending,
all
clad in long,
flowing robes. In 1868, after long preparatory studies, Algernon Charles Swin-
burne completed
his
which he speaks Blake's work. Swin-
important essay on Blake
of the "flame-like impulse of the idea" in
burne had the binding and the
title
in
page of the essay decorated
with fascicles of flames and small figures borrowed from the margins of Blake's Jerusalem. Again, the initiative for this essay
from
Rossetti, without
whom
came
Swinburne, as founder and promoter
of English literary Symbolism, would never have written his bril-
on Blake, without which Blake would never have become an ideal for a whole school of poets and writers. 103 Since then, studies on Blake have become increasingly important 104 so that his paintings now arouse as much interest as his poetry and prose. liant essay
In 1874, a series of 537 large Blake watercolors illustrating Edward Young's Night Thoughts came into the hands of a London bookseller. Until then, this series collection.
had been
For the next twenty years
in
an inaccessible private
this bookseller exhibited these
strong works in his shop in the Haymarket.
He
did not wish to
sell
110
them "because they served as a centre of attraction for many customers who might otherwise have gone elsewhere to buy their books." 105 A knowledge of many important works of Blake can therefore be assumed to have been widespread among the artists who interest us here, 106 and Blake's own increasing popularity allows us to draw certain conclusions concerning his influence on a change
in the Victorian ideal of
In 1880, a
new
Blake became
form.
edition of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William
who
necessary. Frederick Shields,
also
wrote on
Blake and later worked with Mackmurdo, designed the binding (plate 106). English
Art Nouveau began thereby to acquire a cer-
tain continuity as a result of its individual
various problems.
On
mature solutions to
the one hand, this binding clearly imitates
Blake (plate 105); 107 on the other hand, it satisfies the demands of Art Nouveau even in the ambiguous relationship of the gold design to
its
purple ground, or of the purple design to
Yet one
still
tive design
golden ground.
and decorajuxtaposition, and the play
detects here a certain hesitation: lettering
remain separate
in their
between form and counterform plicity
its
is
uncertain.
We
still
miss the sim-
and concision of the emblematic designs that distinguish the High Art Nouveau.
masterpieces of
All the qualities that were
still
lacking in this binding appeared
works of Mackmurdo, for example in his chair of 1881 (plate 297), in the back of which there flicker the same flaming flowers as in the binding of Wren's City Churches of 1883 (at right). A style of curved and linear High Art Nouveau had thus attained full maturity in England twelve years before Victor Horta built the Maison Tassel in Brussels. But Mackmurdo's flaming flower is borrowed from Blake, as well as the soft coils of the lettering which is integrated with the ornament (plate 27). In in their full perfection in the
other respects too, this historical fact
is
Blake's influence which, until then,
had made
decisive: for the first time, itself felt
only in
book illustrations, now ornamental design and patterns and counter-patterns. Mackmurdo paintings and in
began to extend also to
used variations of Blake's flaming flower in printed fabrics, in the
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
piece of the first issue consisted in a ical illustration
rowed from Blake that of an exhibition,
Hobby
it
has significance in view of the contents of the work: after the
fashion of the phoenix,
new
life rises
churches that had been built by
Mackmurdo's
periodical, The
he began to publish bert
111
Home,
in
Wren
out of the ashes, like the
after the great
London
fire.
Century Guild Hobby Horse, which
1884 together with Selwyn Image and Her-
clearly stresses their affinity with Blake.
The
frontis-
so patently a jumble of elements bor-
the critic of The Studio, discussing it
it
and
"
—
as "Blake-like". 108
On
it
retro-
the occasion
in the first issue of the
will our readers believe it?
name
—neither
in this exhibition." 109
To this issue Frederick Shields contributed a drawing of the room in which Blake had worked and died, and the pages of text of this very care-
Blake nor Rossetti has place or
and to thrive
page of Wren's City Churches,
is
somewhat amateurish symbol-
Mackmurdo complained,
were missing from
tions destined to
title
page for "Wren's City
Horse, that "the weightiest works of the English school"
with
theme; developed in the
which
spectively in 1898, refered to
embroidered panels of a screen (plate 100), and also in woodwork or metal. For several years, he seems to have been truly obsessed this
Title
Churches" (1883)
fully printed periodical (the first of
many
such bibliophile publica-
England and also later on the Continent atmosphere of Art Nouveau) were decorated with small landscapes taken from Blake's Virgil woodappear
in
so well in the
cuts (plate 38). In the second issue
Home then quoted one of Blake's
and a facsimile of William Blake's broadsheet of Little Tom the Sailor was included, so as to show Blake's lettering, which was also praised by Mackmurdo in the accompanying text. The 1887 issue reproduced Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. From the
essays,
example
in
order to achieve a similar synthesis of image, text, and
ornament. In Flora's Feast above
all
(facing page), in the flaming
flower-creatures that seem to be a blend of the animal and the
human
elements, Blake's ideas are developed by Crane, though in a daemonic manner. On the Continent, Crane was then considered the most important representative of the "English style"; in less
his later writings
on
art teaching, he never failed to express his
gratitude to Blake and, for didactic purposes, likewise reproduced
many of his
master's designs to illustrate his
own
arguments. 111
Charles Ricketts, whose ambitions went further, worked
in
a
sphere of the fabulous that was not really intended for children.
CHARLES RICKETTS
many
Being interested in
Vignette from "The Dial" (1889)
quainted with Blake's work at the very
began to work on
his
own,
Mackmurdo and
Blake's works.
As
his contributors
early as 1882,
were thus familiar with
Hey wood Sumner, who was closely
connected with
Mackmurdo and
ing, Blake-like,
flaming flowers for the binding of the score of Cin-
the Century Guild, designed dart-
derella (plate 115); actually they
somehow
still
seemed to
bristle,
SumUndine, English High
work.
On
passes
it
the cover, which owes a lot to the
second issue
writings. Later, Ricketts spoke critically of Blake's belief that he
own
faces of these apparitions
mainly with colorful
illustrations, remain, together
with those of
Kate Greenaway, perhaps the most beautiful illustrated books for the young that the second half of the nineteenth century produced. At the very start of his career, in the sixties, Crane had known Blake's work, 110 but then only gradually did he begin to follow his
in his
but sur-
woodcut vignettes (at left) and style from Blake's visionary art. The of The Dial begins with a quotation from Blake's
ner's design for the binding of the fairy tale
However, the lines of the draped garments flow with a more even, broad, and symmetrical sweep than those of the slender twigs and leaves of the water plants, though their forms are similar and related to each other as if the former had somehow developed from the latter. Nor was it fortuitously that the Romantic fairy tale of Undine inspired this design where the watersprite with the Latin name suggesting waves is represented by the "eloquent" forms of waves. Here, a decorative and illustrative design is both "surface and symbol," as Oscar Wilde claimed that it should be. Again, we see how closely English Art Nouveau, during all the time that it lasted, was connected with Romantic and Symbolist literature. In their predilection for fables and fairy tales, Blake and Art Nouveau are closely related. The numerous children's books which Walter Crane designed,
became obvious
Hobby Horse
in richness, Ricketts printed
was merely copying
are assimilated.
As soon as he first when he published his
that derive their themes
the flow of their lines lacking real continuity. But in 1888, in
Art Nouveau appears fully developed. Just as with Blake, but in a more organized manner, a half-illustrative, half-decorative design surrounds the lettering in a streaming movement in which all forms
ac-
start.
as early as 1889,
periodical, The Dial, the influence of Blake start,
was
strange and remote things, he
his
visions.
Blake also believed that the
were revealed to him
as
forms that were
if "organized and minutely beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce." To this, Ricketts objected that: "To copy, even from a
already complete in themselves, as
articulated
vision,
is
a picture
not to create. Blake
was
made
this mistake,
a literal rendering of a vision, in
speaking as though
which the technique
already existed." 112 This was affirmed in an age also asserted that a
poem
is
made of words, not
when Mallarmé
of thoughts.
Even Aubrey Beardsley was influenced by Blake during a period which was decisive for the development of his art. In its structure, between image and text, in the flame-like leaves, ornament and the style of design and of lettering, the still somewhat juvenile drawing of 1890-91, Dante in Exile, is an imitation of Blake. An unpublished Beardsley drawing of 1891-92 is in the relationship
the single
titled after Blake, Thel
who wrote
Gathering the Lily, u3 and
a biography of Morris,
how somebody
tells
Beardsley showed a drawing without a artist's pleasure,
Down
that the
the Valley's Wild.
work had been 114
Aymer
title
Vallance, to
whom
recognized, to the
by Blake's Piping Other Beardsley drawings from 1892 inspired
concern themselves more and more with Blake's treatment of deco-
and reveal themselves often as derived in their theme from the whirlwind which is characteristic of Blake and rative ensembles
Burne- Jones. Only a
bit later,
around 1892 or 1893, did Beardsley
112
113
III
WALTER CRANE
Illustration for "Flora's Feast" (1889)
adopt
his
mature
style of
drawing, in which English Art Nouveau
appears most strikingly.
Above
line.
the structure of their framework, with
all,
and
lack of weight
In 1893, The Studio began to appear and
its
first
was
issue
lines that are
and the transparent character of
its
apparent
both functional and decorative,
were often features which they have in
these buildings that
also the first periodical to publish drawings by Beardsley. The same year, Victor Horta achieved, with his Maison Tassel in Brussels, the first true example of Art Nouveau architecture and of Continental High Art Nouveau in general; in that year, Ellis and
encased in a thin sheath of
Yeats also published the standard work on William Blake, in three
the techniques
monumental volumes. The Royal Academy then exhibited a series of Blake's watercolors for Dante's Divina Commedia, and William Butler Yeats, the poet and spokesman of the "Celtic Renaissance,"
ments of functional architecture,
137), but also to the requirements of private homes (plate 131), a combination which proved him to be a
wrote
real
articles
on these
published in
illustrations,
1
896 in The Savoy,
was conceived entirely in Beardsley's style. Oscar Wide had concluded his Decay of Lying as follows: "And now let us go out on the terrace, where 'droops the milk-white peaa periodical that
cock
like a ghost,'
while the evening star 'washes the dusk with
silver!'
At
and
not without loveliness, though perhaps
is
twilight nature becomes a wonderfully suggestive effect,
illustrate quotations
Star,
we
its
chief use
is
itself,
but also the expres-
"and wash the dusk with silver." Both literature and art thus refer back to the man who had become the prophet of a new style.
sion
glass, are all
with the later architecture of High Art Nouveau, with
its
mass and space. The buildings of Horta reveal
linear conceptions of
the full importance of architectural initiative. This designer adapted
and the
Brussels (plates
innovator
style of engineering not
as in his
only to the require-
Maison du Peuple
in
136,
in his field.
The
steel skeleton,
developed as an architectural element only Crystal Palace of 185
however, was not France. Paxton's
in
certainly remains as an important example
1
of earlier English achievements in this field; but later French
examples appear to have inspired the architects of Art Nouveau
more
directly.
An
to
from the poets." In Blake's poem The Evening
not only find the "evening star"
common
early example of approximation to the style of Art
Nouveau
in French arts and crafts can be found in a glazed ceramic dish which the painter and etcher Félix Bracquemond (183 3-1 9 14) dec-
orated in 1867. 115
One can
borrowed from plant
life
scarcely assume that these ornaments were copied directly from nature, even if
Bracquemond himself wrote
maximum
that those
works which required a
of artistry are also the ones closest to nature, since he
then adds, quite understandably, that, in order to create a work of art,
Preliminaries to Art
Nouveau
in
more
nature.
France
Louis
by numerous cross-connections with various other movements which have already been discussed, the continuous development of the early English Art Nouveau cannot be compared with the somewhat isolated symptoms of the same style that first appeared ecured in
itself
From about 1 870
in France.
and the intentionally asymmetrical use of space
as well as the
choice of exotic flowers tend rather to suggest a Japanese source of
Nor would
inspiration.
been the
first in
their stems in
on
Europe
this be surprising, since
Bracquemond had The flowers and
to discover Japanese art.
his plate are thus outlined
and transposed
entirely
terms of surface-design, the lines of which indeed follow move-
ment, though
it still
lacks the typical
We
waxing and waning of the
have no knowledge of any direct influence
general direction occurred in France, the
Bracquemond may have had on the later French style of Art Nouveau, for instance on Galle; nor do we have any reason to believe that Gauguin knew such works of Bracquemond in 1889 when he sketched similar designs for ceramics (plate 120) which
skeleton buildings of the engineer-
probably remaining the most
important.
Such
works
as
Gustave
and for the same occasion, have at
for the Paris World's Fair of 1889 (plate 302)
Contamin's Hall of Machines, built least a slight
smooth outlining of the contrary to the principles of Rococo porcelain decora-
of the century, a few initiatives in this
steel
Tower
end
is
his dish displays scallop designs in the
style in delicate relief, but the
later "Belgian" line.
architects
Eiffel's
until the
required of an artist than the exact reproduction of
The border of
XV
flowers tion,
is
116
connection with Art
Nouveau
in their
swinging out-
that
are stylized according to notions of folklore or of primitive art
and
(if
only
Nouveau
in this respect) are
no longer so closely
allied to
Art
designs.
114
Nouveau already appear
In 1869, elements of Art designed by Edouard
where
Manet (1832-83)
whom we
last artist
temporaries of being at all
book Les Chats. No-
can one detect anything of this nature in the work of
else
Manet, the very In
for the
in the poster
might suspect among
infected with Art
all
Nouveau
his con-
ambitions.
of Manet's graphic work, for instance in the delightful illus-
and sketchily in 1876 for find no trace of this style. The forms, very open and painterly, and the lively resurgence of interrupted lines in the contours of the naked bodies, do not allow any integration of the whole as a surface-design, which is an indispensable condition in Art Nouveau. However, the lines in Manet's poster for Les Chats are continuous and gliding and all combine in an effective simplification which already makes us think of Toutrations that he improvised so freely
Mallarmé's L' Après-midi d'un faune,
we
louse-Lautrec. In the midst of a painterly atmosphere, the contours
of the cats stand out as silhouettes, filled in with white or black, so that surface-forms of a kind are produced. Japanese certainly influenced this design in order to
make
it
woodcuts have
appear so closely
Art Nouveau. Even more surprising is a poster that Jules Chéret (1836-1930), who was later to become very successful and popular, designed as one of his very first as early as 1877 (plate 303). Here we find related to
entirely un-Impressionistic figures presented in stylized simplification
and arranged
as closed
forms parallel to the picture's surface,
with even outlines, homogeneously
filled flat fields of color,
and a
movement. Later, however, Chéret's posters became increasingly Impressionistic, fuzzy, and painterly. lively suggestion of
EMILE SCHUFFENECKER
Illustration
from a catalogue of an
exhibition at the Café des Arts (1889)
That the Art Nouveau characteristic of Chéret's posters should thus recede relatively its
is all
new
the
more remarkable when one considers
artistic field of poster art 117
more general conversion
very function requires that
might have
that the
facilitated
Art Nouveau. A poster's be clearly legible and emphatic in its
to the style of it
formulation, and this corresponded to the aspirations of Art veau.
Whereas the idiom of forms
use of perspectives in space until then,
such an
art.
and
its
in
applied graphic
art,
Nou-
with
its
hatched or shaded lettering, had,
always remained unsuited to the long-range effects of Actually, the poster never played a leading role in the
avant-garde of Art Nouveau during the seventies and eighties.
Only toward
the beginning of the nineties
already imposing
itself in
any
(when the new
case) did Toulouse-Lautrec
style was and Bon-
nard produce posters (plate 170, colorplate VI) that remain of real importance, whether as works of art or from the point of view of the history of Art disciples
115
and
Nouveau, and which then inspired numerous
imitators.
Eugène Grasset (1841-1917) was the only French artist working who had already developed an early version of Art Nouveau to which he subsequently remained faithful, developing it constantly until 1900. In 1879, Grasset had designed the decorative before 1890
and
illustrative
framework
for the color-printed pages of a
book of
Quatre Fils Ayman, published in 1884. book required a "Merovingian" style, and
fairy tales, L'Histoire des
The subject matter of
this
Grasset therefore sought inspiration in the art of the age of the
Germanic invasions and manuscripts.
He
in Celtic
miniatures and initials from Irish
thus developed a style that
was
clearly his
own,
though one might presume that he also knew something of the general style of Japanese woodcuts and of Japanese decorative art.
was very soon influenced by Walter Crane and one might even suspect that L'Histoire des Quatre Fils Ayman follows the example of Crane's books for children and of the English Pre-
Besides, Grasset
Raphaelites.
choice of subjects and his mood, Puvis de Chavannes refrained,
however, from turning his back on the world of Romanticism which was already imbued with Symbolism. But he tended to represent this world somewhat frigidly, in a brittle or laconic manner. This
mood
of dry understatement in his art later became, in the
work of Maurice Denis (plates 126, 174), more communicative or intimate, with more flowing outlines and less developed figures that, however schematic, are more in formal harmony with this
EUGÈNE GRASSET
Illustration
from "Méthode de composition
newer
ornamentale" (1905)
style.
Gustave Moreau,
like
Puvis de Chavannes and Maurice Denis,
too (among the later Nabi painters), remained somewhat alien to
main stream of French painting of his time, especially as it was its more advanced or modern school, the Impressionists. His sumptuous and figuratively symbolistic painting contrasts sharply with the Arcadian classicism of Puvis de Chavannes and may indeed appear somewhat exotic or bizarre. Though Moreau refrained from selecting for his subjects, as most of the historical painters of his generation were doing, the more catastrophic moments of world history, he reveals a predilection for ancient mythology, which he represented with Orientalistic trappings, and especially for its tragic figures and its themes of disaster. His world is thus peopled with sirens, sphinxes, and other such the
Grasset's widely
known
illustrated
work, La Plante
et ses appli-
cations ornamentales began to be published in 1896
and also appeared in an English edition in London and New York. However, it not only came too late to contribute anything to Art Nouveau, but was also clearly retrograde in style. Besides, Grasset certainly knew the existing English literature on ornamental or decorative art, from Christopher Dresser's works to Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament, which was first published in 1856. One cannot affirm that Grasset's pieces of furniture
known
to Galle.
On
and objects of applied
art
were
the other hand, Grasset's rather medieval style
Nouveau furniand Nancy and all
of design had no visible connection with High Art ture
and objects of daily use produced
in Paris
then represented by
monsters; his
nymphs
are borne aloft as
from the laws of gravitation;
in
levitating or liberated
if
one of
his
works an apparently
revealing a distinct influence of Rococo. In the nineteenth century,
weightless female figure thus represents (plate 124) the twilight.
France's greatest contribution toward Art Nouveau, before
Her dreamy
actual birth,
was made by engineers and,
later,
by
its
painters. Indeed,
French painting 118 remained far ahead of the other
arts, in fact the
greatest achievement of French art in general throughout the century. It
appeared almost
as if all France's artistic energies
concentrated in this one field of
art,
and
it
would seem
had been
as
though
there were less creativity before 1890 in the fields of decorative
applied arts than in England during the same period. The
first
and
of the
with
its
expression of nostalgia and her gently soaring body,
supple swan-like neck, would
in Ingres'
La Source (which was
refinements of
mood and form were
Moreau's figures and
and makes
little
allowance,
if
any, for three-dimensional effects of
space, all these features of his art indeed offered a kind of spring-
board for the
later
development of French Art Nouveau. In
his
only
in this respect,
he
from those application of paint was some-
their contours are thus derived
theless
reminds one of fresco painting
if
betrays his affinity with Art Nouveau.
which he had inherited from Ingres. But his simplification of outlines and his reduction of all details to a complex of forms presented mainly in terms of surface, especially his technique of representation that
achieved by Moreau at the
cost of considerable losses of substance;
of Ingres or Chassériau, though his
tradition of composition
the allegorical figure
mind) appear almost too squat and coarse by comparison. Such
whose works we can detect elements of Art Nouveau are Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1 824-98), 119 Gustave Moreau (1826-98), 120 and Odilon Redon (1840-1916). 121 By and large, Puvis de Chavannes remained faithful to the linear
great French painters in
make
certainly at the back of Moreau's
times surprisingly free, and remains closer to that of Constantin
Guys, while those of
his richly
opium dreams
somber color harmonies and suggest Delacroix,
whose
his scenes like
Moreau neverand artificial, as
fire
transformed into something strangely cool
opalescent or glimmering as Debussy's music in Pelléas et Mélisande.
Moreau's
figures, often conceived
on a large
ghostly in spite of his obvious sensuality.
They
scale,
seem rather
are surrounded
by
and decked with jewels or costumes which he depicts with numerous and infinitesimal details that are typical architecture or landscape
of historicism or of the studio-style of the later nineteenth century.
116
1 1
8
&
1
19
PAUL GAUGUIN (circa 1888)
Vase with Breton designs
PAUL GAUGUIN
120
Honni
soit
fireiow
Womcw
qui mal y pense (Leda
Swan) (lity)
-'At
QeJJinS
L
'
,
mr~.
.-
EMILE BERNARD
i2i
k,
120 121
fl b It
S»
»**•
J
1
I à
.
.-
(n. d.)
and
the
in PAUL
GAUGUIN
Portrait -vase of
Mme.
Schuffcnccker (1888-89)
;j
p
I2 3
124
25
120
[23
1
1
ON'
BAKST
Stage-setting tor "L'Après-midi d'un faune" (191 2)
124
GUSTAVE MOREAU
125
OD1LON REDON
77>e
126
MAURICE DENIS
Title
Dusk
(n. d.)
Death of Orpheus
(
1898)
page for "Amour" (1898)
126
'27
[28
i2 7
AUGUSÏÏ RODIN
12S
PAUL GAUGUIN
*—
Danaïde (1885) Soyez amoureuses, vous serez heureuses (1890)
122
He
sought inspiration in the Middle East for his fantasies, bor-
from Islamic architecture or Indian jewelry. In all French painters of his age) the one whose affinity with the English Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones strikes us most immediately, though there exists no evidence of their direct influence on him. In his artistic and esperowing
his details
addition, he remains (of
by far superior to them. Art Nouveau elements may have existed in Mo-
cially his painterly
Whatever
latent
reau's art
came
refinement, he
is
clearly to the surface in the
work of
his
admirer
Fernand Khnopff, the Belgian Symbolist (plate 66), who was, however, not only a disciple of Gustave Moreau, but also of Edward Burne-Jones.
As
early as 1890, Arthur Symons, in England,
Redon
fined Odilon (plate 12$) its
is
as a
French William Blake.
much
less in
had already deBut Redon's art
Nouveau and contributed nothing toward
not Art
development, only remaining close to
sists
12 -
This relationship con-
it.
formal similarities than in an affinity of the
moods and
and of the artist's world of ideas and fantasies. Like Moreau, Redon was a Symbolist, though he never needed all the props and paraphernalia of Moreau's Symof
spirit,
its
bolism. Originally, he
attitudes,
had been a
explain the quietude that his art
disciple of Corot,
which might
But the decisive influ-
still reflects.
ence in Redon's artistic evolution had been that of Rudolphe Bresdin's black-and-white graphic
one of din."
his earlier etchings, in
The infinitesimal
however,
work, and Redon gratefully signed
1865: "Odilon Redon, élève de Bres-
detail of Bresdin's style did not survive,
Redon's later and more mature
in
relatively small format, his pictures
form) almost spacious and
full
remain
of fresh
air.
art.
In spite of their
(in their structure
and
His objects appear im-
material; his vases of flowers seem to be held in space
by the hands
of invisible spirits; his seashells are revealed to us as
if in
a vision
of inaccessible depths of the ocean.
At
Redon remained an
first,
and pastels become
Nouveau though
illustrator
major
and limited himself to
later, especially after
field
1900, did
of activity. As for the Art
nature was the source of
him
it.
to
more imaginative
Nature was
Redon
creations, so that he finally sug-
make
it
serve his purposes in the invisible
the Surrealists later valued Odilon
Redon
so
highly.
From Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau,
or Odilon Redon,
no direct path leads one to French High Art Nouveau. Paul Gauguin
(1
848-1 903) 123 was the only great French painter of
his
time
own, a formal idiom that is recognizably Art Nouveau (plates 118, 119, 120, 122, 128, and page 169). This was evolved even before the poster work done by Toulouse-Lautrec. Gauguin had begun his career as an Impressionist, clearly deriving his style from that of his friend Pissarro. However, as early as 1886, Cezanne's influence can already be detected in the work of Gauguin who, in the course of the same year, retired for the first time to Pont-Aven, a village in Brittany, where he began to develop his own style: heavy outlines, simplified forms, unconventional fields of color, and principles of composition that stress two-dimensional effects of planes or of surface. Gauguin's Pont-Aven style was then to develop,
on
his
formulated in close association with the painter Emile Bernard,
who was twenty
years younger. Because of
its
similarity with Far-
Eastern cloisonné enamels, the artists themselves called this style cloisonnisme or else synthétisme.
It is
obvious to us that Japanese
colored woodblock prints played a decisive part in the evolution of this style; this
moreover proved by
is
literary
and iconographie
documents that have survived, for instance by the presence of still-life composition. However, the refinement and delicacy of Japanese graphic art is transformed under Gauguin's hand into something that seems more coarse or rustic.
Japanese objects in a
From
the point of
view of Art Nouveau, the unstable, curving,
asymmetrical, and intentionally decorative composition of this style of painting
is
one of
important characteristics. Perspectives
its
seem superimposed as receding planes or surfaces. As a
result of the
elimination of small details that might be reproduced in a naturalistic
manner, of the homogeneous color treatment of individual
He
his
concise juxtaposed forms
work. The
artificial colors,
force this impression
produced, like intarsia or cloisonné
is
both symbolical and decorative, rein-
by making
it
difficult for the observer to
ferment that stimu-
situate the subject of the picture in terms of the three-dimensional
wrote extensively and
world. Color harmonies were moreover determined, for the painters
his point of departure, a
own art and, in his ability to reflect on it, was many Art Nouveau artists. But his main purpose
about
indeed close to
123
why
forms, and the independent nature of the outlines that seem no
lated him, but never his ultimate aim. brilliantly
order to is
longer to circumscribe them except as surface details, a structure of
things for
gested a butterfly, a flower, or a seashell instead of simply repre-
senting
in
this
also,
all
nature quite minutely, he soon experienced a "boiling of the mind" that led
world
world; and
very special sense. In attempting to copy a detail of
artists,
in a
his
visible
logic of the
of air or of light are neglected, and the different zones of space
black-and-white work. Only much oils
remained to find ways and means of adapting the
of the Pont-Aven school, by theories founded on music. 124
Gauguin's interest
in
the applied arts
would alone prove
his
Nouveau. But his wood sculpture, his neoprimitive furniture, and ceramics also reveal a number of characteristic features of Art Nouveau (plate 128). In a vase of a clear, cylindrical and almost timeless form (plates 118, 119), the decoration Breton peasant women who seem to emerge from Gauguin's and Bernard's paintings of the same period, and a tree, the branches affinity with Art
—
of which curve after the fashion of Jugendstil
— appears
jections in the plane of perspectives
and of volumes observed
in the
round. These broad and irregular areas that seem to be silhouettes
Nouveau which, from the and are composed only in two dimensions. Gau"two-dimensional" bodies thus have absorbed all the quali-
contradict the real silhouettes of Art
very
start, exist
guin's ties
of material reality such as perspective, foreshortening, volume,
to be a
material mass, movement, light, and shadow; in other words, in
link with Art
Nouveau. As always with the school of Pont-Aven, however, a touch of the barbaric or of brutality which
spite of the synthesizing
there
data of reality are maintained intact and are bound to be completed
is
here,
even makes ness
itself felt in
the
way
the
medium
and vigor of Bernard's Bretonnes
from the disguised
traces of the
wood
is
treated.
The rough-
(plate 121) springs partly
block; Gauguin's relief Soyez
amoureuses (plate 128) opposes the smoothed parts of the human bodies to the roughly carved frame and ground of the
relief, in
contrasting effect of matter and form that Rodin too
knew how
a
In spite of
there
all affinities,
tween the forceful
vitality of
is
a fundamental difference be-
Gauguin's art and Art Nouveau.
Gauguin was interested in the origins preceding civilization, while Art Nouveau always remained in a highly civilized world. Thus the line that readies from Gauguin to modern art leads, narrowly escaping Art Nouveau, to" Fauvism, Expressionism, and to the barbaric works influenced by African Negro art of early Cubism. Far closer to Art Nouveau are the paintings of the Nabi artists (through Sérusier, likewise influenced by Gauguin), especially in certain works by Bonnard and Denis (plates 126, 174). The hedonistic, refined outlook of the Nabis and the softened glow of their colors had more affinities with Art Nouveau than Gauguin's rough power. Whenever a similar vitality appears in the work of Edvard Munch another great painter who similarly stands in
—
opposition to Art
—
Nouveau
one discovers there a real distance from the world of Jugendstil; and, finally, this is true of Van Gogh too (plate 304). The energetic thrust and the abruptness of Van Gogh's brush strokes create a gulf between his paintings and Art
Nouveau, although is
their lurching outlines
and
their composition
almost askew, especially in the landscapes, remind us of
it.
Art Nouveau understood nature from a biological point of view
and used it as decoration. Van Gogh saw view and painted it heroically.
Not only
artificial effect of the outline, the
by the perceptive observer whose thought participates in the process. French painting, when it approximates Art Nouveau in works of Gauguin and in Lautrec's posters, always extends from the art form itself to reality, from the picture and its elements on the one hand to the "fortuitous" optic phenomena of reality on the other hand. Sculpture plays a comparatively unimportant role in Art
to exploit.
that
and
it
from a
veau, where
Rodin
(1
it
appears (only
in the nineties) in the
work
Nou-
of Auguste
840-1917). 125 In Rodin's titanic achievement, orgiastic
nymphs and fauns, of lovers and of the damned, the upright human figure no longer occupies a central position. A flow processions of
of forms
is
created, not only between the different figures of a
group, but also between the individual formal details. In the play of light and shadow, the broken surfaces flow together like melting
wax, reminding us of the
impressionistic, blurred forms of
Medardo
Rosso, who actually modeled many of his sculptures in wax. With Rodin, the nervously quivering outline is wonderfully simplified and, more than with other sculptors, a complementary "negative" form of space is thus created. In many works of Rodin, the human or humanoid figure is still half-imprisoned within an amorphous substance a symbol of all forms and degrees of biological life. This primitive matter of life, from whidi the form seems to have only just freed itself, is to be found in Rodin as in Art Nouveau. In the palm of Gallé's glass Hand which looks as if seaweed were growing all through it, and 1 '-'
—
as if
it
were studded with
that the
work
shells,
one recognizes a human figure, so
gives the impression of being a
parody of Rodin's
Hand of God.
religious point of
personal disposition and character, but also the con-
ception of the picture and of
its
relationship to the objective world
created a certain distance between the Frendi Post-Impressionists
and Art Nouveau. Even though the different areas of their pictures represent planes and appear decorative, they are nothing but pro-
124
HIGH AND LATE ART NOUVEAU
Brussels
On
where High Art Nouveau first assumed a clearly defined form. It was here that English examples had their first impact. This stimulus, together with the
was the
the Continent, Brussels
city
Nouveau, formed a very fruitful synthesis. Brussels thus acted as a mediator between England and the Continent, when its own Art Nouveau, which had been essentially bound to two-dimensional art, also developed
quite different approach of France to Art
However much the Brussels by London or Paris, it expressed itself
three-dimensionally in terms of space.
may have
style
been inspired
with complete originality, allowing an exceptional range of individual creative possibilities within the general scope of
its
own
Bel-
gian style.
In the eighties and the nineties, Brussels was the most active place of exchange for the ideas of avant-garde art. Its most impor-
and promoter of novel ideas and styles 127 was Octave Maus who, in 1881, founded the review L'Art Moderne and, one tant initiator
after
created
the other,
also
the Société or
Cercle des
Vingt
(1884-93) anc tne association La Libre Esthétique (1894-19 14). In his book Trente années de lutte pour l'art (1926), the yearly l
by these organizations come to life again. One is surprised to see at what an early date many works representing the newest trend or of the most prominent new artists were then shown in Brussels: in 1884, Rodin, Whistler, Khnopff; in 1886, Odilon Redon and Georges Minne; in 1887,
exhibitions, concerts,
and
lectures given
Seurat; in 1888, Toulouse-Lautrec and Signac; in 1889, Gauguin.
Van de Velde became a member of the Vingt; in 1890, they were joined by Cézanne and Van Gogh and by Toorop, Khnopff, and Redon too, as representatives of the group that sought to transpose into art its emotions, dreams, symbols, and poetic In the same year,
memories. Imported from Paris, the doctrine of the Symbolists penetrated Belgian literature, painting, sculpture, even architecture
and decorative
cry of the
Nabi
arts. Increasingly, artists
painters
who
submitted to the battle
proclaimed: "There are no paintings,
only decorations," to quote the Dutch Nabi, Verkade.' 128 Works of
Walter Crane,
who was
the most popular Morris pupil
and repre-
sentative of Pre-Raphaelitism throughout the Continent in field of applied
arts,
were thus exhibited
in Brussels in
the
1891. In
same year, Georges Lemmen, who later created works of Art Nouveau himself, wrote a comprehensive essay on Crane in which the
he stressed the importance the English
CHARLES DOUDELET
Illustration for a
Maeterlinck's "Serres chaudes" (1895)
125
poem from Maurice
ity
in 1891, as
attached to the capac"' 1
and arabesques. we are told by Octave Maus, the Maison Die-
of expression contained
Again,
artist
in
forms,
lines,
1
VICTOR HORTA Door
129
handle in the Solvay residence, Brussels
(1895-1900)
MAX ELSKAMP Vignette (circa 1900)
bookshop in Brussels to sell art books, offered for sale large-sized photographs of works of Burne- Jones and Rossetti. In 1894, there followed exhibitions which, under the title Libre Esthétique, showed, among other things, Ashbee silverware, Morris trich, the first
fabrics
and
carpets, Beardsley designs,
and
also, in
1
895, examples
of Voysey's architecture. 180
thus,
even
in pattern
and theme, there
is
complete harmony or con-
formity between Horta's style of decoration and
his
English
sources.
Van de Velde has written about the
close relations
between Bel-
gian and English artists during the decisive years. 133 A.
Belgian painter of partly English extraction ceramist,
was
the first to
who
W.
later
Finch, a
became a
become aware of the English revival
the applied arts and crafts. This happened around 1890,
in
when he
Victor Horta
began to purchase a few objects which greatly impressed his Belgian friends. Soon Gustave Serrurier-Bovy in Liège also began to
The greatest Art Nouveau artist who was active in Belgium was certainly Victor Horta (1861-1947), 131 an architect who also took charge of the interior decoration and furnishing of his houses, down to the most insignificant detail. The works which made him famous
design and
what was formerly the rue de and finished to the last item of decoration in 1893 (plate 131). For a long while, the date of this house was reckoned as that of the birth of Art Nouveau; it was also the year in which the first issue of Tl)e Studio was published, intro-
make
his first pieces of furniture
ences. Within a short while,
under English influ-
wrote Van de Velde, the English style had
thus become transformed into something original and Belgian. In the series of exhibitions organized, after 1884,
by the Société des
begin with the Maison Tassel, on
Vingt in Brussels, products of applied arts were shown for the
Turin, a house planned in 1892
time beside avant-garde paintings; they included books illustrated
ducing Beardsley to the public. Though the beginning of High Art
Nouveau now has
on account of developments in England to say nothing of early Art Nouveau in London, of Gaudi in Barcelona, and of Furness and Sullivan in the United States it remains a fact that Continental High Art Nouveau found its first and most complete expression in the Maison Tassel, inasmuch as it combined architecture and decoration, structure and ornament, the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, in other words the total work of art. Certain of Horta's ornaments are surprisingly similar to those on an 1888 bookbinding by Hey wood Sumner, a member of the Mackmurdo's circle (plate 113). This allows us to assume that the world of Horta's forms was inspired by English book decoration. 132 On the walls of the staircase in the Maison Tassel (plate 131), the wide to be antedated
by ten
years,
—
—
first
by Herbert Home and Selwyn Image, who were friends of Mackmurdo's and contributed to the Century Guild and to the Hobby Horse. Such decorated books had long been appreciated on the Continent as an English speciality. Thus, Kate Greenaway's Undei
Window appeared
German and, in its French edition finally sold more than 100,000 copies. As early as the beginning of the eighties, the Museum for Arts and Crafts in Hamburg purthe
in
1880
in
chased books illustrated by Walter Crane. Crane himself wrote:
England of decorative art of all kinds culminating, in book design, has not escaped the eyes of observant and sympathetic artists and writers on the Continent. The work of English artists of this kind has been exhibited in Germany, in Holland, in Belgium, and France, and has met with remarkable appreciation and sympathy. In Belgium particularly the work of the newer school of English designers has awakened "The revival
as
it
in
appears to be doing,
.
.
the greatest interest." 134
In the history of art, minor works or designs had often acted pre-
curves are interlocked with wavy, star-like flowers, revealing that
viously as a stimulus on great art; one need but think of the patterns
abstract forms originate in those of plants. These star-like orna-
suggested by antique gems and coins to Western European sculptors
ments are related to the wide curved ribbons much
woodcuts on sixteenth-century Italian painting. Around 1900, houses with Art Nouveau façades were mockingly described as "book-decoration
as
Undine's
whirling locks in Sumner's binding, seen in the smallest detail, are related to other lines that swing
on a wider
scale. In
both cases,
we
rhythm of Art Nouveau; the linear ribbons move in the sense of what was later called the "Belgian" line, which had already been expressed by Sumner. Though Horta's mural paintings scarcely invite interpretation, anyone who might ever feel an urge to interpret them would think, first and foremost, of a bower of undulating water plants on the floor of a transparent sea; feel the characteristic
in the
Middle Ages, or of the influence of
Diirer's
architecture"; Crane, on the other hand, once spoke of a "book like
and goes on to discuss a fronand an endpaper as a garden. 135 A prophetic note seemed indeed to have been struck when in 1856 Owen Jones wrote in The Grammar of Ornament that a new style of ornament ought to be devised independent of any new architectural style, a house" as his ideal in decoration
tispiece as a façade
126
130 1
3
1
VICTOR HORTA Door handle
VICTOR HORTA
in the
Solvay residence, Brussels (1895
Staircase in the Tassel residence, Brussels
(
1
892-93)
132
VICTOR HORTA
Armchair
133
VICTOR HORTA
Detail of a door in the Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)
134
VICTOR HORTA
Inlaid floor in the Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)
(i
895-1 900)
133
'34
J
35
.36
135
VICTOR HORTA residence, Brussels
(1
Detail o) the balcony oj the Horta
898-1 900)
130
i}7
138
136
VICTOR HORTA
Auditorium of the
Manon du
Peuple, Brussels
(1896-99) 1
37
138
VICTOR HORTA
Maison du Peuple, façade, Brussels
VICTOR HORTA
Dining room
(
31
1
s
98- 900) 1
in the
(
[896 99)
Horta residence,
Brussels
i39
139
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Haymaking
140
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Bloemenwerf
(circa 1893)
residence, Uccle, near Brussels (1895-96)
132
1
133
4
1
142
Hl-NRY VAN DK VELDE
HENRY VAN
I>l
VI
I
Dining room furniture (1895)
DE Woman's
dress
(ana
1S96)
'43
143
GEORGES MINNE
Fountain with five kneeling hoys (1898
144
GEORGES MINNE
Le petit porteur de reliques (1897)
1906)
MAX ELSKAMP
and that new ornamentation would be the most effective means of introducing a new style, since architecture borrows ornament and 136
own. This structure, is exactly what began to happen. In terms of space and the forms of Horta's staircase fulfilled their purpose and corresponded to the materials used without being determined by them. But the style and decorative themes of the staircase are not developed from the elements of cast-iron construction, which was a recent innovation; on the contrary, the cast-iron structure borrowed its idiom of form from other sources, all very appropriate to the linear character of the skeleton structure, and developed this idiom furadapts
it,
but never develops
it
independently, on
its
The assumption that
we
its
1900)
"capital" sends out into space plant-like ribbons such
find on top of Blake's pillars. Their
rhythm is echoed in the brackets and openly displayed iron supports, and more freely repeated in the metal bands that are twined around the banisters of the staircase. Like expanding circles in water formed by a thrown pebble, these ornaments spread from the supports over the ceiling as
to the walls; their flow even continues onto the mosaic floors. But
each form
is
individual and the pattern
is
not endlessly repeated as
which seems to confirm the assumption that Sumner's bookbinding had acted as a stimulus.
in
a wallpaper,
An
exciting novelty in this building
was that metal
structural
supports were displayed both in the interior and the exterior of a
ther in terms of space.
particularly in the
flower and
Vignette (circa
this
England,
luxurious private home. The basic construction, in contrast to one
has been confirmed by
of massive masonry, allowed for a relatively free and unconven-
ornamental style originated
Mackmurdo
circle,
in
Henry-Russell Hitchcock. 137 The use of cast iron for purposes of
tional
structure
and expression, characteristic as it may be in Horta's Art architecture, was inspired on the one hand by Gustave Eiffel's great engineering constructions, culminating between 1887 and 1880 in the Eiffel Tower, and on the other hand by the theories and illustrations contained in Viollet-le-Duc's Entretiens sur l'architecture, which appeared in 1872 (page 61). But even if Viollet-le-
distributed in a novel manner. This interior
Nouveau
itself
Duc's projects encouraged Horta to use and display the combination of cast iron and stone in construction, this influence, according to Hitchcock, scarcely explains the
new ornaments
that
Horta
ground plan with rooms opening into one another and rhythm of space found repeated, moreover, in the swing of the façade: the curve of
the walls, certain sculptural details, the protruding of the central
windows which appears as a transparent linear framework on which is stretched the membrane of the surface. Cast iron is not and the slender window ledges, but also in the supporting horizontal beams. Horta thus adapted to an elegant town house features that make us think of riveted metal only displayed in the
plates
grilles
on cargo ships or of a factory's machine rooms. Horta was
then introduced, nor the homogeneity that his ornamental style
not unreceptive to this contrasting effect, as
immediately assumed in his Maison Tassel. Moreover, Hitchcock
in the
same way, he
we
shall see elsewhere:
also banished all artificial decoration
from
his
has discovered that
own
ornamental cast-iron structural elements
and pleated
Maison
Tassel;
he treated his ceiling like the vault of a subway station and coated
already
knew English decorative work when he designed
in 1892.
Horta used English wallpaper between visible in the dining room of the he therefore thinks it is extremely likely that Horta the house
These were probably the tulip pattern wallpapers of
wood Sumner, whose bookbinding
of
decisive in forming Horta's style. Besides,
Hey-
his walls
with brightly glazed
built in Brussels after the
Van de Velde wrote
certainly the Solvay
that
the stairs, a slender iron support rises freely like the stem of a
tiles.
In the series of private homes and public buildings which Horta
1888 had already been
Sumner was "well known ever since his unusually beautiful wallpaper, Tulip, had first been printed by Jeffrey." 138 The stimulus coming from England, the typical Art Nouveau curve with its whiplash rhythm, was first developed in terms of space and structure by Horta. In the staircase of what was formerly the Maison Tassel, the linear Art Nouveau style of English wallpapers and bookbindings was merged into an architectural and ornamental unit, a total work of art of a perfection that even Horta was never able to surpass. A single leitmotiv expresses itself here both in two- and in three-dimensional terms. At the foot of
135
house (plates 135, 138), such as lamps that electric blossoms frills transform into a glass bouquet; instead of this,
Maison
residence
Tassel, the
most outstanding
is
(Hôtel Solvay) on the Avenue
Louise (plate 14). The swinging lines of the façade have become
more ample and, while
the lateral
bow windows
protrude, the
The same movement expresses itself vertically, for instance in the gliding transition from the wall to the cornice, with its low-relief sculptured ornamentation of the soft corbels. The dominant note, however, is the impression of
central part seems to recede.
delicate lines
and great expanses of
tuated points
membranes of The
is
glass. Stone,
handled ornamentally, iron and
glass,
down
its
interposed
achieve a symbiosis seeming to live and breathe.
interior of this house has been
designed
which at accen-
to the slightest detail
well preserved and
by the
architect. It
is
was
a real
masterpiece of a perfectly articulated distribution of rooms in
From
space.
the driveway, one enters the hall "where a wonderful
swelling space surrounds the visitor,
warmed by
a multitude of
caramel and golden apricot hues." 139 Here, as everywhere, the slender metal elements are freely displayed.
From
ornamental ramifications which frequently end deliers
whose
tufts of
these emerge
in electric chan-
flower-shaped bulbs radiate light (plate 12).
The broad, curving staircase, made of heavily veined marble, leads to the main floor; there, the rooms (of which the dining room overlooks the garden and the three drawing rooms the street) are separated only from the glass-roofed staircase by glass partitions. These partitions, some of which can be removed, consist of wooden frames, which also have a linear effect; their lower parts are set with panes of opaque colored glass or slabs of real onyx or alabaster, while their upper parts are set with transparent glass, so that the central staircase, with
from
all
the rooms.
Nothing
is
its
translucent glass roof,
thing remains flexible, movable, transparent.
visible
With
the endless
Art Nouveau lines and forms, the house, seen from floor, makes an overwhelming impression; the light brown
variety of the first
is
heavily massive or enclosed; every-
its
and central halls, Horta's greenhouse roofs are composed of membranes of glass that remind one of the veinings on butterfly wings, a special feature of Horta's art in which the graphic effects
Nouveau
reveal his individual conception of Art
(plate 15).
Horta set the realm of Art Nou-
In contrast to these luxurious private mansions, himself a social task, practically unique in veau, Its
when he
also built the
Maison du Peuple
(plates 13e, 137).
façade consists of an irregular succession of curves that give the
building an appearance of elasticity. Built mainly of a steel frame
which remains
through great surfaces of
visible
to the utmost the conception of a structure
glass,
is
achieving real greatness. The rhythm
embodied
Ornamental balcony
is
exceptionally simplified,
details
have
railings, the edifice
importance; for instance
lost
related to
is
form Nouveau.
in the basic
structure being in itself linear Art
its
carries out
composed of a skeleton
and membranes. Here, Art Nouveau of the building,
it
Rococo and, compared
and only a few horizontal undulating movements are added to the alternately concave and convex movements of the façade: in the Maison du Peuple, the metal structures are
all
straight
attractive elegance of Horta's luxurious mansions has given
brocades, the ornamentation of walls and ceilings, the furniture, the
harsh and rigid
handles, and hinges,
from a
all
these are conceived in one style
and emanate
True, the
it
is
so severe that
the designs for his private
reminds one of the interior of a factory
torium under the roof of the building. The columns supporting the
Tassel. If Gothic,
manner remi-
niscent of eighteenth-century forms created for the same purposes,
Art Nouveau, which its
in its beginnings
with Williams Blake
pulsating rhythm and plastic substance from the Ro-
style, now reverted to the traditions of French Secound Empire Rococo of the nineteenth century. But this was no longer neoRococo in the sense of historicism; instead, it was a new Art Nouveau Rococo which was subsequently destined to play an important part in French Art Nouveau. The Hôtel Solvay was begun in 1895 and took some years to complete. Among Horta's early private homes, his Hôtel van Eetvelde (1897-99) and his Hôtel Aubecq (1900) display particularly beautiful and original glass domes. Arched above staircases
coco
remain consistently sober,
all
Baroque, and Rococo traces
Maison
intimate, sociable salon atmosphere of the house, in a
had derived
to
du Peuple
Though
or the hold of a cargo ship. After ascending stairways which con-
had been present only in the façade of the latter, elements of Rococo, both inside and outside the entire Hôtel Solvay, cannot be overlooked. It was no doubt natural to design furniture, fixtures, woodwork, balconies, and banisters; in other words the whole
so that
way
homes the functional quality of Horta's Maison
lines.
movement (plates 129, 130, 133, 134, and 305). Art Nouveau style of the Hôtel Solvay is less pure than
single
that of the
to
Horta's early works, cannot be called original. The vertical linear
tones of the rare woods, the ormolu fittings, the marble and the
paneling, and the inlaid parquet floors, even the keyholes, door
the
in
firm the impression of ship building, one reaches the great audi-
side galleries are as graceful in
form
ments of the construction while the back to Rocaille ornamentation.
140
as they are necessary require-
railings of the balustrades
hark
In this linearly arranged
room
the walls and the side parts of the ceiling are also enclosed with
membranes or with thin panes. Indeed, Horta interpreted his metal structures (in the sense of Art Nouveau) as something plant-like; technology was thus conceived by him in terms of biology. After 1900, his creative energies weakened surprisingly. He then left it to others to imitate and commercialize his own style and its formulae. glass
Henry van de Velde Horta's dynamic and abstract idiom,
if
plant-like forms, can also be found in the
Velde
(1
863-1957).
141
Van de Velde's
not his suggestions of
work
of
significance
Henry van de lies
less in
his
136
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Initial
from "Déblaiement d'Art" (1894)
architecture than in his furniture, interior decoratons, ornamental
mental, by
or graphic designs, and theoretical writings, in fact in his univer-
latter,
salism.
His Art Nouveau shows no trace of unassimilated historical
on the structure of the skeleton, as his English predecessors had, above all, developed it in their furniture. After having abandoned Post-Impressionist painting, Van de Velde turned mainly to English influences, to Ruskin,
examples of
style;
it is
entirely based
Morris, and their successors.
The Belgian artist Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910), 142 of Liège, was also of importance to him. Serrurier-Bovy had been among the first to be stimulated by the English movement. When the group of the Vingt exhibited in
tributed a writing desk "inspired
1894, Serrurier-Bovy contaste." 143
by English
Serrurier-Bovy worked with straight or curved supports
which do not always exercise a structural function and often assume an independent niture
role.
The relatively simple basic form of
contained and framed by these freely developing
is
Van de Velde
seized
upon such
features,
and
his
own
his furlines.
designs are
based chiefly on the conscious interplay of curved lines and empty spaces (plate 203). In one of his masterpieces, the writing desk of 1898, a
line,
sometimes swinging freely
in
"interlacings,"
leads
around the whole piece of furniture, the outer edges of which are moreover turned inward. The impression of a closed unit is thus reinforced in spite of the numerous component parts and joints of the desk. It is also typical of Van de Velde's style, inasmuch as its
own ornamen-
His furniture designs, though inspired by the Arts and
cerning functional forms are carried out in appearance only. If one
interior decorations (plate
306),
and from
and materials
Crafts movement, nevertheless strike a
economy of
detail
new
in his
these stimuli, which
included England's Japanese style, he developed his
greater
also
Godwin's; but even more than the
dynamic symbolism and expressionism exaggeratedly stresses the structural element. Much more strength than necessary has been used, quite apart from the fact that Van de Velde's principles con-
the first in Belgium to use Morris wallpapers
tal style.
He was
structure, like
its
Belgian note. With far
than Horta, Serrurier-Bovy mainly
which he revealed with scarcely any ornamental additions. Furniture in itself thus became orna-
stressed the constructive element,
tried to write at this desk, the available space stricted
and one would wonder how much space
one's elbows.
A
strict functionality,
would be very is
re-
actually left for
which as such already reaches
beyond the sphere of Art Nouveau, is more clearly achieved in Van de Velde's straight chairs and easy chairs, where dynamism is symbolically expressed in ornament; these chairs are linear, conceived as a structure of lines and, in spite of a
few
rustic or
hand-crafted
features, achieve a personal "functional" elegance.
The capacity for synthesis which so clearly emerges from Van de Velde's writing desk
is
to be felt in groupings (plate 208) as well
as in the individual pieces. All his pieces of furniture
dissolving into each other, as
swinging curves. ful
Wood
is
if
united by walls and doors into great
indubitably Van de Velde's most success-
medium even though he
also
and stone, or designed and leather book-bindings. porcelain,
Van de during so
many
were
Velde's architecture
this
worked with metal,
glass, ceramics,
carpets, fabrics, wallpapers, books,
is
only of secondary importance
period. Without having been trained
other excellent architects, in
first
seem to be
and foremost painters
—he
as
an architect
Germany
particularly,
built, in
1895-96, his
— as who own
house named Bloemenwerf in Uccle, near Brussels (plate 140). furnished
it
He
himself with some of his best pieces (plate 141), such as
the chairs, table,
and sideboard (not reproduced
here) of his dining
room, where butter-colored waxed wood is decorated with orangecolored copper. Every detail being of importance to him, he also designed appropriate dresses for his wife and went so far as to
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
137
Menu
{circa 1895)
concern himself with the color composition of the foods served:
We
sense here the influence of Millet, the Post-Impressionists, and,
above
Seurat. But
all,
Van de Velde translated
all this into
two-
dimensional and almost poster-like figures that not only appear in color but are treated homogeneously according to their consistency,
with concentric parallel This theme returns in
lines in
Van de
an entirely unnaturalistic manner.
Tropon poster of
Velde's subsequent
1898, one of the best posters of Art
Nouveau and
certainly
its
best
way
of merging illustration and
abstract decoration into a synthetic
whole was borrowed from
abstraction (facing page). This
Aubrey Beardsley, who
in
1892 applied
it
in his illustrations for
Malory's Morte d'Arthur.
Georges Minne
Among
Belgian Art
Nouveau
artists,
Victor Horta represented
the French ethnic or cultural element and was thus the one to
was the most
Paris
receptive.
whom
Van de Velde, the conscientious
craftsman, with his honest work, his dynamic expressionism, his systematic theories propounded with a certain heaviness and lack
of charm, was bound to appeal more to the Germans. Georges
Minne (1866-1941) was of Flemish
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Title
page for
Max
Elskamp's "Dominical''
proximity of Holland
is
origin; 144
most strongly
felt,
in his
work, the
reminding one clearly
(1892)
of Toorop, with whose art Minne was certainly acquainted.
tomatoes, for instance, were served on green plates that were
As far as compactness, narrow shaft-like figures, and sensitive rhythm are concerned, Minne was probably the purest sculptural artist of Art Nouveau. The human body, particularly that of youths, is his one and only theme. As Meier-Graefe expressed it so rightly in Pan, human bodies transformed themselves for Minne
complementary
to
tomato
red. S. Bing, Meier-Graefe,
and Toulouse-
Lautrec came to see this house and Van de Velde then created some ensembles which were shown
in Bing's
L'Art Nouveau gallery, and
into plastic ornaments. Basing his conception of
Minne
form on Gothic and austere
Dresden in 1897. In Paris, the Goncourt brothers launched the term "Yachting Style," alluding at the same time to the part
art,
played by English inspiration
in this development. Van de Velde's met with the greatest enthusiasm in Germany; most of his patrons were Germans and, after 1899, he worked exclusively in Germany. Just as Horta derived his three-dimensional Art Nouveau creations from flat surface-art, Van de Velde developed his own particular Art Nouveau style not only from English furniture and Ser-
grief.
creations
designed by him in 1898, with five naked boys kneeling on the
in
rurier-Bovy's manner. In
was 139)
—a
relatively late
as a painter, lier
Van de Velde's
originally two-dimensional.
work from
A
the period
and which he had begun
— shows that the roots of
case too, Art
painting dated
to
Nouveau
1893
when he was
youths and maidens
One
his
over-slender,
introverted,
who seem consumed by some extreme inward
of his most outstanding achievements
is
the fountain
was carried out for the As a composition, it shows very Minne is exclusively concerned with
pool's edge; this design, slightly modified,
Folkwang Museum
(plate 143).
clearly that even as a sculptor
the outline.
The ornamental element of the forms, which are both
expressive and symbolical, cannot be overlooked. Through the fivefold repetition of the
same figure an
"infinite regress"
is
suggested
(plate
which, in the circle round the fountain's edge, returns ceaselessly to
active
itself.
abandon some years earand drawing.
his style lay in painting
stylized
Not only Gothic
art,
but Rodin too exerted an influence on
Minne. "What attracted him
in
Rodin's work was
its
amazing
138
139
IV
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
"Tropon," design for a poster (1898)
faculty of expression combined with a very
the gift ... of creating
life
summary
treatment,
through movement, through a very
arbitrary but most purposeful and even profoundly calculated arrangement of the limbs which, with all its audacity, may have
been the imperative desire to find an
No
wonder
that
rhythm." There
budding
all this is
much
artistic
language of
that
own.
effect, inherent in
Minne borrowed from Rodin. "The
Rodin's marble, can also be found in
Minne's figures of youths; the poetic character of limbs, the suppleness of flawless flesh. is
its
attracted an artist struggling to express
still
undeveloped
But any notion of sensuality
excluded here; the perverseness sometimes suggested in Rodin's
work
is
considered too complex by
ferentiated."
Minne
— or not sufficiently dif-
145
importance (plate 307). He illustrated Maeterlinck's volume of poems Serres chaudes (seen Minne's graphic work
is
also of
below); this early drawing of 1890, "with which the periodical Van
Nu
en Straks (which was great within
its
limitations) introduced
the artist to a very small circle of art lovers,
future master."
146
and
also revealed the
In this drawing, the flowing diagonal and the
asymmetry of the whole group are particularly Art Nouveau.
ARISTIDE MAILLOL
Illustration for Longus'
"Daphnis and Chloe"
(i937) characteristic of
After 1886, not only did Minne exhibit with the Vingt
GEORGES MINNE chaudes" (1889)
Illustration for
Maurice Maeterlinck's "Serres
sels,
but he was also one of the members of the
in the
Art Nouveau gallery
model of
his fountain,
in Paris in the
first
in Brus-
exhibition held
winter of 1895-96.
which may be regarded
A
as the culminating
point of his creative art, was exhibited by the Libre Esthétique
group which then succeeded the Vingt.
Fernand Khnopff The world of Fernand Khnopff (1 858-1921 ) 147 is entirely different. To a certain extent, his forms anticipated those of the late Art
Nouveau and
of Glasgow and Vienna, although his Symbolist painting
his decorative
graphic art began to develop early
in the eighties.
His personal style was formulated in the painting, L'Art, of 1884, representing a youth before a crouching sphinx. The Pre-Raphaelite
feminine type, with
its tall
slender figure, angular profile, sensual
heavy chin, and sea-green eyes, recurs in many of his drawings. He was indeed so powerfully impressed by the paintings of Rossetti and Burne-Jones which were exhibited at the World Exhibition of 1878 that their work, together with that of Gustave Moreau, belips,
came the foundation
for his
own
future creations.
Khnopff
fre-
140
quently gave his pictures English
Upon
titles
such as
/
Lock
My
Door
Holland
Myself, of 1891 (plate 64), or Britomart and Acrasia (1892).
In his house, which he furnished entirely according to his
own
very
was an empty room with walls vocered with Japanese brocade in which were set two bronze rings engraved with the names of Burne- Jones and Moreau. unusual
taste, there
In the interior of this house, where no Art to be found,
Japanese influences
Nouveau curves
make themselves
are
strongly felt in
and the utter bareness of the rooms. Confined to the rectilinear and rectangular in every detail, the inside of the house is formed of box-like chambers, long corridors, and asymmetrically displaced passages. Suggestions of labyrinthine rooms from pictures of Rossetti and Burne- Jones (plate 55), rendered even stranger by the addition of a Japanese element, assume here an uncanny reality. The same Japanese influence shows also in the lettering and typography created by Khnopff, who was a member of the Vingt, for the first catalogue of their exhibition of 1884. Art Nouveau elements are revealed in their purest form in Khnopff's graphic work, in his designs for bookplates, book illustrations, and title pages, all of which are important fields of his activity as an artist. the simplicity
Entirely different from the Belgian style which bears the
of Victor Horta, the Dutch version of Art
Nouveau mainly
mark
reveals
a character of austere reserve, with no sign of Rocaille or of an
drawing-room atmosphere. As in England, whence the Arts and Crafts movement had influenced Dutch furniture and utensils, all forms and techniques of historicism, with the latter's relationship to an aristocratic style of living that was decisive both for Horta and for the Parisian artists, were abandoned in Holland. The style of Holland, like that of other Nordic countries, is consciously middle-class. With the exception of the eloquent, somber, unadorned but grandiose Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Dutch interiors and objects in Jugendstil often seem petit-bourgeois, laconic, aristocratic
intimate, craftsmanlike, all of which, strange to say, does not ex-
clude an exotic, Javanese, and sultry atmosphere.
Jan Toorop
was not merely by chance that Khnopff, who was an excellent writer on art, should have written about the personality and the
Jan Toorop (1 858— 1928), 149 the most important Dutch creator of form of his period, developed, however, an unmistakably Dutch
work of the Viennese Khnopff was first and
Art Nouveau to unrivaled heights of poetic intensity. Beginning toward the end of the eighties and under the influence of
It
first
architect,
Hoffmann. Outside of Belgium,
best understood in
Vienna and,
in 1898, the
year of publication of the periodical Ver Sacrum, a special
number was devoted
style of
Toorop turned toward Symbolism, technique of painting remained Post-Impressionist. Con-
the Belgian poet Maeterlinck,
though
"Fernand Khnopff, in his paintings, wishes to turn away from every-day life, from the present, and invokes the deepest feelings, reminders of eternity.
temporary with
his
sionist pictures
which he painted throughout the
When we
interiors, the sea,
to the Belgian painter.
see his motionless calm figures, we think of Maeterlinck, from whose poems Khnopff often borrowed themes, or of Hofmannsthal Like this poet, he is a painter of inner life. The words .
.
.
of William Blake, the painter-poet, apply to these figures too:
T am
only the secretary, the authors are in eternity.' Khnopff too seems to note
what
is
dictated to
him by the
secret voices of eternity." 148
tillistic
his
Symbolist drawings, there are also Post-Impresnineties: bridges,
and dunes that are certainly related to the poinand Signac, but not at all to Art Nouveau. This
art of Seurat
splitting of his artistic personality as both
and a Symbolist draftsman
reveals,
an Impressionist painter
even more clearly than
in the
was primarily through his graphic work that Toorop was connected with Art Nouveau. Even though there existed genuinely Art Nouveau painters like Hodler, Munch, and Klimt, oil painting, always independent and isolated, remained on the whole inaccessible to Art Nouveau. From its beginnings with William Blake, graphic art had always been more in tune with the aspirations that characterize Art Nouveau, because design is closer to poetry and more abstract by nature, following thought more freely. case of Toulouse-Lautrec or Khnopff, that
it
89 1, Toorop's mystic style appears fully developed in the design Decline of Faith, a work of hermetic content which reason In
1
alone cannot easily explain, just as
141
it is
impossible to disentangle the
confusion of emaciated limbs and heads of every
size,
with faces
sharp as knives, and
all
of them
abandoned, rapturous attitudes,
in
sometimes doll-like, sometimes frighteningly expressive and almost
ghost-like, angular creatures, passionate
demented. Inextricably entwined as
fables,
Irish
in Celtic line
ornaments or
book illuminations, a comparatively homogeneous pattern gun barrels with bayonets, a
significance:
bell,
a rope, a piece of
Gothic architecture, and, everywhere, bodies with limbs as soft as
amoebae or as rigid as bones. This work, with its great difference of sizes and styles, is a classical example of neo-Mannerism in Art Nouveau. The "basis" of the picture is quite unstable: a body of water over which hangs this mass of figures; a sea, the waves of which seem to come rolling from unfathomable depths. In spite of this tangle of forms which opens up here and there, the action depicted is conceived as a parallel to the picture surface and to the limits of its composition, especially the verticals.
two swans
(the heraldic birds that
But what
is
achieved here, a structure of long narrow forms of heterogeneous
Sharply outlined,
were dear to Jugendstil) float on
the water below, calm and unconcerned.
and
sensitive: a
world of
perfumes, mysticism, and bareness. is
most amazing are the strands of hair arranged
imagination a motif that, as so
much
else in
Toorop's
art,
—
horror that
I feel
for
my
hair"
—up
to the hair fetishism in Maeter-
linck's Pelléas et Mélisande, or in Wilde's I am enamored of, Jokanaan moon hides her face, when the
that the as
thy hair. The silence that dwells nothing in the world that
is
.
.
.
Salome: "...
thy hair
the long black nights,
stars are afraid, are in the forest
is
.
.
."
of repetitions or parallels, with almost decorative harmonies,
An
erations,
replaced here by an urge to deliver a message from a mystic, neo-
Romantic world of thought. In 1893, the
first issue
of The Studio
reproduced Toorop's The Three Brides, a painting which probably exerted an influence as far as Glasgow, where Mackintosh and the
Macdonald
sisters
were developing
their not unrelated style. This
"strange, fantastic, sibylline work," as The Studio called
between the Bride of Christ on the right (the
Good and
left
it,
150
shows,
first
swathed
permitted themselves a definite play allit-
—
and rhythmic calligraphy lyrical products of an imagination which seeks, as Baudelaire in his Paradis artificiel, the new and the different in trying to escape from the realities of everyday life. But, however much this play with lines may be laden with significance, it always reverts to itself in hedonistic self-sufficiency, a tendency indeed common to the whole of Art Nouveau. However literary or concerned with subject matter this art
may
be, the final
and the courtesan on the
the Evil of eroticism), the veiled
"human
and their fragrance, surrounded by hosts of disembodied beings, by swinging bells, visible waves of sound, masses of flowing locks, lilies, butterflies, and thorns. Yet the picture is conceived as an arabesque; it can even be proved that this ornament, in this case symmetrical, had served as the starting point for the painting; on account of its almost abstract design, one of the bride,"
Poetry and the fine arts
when
not so black
not so black. There
so black as thy hair
now
It is
Other works of Toorop from 1891 and 1892 are entitled The Garden of Sorrow; Apocalypse; Oh Grave, Where is Thy Victory. is
was
borrowed from Rossetti. In related Romantic and Symbolist poetry, we find the same fascination for women's hair everywhere, in poems by Rossetti and Baudelaire, in Mallarmé's Hérodias "to live in the
is
Impressionist's indifference to the significance of subject matter
in
which come flowing out of bells. No other artist of Art Nouveau in which, in addition to swans and lilies, feminine hair plays such an important part, has paraphrased with so much parallel bands,
in roses
JAN TOOROP
Vignette from "Van
Nu en
Straks" (1893)
tv.v $1
drafts (plate 117) can be considered as a sort of shorthand or
notation for choreography. In a typical Art Nouveau so Ricketts tells us,
151
spirit,
Toorop,
designed an almost abstract ornament, a kind
of formal "vessel" which only later was filled with figurative ele-
ments that explained
its
meaning and translated
it
into terms of
concrete illustration. The incorporeal phantoms such as the figures in the
foreground retain the character of an ornament. Slender,
ephebic beings are depicted with delicate limbs, in which the Pre-
Raphaelite ideal of beauty
arms
like the
antennae of
is
heightened by a Javanese note, with
insects, profiles as thin as
paper and as
142
i45
J. |.
JURRIA.W KOK W. VAN ROSSEM
Vase {circa
146
1
and
900)
AGATHA WEGERIFGRAYI MI V N Wall hanging (circa 1900)
47
JAN TOQROP
Song
148
JAN TOOROP
Preliminary study for 'The Three Brides" (1891
[
of the Times
(
[893)
144
i49
CHRISTOPHE KAREl
Dl
NERÉE TOT BABBERICH
Benediction (before 1909) 150
'49
145
150
JOHAN THORN
PRIKKI K De BruCd (tS^z^i)
i
5
1
HENDRIK PETRUS Stock
152
!
change
I
III
RLAGE
Great Hall of the Amsterdam
[898-1903)
HENDRIK IM.TRUSBERLAGE
Desk (area 1900)
CHARLES RICKETTS
result
is
always
l'art
pour
l'art,
Illustration
from "The Dial" (1889)
on account of
its
special kind of
Bundles of
lines of a similar
stress the single,
nature as those in The Three Brides
hieroglyphic forms in Toorop's Song of Times of
and give to the entire work a consistency of wickerwork, parts of which seem to be almost geometrical. But, more than that, abstract rhythms invade the picture frame itself, together with lines which designate objects. Like The Three Brides, this picture, drawn on brown paper with pencil, charcoal, and chalk highlights, finds its continuation in the frame. With Toorop, the frame is indeed part of the painting and becomes a "field of approach" in which the black lines, emerging from brown and white, green and orange, change over to a golden ground and appear in relief. Frame and painting grow into an undivided whole, the frame being drawn into the picture as the imaginary closed-in world of the 893 (plate 147),
picture also extends to the objective reality of the frame into the reality of daily
a complete this
is
work of
art
life.
and
One
feels
and thus
here an attempt to achieve
to "transpose into ornament," as far as
possible, the shapes of life,
to this,
is
in
Toorop's art nothing of Beardsley's elegant impudence,
and irony, nor of the dandy's pose. In spite of the graceful and delicate element in his work, Toorop's art is laden with seriousness and meaning, and is thereby more closely related to German Jugendstil, which said of itself: "And soulfulness oozes erotic arrogance,
narcissism.
1
there
even of daily
life itself.
In addition
by means of the deeply engraved gold of the frame and of and the archaic idiom of form,
out of every corner." 152
Toorop's "mystic style" first
eleven years of his
ways
strives
toward
line
toward stressing toward precision of
a strictly defined technique,
flatness as such in the two-dimensional, in fact
and sharp delimitation of two-dimensional bodies. Ev.-ry trace
of plastic form, of the illusion of space, of light and shadow, every hint of a material surface
and its attractions is abolished. With great form and with strict homogeneity, as well
restaint in the handling of as
with an ascetic use of color, Toorop brings his style to the point
of perfection. In his vignette for the periodical Van
Nu
en Straks
(page 142), condensed and concise as a signature, a great economy of expression appears. The black two-dimensional space, together with the little dots,
Beardsley (page 74). Toorop had artist,
is
much
body of the
filled
related to the forms used by in
common
with
this English
for instance the "grain" of hair (plate 148), like that of
wood; by 1893 at the latest, he must have known Beardsley's work. Both Toorop and Beardsley expressed the purest linear Art Nouveau, and the morbidezza style is typical for both of them. In spite of all their renunciation of space, gravity, plasticity, and stability,
147
clear
Rosenburg firm produced
(plate 145).
al-
is
the nonfigurative ornamentation of delicate, beautiful vases such
Toorop achieves an elevation into almost sacred realms. His picture almost becomes an icon, isolated from the profane world. The relationship between the picture and the frame is not developed here as it was by Rossetti and Whistler, who had established it as purely
Nouveau
life
fluence of these surroundings
as the
But, besides thus crossing aesthetic frontiers, Art
founded upon a variety of inspirations.
had been spent in Java; the inenough in his art. The little figures, derived from Javanese shadow puppets, seem to glide stiffly along the wavy lines of his paintings and to fill them with their gracefully affected gestures and their somewhat remote daintiness. Not only for Toorop, but for the entire Dutch Jugendstil, Java partially assumed the role that Japan had played elsewhere in Art Nouveau. True, the sleek contours of Japanese woodcuts appear also in the Netherlands and, most of all, in Toorop's work. But we also find here a particular Dutch feature: the rhythm of the pointed arch, a more rigid structure, and the lace-like interior pattern of Javanese shadow-play puppets. This may be seen, for instance, in
The
the strict agreement of the colors
decorative and aesthetic.
is
in porcelain as thin
as
paper
Holland but maintained close connections with was a member of the Vingt group. When he turned to Symbolism, he borrowed some of Fernand Khnopff's fantastic forms (plates 64 and 66); indeed, the latter's sensitive but heavy-chinned faces appear here and there in Toorop's early pictures. But what probably appealed to him most were Minne's woeful figures. However, Toorop's closest connections were with England. Like Khnopff and Obrist, Toorop also had an English mother. In 1884, when he went to London for the first time, he met his future wife, an Irish girl who (as a spiritual dowry) brought him the "Celtic" element. Between 1885 and 1889 he spent his time partly in Brussels and partly in London, and was thus able to study at firsthand what interested him in the Pre-Raphaelite Toorop lived
in
Brussels where, after 1887, he
tradition.
He borrowed figures (plate
from Rossetti the idea of the in) which fills the background
frieze of juxtaposed in
The Three Brides.
The strange motif of the thorny scrub covering the ground in the same picture appears in Rossetti's watercolor St. George of 18 ji, a work that Toorop may well have known, for Rossetti's tolling bells and his hair fetishism have rarely been more obvious or lovingly treated than in The Three Brides. Rossetti's St. George,
which
is
It is also
surprising that
a completely realistic conception,
should include strictly plane, abstract, and ornamental patterns of a heraldic character. Moreover, furniture
by Rossetti
and
reproduced
utensils
might have been made
in his paintings
in the
Nether-
lands before 1900. The typical, concave half-profile of the Pre-
Raphaelite maiden with her dreamy eyes and protruding chin, is
who
leaning her head against that of the knight, appears in threefold
Dutch appliquéd embroidery designed by Babberich (plate 149). But as these features were the
peasant women's winged bonnets, the stressed contours, and the homogeneous planes of color. But this French device of diagonal space arrangements, of composing the picture on the basis of color with the whole composition and the individual forms derived principally from the optical appearance of reality, was of little practical significance for the
repetition in a piece of
"mystic style" in Toorop's graphic works. There
Nerée
Toorop, in his "mystic style," preferred English examples, though
tot
common
property of the entire Pre-Raphaelite school
necessarily setti.
The
it need not have been borrowed from any particular work of Ros-
embroidery already belongs to Late Art Nou-
style of this
veau, the only phase of Art
Nouveau
and Klimt (plate 265). This proves anew the importance of Rossetti's invention of crowding the picture surface with abstract ornamental details so as to produce a surface with an irregular pattern like that of marquetry work, which could easily be developed for entirely ornamental effects. In the ornamental surfaces of works by Nerée tot Babberich and Klimt, only shows a very close relationship
to exist in Holland,
to
hands and faces stand out with three-dimensional
reality, as in
is
no doubt that
he was also addicted to French Pointillism. Toorop's world was one
where
reality
figures
played no part
in the
content of the picture, but where
and symbols were refined instead by
eclectic tradition.
Blake's visionary creations, Rossetti's artificiality, and the decorative graphic
much more
manner of
early
High Art Nouveau in London were somewhat schematic appear-
suitable as sources for the
ance of the ghostlike apparitions of Toorop's nostalgic inner visions.
JAN TOOROP
Binding for W. G. van Nouhuy's "Egidius en de
vreemdeling" (1899)
Russian icons, where the hands and faces alone stand out from the
surrounding covering of precious metals.
We
can trace the sources of Toorop's art even further back, and
Nikolaus Pevsner has suggested deed,
it
its
possible origins in Blake. 153 In-
seems most unlikely that Toorop, with his ribbons of soaring
genii, his
ornaments of stylized and immaterial
metrical structures,
and
his
figures, his
sym-
frames that extend and paraphrase the
and
picture (plates 127, 147, 148, 310,
312), should
have been
unacquainted with Blake's similar ideas (plates 34, no, and 116). If Charles Doudelet in Belgium took over certain motifs, which could only stem from Blake, in such a
literal
way
we might
that
entitled to substitute visible proof for literary evidence, this
be even more legitimate for Toorop.
drawn perfumes and pictures are derived
On
be
would
the other hand, the visibly
currents of breath that appear in Toorop's
from
a
drawing which Ricketts published
in
The Dial (page 147). 1889 But what could French Art Nouveau offer to Toorop? At any in the
rate, Brussels
and the exhibition of the Vingt allowed him
cover Gauguin's art and to enter into
its spirit,
as
is
to dis-
revealed in a
and page 169) in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. In a less sophisticated way, the style and themes of Pont-Aven reappear in this Toorop painting: the landscape background is created of superimposed planes with only a minute piece of sky, the ornamental interweavings of trunks and branches of trees, the reclining female figure whose hat is a variation of Breton Gauguin work
(plate 310
148
149
V JAN TOOROP
"Deljtscbe Slaolie," poster for salad oil (circa
1
898)
painted smoothly in even strokes. As Thorn Prikker's murals
Johan Thorn Prikker
Another outstanding painter of Dutch Jugendstil was Johan Thorn Prikker (1868-1932). 154 Like Van de Velde, Van Rysselberghe, Lemmen, and Finch in Belgium, Prikker also began as a Post-Impressionist and, inspired by Maeterlinck's and Verhaeren's poetry, developed Symbolist and Christian themes first in easel painting, then in murals. Once again, Japanese woodcuts (not Javanese shadow puppets as in Toorop's case) were a decisive influence. In addition, we are conscious of those French paintings closely related to Art Nouveau, particularly of Gauguin's art that aims at a synthesis. Thorn Prikker's style, compared to that of Toorop, thus seems more generous in form and contour, more spacious, and more monumental.
In spite of
its flatness,
compact quality, a colors,
and density of
color.
But
his
unnatural
with their intense brilliance, lack the glow of Gauguin's pure
pigments. green,
solidity,
his painting, like Gauguin's, displays a
De Bruid
(The Bride) (plate
mauve, and gray; her veiled
appears as a
tall, shaft-like,
is
seen,
jo) glimmers in soft blue-
closed silhouette.
ilarly lacking joints or limbs, supple
the crucified Christ
1
figure, strangely
and
metamorphosed,
Next
to her, sim-
stylized, all but distorted,
His crown of thorns mingling with her
myrtle wreath. The half-averted faces are featureless. The main
by a whirlwind of lasso-like lines and almost unidentifiable, retire into the world of forms that surrounds them one of Rossetti's devices composing with it a sort of flat marquetry with an irregular pattern in which the detailed forms are sharply juxtaposed and vigorously outlined. In the upper figures of the picture, enveloped
—
—
left-hand corner, slender, vertical shapes predominate, like
or
wax
tapers,
whereas at the bottom we
see large
icicles
rounded oval
that he designed in Hagen, in
metrically conceived
manner of
Germany, around 1906, we
flowers, centered
window
of 191
most Cubistic
1,
disintegrated forms interlock, producing an al-
effect. Since 1904,
Thorn Prikker had
portions, whether as a details, of a fresco or a
whole or
in
the interrelationship of
mosaic mural, an impression that
is
its
vividly
communicated by the painter's pointillistic stipple technique, which Thorn Prikker had borrowed and adapted to Art Nouveau painting. But the picture's composition is by no means founded on the inner coherence of the colored dots, nor is it in the least developed from and of its optical appearance as, the works of Seurat and Signac. Only parts of the
the artist's impression of reality for instance, in
picture were, so to speak, subsequently patterned in terms of pointillistic
dots,
and
these parts alternate
moreover with others that are
lived, taught,
and worked mainly in Germany. But even when he was still living in Holland, he had not limited his artistic activity to painting; like Van de Velde in Uccle and the German Jugendstil artists, most of whom had started as painters, Thorn Prikker likewise took an active part in the applied arts and "decorated the interiors of houses and shops, thereby simplifying Van de Velde's style in his own individualistic manner." 155 Besides, Thorn Prikker also designed fabrics and wallpapers which sought their inspiration in the batik techniques of the East Indies.
Ornamentation inspired by batik is a special feature of Dutch Art Nouveau, which is altogether influenced to a great extent by The East Indies had belonged to the Netherlands ever since 1596, but their art was only now being discovered. Java was thus for Holland what Japan had been for London and Paris, Javanese
art.
a source of inspiration that helped achieve clarity in the struggle for liberation
and
from
historicism. But, contrasting with the perfection
discipline of Japanese art, with
its
subtle simplicity
and volup-
tuous asceticism, there emanated from Java a heavy, exotic atmos-
phere of the jungle that actually produced some rare samples of
High Art Nouveau
in
Holland. This exotic Indonesian influence
Beginning in 1886, T. A. C. Colenbrander
crucified Christ
themselves after the
Art Nouveau. The form is kaleidoscopic in its structure, with interruptions, reflections, and reduplications. In a
made
The
in
see geo-
late
and the Bride, Death and Life, are thus transposed as ornamental emblems which lend themselves to a variety of symbolical interpretations. The composition of the painting has the large and somewhat monumental proskulls.
Van
de Velde's Haus Leuring (1902) show, his austere style gradually became more angular, till it even became geometrical. In a window
forms of sturdy buds intermixed with bunches of white orchids, vaguely recalling
in
itself felt almost exclusively in ornament and surface patterns.
objects inspired
(1
841-1930) thus created
by batik work; he applied
these forms, originally
designed for textiles, to ceramics (plate 308). Dutch books, designed
and illustrated according to principles of Jugendstil, also offer examples of batik ornaments; for instance in the vignettes by the architect and book designer, Van Bazel. In other respects, Dutch book design remained very much influenced by English examples. A Dutch adaption of Walter Crane's Claims of Decorative Art, for
was decorated by Gerrit William Dijsselhof (1 866-1924). The Dijsselhofkamer designed by Dijsselhof for a private house is generally considered a masterpiece of Dutch Jugendstil (plate 309). The walls above the wood paneling were covered with canvas and decorated with airy yet somewhat rigid patterns of birds and instance,
plants which again were carried out in batik work. The result of this
150
was a sort of a Peacock Room in miniature, a room which in itself was a total masterpiece of decorative art. But Whistler's princely Peacock Room had now shrunk to the proportions of a middle-class Dutch bausfrau's front parlor, the furniture of which stresses modesty and craftsmanship, in the spirit of the Art and Crafts movement; indeed, only with a large amount of charity can it be described as Art Nouveau.
A few pieces of furniture designed by the architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage
(i
856-1934),
156
one of the strongest personalities
in
Dutch
around 1900, are more powerfully individual and of greater artistic significance. The style of his little writing desk (plate 152), so charmingly sedate with its precise, closed, box-like form, stands midway between Godwin (plate 73) and late Art Nouveau (plate art
High Art Nouveau as exemplified by Gaudi, Guimard, Horta, and Van de Velde. Straight 256), but without in the least belonging to
and a structure founded on the idea of a framework for surfaces stretched over it like membranes also appeared in folding screens which originally came from Japan but soon became very typical of Dutch Jugendstil, though their unsurpassed prototype had been created by Mackmurdo (plate 100). Another peculiarity of Dutch Art Nouveau was a preference for beautiful or semiprecious metals, especially fine brass, out of which utensils and ornamental vases of sober form were fashioned. Outstanding among these were the great round dishes designed by F. Zwollo, which were engraved with geometrical ornaments suggesting primitive art. Flowers, as ornamental patterns, are but rarely seen in Dutch Art Nouveau, perhaps because they appear in such profusion in Holland's gardens and fields. lines, right angles,
Middle Ages and, above entirely lacks the theless large,
pomp
form of
all,
of Romanesque, the building almost
of these styles. In the compact, but never-
its
mass, with
bare surfaces,
its
precisely
its
placed tower, which assumes strange and even exaggerated propor-
due to
tions floor,
we
tiny double windows,
its
see a building of clean
and the great loggia of its top and firm lines, free of all unneces-
sary ornament.
The methods of the construction, consisting of massive brick walls steel supports for the roof, are relatively conservative, compared for instance to those of Horta's Maison du Peuple, which with
dates
from the same period. Like
his
English colleagues, Berlage did
not wish to break with the past; his intention was to free himself
from the dishonesty of historicism and
its
masquerading. In
his
writings of 1895 and 1896, Berlage advises architects not to think
of existing styles says,
when
designing plans for buildings.
Only
then, he
can one achieve a true architecture which he qualifies as "pure
functional art." Berlage
was thus one of the few who not only
considered that an ethical attitude in architecture was necessary but also (like Philip ly fulfilled his
Webb
in the
demands
Red House
he built for Morris) actual-
for a purified architecture. In the
main
hall
of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the construction of the roof
Between the
freely revealed.
glass roof
with
its
iron
and the supporting orick walls no illusion of synthesis there is here nothing but an undisguised juxtaposition.
is
framework is
created;
The character of surface is stressed in the brick walls of the hall. The architectonic components are indeed distinguished by the use of different materials: granite for the compact pillars and light colored quarried stone for the capitals. But no sculptural effects are
attempted here. The arcades seem to be cut out of the wall, their segmental arcs fitting closely into it. Not even the capitals of the
columns protrude; they seem to be "cut off with a razor blade." 157 One thus gains the impression, so typical of Art Nouveau, of the
Hendrik Petrus Berlage
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, considerable greatness, verity.
of
Geometrical
High
An
by Berlage, is a work of not devoid of humanity in spite of its sebuilt
in its design, its style
Nouveau
is
closely allied to that
in other countries. Berlage
was mainly con-
"cutout form."
Wie
brick balustrades of the balconies achieve the
same effects of sheer surface: as decoration, they empty spaces which, as negative contrasting forms,
truly produce alternate with
When he lectured on style in architecture in "We must, above all, show the naked wall in
positive forms.
1905,
cerned here with problems of architecture as sheer construction and
Berlage said:
with
Bussum (1893) had already and functionalism which are entirely based
smooth beauty
on purpose and construction, features that could be found elsewhere only in Norman Shaw's or Voysey's work in England. The Amster-
of the wall." 158
dam
Stock Exchange was built between 1898 and 1903, after a number of various preliminary designs in historical styles which
buildings and houses which, although appearing as three-dimen-
date back as far as 1897. Despite some distinct reminders of the
Except
its
aesthetic expression.
displayed a simplicity
151
His
villa at
.
.
capitals; the joints
.
and columns must bear no protruding and nodal points must melt into the flat surface pillars
Dutch Art Nouveau
is
content with two dimensions, even in
combined of seemingly two-dimensional planes. ceramics, Dutch Art Nouveau created no bodies or spatial
sional cubes, are in
all its
FÉLIX
VALLOTTON
Portrait of Henri de Régnier (1896-98)
figures in curved lines
and practically no sculpture of
real
impor-
tance. Inspired by the English style in its conceptions of structure, and by Javanese ornaments, Holland produced a highly individual Art Nouveau of an earnest, reserved character. In this reticent and
almost bare
art,
paintings by Toorop and some
Dutch Art Nouveau
porcelain appear like a spray of extremely delicate and exotic flowers.
displayed in vitrines, or in complicated boudoir furniture. In
forms and conception we
feel the
its
connection with the eighteenth
century. Seen against this background, the decadent character and
tone of the ancien régime and fin de siècle in French Art
become clear, together with what erotic quality.
its
aristocratic elegance
and
Nouveau its
some-
In the designing of furniture, honest craftsmanship and simple or significantly displayed construction had been, since Morris,
important
in
all-
England, where form was primarily derived from
and technique, though Art Nouveau frequently by exaggerating its proportions. Except for Godwin. Mackmurdo, and Voysey, such furniture is rectilinear, shaped like chests or cabinets and often laconically purposeful. The great French cabinetmakers, such as Galle and Guimard, and the masters who were then greatly admired, like Majorelle, De Feure, Colonna, or function, material,
Paris
and Nancy
Art Nouveau
in
developed
France developed primarily as High Art Nou-
veau, revealing an entirely three-dimensional character which
was
due to a considerable admixture of Baroque and Rococo elements.
it
Though the assimilation of these influences guaranteed its very plastic and vital quality, and whenever this Baroque-Rococo blend was not fully achieved French Art Nouveau tended to degenerate more than in any other country into an impure Art Nouveau disturbed by elements of historicism.
Gaillard, all conceived pieces of furniture as objects of luxury in
not only because of the quality of the products of Paris and
constructed furniture of the Arts and Crafts school, French furni-
It is
Nancy, but
also because of the intentions of the artists
who
created
them, that the decorative element and craftsmanship are so clearly
up
wood and
in
upholstery. Contrasting with England's logically
ture of this period, as that of
grown
Horta and Gaudî, seems often
to
have
like a plant.
Creations of this kind indeed claim to be considered inde-
stressed.
pendent works of
art.
Such a development
is
on the whole
formity with the philosophy of form of Art Nouveau
tended
which structure and functional considerations were of secondary importance, to such an extent indeed that chairs were often first modeled in plaster and then subsequently copied from this mock-
in
in con-
— though
it
Admiration of English Style
in
France
France more than elsewhere to produce precious and
highly stylized small works of art, or objets d'art. The jeweler
René Lalique
860-1945) (plates 154, 158, 275, and 277) thus one of the most admired masters of the nineties. With (1
semiprecious stones, and translucent horn he
made combs,
159
was
pearls,
brooches,
In the Rossetti and Burne- Jones circle in London, ethereal and
unworldly dream princesses were created and real people then strove to adopt their appearance and manner. Paris, with its back-
ground of decorative
art, fashion,
and jewelry, preferred
to pro-
more worldly beauty of the living woman. and Chelsea Pre-Raphaelite fashions which included, among
and other pieces of jewelry which seem quite alien to all traditional forms. He was not interested in the rich hues of rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, nor in the cold fire of diamonds and their crystalline
claim
appearance, nor indeed in the rounded perfection of pearls; what
other things, dresses without waists; fashionable marriages, as that
attracted
him most was the
lique's colors
delicate,
irregular shape of baroque pearls. La-
seem to have been
with stones and pearls
distilled set in
from moonlight: pale and
mother-of-pearl and milky-
colored enamel. His jewelry was figurative, representing almost exclusively costly
and
fragile blossoms
and plants
in
which poetic
invention forms an ideal union with the function of the bauble.
French applied art was diametrically opposed to the honest craftsmanship of Morris or
Mackmurdo and
is
extremely subtle and
of great virtuosity, shining enticingly in jewels and other objects
its
allegiance to the
Since the seventies, the "aesthetic" ladies of Kensington
had dressed
in
of Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd in 1884, were celebrated
in
Pre-Raphaelite garb. In Paris in the nineties, on the contrary,
Marcel Proust writes: "... one evening at the house of one of Saint-Loup's aunts on
whom
he had prevailed to allow his friend to come there, before a
some of the speeches from a symbolic play in which she had once appeared in an 'advanced' theatre, and for which she had made him share the admiration that she herself large party, to recite
professed.
152
'But
when
she entered the room, with a large lily in her hand,
and wearing a costume copied from the Ancilla Domini, which she had persuaded Saint-Loup was an absolute 'vision of beauty,' her entrance had been greeted, in that assemblage of clubmen and
Swann, might indeed serve us here as a striking example of French Anglomania in the last decades that preceded 1900. As early as 1872, when she was "one of the youngest of the well-known cocottes of the time," she posed for her portrait as "Miss Sacripant";
which the monotonous tone of her chantings, the oddity of certain words and their frequent recurrence had changed into fits of laughter, stifled at first but presently so uncontrollable that the wretched reciter had been unable to go on.
had found the grand manner both as a painter and as an individual, becomes Elstir an English-sounding name with a slightly exotic touch. Behind the
Next day Saint-Loup's aunt had been universally censured
others, a personage
duchesses, with smiles
for
Biche, the artist later, once he
first called
—
identity of Proust's fictional Charles
who
Swann
is
concealed,
among
actually existed, Charles Haas; rather than
having allowed so grotesque an actress to appear in her drawing-
preserve his originally Germanic name, meaning "hare," Proust
A well-known duke made no bones about telling her that she Ton had only herself to blame if she found herself criticised. '.
chose for
my
Besides,
room.
.
soul, Paris
is
not such a fool as people
make
.
out. Society does
not consist exclusively of imbeciles. This little lady evidently be-
was going
lieved that she
to take Paris
A
make
But Paris is not some things that
surprise.
and there are
so easily surprised as all that,
they can't
by
still
us swallow.'" 160
tion of
poems
Pre-Raphaelite and of Jugendstil, and a recita-
that might have been
was
terlinck (actually, Proust
by Swinburne, Wilde, or Mae-
refering to Maeterlinck); but Robert
de Saint-Loup had been converted to the us later that he
had decorated
his
new
home with
style.
Proust
tells
furniture designed
Bing and that Rachel, Saint-Loup's actress friend,
who had
by
at first
been so unsuccessful, soon acquired great fame. This turn of Fortune's
wheel
is
significant. In
illustrated periodical of the
1
897, L'Illustration, the conservative
grande bourgeoisie, had,
in its Christ-
mas number, a front cover designed by Grasset with angels
in the
(who designed the front cover the following year). Toulouse-Lautrec was among those who had their homes decorated by Bing in the "Yachting Style," and it is also known that Toulouse-Lautrec liked Burne- Jones' paintings and was friendly with Wilde and Beardsley. In 1896, Lautrec designed a poster for the Irish -American bar in the rue Royale which was called The Chap-Book, after the small avant-garde Chicago periodical which had published Bradley's Serpentine Dancer (Loi'e Fuller, plate 35). Lautrec also immortalized the invasion of English and
English style of Walter Crane
Anglo-American
artistes
who
aters of Paris: his posters for
drawings inspired by
suddenly appeared in the variety the-
Jane Avril and
Loi'e Fuller,
May
Belfort,
May
Milton and
his
stars such as
Isadora
Duncan and
the
Barrison Sisters inspired poets like Hofmannsthal. Proust's charming character, Odette de Crécy, later
153
phaelitic."
and
it is
and movements reand are, one might say, "Pre-Raadopts the English custom of drinking tea,
loves Odette because her face
Botticelli's figures
Odette also
soon part of her ritual to invite her admirers to her "five
makes a point of speaking English to young Proust (it must have been toward the end of the eighties), so that others should not understand what she is saying, whereupon the author observes that only he could not understand her although everybody else knew English. Both Odette and her daughter Gilberte always speak of "Christmas," never of "Noël." It was obviously the "thing" to be thus Anglicized. Proust also greatly admired Whistler, whom he called the "swan of Chelsea," and translated works of Ruskin into French, proving to us that he did
Madame
know
English after
The fact that fashionable
all.
and poets were all proEnglish did not yet demonstrate the influence of an English decorative style, but did create a favorable atmosphere for the importation of English objects which were meant for the leading circles of art and fashion. S. Bing, the dealer in Japanese art, toward the end society, artists,
of 1895 transformed his art shop in Paris into one for
decoration and called
it
modern
L'Art Nouveau, and also commissioned
painters to design furniture and decorate rooms.
From
the start, he
had exhibited ensembles by Van de Velde and worked with MeierGraefe and for the Berlin periodical Pan; 161 obviously, he was a man who knew what he was saying when in 1898 he wrote: "When English creations began to appear, a cry of delight sounded through-
out Europe.
and Ida Heath bear
witness to the popularity of English names. In Vienna too, world-
famous Anglo-American
Swann
mind him of
o'clock teas." After becoming Swann's wife, she
costume designed after Rossetti's best-known painting (plate
57), the lily of the
him an English-sounding name suggesting "swan" which,
moreover, was appropriate as a symbol for the Art Nouveau period.
But
it is
Its
echo can
still
be heard in every country." 162
not always easy to prove that France followed English
in the applied and decorative art of this period. In fact, was mainly in Brussels that English inventions of form were first assimilated and transformed before they then spread to France.
examples it
Furniture designs by Serrurier-Bovy (plate 306), closely related to
those of English Arts
and Crafts, and above
Horta's creations,
all
us praise the
whims of
having allowed a Japanese to be
fate for
translated the flat curves of English wallpapers into three-dimen-
Nancy." 166 Traces of Gallé's botanical studies can be found everywhere in his floral Art Nouveau; through his eyes flowers
and thus enriched them with the form, dynamics, and
are not merely beautiful forms of nature but can be charged with
were accepted sional terms
power
in
France as quite exemplary. Horta had already
to transmute that characterized Rocaille.
Nor
now
is it
troversial to attribute all this to the influence of Brussels.
an
as 1895,
article
con-
As early
appearing in Paris demanded that French design
become more independent of Belgian
influence.
183
born
in
emotion too. Galle himself can be called a Symbolist, and often engraved or cut in the glass of his vases Symbolist verses or stanzas linck.
He
his free in
Emile Galle
— quotations also
time to the large garden that surrounded his beautiful
Nancy.
roots
from Poe, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, or Maeterwrote scientific articles on horticulture and devoted
On
lie in
the soil
pool," 167 another statement that reveals
was not
It
achieved
its
in Paris
but in
Nancy
that French Art
Nouveau
greatest independence, reaching the highest quality in
sought to come to the origins of
forms of
life,
French
came acquainted
of Gallé's works (plate 313). This
work;
at
an early age with the materials used
in his later
first studied philosophy and London. In the South Kensington Museum, he was fascinated most of all by Japanese glassware displayed there after the World Exhibition of 1862. Chinese and Japanese glassware, above all the coloring techniques used in small
like Obrist after
botany and,
bottles,
in
him, Galle
1872, went
to
gave him the idea for
his
extremely subtle and complicated
method of production and inspired
In
Nancy
1874 and founded his own glassworks) Galle became acquainted with a Japanese student, 105 who had come
(where he settled later
his artistic style.
in
Rococo element may have contributed to the evolution of Gallé's art, since Nancy's finest buildings are of that period. Cabinetmakers and gifted artistcraftsmen, such as Majorelle and Prouvé who in the nineties founded the École de Nancy with Galle, and had previously worked in the Rococo style returned to Rococo in 1900. Pieces of furniture which had been designed by Galle himself in collaboration with Prouvé and which are noteworthy because of their elaborate marquetry (plate 315) are likewise mostly inspired by
there in 1885 to study botany. In addition, a
—
—
made
designs for his father's workshop. It
is
chronology of the productions of his own workshop, so that we cannot distinguish with any certainty when difficult to establish a
Art Nouveau period started and when he actually arrived at High Art Nouveau. But a Far Eastern touch can always more or
his
and must certainly have already been noticeable in the works he sent in 1889 to the World Exhibition in Paris. E. de Vogue writes about Galle in his Remarques sur l'Exposition de 1889, "Let
less
be
felt
close
Art Nouveau
and the primitive
to water,
usual, the English influence art. Nevertheless, a clear
is
the most difficult to trace in
example of is
it
can be found
one
in
a vase, a kind of pitcher,
which belongs to early Art Nouveau and surely made before 1 890, decorated with a design and ornaments derived from the illustra-
and book decorations in Walter Crane's Echoes of Hellas of 1888 (plate 314). The way in which it was possible to express this graphic art in a plastic form eminently suitable to High Art Nouveau is shown both in Crane's ceramic works and in Gallé's vase, with the wavy outline of the latter's neck and the almost amphibian tions
character of
its
handle.
Although entirely faithful
to
Art Nouveau, some of Gallé's works
attain a degree of severe beauty which shows they are free
from the
and time. The cyclamen bloom on a bottle-shaped vase (opposite) grows like a water lily on a delicately curved stem, from the transparent layers of colored glass. The seemingly simple form of the vessel is actually extremely subtle; in it we sense the echo of a Greek amphora. Contrapuntally, the form encompasses bonds of
style
the suspended blossom, vase.
As
in the case of
cient unto itself,
and
if
its
corona echoed
in the
many Art Nouveau
curved
vases, this
a flower were placed in
it
of the
lip
one
is
the effect
suffi-
would
only become overdone.
eighteenth-century types.
Galle had already
how
life.
the glassware of Emile Galle (1 846-1904) (plates 4, 15 3, and 159). 164 As his father owned a workshop for glass and pottery, Galle be-
As
home
workshop there was a slogan: "Our of the woods, in the moss by the rim of the
the door of his
had an
from the first they were exhibited in the Bing gallery and were soon to be found in all important private collections, and later also in public collections. Galle tried to meet the increasing demand by employing more and Gallé's vases
incredible success:
more craftsmen and by lowering his standards of quality stance by etching instead of cutting the glass); by doing
(for inthis
he
inevitably repeated himself, no longer achieving the high quality
of craftsmanship and originality of his earlier work.
154
,
5
3
1
155
MU
1
GAI
1
I
Vase(circa [895
'54
i
1
5
HIM LALIQUE
4
Woman's hoot
French
5 5
Brooch (circa (
1
1
900)
902)
Opposite: 156
HECTOR GUIMARD
157
CAMILLE GAUTHIER .1
. 1
Mil
I
I
\!
GA]
[Ql I
l
I
Detail 0} aParis Metro station (circa 190c)
Vase (circa 1900)
Ornamental comb
(circa 1900)
Vase (circa 1S95-1900)
156
i
5
6
M7
157
158
M9
iéo
161
162
158
i6o
HECTOR GUIMARD
Staircase in the artist's
home,
Paris (1911) 161
HECTOR GUIMARD
Upholstered chair (1904)
62
HECTOR GUIMARD
Upholstered chair
163
HECTOR GUIMARD
Auditorium
.
Romans 164
1
908)
Humbert de
Building, Paris (1902)
HECTOR GUIMARD (circa 1900)
159
in the
(
Detail 0} a Pans Métro station
Ié 7 I
ll,lll 11
ill
160
I
i65
1
H
C
TOR GUIMARD
Metal picture frame (with an early-
nineteenth-century Japanese color prim) (before 1900) 166
HECTOR GUIMARD
167
Pll-RRUBONNARD
161
Desk
(circa 1903)
Screen(i%w)
Iroupe de
^EGLANTINE Qéopatre
me âne AvrK
Gazelle
170
168
RAOUL LARCHL
169
PIERRE
170
ROCHE
Veil
Damer
(Loïe Fuller) {circa
163
900)
Loïe Fuller (before 1900)
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
Troupe de Mlle. Eglantine
(1896) 171
1
ARISTIDE MAILLOL
The Laundress {circa 1893)
'72
164
173
174
iji
HENRI
173
EDWARD
SI
Thinker"
902)
174
TOULOUSl LAUTRE(
1)1
(
1
MAURICE
I
K
III
DI'.NIS
\
Loïe Fuller (i)
Rodin, Victor Hugo, and "The
Nos âmes,
en des gestes laites (1898)
175
AUGUS'IT.
PERRET
Apartment house, rue Franklin, Pans (1903)
166
Hector Guimard
conceived as a metal cage, a structure of membrane-like surfaces
which
and of the boudoir style Art Nouveau, could be discerned in the architecture of Paris and Nancy too, and not always to its advantage. Apart from the late French phase (as for instance with the works of Emile André and Xavier Schollkopf), we have The love of Rococo, of rare
which
is
bibelots,
characteristic of all French
here an Art
Nouveau perverted by
historicism, with façades super-
imposed at random on the actual structure of works of poor quality. Only Hector Guimard (i 867-1 942), 168 an architect of the universal quality of Horta,
Van de Velde, or Gaudf,
rises
mediocre. With the strangest forms, his imagination
above the
knows how
to
to
recalls Brussels
Art Nouveau. But these elements do not seem
have belonged to the original plan; they were probably added at
Once converted
Nouveau, Guimard indeed created buildings that were homogeneous and ornamental units in their structure and their details. a later date.
The most remarkable
to Art
Béranger consists
detail of the Castel
in the
main Rococo blends with flamboyant Gothic. However,
surprisingly freely conceived asymmetrical ironwork of the
entrance, where
the decisive force, the stimulus that sets everything in motion,
again springs from the flowing lines of the curves of Japanese
woodcuts
in particular
and Japanese surface ornamentation
in
draw an entirely new value from the components of French Art Nouveau. His station entrances and pavilions for the Paris Métro, most of them created in 1900, are still landmarks of the city (plates 156, 164, and 274). True to the decorative style of Art Nouveau, they never suggest to us that they are accesses to a mechanical means of mass transportation. There is no sign of stark functionality in the orchid-shaped electric lamps that swing out from cast-iron stems painted leek-green. With their organic, soft, and sensitive forms, with the erotic associations of their details, these subway entrances
general. In the application of the characteristic features of these
appear rather as gateways to a subterranean Venusberg such as
counted among the most incredible but convincing pieces of Art
Beardsley described so vividly in his story, Under the Hill.
comparison with Horta's insect-shaped inkwell,
A
lamps that
his
look like flowers, his curved glass roofs, and cast-iron supports
and 131) clearly reveal the source of Guimard's inspiration. Guimard's ironwork portals and pavilions rooted in the sidewalk pavement seem to be the colossal counterparts of Horta's objects. Not only in their abstract and ambivalent idiom of forms are the Métro entrances singular and magnificant hybrids. According to their origin they might belong to the field of engineering (plates 3, 12, 15,
rather than to that of architectural yet
Guimard was
far
works
in the traditional sense;
from considering himself an engineer. Not
only did he call himself an architect, but an architecte d'art. Like Obrist's fountain (plate 215) or Gaudî's his constructions are art,
domed
roofs (plate 13),
hybrid products of architecture
and applied
of sculpture and decoration: plastic ornaments of utilitarian
lines,
Soon after Horta's creation of the Brussels Maison
Guimard
Tassel, in
built his Parisian Castel Béranger, a luxurious
apartment house which was started
in
1894 and completed in 1898.
and
artist are
that
167
is
entirely
as late as 191
Nouveau
surpasses Horta,
as if riveted
1
(plate 160).
furniture,
is
up space and
in
which
demonstrated in a desk that can be
Guimard's
own
writing table (plate 166).
A
and actual sense of the term, and at the same time both a stucture and a piece of cabinetwork, the desk gives an optical illusion of motion due to the veining of dark wooden strips. Two box-like elements are united in it by an asymmetrically extending tongue-shaped top. "linear body," closed in itself both in the formal
The great centrally situated auditorium of Guimard's Humbert de Romans Building of 1902 (plate 163) is important as a constructed interior; an engineering construction reminiscent of the Eiffel
Tower of 1889, but conventionally surrounded by brick walls, this hall is spanned by straight-lined ironwork. The separate girders rest
on stone pedestals
in
which the flow of their
an ornament. The structure of the room
is
lines terminates in
entirely conceived in
plant forms. The spoke-like supports radiate throughout the audi-
torium in a diagonal curve and
rise
upward
from which the
to the
open translucent
electric light
-
-pray forth in
from the iron supports that Horta used in the Solvay house in Brussels. But Guimard's hall can also be compared with the auditorium of Horta's Maison du Peuple (plate 136). Both these
clusters as
Guimard's centralized
which
cramped
unification, their evenness of lines,
This asymmetry, which seems to open
Guimard
engineering
hall,
and
surpassed by the irregularly asymmetrical staircase railing
Guimard designed
remains unrelated to Art Nouveau, though the latter appears in
and the entrance
outshines even Horta, whose
their relationship to space, the masterpieces of the Belgian
This complex building in a traditional historical style as a whole
such details as ironwork
Guimard
furniture basically appears knotted and together. In their synthesis
center of the cupola,
nature.
1892/93,
smooth and gliding
by forceful
constructions,
lines
Horta's
hall, are
long
rectangular
hall
and
of a linear nature and characterized
and thin or transparent membranes.
On
this
Art Nouveau principle, closely related to that of timber in medieval houses, Guimard also built the villa Castel
framework
asymthe inner distribution and
Henriette near Sèvres (plate 316). The layout of the whole metrical, as are also
is
most of its details: rooms or landings are recognizable from the
the different levels of outside.
But
this entire building,
with
its
reminiscences of histori-
cism and of the medievalistic robber-baron castles of the prosperous upper bourgeoisie, can scarcely be said to represent Art
veau at
Nou-
of his well-balanced pictures removes Seurat entirely from the constant flux of
Art Nouveau and
stability. Seurat's pictures are
sense of the
its
luxuriant
void of significance
in
Nouveau
The works of Picasso's Blue Period offer us the with Art Nouveau: in the sentimental content of artificial coloring; in the
"Pan" (1895)
painting.
easiest
analogy
these paintings, in the soft
drawing of the outlines and
importance which determines the composition Vignette from
the truest
word; they are poems for the eyes without any sym-
cynical eroticism that frequently governs Art
and
in-
or literary intention and lack either the sentimental or
bolistic
with their aristocratic beggars and their huddled women,
its best.
FÉLIX VALLOTTON
movement and
their
in spite of the latter's
high pictorial qualities; and in the almost complementary relationship between figures
and background. However, in spite of works are static, immobile,
Picasso's lyrical gliding lines, these
steeped in the blue depths of dreams. But, even in this phase of Picasso's is
work, a barbaric, brutal element opposed to Art Nouveau
latent. This barbaric feature
is
subsequently displayed openly by
among whom Matisse alone remains close to Art Noumuch in his Fauvist works as in his later tamed style of the thirties through the fifties, when Dali called him the "painter of seaweed." Following the early Art Nouveau master Gauguin (whose Tahitian paintings are far less in the Art Nouveau the Fauves,
veau, although not so
Pont-Aven period) the only major French painter between Seurat and the Cubists whom one can occasionally consider as belonging to the Art Nouveau movement was ToulouseLautrec ( 1 864-1 90 1 ) 170 and with him the Nabi group. style than those of his
Toulouse-Lautrec's painting develops that of Degas, whose vision
had been influenced by Japanese art; Lautrec's paintings and his unconventionally free drawings thus do not really belong to the field of Art Nouveau. However, this is not true of his posters which, as "art for the street," helped to determine the character of
French Painting and Sculpture
in
Art Nouveau
Paris in the nineties. Contrary to Lautrec's sionistic paintings the thickly
The decorative period of Art Nouveau lasted roughly fifteen years and corresponds to the period between the last of Seurat's
and the first Cubist works, when Cezanne's "classical picwere being painted practically without the public knowing anything about them. Georges Seurat, Cézanne, and the Cubists were as alien as possible to the conceptions of Art Nouveau. Even
make
the poster
more
tonal variations or shading.
La Chahut may have been inspired by an early Chéret poster, related to Art Nouveau (plate 303), there is an abyssal difference between the scientifically dry technique of pointillism, reminiscent of mosaic or powdery pastel, and the viscous substance of Art Nouveau forms. The total immobility and abstracted rigidity
outlines in his posters are
striking, limited in
to
169
Impres-
colorplate VI). The colors are bright, sharp, aggressive, and, in order
tures"
Seurat's
less
often filled in with homogeneous patches of color (plate 170 and
pictures
if
drawn
more or
As
number, without any
the figures of the posters often stand
out against an empty and unprepared background, the impressionistic quality of
also in
Japanese art becomes more evident there, as
works of Beardsley. In contrast
to the latter,
we
see that,
despite the rhythmical outline of the figures and the composition,
Lautrec's posters (which
veau)
still
retain a
may
compact
ized outline of his figures,
be compared with Gauguin's Art
Nou-
quality. In the exaggeratedly character-
we
discover effects of foreshortening,
168
O^Jr****^ u**%^ PAUL GAUGUIN
Bretonnes à la barrière (circa 1889)
whereas Beardsley's sensuality, remain
figures,
on the contrary, with
all their erotic
disembodied and ethereal, almost other-wordly,
while Lautrec, with his personal portraits and caricatures,
is
al-
171
ways rooted in concrete reality. Pierre Bonnard (1 867-1 947) also owed a great deal to the art of the poster, and it is still a moot point whether his posters were influenced by those of Lautrec or vice The four colored lithographs for a screen (plate 167) which were published in 1899 are, in the arrangement of space and in their theme, a kind of parody on the large Degas painting of Count Lepic
versa.
and
his
it is
not fortuitous that traces of Art
daughters posing on the Place de
decorative furniture that origin.
169
is
la
Concorde. Once again,
Nouveau appear
of Japanese
or, at
any
rate,
in a piece
of
Far Eastern
Another painter of the Nabi group, Aristide Maillol (1861172 after having made decorative designs in the Art Nouveau 1944), style in the nineties, shifted his interest to sculpture.
From
the
first,
and monumental weightiness which can be seen even in his small figures, went far beyond Art Nouveau. Nevertheless, a number of his earlier works
work
Maillol's
may
in the round, in its static quality
be attributed to this
still
style,
such as the delightful figurine
of a washerwoman (plate 171), a theme he had also treated in painting but which here became a kind of functional sculptured ornament. The swerve of the skirt, the smooth curves of the body, the absence of all naturalistic detail, link this work with Gallé's shell-shaped glass bowls. Although his sculptural activities began at an early period, the rigorous discipline in the art of Maillol and the architectural character apparent in the construction of his
place
it
in the
work
nating the unit in the shape of a rose window. The thin projecting ledge that runs along the top like a
is
Endell's Elvira Studio (1897-98, plate 200)
identical to that of
and
to Mackintosh's
north wall of the Glasgow School of Art (1897-99, plate 244). Perret's architecture
is
an example of the geometrical, rectilinear
Art Nouveau which had not as yet universally asserted itself. We find the wavy and linear as well as the wavy and flat Art Nouveau as late as 1909, and even up to 19 14, in the stage designs of late
Léon Bakst
as well as in the field of Parisian haute couture. Bakst's
compactly built-up hori-
stage-sets (plate 123) usually consisted of
Nouveau's late phase they also reveal characteristics of High Art Nouveau such as can be found nowhere else. In High Art Nouveau zonless landscapes,
and
in spite of clearly
belonging to Art
painting landscapes as themes were largely neglected except by
Gauguin and
category of the more severe late Art Nouveau.
hem
Other
his friends of the
late influences of
Pont-Aven
school.
High Art Nouveau may be found
in
Georges Lepape's watercolor renderings of dress designs by Paul
Nouveau
Late Art
in
The principle of a "framework" building which Guimard had adopted recurs in the work of the architect Auguste Perret (1874173 In the block of flats which Perret built on the rue Franklin 1954). in Paris in 1903 (plate 175), he employed reinforced concrete and covered the framework with decorative
tiles.
Here, as
in the
garage
on the rue Ponthieu he built in 1905 (plate 317), the façade of which was treated as a framed and braced surface, the skeleton membrane-structure of Art Nouveau buildings
is
already divested
asymmetry, curves, and organic associations. The chief examples of French Art Nouveau architecture around 1 900 are these
of
all
two
buildings, masterpieces of Perret's style
which already belong
much
chronologically (since
to late Art Nouveau, although not so
1914 were still building in the undulating organic style) but rather because Perret's style belongs
Gaudi
in
1910 and Van de Velde
in
clearly to the rigorous geometric late phase of
Art Nouveau,
like
Mackintosh's west wing of the Glasgow School of Art of 1907-09
and Hoffmann's Brussels Palais Stoclet of 1905-11 (plate 257). Among these architects, Perret closely approaches the modern way of constructing in reinforced concrete and it is he too who comes closest to our own more truly modern architecture of recent (plate 341)
decades. But the ornamental details of the building
new
still
separate
which found such a forceful expression only a few years later in Walter Gropius' Fagus Factory in Alfeld. The façade on the rue Ponthieu is conceived by Perret as a geometric ornamental surface with a real central ornament domi-
Perret from the
architecture
which were printed in the Paris Gazette du Bon Ton. Even Edward Steichen's photographs reveal how greatly the continuous flow of lines, the totally enclosed contour, the homogeneous twodimensional body, and the refusal to concentrate on any minor Poiret,
France
even these fields of fashion and applied art. These clothes, fashion illustrations, and photographs belong to the style with Poiret's gowns seeming to be the only of Gaudi's Casa Milâ detail affected
—
clothes stylistically suitable for the inhabitants of Gaudi's later buildings.
In this style that remains grand even in
culminating phase of Art
— which
Nouveau
lives
its
simplified form, the
on so that
in the creations
works of decorative and applied the innermost quality of the uninterrupted form is embodied. art Photographic portraits of around 1900, especially those of the actress Réjane or of Liane de Pougy, a leading cocotte (both of them authentic representatives of the latest in fashion), show that dresses of fashion
are likewise
—
—
were then composed of numerous small pieces panels, appliqué, and beadwork. In reality, their figures were still far from being those of the simplified sweeping outlines which Lautrec and Bonnard produced on screens, posters, and canvas. Proust was thinking
of this lack of homogeneity in fashion when he wrote about Odette as she appeared in the nineties: "... while as for her figure, and she
was admirably
built,
it
was impossible
to
make out
its
continuity
(on account of the fashion then prevailing, and in spite of her being
one of the best-dressed women in Paris), for the corset, jetting forwards in an arch, as though over an imaginary stomach, and ending in a sharp point, beneath which bulged out the balloon of her double
170
171
VI
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC May
Milton (1895
1
skirts,
gave a woman, that year, the appearance of being composed
London
of different sections badly fitted together; to such an extent did the frills,
flounces, the inner bodice follow, in complete independence,
controlled only by the fancy of their designer or the rigidity of their material, the line
which
lace, fringes of vertically
of
bust, but
led
them
hanging
to the knots of ribbon, falls
jet,
nowhere attached themselves
or carried
them along the
to the living creature
.
.
."
m
Only
after 1900 did Odette appear in the long flowing robes which were not taken in at the Waist. This proves, in fact, that short-lived fashion often lags far behind art in matters of style.
The love of the heterogenous and of interrupted forms which
English Art
Nouveau
of the last decade of the nineteenth century
bears the characteristics of the traditional English gentleman, sug-
and equanimity, and addicted
gesting great reserve
to understate-
ment. Exaggerated proportions were accepted almost as a matter of course and even the sensational and lascivious element in Beardsley's
drawings, since
it
was expressed
in
symbols, never overstepped
the limits of decency. In the tranquillity of London's Art
more
delicate melodies
became audible
too,
Nouveau,
and the coolness of
this
style never excluded recourse to a strongly manneristic imagination.
belong to historicism lives on in the photographic portraits of 1900.
Urban functionalism and
Not before Edward
lowed enough scope for Romanticism which went far beyond mere illustration, though the "soul" of which this Romanticism is by no means deprived was never deliberately exposed. Even the typical
be qualified as Art
Steichen (born in 1 879) does one see what might Nouveau photography. The Viennese periodical
Ver Sacrum sometimes reproduced photographs taken by the Viennese
Camera Club, which remind one of Steichen's
their quality still
is
not quite as remarkable as his
style
even though
own work. But
it
was
almost impossible for photography to achieve linearity and,
above
all,
the sharp contours which correspond to Art Nouveau's
tendency to shun the real aspect of objects and people. The trans-
body medium which can only
seemed rather frightening
in
England. 175
London Art Nouveau owed
its
reserve to the long years of prep-
aration supplied by the aesthetes and to the continuity of a nat-
development
ural
thing had
in
which for more than half a century everyits own roots or sprung from affinities with
grown from
capture actual appearances, whether plastic or spatial. Photography
an appropriate
by drawing details together and abolishing the roundness of bodies, in other words deforming by means of light and shadow, a pictorial process which in reality was alien to Art Nouveau. The two-dimensional was thus achieved with a device originally intended to produce the opposite effect, Leonardo da Vinci's sfumato. Steichen's famous 1902 portrait of Rodin (plate 173) illustrates most strikingly the way in which the human figure and its environment were disembodied and immersed in a spectral and nebulous atmosphere. This photograph is symbolical and neo-Romantic as well as neo-Manneristic. Reduced to a mere silhouette, the sculptor
the beginnings of the style remained for a
is
approach
this ideal
seated like a demiurge opposite his Thinker. Rodin's Victor
emerges from the darkness
like a flame, as if materialized
ualism. The confrontation of the sculptor
ed
in a
way unknown
to nature
and
his creations
and takes place
in
Hugo
by
spirit-
is
effect-
some imaginary
two-dimensional space. The flowing outlines, the closed forms, the flaring, ghost-like substance, the contrasts and the interplay of light and shadows characteristic of Art Nouveau, are achieved here in the media of photography and for the purposes of photography.
al-
Nouveau remained a mere suggestion of what had been developed and made more apparent on the Continent but still
position of the three-dimensional into the two-dimensional
tried to
still
element of Art
can only be achieved conditionally
in this
the comfort of country houses
style; as in this case,
Japanese
art.
much
On
the Continent,
longer period, sup-
pressed by the overpowering influence of historicism. The latter's ideal of
form
— the open
form, picturesque effects,
cumstance in complicated plastic forms Continental Art
Nouveau
and, above
result of this lengthy delay was that
appeared on the Continent,
it
— therefore
all, its
pomp and
cir-
contaminated
French version. The
when Art Nouveau
finally
blossomed suddenly with a decided
tendency toward exaggeration. London's traditional wealth of trends which prepared the way for Art Nouveau not only allowed a reserved attitude to
it
but also, in the nineties,
modify and discard many of reached the second decade of
its
its
made
it
possible to
elements. England had by then
own High Art Nouveau,
the
first,
during the eighties, having been characterized by the works of Mackmurdo, by Sumner's Undine and the fiery visions of Ricketts. Thus, the flickering movement of Mackmurdo's works (plate 85) has almost vanished from the more tranquil forms of his pupil Voysey (colorplate VII); and even Charles Ricketts withdrew more
and more into a world of almost classically serene forms, while Beardsley soon discarded Art Nouveau lettering in order to use antique type face. Nothing could be more remote from English High Art Nouveau than the fashionable elegance of Guimard's Métro
172
toward the
rectilinear, frequently
adopting the bare and box-like
forms of a style which
in Vienna and Glasgow later crystallized as Art Nouveau, but which was inherent to London from the very first. Curves remained within the confines of two dimensions, and, late
when they appear in the round, remain limited either to small objects (mostly silverware) or to except for Gilbert's sculptures,
architectural details. Obviously, English in the last
Art Nouveau
still
existed
decade of the nineteenth century and continued for some
when it achieved a full-blown quality all its own. At most, one could ask if it was still High Art Nouveau according years after 1900,
to Continental standards
— but could Beardsley's art be considered
anything but an example of
anywhere but
EDWARD GORDON CRAIG thal's
Illustration for
in the
this,
London of
and could
it
have been possible
the mid-nineties?
Hugo von Hofmanns-
"Der weisse Fâcher" (1907)
Aubrey Beardsley entrance gates (in spite of the roguish joy that Wilde would have
derived from them); nor could anything be more alien to
and
the convulsive fits
starts of
light of
Merlin's magic
a touch of snleen,
English of
a.
It
i-^rt
Nouveau basks
an imaginary Elysium,
wand and
its life
seems arrested by
lethal
and
ghost-like, the creations of
reveal both a solid efficiency
and bear
signs
long and uninterrupted cultural tradition. is
"Some flaws, if skillfully set by the jeweler, can shine even more brightly gem of virtue." La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou Sentences et Maximes morales
than the
in the delicate air
frozen into immobility and silence. With
somewhat
Nouveau
than
Van Gogh's painting or of Munch's
wild Expressionism. English Art
and pale
it
not surprising that after
Mackmurdo
there
was no
longer,
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-98) 176 deliberately chose to be the buffoon and harlequin of his age. He knew he was destined to die of consumption and hankered after immediate success. In his art as in his life, he masked his efforts and hard work behind the pose of the dandy, seeking and achieving success through scandal.
Up
to his death at the age of twenty-six, he
with the exception of Beardsley, any real representative of London
igy, first in the field of
Art Nouveau.
ner's sensual art
by Art Nouveau, one understands nothing but Horta's curved iron structures and glass roofs, Gaudi's highly plastic architecture, and the muscular dynamism of Van de Velde's furniture, the above statement is indeed justified. These spatial developments of Continental Art Nouveau were almost entirely unknown in England, where there was no trace of the Rococo elements which influenced the Continental style while also exposing it to the risk of contamination from historicism. But the creations of Gaudi, Horta, and Van de Velde remained styles that were both personal and nationally conditioned, expressing the utmost exaggeration of its possibilities (despite the fact that the two latter-
named
artists
If,
served to impart a character to the style, the influ-
which traveled far beyond the borders of their native Belgium). However, none of the three above-mentioned men can ences of
be accused of imposing universal or binding criteria.
Indubitably, even mature features of
173
its
London Art Nouveau retained the and spatial forms kept tending
early phases: bodies
in the fields of
music
remained a child prod-
—the sad music of Chopin and Wag-
belonged to the few things he took seriously
— then
both draftsmanship and literature.
Beardsley was born in Brighton and the bizarre character of the
Brighton Pavilion
may have
influenced his conception of art
his life. In London, where for a while he worked as a draftsman in an architect's office, he soon entered the circle of
throughout
which (from Rossetti and his followers onward) almost well-known artists of English Art Nouveau found themselves united. Aymer Vallance, the biographer of William Morris, was one of Beardsley's first friends. The aging Morris himself had little to say to him and was soon annoyed by the frivolity of the designs that Beardsley made for Malory's Morte d'Arthur. But from Sir Edward and Lady Georgiana Burne- Jones Beardsley met with much kindness and encouragement; it was in their house, too, that he became acquainted with the Wildes. Later, it was Whistler at first somewhat distant because he may have felt parodied (page 73) who found words of appreciation that brought tears to friends in all
the
—
—
Beardsley's eyes.
On
the whole, Beardsley belonged to the group of
dandies who, like Whistler and Wilde, kept in close contact with
John Gray and Ernest Dowson were also of this group, as well as the painter Charles Conder, 177 who painted silk coverings for fans, screens, and the walls of complete boudoirs for Bing. As "un jeune Anglais qui fait des choses étonnantes" Beardsley, who as yet had little to show, was praised in Paris as Paris; the Symbolist poets
early as less
a
1
892 even by the President of the Salon des Beaux Arts
man
than Puvis de Chavannes.
178
It
he was later also admired by Lautrec, to
Book of
— no
seems more natural that
whom
Beardsley sent a
whose studio he tried the effects of hashish. It is scarcely surprising that one whose art was so much involved with "black magic" should have had a human skeleton seated beside him when he played the piano. Nature, natural behavior, or anything like the "simple life" were notions as copy of
his
Fifty
Drawings and
alien to Beardsley as to Wilde.
On
in
the other hand, he never missed
were done on a large scale with a view to their subsequent reduction, which conferred on them the appearance of etchings, and were also of great technical perfection. Apart from a number of ornamental designs (page 205, right) and a few posters (plate 1 80), Beardsley chiefly produced illustrative works. Stimulated
by Ricketts, he moreover designed bookbindings which may be counted among the most beautiful of his time in the whole field of book decoration in general (plates 84, 184).
The highly ornamental character of Beardsley's work only to the network of fantastic ornament woven around
above
but,
picture
all,
itself.
to the
ornamental structure which he
coldly precise nerve fibers; forms in hectic motion that, despite their unrest,
that resents anything disturbing their outline. Intellectual art of
kind expresses neither warmth nor sentiment and
with elegance and an infernal and disturbing grace.
this,
there soon appeared a sensitive outline, a sharp
istic
stroke of penmanship, the tautness of the outer
tours of
Greek vase painting of the age of Douris
and characterand inner con-
as well as the very
all
appear rigid and immovable, with Baudelairean beauty
this
Burne-Jones and Morris, Japan and Whistler's particular "Japan-
his figures
stresses in the
Beardsley lays bare the ornamental elements of actual
artificial
ism" provided the foundations of Beardsley's work. In addition to
due not
representation: asymmetrical ornaments that seem to consist of
a "Wagner night" at Covent Garden and, for the
rest, lived in an world of the ballet and fashionable drawing rooms, of gambling casinos and hotel lounges.
is
is
endowed
Beardsley allows himself such liberties with his texts that these
sometimes lead to parody and anachronisms. In the frontispiece of Salome, he imparts Oscar Wilde's features to the
moon, and he
woman
in the
dresses his Semitic princess of the first century b.c.
either in Japanese
kimonos (page 74) or
dresses of Parisian haute couture of his
in the
own
low-cut evening
era. In a
compartment
expressive silhouettes of Toulouse-Lautrec. These heterogeneous ele-
of Salome's dressing-table, an Anglo-Japanese piece of furniture in
ments are very soon transformed by Beardsley into something entirely individual and new, filled with an explosive force and an
(page 75), Beardsley places books on which can be seen the names of the Marquis de Sade, Choderlos de Laclos,
expression of unerring artistic taste. Indeed, the character of Beards-
and Zola; whereas Wilde had conceived his "dream-princess" as "romantic and mystical" and hinted at a court which, however
ley's art
was
so strong that he
was
later able to absorb fully the
Rococo (in his illustrations for Pope's Rape of Claude Lorrain (in the bindings for The Savoy), and
the style of
Godwin
influences of French
fantastic, suggested that of the Tetrarch in Jerusalem, suiting his
the Lock),
poetic diction to the metaphoric
Mantegna and submerged
his
Ben none of these very powerful influences
the Italian Renaissance (in the initial letters for
Johnson's Volpone)
own
— yet
and a few was confined to pure black-and-white drawings. No preliminary sketches were ever made: all changes were made with pencil on the same sheet, and were erased once the final version had been decided and drawn single oil painting (plate 182)
colored drawings (colorplate
in
II),
Beardsley's output
with India ink. Produced after endless endeavor, feverish aban-
don, and unlimited self-infatuation, these creations were almost
means of the demands of which were
exclusively conceived for mechanical reproduction by
then
new method of
fully
met by the
allegoric style of the
Song of
Songs.
Author and
illustrator, in spite of all such individual differences
of intellectual approach, agree in the exalted, hysterical, highly
style.
With the exception of a
and
line engraving, the
linear character of Beardsley's
work. His drawings
strung atmosphere and in the sophisticated abundance of metaphors
and
details:
pale.
She
is
"How like the
pale the Princess
is!
shadow of a white
Never have
I
seen her so
rose in a mirror of silver."
In the decorative splendor of the green and gold peacock-feather
binding for Salome (plate 184), Beardsley has summarized the
cli-
mate of the whole tragedy: a luxuriance that pervades everything, a vegetative and abstract world of forms in which disaster lurks
and
fascinates us hypnotically out of sightless eyes.
A
design of this
kind can be understood as a visual parallel to Wilde's poetic metaphors, for instance that of "scarlet sin."
174
i
76
HARRY
J.
TOW
1
I
(?)
1.
Wineglass
(circa 1899)
177
CHARLLS ROBERT ASHBEE and spoon
i
Sugar bou-l and creamer
i-S
English
179
CHARLES KNOX
76
Mustard pot
(circa 1900) (circa 1900)
Jewel box (circa 1900)
177
178
179
175
i8o
i
So
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Poster for a booh publisher
(detail) (circa 1895)
1
S
1
182 1
S3
CHARLES ROBERT ASHBEE
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
GEORGE WALTON
Pendant 'una
i
9 cc)
Caprice (1894)
Andiron
(detail) (1K96)
176
it
I
8 2
183
A'
iS 4
AUBREY BEARDS] Celtic
Detail of
.1
1
Y
Binding for
"
Salome* (1894)
mirror Irani Dcsboroiigh (second century
B.c.)
184
178
iS6
BEGGARS TA! HROTHKRS (WILLIAM NICHOLSON and JAMES PRIDE) Poster for "Don Quixote"
DON
95)
187
THOMAS JAMES COBDEN-SANDERSON Binding for "Utopia" (1893)
.
SS
CHARI
IS
I
IIIXOTE
RANCIS ANNESLEY VOYSI.V
Woven Decorative 1S9
"
1
Fabric (1899)
CHARLES FRANCIS ANNESLEY VOYSEY Printed Decorative Fabric (1899)
•86
188
189
mi
Irl
'Zsfm
Œh\J£
rv /""™"\.
f
179
'
Iv
_
'.
H/
I
w ^r
/
«
>2& ~
1
.
191
190
192
ALFRED GILBERT in Piccadilly Circus,
tain"
1
91
)
Detail of the Sbaflcsbttry Memorial Fountain
London
(generally
known
as the "Eros
foun-
(1887-93)
VICTOR HORTA
Detail of the façade of the Maison du Peuple,
Brussels (1896-99)
WILLIAM REYNOLDS-STEPHENS 0) St.
Mary the Virgin, Great
Detail of the choir screen
W'arley, Essex,
England (1904)
i93
181
WILLIAM REYNOLDS-STEPHENS St.
Mary
the Virgin, Great Warley, Essex,
Detail
of
the
England (1904)
interior
o)
194
CHARLES ROBERT ASHB1
1
j8 Cbeyne Walk, London (1903)
PO /
i
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182
Nouveau. His line is strongly suggestive of concrete subject matter but at the same time never allows us to forget its abstract geometry. If Beardsley relies on outline, he also uses its complement: the homogeneous two-dimensional body. With his lines he creates hard contours that may seem splintered or widely free in their diverging curves. He was fully Beardsley
is
a master of linear Art
conscious of the significance of his line as early as 1891, stated that the artists of his
importance of the contour.
own day understood
He
felt that the strength
masters lay in their use of outlines and the
modern
artist's
very
weakness was
of the
of the old
linear relationship,
his reliance
when he
little
sometimes inserted as architectonic elements, or as a stable counterpoise to his unstable curves, were actually lines,
drawn with a
ruler.
with sharply defined
patches filled in with black, and with playful alternations of black
and white
spaces, a
method
that he
borrowed from Whistler.
himself to an exclusively two-dimensional art that remains obliv-
and gravity, of nature and anatomy, of sculptural effects, and of light and shadow. It is a world of the surface, of a surface that appears ironically immaculate but does not lack depth. On the contrary, magically saturated with mystery and danger, it reveals that it springs from subconscious regions lying below our daylight awareness. If Beardsley lived in rooms decorated with black wallpaper and black furniture, and worked even by day with drawn curtains and lighted candles, this was not only because he hated what was normal and therefore shut himself off from the ious of space
He
also insisted
on
this artificial night
because
it
stim-
ulated the instincts for the research on which psychoanalysis later
founded. Julius Meier-Graefe, the
German
discoverer of
was
many
a genius of his generation, describes his visit to Beardsley as follows:
"Beardsley
owned
the most beautiful Japanese woodcuts one could
London, all of them of the most detailed eroticism. They were hanging in simple frames on delicately shaded wallpaper all of see in
—
them indecent, the wildest visions of Utamaro. Seen from a distance, however, they appeared very dainty, clear, and harmless." 180 Beardsley was also stimulated by the designs on Attic vases in the British
183
page for "The Forty Thieves"
(n. d.)
world literature. But it is more important that, by nature, "he had an intuitive knowledge of evil and secret things that
erotica of
reached back beyond the
memory of a
Museum, and he was an outstanding connoisseur of
the
single generation.
frightening people with this knowledge"
181
He enjoyed
and, like Baudelaire,
what might disgust us The same might also be
"cultivated the magic skill of transforming into something fascinatingly beautiful." 182
work, the romantic short narrative, which transposes the legend of Venus and Tannhâuser, made famous by Wagner's music, into an erotic grotesque. said of Beardsley's only written
Under
the Hill,
Certain passages of this prose
Beardsley was content to rely on a minium of means and limited
light of day.
Title
on color harmonies
and relationships rather than linear harmonies and relationships. 179 Blake had already demanded concise and determined lines: "the more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art." As everywhere in Art Nouveau, Beardsley too was opposed to pictorial Impressionist art. His lines have the sharpness of a draftsman's blueprints, and the straight lines which he
Moreover, he worked with dotted
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
and that
poem make
us think of an excerpt
from Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexnalis, which belongs to the same age, and which Beardsley might well have disguised here as an elegant fairy
tale.
More than 300 illustrations, marginal drawings, and initial letters Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur (pages 7, 30, and 205, right)
for
kept Beardsley busy in 1891 and 1892, and constitute his
first
important work. His Pre-Raphaelitic style immediately had a slight quality of caricature and, with the addition of Japanese elements
due to the obvious influence of Burne-Jones, became increasingly a
From
some designs by William Morris, Beardsley extracted the Art Nouveau element which in his hands assumed the highly decorative qualities of Art Nouveau. When, in 1893, the publishers of The Studio wished their first number to create a sensation, they introduced Beardsley to their readers; from that time he never stopped being the target of the press in London, New York, and Chicago, and he soon became parodistic style.
the borders that frame
Wilde's rival as the cynosure of the
critics.
In 1894, Beardsley
achieved his peak in Salome. Nothing of the kind had ever yet been seen
and
by the mystical quality of attention on the anatomical
his irritated critics, disturbed
Beardsley's genius, concentrated their
weaknesses and the obviously perverse features of the illustrations in
order to condemn him as a leader
in the
djcadent movement
in
art
and
literature. In April, 1894, the first issue of
TI-jc
Yellow Book
filled this new quarterly's bound issues mainly own drawings and provided shocking cover designs for its
appeared; Beardsley
with
his
various issues.
When, on April
1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested,
5,
Arnold Schonberg's Pierrot Lunaire, in the manner it was performed (the reciting lady standing before a Japanese screen), but most of all in its very music, we hear an echo of the as the text for
hysterical Beardsley atmosphere.
In Russia, extensive Beardsley
Beardsley 's activities on The Yellow Book came to an end, and his
monographs were published, and
drawings were withdrawn from the press a few days before the
in
appearance of the new
and even the masks of the actors being
to
issue.
Wilde's
(which Ricketts declared
trial
have done irreparable harm to English
art)
not only provoked
a migration from London's fashionable districts to the French coast,
but also acted as a warning: the limits of what the
and the
critics
public could accept as a provocation had been reached.
It
almost
marked
the end of hedonistic aestheticism, the manneristic, symand romantic component of Art Nouveau. But, after Wilde had served as a scapegoat and indignation had died down, his plays continued to be performed before full houses with the suppression of the author's name. A new Beardsley periodical then appeared, more brilliant than ever; The Savoy, started in 1896, died with Beardsley in 1898. The very title of this voluminous artistic and bolistic,
—
literary periodical suggested the
play was staged
entirely in the Beardsley manner, the sets, costumes, in
Beardsley's black and
white.
Apart from Lautrec, Paris
showed little interest in shown at the World's a particular domain of the final
at
first
Beardsley, whose drawings were nevertheless
was only in phase of Art Nouveau, and subsequently in the styles of the couturier Paul Poiret and the sophisticated designers around him, as well as in the Gazette du Bon Ton (1915-26), that Beardsley Fair of 1900. But
it
found many Parisian followers.
Charles Ricketts
Savoy Hotel, which was already
synonymous with metropolitan elegance. In 1897, Beardsley still turned out a few wonderful drawings, in a new style reminiscent of aquatints, the most beautiful of which was a bookplate for Olive Custance, the wife of Lord Alfred Douglas, which Beardsley created just before he died on the French Riviera. In the last of
which one can
Moscow
as late as 19 14 a
human
being die," 183 he begged
The
art of Charles Ricketts (1 866-1 93 3) 186 reveals the
same
re-
finement and reserve, the same disconcertingly manneristic charm,
though the form and the
mood may
from Beardsley's. In 1889, the periodical The Dial appeared, bringing him to the attention of the public. It was mainly decorated and illustrated by him differ
other lascivious drawings, a desire which was fortunately never
(pages 112 and 147), and also published some of his fairy tales. The illustrations, endpapers, and binding for Wilde's A House of Pomegranates followed in 1891. Later, Ricketts also turned toward
fulfilled.
antique themes, such as
his letters "in
see a
his publishers to destroy his illustrations for Lysistrata
"His influence was far-reaching:
it
and
all
of his
spread from the art of book
and even to the style of living." 184 It extended from Will Bradley in Chicago (page 229), who left a lasting mark in the field of American books and posters, to Léon Bakst in St. Petersburg. In Germany, Marcus Behmer, Franc von Bayros, and Alastair gratefully acknowledged Bcardsley's stimulus. Without him, Thomas Theodor Heine's style would not be imaginable, any more than the styles of Otto Eckmann or Heinrich Vogelcr-Worpsillustration to literature
wede, and
it
has been proved that even Paul Klee was initially
influenced by Beardsley. lM In Glasgow,
donald
sisters
Maduntosh and
were known to be Bcardsley's followers.
the It
Macis
less
easy to obtain evidence of the deep impression he made in Vienna, though Fritz Wàrndorfer (whose famous music room was decorated by Mackintosh, and who owned sculptures by Minne) assem-
Hero and Leander, Amor and Psyche: Nimphidia and the Muses' Elizium was set in an Arcadian and idyllic world. Rossetti was a powerful example to Ricketts, but
and Japan itself acted on him as stimuli as they also had acted on Beardsley. Like Beardsley, Ricketts learned much from the Greek vase painters, as had Walter Crane before them (this is especially evident in Crane's Echoes of Hellas and even in Baby's Own Aesop).
Burne- Jones, Whistler's Japanese
Among
style,
other things, Ricketts decorated most of Wilde's books.
The binding for
A House
of Pomegranates (plate 10) of 1891 com-
bines a fairy-tale atmosphere with great elegance
and a rare quality
of form. With the linear symmetry of a carpet design, the strange
boughs of the pomegranate
tree reach out into the corners of the
binding. The crocus blossoms appear in uniform rows like a repeated
wallpaper pattern, yet with interesting variations
in their
orna-
bled a great
mental arrangement. The themes of the peacock and the fountain
translated
help to establish a balance between abstraction and illustration. But
number of Beardsley's drawings and autographs and some of his letters into German. In the poems that served
184
CHARLES RICKETTS and
Title
page for Michael Drayton's "Nimphidia
the Muses' Elizinm" (1896)
the images, intentionally transposed as symbols, oblige one to pro-
ceed from optical contemplation to the deciphering
of the signs. This
was what Wilde's critics were unable to do; they were scandalized by this bookbinding design in which they could find no sense, or could see at best a tophat turned upside down. 187 The
style of the lettering follows that of
(who had
also
borrowed from Blake);
itated irregularity, these characters
creatures. Quite in the sense of letters,
Blake or of Rossetti
in their curves
seem to be
and premed-
little
ornamental
Blake and with great imagination,
image, and ornament are alternatively assimilated to each
other in a
manner
that served as a criterion both for Blake's
decorations and for Art Nouveau. In 1889, Wilde
was
still
book com-
"At present, there is a discord between our pictorial and our unpictorial type. The former are too essentially imitative in character and often disturb the page instead of decorating it." 188 Wilde's House of Pomegranates was the first book that Ricketts decorated. Owing to the cover and the endpapers, the illustrations, the asymmetrical construction of the page in Whistler's style, and, last but not least, the harmony of design and text, Ricketts created a book that may be considered as one of the most outstanding in this field of Art Nouveau.
CHARLES RICKETTS
page for Christopher Marlowe's and George Chapman's "Hero and Leander" (1894) Title
Under
a kind of symbolical disguise.
(page 271), the "wheel of the flame of
up
to the figure of
verse. Fishes
and
man who
birds, bees
and frogs
—
all
its
up
flames leap
into the uni-
inhabit the boughs of the
But what most surprises us is perhaps a landscape represented in The Sphinx (page 186, right), a poem by Wilde for which Ricketts designed a decorated book. Cliffs formed of jagged and sharp-edged stone slabs surround a circular lake with a flat island in
its
center.
On
the island, there are three trees in which
vague reminiscences of nature are crystallized into ornaments and symbols. Apart from a total renunciation of
all
natural objects and
forms, one could scarcely imagine anything more remote from
was
nature. Later,
ated by a Cretan artist of the
185
whirls as
tree of life.
illustrations
from Beardsley by using landscape elements and forms borrowed from nature which, it is true, appear as ideas conceived by Darwin or Bergson and presented here in
life"
ecstatically reaches
plaining:
Ricketts distinguishes himself
Ygdrasil, the universal tree
it
said that this
unknown in 1893. Laurence Housman (page 186,
zation was
book might well have been decorperiod, though this civili-
Minoan
still
were both endowed with dual
left)
and Thomas Sturge-Moore and poets or
gifts, as illustrators
writers. Like the designs of Ricketts or Beardsley, their
were conceived began more or
as applied or decorative
less
from the same
book
art.
drawings
They likewise
starting point, the Pre-Raphaeli-
tism of Rossetti and Burne-Jones and Whistler's Japanese style;
and of course they both knew Blake. The expression of the personality of each artist varied within the limits of this synthesis, but
they both preferred to turn
away from everyday
life
and
live in a
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works exclusively with compact, bare, cubic blocks and their negative complement, the cubic hollow, clearly belong to late Art Nou-
m
veau. In their geometrical abstraction, they surpass the creations of 'to
Glasgow and Vienna.
1 !
THE END OF
(ELFINTOWN /
Charles Annesley Voysey
SfS
BY
JANE BARLOW ILLUSTRATED BV
bKt^h
LAURENCE HOUSMAN
Nouveau High Art Nouveau.
In English architecture, examples of extreme late Art
~?^^
are as rare as buildings in the curved style of
LONDOV
Voysey and Ashbee developed the Arts and Crafts architecture of Philip Webb (plate 58) and Norman Shaw Instead, architects like
MACMILLAN u CO i8 9+
(plate 298) in
more modern
terms. "Webb
and Shaw diverged from
the styles of true historicism in that their houses followed the
LAURENCE HOUSMAN
Title
page for Jane Barlow's
'
The
End
tradition of their native land
Greek temples, or Gothic town
Elfintown" (1894)
fairy-tale world,
But
which did not preclude elegance in their work.
this spectral, weightless
decadent, with
its
and did not imitate
idyllic
world of
fable, iridescent
and
Italian palaces,
of
slightly
CHARLES RICKETTS
halls. Besides,
Illustration for
they adapted tradi-
Oscar Wilde's "The Sphinx'
(1894)
groves filled with amorous nymphs,
muses, oreads, undines, and sylphs, youth-like maidens or maidenlike youths, this
dream world of the Sphinx, of Salome, of Nar-
cissus,
of peacocks and
ficiel,
irrevocably began to fade and wither after Wilde's
Toward
lilies, all
these creatures of a paradis arti-
the turn of the century, English posters and illustrated
books thus became more
realistic,
more
life,
even Queen Victoria, take the place of disconcerting
creatures born of the imagination; true
and reasonably newspaper vendors,
"adult,"
normal. Figures from contemporary daily soldiers,
trials.
women,
all is
again as
it
men
are true men,
women
are
should be.
The Beggarstaff Brothers, a working community founded by (1 869-1949) and James Pryde (1 872-1949), distinguished itself in the domain of the poster (plate 186), and Edward Gordon Craig, 189 who later reformed stage design, in that of the original woodcut (page 173). Line engraving is momentarily discarded, the linear style of Beardsley and Ricketts is abandoned in favor of two-dimensional bodies, broader and more "plastic" as the outlines assume volume. French influences of Lautrec and Vallotton (the Beggarstaffs had studied in Paris) are visible now that figurative invention is no longer conceived from the start in a two-dimensional plane but begins from the optic appearance of reality, with foreshortenings, plasticity of the forms, and effects of light and shade. Craig's subsequent stage designs, in which he William Nicholson
186
VII CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY Wallpaper, "Tulip
and Bird" (1896)
tional.
forms to new needs and
possibilities,
Charles AnnesleyVoysey(i857-i94i) 190 was influenced by Mack-
which led them to a
moderate purism and an almost geometrical expression of form.
murdo,
Voysey and Ashbee followed them
which they simpli-
In his furniture, rooms, and houses, he borrows the forms of the
fied until they found a basic form, thus achieving a distillate, the few and constant elements of which they used creatively in new combinations. The thread of tradition wore thin without altogether
older master, enriching the habitual box-like furniture of the Arts
in this trend,
breaking; but this did not allow them the freedom of originality
which Mackintosh attained though he proceeded from the same starting point.
In their almost affected ries,
purism and
in their lack of all accesso-
Voysey 's and Ashbee's buildings scarcely
purist examples of late or final
Art Nouveau,
fall
short of the
as exemplified
Mackintosh, Hoffmann, Perret, and Loos. In addition,
we have
by in
as
is
obvious
in his surfaces, his fabrics,
and
his wallpapers.
and Crafts by using Mackmurdo's shaft-like supports (plate 319). However, for Voysey as an architect, Japanese influences were perhaps even more important, though they are scarcely recognizable as such in his work. One of his most interesting works, the tower-like house in Bedford Park that he finished in 1891, is an exception (page 188). The light roof with its low gradient, the concave curved roofing of the
oriels, the thin
metal supports that seem
to raise the roof over the body of the building, the unusually small
windows, and the one
stressed bull's-eye
window
are not outright
Voysey and Ashbee a typically English conception of structure. The contrast between supports and beams, the plastic values of the building, the volume of a wall, these they scarcely stress; for that
Japanese forms; but the graphic, abstractly ornamental, and asym-
matter, English architects in general tend similarly to conceive a
the frieze-like disposition of various groups of
metrical character of the surfaces, the contrast in black and white
between the apertures and the whitewashed walls, not
to
mention
windows under
building in terms of thin upright surfaces which are created solely
thin horizontal ledges, all clearly reveal the relationship to Japanese
by the proportions and the somewhat graphic lineaments of the windows.
architecture, easily recalling Japanese teahouses
187
A
house of
this
kind
is
and small temples. High Art
of course not quite as typical of
CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY
m
Elevations for a house
Bedford
Park near London (1888-91)
X TV / au .À*, Nouveau
as Horta's
portions,
its
stressed
I
and Gaudi's works. But asymmetry,
its
its
exaggerated pro-
oppositions between the posi-
Art Nouveau. This can be seen plated (plate 181), and above
in his silver jewelry, often goldall
in his silverware, in
which he
tive forms of the wall surface and the negative forms of the windows, as well as between the concave and convex curves of the
follows England's famous century-old tradition. This same tradi-
some relationship to Art Nouveau, so that one may consider this house and Voysey's similar but lower and longer country houses (plate 299) as a sort of particular national achievement which is related to Art Nouveau as Chippendale furniture is related to Rococo.
Liberty jewel box (plate 179) has slightly bulging curved surfaces but still retains the form of a rectangular box, with its planes set at
Both within and without his houses, Voysey discards ornamental detail. His only decorative effects are produced by the essential
outlines of the surface bands
elements of the rooms; while their functionality
stressed, their
leading architect and designer; he was also the only artist (apart
proportions are eccentric. The fireplace in the hall of the house
from Burne- Jones, Morris, and Crane) to be mentioned by name when English style was discussed on the Continent in a more than general way. Though less known, Ashbee is to be counted among the most important English architects of his period. His art also derived quite naturally from that of Webb and Norman Shaw, but he remains the architect who was best able to transpose most consis-
brackets supporting the oriel roof, all suggest
called The
hearth
is
Orchard (plate 318)
is
is
purposely heightened, but the
disproportionately small; the door next to
it
seems unusu-
and the hinges and doorknob are placed on its outer edges; which reaches right up to the ceiling suggests a well, a motif that was later often adopted, particularly in Vienna and Glasgow. However cozy and founded on respect for tradition and culture such rooms may seem, their asymmetry, their accenally low,
the staircase
tuated bareness and luminosity, nevertheless strike a slightly ex-
travagant or disturbing note. This particular feature chair (plate 319),
which
is
is
also to be seen in Voysey's
box-shaped
painted white, like nursery furniture. In
from the Arts and Crafts movement ("poor people's furniture for the rich," it has been called) and of the revealed structure, we can, at the same time, detect here a touch of fashionable elegance and almost irritating attractiveness, especially where the curved edges of the sides behind the supports swing in and out. As in Voysey's architecture, functional and strucspite of all the restraint inherited
tural considerations are expressed both as design
and decoration.
In his metal vessels, Voysey comes closer to Continental Art Nouveau, even more than in his designs for textiles. As early as 1883, he began working on this kind of design under the supervision of his master, Mackmurdo. His designs for fabrics and wall-
tion
was
also followed
by
his
right angles to one another
contemporary, Charles Knox, whose
and
entwined ornamentation of the Celtic interlacings,
During the
last
is
sharp edges. The intricate,
its
sides
and the
clasp, reminiscent of
not truly plastic but has
and
its
origins in the
lines.
decade of the century, Voysey was London's
tently England's traditional country house style into a style suited to London's multiple dwellings.
Like Voysey's houses, and related to them
in
form, Ashbee's
London house in Cheyne Walk, dated 1903 (plate 194), substitutes mannerism and artificial shapes for movement and swinging lines. The narrowness of the façade (which may have been imposed by the proportions of the ground plan) was consciously stressed, especially in the exaggeratedly pointed gable which contains a wheelshaped window
in
a
somewhat
asymmetrically at different
Classic style
levels, as
and
is
terminated
well as in the overlong win-
dows, the upper row of which seems to hang from the cornice,
in the
relationship of the floors to one another, in the division of the
façade into a light color above and dark below. All
this
is
original,
and composed with great feeling. In spite of obvious affinities with Voysey's house in Bedford Park and with Norman Shaw's Old Swan House (plate 298) which cannot be overlooked, Ashbee's work can never be mistaken for that of any other architect. strange,
papers (plates 98, 102, 188, 189, colorplate VII) are all so fresh, with their flowers, birds, and shrubs suggesting spring, that they survived Art
Nouveau and remained popular
for several decades.
Charles Harrison Townsend Charles Harrison Townsend (1852-1928) 192 was the only one of
Charles Robert Ashbee
The
in
m
and designer Charles Robert Ashbee (1 863-1 924) his handicraft work a curved and swinging style of
architect
developed
the
London
architects to
adorn
his buildings
with ornaments and,
moreover, with sculptured ornaments. Townsend also followed Continental developments more closely than his colleagues. The façade of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, built in 1897 (plate 320),
188
in
which
relief
whole, but
its
is
was conceived by him as a symmetrical are asymmetrical and its naturalistic relief of
stressed,
details
trees
embrace the low marble wall and, over the thin square shaft
and amidst the thick
Much
glass,
flowers
more than Voysey or Ashbee, Townsend's ornamentation is borrowed from historistic medieval examples and presented in the Pre-
193).
But
foliage
disposed in a geometrical, non-naturalistic manner.
is
Raphaelitic fashion. In his publications,
helped to
make Townsend known
Hermann Muthesius
has
Germany, where Townsend Hagen town hall.
in
designed a fireplace with similar motifs for the
The bunches of leaves adorning the capitals of
wooden late
pillars are
them
its
thin, stem-like
compressed into small abstract cubes which
to the rectangular overmantle.
Townsend
re-
also built the
church at Great Warley, Essex (plate 193). 193 Simplified and synthesized in form, it reminds one of medieval English village churches;
see
pomegranates made of red
made
all this is
relegated to an ideal plane, just as everything
in this church
seems to exist
in the cool
mystic atmosphere of the
kind of fairy-tale that remained so dear to English art of
throughout every phase of railing separating the
its
this
period
development. The high sanctuary
nave from the altar and many of the flower
designs recall Baillie Scott, but seem to be translated into a harder
and more vigorous idiom, and the
figures of the angels "clad as if
for Dante's Florence" 195 both here and at the baptismal font are inspired
by
107, and
112).
Rossetti, Burne-Jones,
and William Blake
(plates 57,
ensemble, though the style expres-
again in decoration and furnishings rather than in pure
stereometric form of the baptismal font and the lectern, the squares
hewn
and rectangles of inlaid marble and glazed enamel are all features which are already characteristic of a later period. They show, however, certain signs of High Art Nouveau: the bases of the pillars
architecture.
interior offers us England's
Nouveau
The predominating color note
stone which, together with the walnut basic
we
Great Warley stands between High and late Art Nouveau, even though it is closer to the latter. The square form of the pillars, the
its
extant of a unified Art ses itself
foliage,
of shells, and angels of oxidized silver (plate
harmony. But the vaulting
is
most complete example
is
the gray of the
brown of
the pews, forms the
traversed by ribbons
made of
aluminum; plates of aluminum decorated with embossed lilies are inserted into the walls, and above the light-green marble balustrade and an altar in dark-green marble, the whole vaulting of the apse is
of the principal screens belong (together with Gilbert's three-di-
covered with sheets of aluminum. Bunches of grapes in the style of
proach the Franco-Belgian
William Morris stand out in brilliant red and
Heywood Sumner's
mensional works) among the most sculptural inventions of particular style that were produced in England. style; in fact,
we
They
this
closely ap-
find in Horta's art
and sometimes ten years before Great The preliminary phases of Great Warley must be ascribed to England and are to be found in the feet of Dresser's pitcher (plate 90) or the feet of Mackmurdo's small desk similar ideas that existed five
windows display angels in red robes standing against green foliage. The whole interior was designed by Sir William Reynolds-Stephens in close harmony with the plan devised by the donors; all the decorative designs were meant to divert attention from death and evoke the idea of resurrection. When, in 1904, the church was handed over to the community, a leaflet was distributed to explain the symbolical plan; it makes special mention of the "floral forms," which are freely used everywhere as emblems of growth in earthly life, but even more as symbols of the glorious hope culminating every year at Eastertide when plants awake to new life. 194 The organic power
Warley
of self-renewal
veined and multicolored marbles and the sensitive contrasting
is
thus used everywhere throughout the church as a
Christian symbol of resurrection. Reaching far beyond traditional church symbolism, the botanical style of Art
Nouveau
is
here con-
sidered suitable for ecclesiastical ritual.
In the ironwork dividing the main aisle from the neighboring
by blossoming trees; there is a hint of the swelling "Belgian" line in the crowning foliage, but the delicate openwork relief nevertheless remains a two-dimensional surface. The altar railing is conceived in the same flat way and composed of lines that recall Voysey and Mackintosh. The roots of the pillarareas, the pillars are represented
189
(plates 191, 192).
(plate 96).
The common genetic origin of High and late Art Nouveau resulting from the early Pre-Raphaelite period can be more clearly seen in Great Warley than anywhere else. To this must be added certain features of Byzantine art which played a part in the ecclesiastic architecture
the
little
of 1900. 196 The richness of the materials endows
church with a particularly Byzantine feeling, though the
harmony of Nowhere is
brass, copper,
steel
produce no ostentatious pomp.
there an illusion of gold;
and cooler metals can all
and
exert an attraction of their very
aluminum
is
on the contrary, the simpler what they are, and
easily be identified for
own; and,
used here in decoration. In
its
for the first time,
stylish aloofness,
Great
Warley is distinguished by a quality common to many of the best works of Art Nouveau, a quality which might be described as "ascetic restraint in the luxurious."
Alfred Gilbert 197 is the only English sculptor whose J4— 1934) production might be taken for Continental and especially French
Alfred Gilbert
work.
Of
(i 8
his creations the
all
Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain,
or Eros, at Picadilly Circus (plate 190),
High Art Nouveau
is
in the
most exuberant
and forms an integrated unit in spite of its disrupted details. We see here forms from nature fancifully and sculpturally realized, such as fishes, and mermaids with the heads of children. The leaping, rippling, spraying, overflowing water, and the light that throws deep shadows on the forms which develop in
volume of the bodies, as flabby as punctured balloons, merely indicated by shading. Beerbohm the dandy was still more of an amateur than an artist, yet he knew how to make use of the weak points of his drawings in order to achieve his purpose: his lack of artifice and his naive vision produce a coquettish, hypocritical, and highly sophisticated effect.
After passing through the
style
terms of receding spaces, are
all
part of the artistic effect of the
filter
of Beerbohm's style, the familiar
personalities reappear: the somber, romantic Rossetti, powerful,
good-natured and clearly very much the Italian; the graceful Swinburne, luminous and restless as a flame; Elizabeth Siddal, rigid,
consumptive, and aloof; and
lastly,
Mrs. Morris who, with pro-
truding chin, curving swan's neck, and swelling masses of hair,
whole. Gilbert does not belong to the English line of development
looks out of countless pictures with her cat's stare.
and, as an outsider, does not link up with the followers of the Pre-
collection, there
Raphaelites and the Japanese style.
marked by
He
is
academic and
influences of historistic neo-Baroque
manneristic features.
One
is
always aware of
his
his
work
is
and by strongly Baroque concep-
Gabriel Rossetti
America.
Its
a
is
is
date
drawing (plate 321)
heard for the is
first
1882, and the
At the end of the name of Dante
labeled, The
time in the Western States of lecturer
is
Mr. Oscar Wilde,
standing there as a prototype of the aesthete who, on going to
tion of plastic substance,
America, had found the Atlantic Ocean "disappointing" and
gians
spoken about the rebirth of Romantic art to an audience which
which was of some importance to the Beland of greater importance to the French, but which was discarded in the whole long English line of development following Blake's proto-Art Nouveau or managed to survive only in an entirely
changed form,
like Rocaille in Blake's
work. Gilbert's sculp-
tural style, unconnected with any other in England, is High Art Nouveau adulterated by a Baroque element. If London was leading in innovation between 1850 and 1900, a historistic reaction
was
felt there
very strongly after 1900.
No
markedly geometric late Art Nouveau was ever produced in London, even though elements of it were contained there in early and High Art Nouveau. A neo-Regency style spread in England as a parallel to neo-Biedermeier in
Germany which succeeded
the late
suit
youthfully long hair, and the
first signs
his
of his later obesity, he
bears a flower in his hand, as he had carried one in the streets of
London's West End: "If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand." 199
The composition of this drawing recalls the most famous of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pictures, the Ancilla Domini I The Annunciation, painted in 1849 (plate 57). The representation of in profile, the position of the feet, the
not a
this case
madonna but
a calla
Wide
hand holding a flower
lily),
(in
the fair hair cut like a
a need for
pageboy's, are alike both in Rossetti's archangel and in Beerbohm's
arose and revealed itself in the clubs of Pall Mall, in the Ritz
Wilde. In the former, the lightness of soaring had to be indicated
Jugendstil in certain areas. In the
pomp
Edwardian period
seemed to belong to the pioneer period. Clad in his aesthete's pumps with diamond clasps,
of black velvet, silk stockings,
new 191 1 façade of Buckingham Palace, expressed Baroque classicism and in a sumptuous Louis XVI
Hotel, and the
by the flame burning under the
in a familiar
figure, despite
When,
Even
inflated.
style.
in 1916, Sir
Max Beerbohm
(1
the series of drawings called Rossetti
872-1956) finally published his Circle,™ this was a
and
Nouveau. Beerbohm was one of the youngest dandies in the group that surrounded Beardsley. In The Yellow Book, Beerbohm had provoked this periodical's critics by his Apology of Cosmetics, and had then attracted attention in 1898 by publishing a book of caricatures, The Poet's Corner. His light pencil strokes and pale watercolors created a mild, unimaginative variety of English Art Nouveau, with the
belated echo, a sort of parody of English Art
its
soles of the feet; in the latter, the
roundness, seems without weight and as
if it
were
the perspectives (that of the platform in Beerbohm's,
that of the couch in Rossetti's) cut sharply into space in an identical
way. But if
in neither picture
is
there an impression of depth;
it is
as
the line were vertically suspended in the plane. This parody in
design
is
message
is
duplicated by parody in the content: in both cases, a being announced.
longed" to the charmed
Max
circle,
Beerbohm,
waved
as
one
who had
"be-
a greeting here to those in
the rear, a last echo of the "Yellow Nineties."
190
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1900. C2.
Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland German
Jugendstil
is
characterized by both floral and abstract
and the opposition between them found expression in violent disputes. The battle cries of both parties do in fact conceal profound divergencies which conferred on each of these types of trends,
Jugendstil a clearly contrasting character. tension between it
is
now
two poles
clear that these
Of
course, this creative
lasted only a short while.
two trends were
Looking back,
in essence phases that
succeeded and replaced each other. The more important achieve-
ments before 1900 were mainly of a
floral character,
and those
after
1900 almost exclusively abstract. In the two or three years preceding the end of the century, there was, as
were, a classical
it
period during which the two currents were able to intermingle. Floral Jugendstil
is
mainly to be found
ornamentation of small objects
in the applied arts. Function, func-
according to a formula which
ears: "Beautiful and, if floral Jugendstil
is
is
now
its
need be, useful as well." 200
light, delicate, sensitively
small parts, with
little
as
modern The form of
so offensive to
EW.W-
shaped, often buoyant
or spindly, sometimes confused. The structure detailed in
and
and functional symbolism played scarcely any part
tional form, yet,
in the decoration
broken
linear but rather
is
lines of a distinctly
EMIL RUDOLF WEISS lieben Gott
Title
page for Rainer Maria Rilke's
"
Vom
und Anderes" (1900)
graphic nature which creates the possibility of a comparatively
open form. The complementary relation between the forms yet systematically carried out. The atmosphere
extends from the fairy tale to the purely fantastic.
is
not
and There are roman-
is
spring-like
and symbolism, not in the Western sense of worldly elegance, but in that of an ardently pursued approach to nature. The conticism
ception of floral Jugendstil also contains that of the object represented: not only flowers
swans and other
birds,
and
plants, but also the animal world,
even lowly
are used as themes. In spite of this,
drew
a
dachshund vignette,
this
mammals and other creatures when Thomas Theodor Heine
merely represented a parody of the
languid aspects of Jugendstil. Unlike French developments, Ger-
man
Jugendstil aims at increasing abstraction and deformation of
patterns derived from nature, seeking to adiieve a metamorphosis
which would
result in the creation of
an indefinable, organic, and
elementary mixture of forms.
For a long time, German
artists
remained true to the two-dimen-
sional (like their English counterparts) but
Art Nouveau
191
also
in
English floral Art Nouveau. There
have been an influence coming from Belgium,
may
as for instance
from Van Rijsselberghe, or from Khnopff's and Doudelet's
illustra-
which had been published in Germany in Pan. There is no trace of any influence from Holland, not even from Toorop; as for Paris and Nancy, the style appeared there at the same time as in Germany, if not a little later. Nor, in the years that followed, had the German artists any particular connection with French Art tions
Nouveau. The later, abstract phase of Jugendstil was largely inspired by Henry van de Velde. Ornament and decoration turn entirely away from examples found in nature. What remains is dynamic movement stripped of all concrete form; this served as a leitmotiv for Van de Velde and the entire school of abstract Jugendstil until (in its late phase and mostly influenced by Vienna) the style stiffened here as elsewhere into geometrically static form. In the Jugendstil
which had been so
of the abstract phase, the structural and tectonic element prevails
was almost nonexistent in Jugendstil, although Rococo in Germany had assumed an extremely spatial and sculptural quality. The early phase of Jugendstil
decisive in achieving the three-dimensional,
almost entirely rooted
in opposition to
were
in the Lenin countries. Rocaille,
is
over the ornament, so that
all
that remains
the floral phase that preceeded, Jugendstil
is
body and space;
in
had remained confined
to the two-dimensional. Ethical tendencies, the need for a signifi-
MAX KLINGER Page border from Apulcius' "
cant reform
— the
word "reform"
applied to everything from
is
—
find their advocates. The deand good workmanship that had been expressed by Ruskin and Morris was largely echoed in the ideas of the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907.
"reform house" to "reform dress"
mands
for honesty
to
examples
in
Amor and Psyche"
(1880)
Japanese art in the contrasting empty areas and
crowded with small, detailed forms, as well as in numerous objects. To be sure, this component loses significance compared to the baroque invention of his work; the irregular, extremely open, and heterogeneous forms and the others that are
the representation of
frequently stressed naturalism. Klinger's proximity to Jugendstil becomes most clearly evident
Preliminary Stages in
Germany
in the
books he decorated. His illustrations for the ancient myth of Psyche (1880) are the first and only important work of this field between the works of Adolf von Menzel and those
Amor and Preliminary stages of Jugendstil, whether floral or abstract, are
Germany and very seldom have they any with German Art Nouveau. The paintings of
rarely to be found in
causal relationship
Hans von Marées (1837-87) were
in
every respect painterly. But
art in
of
German
Jugendstil.
be found here, not so borders. This
is
A
profusion of Jugendstil elements are to
much
in the illustrations
themselves as in the
undoubtedly early Jugendstil, but the forms are
the flowing relationship between the forms in a picture such as
still
Ganymede
revealed, nor the typically Jugendstil two-dimensional bodies,
(plate 322), the simplified outlines, the transformation
of the objects into two-dimensional bodies with scarcely any shading,
the
sometimes
clearly
distinguishable
complementary
forms, the grandiose conception of the picture as a whole, the
too graceful, too disintegrated, the whiplash line
is
not yet
and from a distance rather than at close range. But the swinging curves already show the genuine rhythm
Klinger's objects are
still
seen
of Jugendstil.
unstable center in the asymmetrical equilibrium of the contrasts
of light and dark, the ornamental quality of the entire painting,
and
lastly the outer
border which encloses the scene represented by
The Munich Group
the picture, all these features are already close to the Jugendstil of
a few years later. Whether Marées
moot
compose
their pictures
that the
work of Marées belongs
is
a
knew how Japanese
point. There
is,
painters
however, no doubt
to the neo-Manneristic
phase of
Nouveau and
nineteenth-century post-Romanticism by which Art
Jugendstil were largely influenced. The themes and forms, the
highly unstable conception, the hints of figura serpentinata, the slightly neurotic
atmosphere
full
of yearning and resignation, are
indeed reminiscent of Pontormo or Parmigianino. But the art of Marées contributed no more to the formation of Jugendstil than had Philipp Otto Runge's proto-Art Nouveau. After having been entirely ignored for many decades, Runge's paintings were, thanks to the
new
ideal of art
1906 by Alfred Lichtwark, the director of the
whose mind was receptive
Max
in
201
was
the only artist in
Germany
applied to
as belonging to
an independent early stage of Jugendstil. The
drawings themselves contain a considerable element of Jugendstil even cal,
to
style that clearly heralded Jugendstil. After 1875,
showed great powers of invention. They were mostly frames and borders (above), which may be considered
his designs
if it is
not openly revealed; one can feel
it
in the
in his fine
book on the "turn of the
style," Stilwende. Obrist
the son of an aristocratic Scottish lady first
and a Swiss doctor.
and geology with the
—
asymmetri-
ornamental composition of forms foreign to nature, pointing
art:
He
was had
— botany, chemistry, — and from childhood had studied plants and animals
studied medicine, the natural sciences
liveliest interest,
"exploring the phenomena and forces of
Nature." 204 In 1886, a prophetic daydream showed him the
to other novel approaches to art.
Klinger (1857-1920)
have achieved a
Hamburg in Hamburg Museum,
and beauty, rediscovered
Romantic Jugendstil stylizing forms of nature first began in Munich, which remained the permanent center of the floral style, 202 as well as the German art center where inspirations and ideas originated. Although it was soon to be superceded by Berlin, artists of every trend assembled there. The movement began in 1894, with the Munich exhibition of embroideries by the sculptor and naturalist Hermann Obrist (1 863-1 927), 203 which contained "a certain mysterious, primary charm," as Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann says
"A
complete city appeared
way
in the air, the architecture of
to
which
surpassed everything and was unlike anything" he had ever seen.
"In this city
and
all
was
in
motion; the
streets shifted, displaying squares
fabulous fountains; the houses opened up, showing inconceiv-
ably beautiful rooms and enigmatic object».
"'-'"''
In 1888, Obrist began to study ceramics in Karlsruhe; he soon
turned
away from
rural pottery
works
the traditional, academic style in
and went
Thuringia. In 1890, he subsequently
to a
moved
192
and became a sculptor. In Florence, in 1892, he founded a workshop for embroidery which was transferred to Munich in 1894. He had discarded the conventional manner of representing figures in the round and devoted himself to designing ornamental to Paris
forms, at
first
limited to the two-dimensional plane. These "organic
embroideries" were carried out by Berthe Ruchet. "Often, no single
any other; an inextricable flickering maze of different invades the ornamental forms, as if animated by a pulse
artists
turned so resolutely
only derive from
helped by Japanese models, even though
how
den violent curves occasioned by the crack of a whip:
now
lightning;
now,
as the defiant signature of a great
man, a con-
queror." 207 Here, calligraphy blends with elementary forces in
powerful tension
— the
form of the cyclamen
is
interpreted as the
pars pro toto of created nature, the delicate branching of the roots, the sap-conducting stems, the stiff tips of the buds, the stamens
representing both the existence and the growth of a plant.
pistils all
On
the borderline dividing the
abstract
and
dynamism and
symbol and the ornament, between
the representation of a distinctive organ-
metaphor of palpitating and struggling life itself. Owing to its content and its decorative quality and elegance, the Whiplash belongs to the small number of masterism, there arises the visual
German Obrist's work
pieces of
(plate
100)
Century Guild. In addition to Mackmurdo's
does not exclusively adopt the "floral" style
in
Once Obrist had developed chisels,
from
and constructs
fixtures, Obrist
to massive
or
flat,
turned from his weightless, feathery embroideries
eye of the
soft, elastic, stiff, supple, of 210
Questions of creative means and
who
man who
has learned to see plastic forms in nature, and
has learned to magnify the force of a tiny plant bud and the
curves and ribbings of a seed from their almost microscopic size into
man." 211 Actually, nowhere in his work did himself to reproducing and magnifying minute bo-
tanical forms; instead, he condensed these into fantastic creations of
bird.
He had
adopted
Ernst Haeckel's famous phrase, "for the creative mind, only three
am I, Nature is over there, and here again is the have to decorate." 209 But even during the period in which
great structural force. His fountain for
Krupp von Bohlen
(plate 215), conceived in the nineties, reminds
things exist: here
gaping jaws of imaginary sea creatures, but of the a monstrous
iris.
He
in
Essen
one not only of the
object
193
swelling
is
examples drawn from the outside world. In 1901, Obrist thus possibilities is exposed to the
Obrist restrict
I
what
wrote that "an unforeseen mass of
Klinger. Both artists
works of Klinger.
shifts
powers of expression, such as the problem of abstract form, were already considered, but still related to abstraction and nature. For it was thought, according to biological and romantic notions, that the new and the unconventional could still be found
figures as large as a
these
His big ornamental
or sculpted, his tombstones and fountains,
dissimilar shapes, Obrist's
may have known
plastic volumes.
smooth or sharp-edged."
opposed to the distant vision of the Impressionist. In this dainty, delicately shaped form, seen almost microscopically in its comparative openness, but also in the objective of a synthesis of
Obrist
who developed
all seem to from stony rigidity to the doughy clay from which ceramics are made. According to Obrist, figures in the round should yield "pleasurable sensations, imparted by touch and the joys of touching," and thus give rise to a wide range of perceptions, "the sensation of what is
in
composed of the feathers of a
ornamental. Unlike Horta,
have sprung from an ambiguous substance which
above the "whirling of a brook." 208 The eye of the scientist perceives a kind of microcosm seen at very close range, diametri-
to be
is
and powerfully
jars, chiseled
their
ornaments are related to the creations of invent feathery forms of flowers which seem
from
"linear" bodies such as metal supports or floral electric lighting
most graceful among other graceful topics that inspire his art, such as bark and lichen, deepsea starfish and corals. A cover for a couch is embroidered with the "flickering, flowing" emanating from the "flashing waves of
cally
a personal style, he turned
linear English wallpapers with a floral pattern strictly
the literal sense. Flowers are merely the
light"
flaming flowers of
two-dimensional works to sculpture. Whatever Obrist models,
smooth, rough, hard,
Jugendstil.
the silk-embroidered
in
which one senses the organic life so eloquently described by Pan, the photograph also displays a carpet with diagonally disposed spirals that reveal affinities with Obrist's embroidered tapestry. A widely traveled cosmopolitan artist who was half British himself, Obrist may well have been acquainted with works of this kind.
ap-
pearing as a forceful outburst of the elements of nature, a stroke of
has rightly been stressed
greatly his
screen
The following has been said of Obrist's famous tapestry of golden-yellow embroidery on pale turquoise-colored rep, theWhiplash of 1895 (plate 195): "Its frantic movement reminds us of the sud-
it
flat
stitches
living body."
was doubtlessly
works differ from Japanese art: after all, floral Art Nouveau had already existed for many years in London. In 1887, The Hobby Horse published photographs of an ex-
and
hibition hall of the
206
historic examples, art could
In the beginning, Obrist
art.
stitch is like
beat or enlivened by organic forces and rhythms like the cells of a
away from
filigree
crown of
also included in his artistic conception of this
The
piece the rapid element of water, swirling around the raggedly
stone.
horned buttresses and the knobbed
grates all the above-mentioned features into the given
spaces, the interior
pillar, the
calices. The body and the empty and the exterior contours, are all complementary. The round core is split and half curved toward the exterior where, as a sort of cage, it spans and surrounds an interior form
The figure of man
is
all this. Even proportions and anthropomorphic forms; in the we have a kind of viscous gliding,
banished from
no longer related
to
place of articulations or joints,
out of whidi erupt bulges and volutes. "To be sure, the figure permits wonderful sculptural possibilities.
pare
to the Tortoise Fountain in
it
form of the abbreviation of the architectonic element, and terminates
the procedure as a period ends a sentence. This astonishing
thus stands
midway between
historicism
and modern
human
But merely com-
Rome whose
basins are
among
the most luxuriously plastic in the world. But
what connection has
the relief on the rim of these basins with the
human nude? What
and
it is
in the
the only
round.
It
is
known example also the only
in the field
example of an
work
art and, as
early as 1898, embodied the style of geometric late Art
that appears as soft as flesh.
structure are
classically conventional abacus, the covering slab, inte-
Nouveau,
of abstract sculpture artistic anticipation
work; generally, he preferred to work in a more emoin which he nevertheless continued to conquer for Jugendstil the domains of monumental art, an area which he was in Obrist's
tional
idiom
the first of his school to explore.
In 1902, the Design for a
Monument
(plate 196)
was created. At
could be more plastic than a small, old, round, and much-thumbed
first sight, it was again an abstract form: as sculpturally daring as Rodin, Obrist here abandoned the urge for erect anthropomorphism
Japanese ivory box, and what could have a more
and went beyond the
and
titanic effect than the Tyrolian
nude
.
.
.?
No:
the
human
not the beginning and the end of sculptural form." 212 Obrist's
is
of examples
series
Dolomites
plastic, massive,
drawn from
a Japanese object of
common
real life ranges
unconcernedly from
use to a Manneristic fountain,
finally to a geological formation.
Apart from
and
his opposition to
ragged wingtips
is
lifting
an upward-striving figure veiled
monuments
will be erected representing neither
men nor man with
time had already arrived: in the same year, 1898, Obrist
created an entirely abstract work, the plaster model for a to the Pillar (plate 325).
Out
of a "natural" rock
immaculately smooth shaft of a column,
its
Monu-
rises
the
capital representing,
in a labyrinthine cluster of stereometric forms, the transition
from
jecting diagonally into space
way,
it
becomes a cry expressed
corresponds in sculpture to the painting by
prisingly to Tatlin's Constructivist design for a
Third International (1920).
Not only
does Obrist's Design for a
seem unusual; such a theme
is
symbolic, a parable, so to speak,
of the transformation of chaotic matter into such as has been shaped
by the mind. The beginning of the twists out of the pedestal
pillar
winds up
made of raw, unhewn
scends this material base. The "capital"
movement which embodies
is
in
serpentine
rock,
and tran-
transposed into a stereo-
the crystalline nature of the
it
its
Monument
of the
215
Monument
the art of the past. This latter connection
the theme of this work, even though the choice
entitled
the objective theme and to point toward Expressionism, dynamic element of Jugendstil pointed toward Futurism. Curjel has quite rightly compared this piece of sculpture to Boccioni's Futurist Muscoli in velocità (191 1), and even more sur-
The actual
is
Munch
just as the
of the future, but in
pillar
in stone; in a
away from
But there are fundamental differences between such works by Obrist and genuinely modern Cubist or Constructivist sculptures.
metric
clouds
The Cry. Here, the expressive element of Jugendstil begins to turn
the cross section of the pillar's shaft to the covering square slab.
may
in 214
posed the drama of content into the drama of form. The peak pro-
fill the heart of exuberant enthusiasm and inconceivable enchantment." 213 In real-
ment
monument which actually never went beyond the The form seems to dart like an arrow into space, a monument of the diagonal, encircled by an orbital spiral. Only on a second look does one realize that at the very top an angel with plaster model.
1898, the popular review, Die Jugend, jocularly
animals, but imaginary shapes which will
ity, this
the vertical axis
toward the summit. This "sculptural study of movement" is not nonobjective in the modern sense of the word, but is the embodiment of its own symbolical content. Yet, in essence, Obrist trans-
emitted an ironic prophecy: "The time will come when, in public squares,
norm of
revealed by such conceptions
academic conventionality and historicism, an entirely new anti-
human tendency in Art Nouveau is which discard man as a theme for art. In August
static, structural
in the case of a
anticipate the art
rather secretive relationship to
also permits one to recognize unequivocally
its
may
Mannerism
connection with
be detected
in its
plastically achieved suggestion of the figura scrpentinata, in the anti-
and diagonally constructed composition, in its substance that appears to be somewhat soft and fluffy despite the rigidity of the medium and the intensity of movement depicted, and, lastly, even in its mood. The effect of gigantic form seems indeed exaggerated and dangerous; and frightening, too, is the suggested ascent Classical
194
195
i95
196
195
HERMANN OBRIST HERMANN OBRIST
"Cyclamen" wall hanging /"The Whiplash' (1895) Design for a
Monument
(1902)
196
197
PETER Bf.HRENS Door
in
Haus Behrens, Darmstadt, Germany
(1901) 198
AUGUST ENDELL
Radiator screen
in the limites Theater, Berlin
(1901)
199
AUGUST ENDELL
Frieze on the Elvira Photographic Studio,
Munich (1897-98) 200
AUGUST ENDELL
Façade of the Elvira Photographic Studio,
Munich (1897-98) 201
OTTO ECKMANN
Fighting
202
OTTO ECKMANN
Sketch for a decorative design
'97
.98
199
Swans
(circa 1900)
(
1
897)
:o3
HENRï VAN DE 1er,
VI
1.1)1
Dining
Room
Weimar, Germany (1902-03)
in the
Home
of
Count
198
204
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204
IVAR AROSKNIUS "Tjugonio Bilder
205
i
Endpapers for Fàrg" (1909)
PETER BEHRENS ne
Brook
(before 1901)
206
FERDINAND (1901)
199
HODI.I.R
Spring
209 >o8
VAN
207
KI.XRY
208
HENRY VAN
209
RICHARD RIUMtRSCHMID
1)1
1)1
VELDE VELDE
Knife, fork,
Music room
and spoon
in the
Chair (iS 99 )
(circa 191a)
Folkwang Museum, Hagen, Germany (1902)
200
..-
210
213
21
212
I
2io
RICHARD RIEMERSCHMID
211
AKSELI GALLÉN-KALLELA Armchair
212
RICHARD RIEMERSCHMID
{circa 1900)
Armchair (before 1900)
214
2
1
3
2.4
201
Armchair (1899)
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
ffim/ing /or
HENRY VAN DE
Entrance to the Werkbundtheater,
Cologne, Germany
VI (
1
9
I
1
1)1
4)
"
Vers" by Verlaine
(
1
2i5
HI-.RMANN OBRIST Fountain for the
Krupp von Bohlen residence, Essen,
Germany
(191 3)
202
ii^
through distant, cloudy regions. In the two-dimensional plane,
at the top corners looking like looped-back curtains
something similar was also true of Obrist's Whiplash: there too, the fundamental theme of the serpentine line was developed in long,
effect
juxtaposed loops with equally uncanny features. The snake-like
and which Nikolaus Pevsner reprinted
curve, the razor-sharp leaves, the exaggeratedly pointed stamens,
studies of the proportions of entirely flat façades in
—
somewhat anticipating
hypodermic needles all this suggested a blind and quivform of life, made doubly frightening to us by the sharp perception of the biologist and by the artist's power of condensation. The relationship between Obrist and August Endell (1871192 s) 216 was almost that of master and pupil. Born in Berlin, Endell had first studied philosophy and later returned to his native city after having spent a few decisive years in Munich in the Riemerschmid and Obrist circle. The chief work of his Munich period
was the redecoration of the façade of the Elvira Photographic Studio. The world of EndelPs forms is quite as subtle as Obrist's, but more exuberant and unruly, suggesting at the same time some grotesque features. The fanciful ornamentation of the Elvira Studio is no more floral than abstract, but it is organically alive and formed of a substance which possesses all kinds of biological possi-
all sorts
ering
— the
entire
Art Nouveau. Similar forms are
repeated in the surprising designs which Endell published in 1898
tests the
rigid as
late
fifty years later. 217
They are
which Endell
emotional impact of over-narrow and over-broad façades
and window apertures. In Endell's Buntes Theater (plate 198), the forms are
more
in Berlin of 1901
detailed than in the Elvira Studio.
The vaulted ceiling of the auditorium looks as though living cells had grown together, a theme also employed by Gaudî in the Casa Batllo. From this sky, starred with small protoplasmic dots, hang
and coral-like as the trees decorating the Around the upper part of the walls runs a frieze with
lamps that are side walls.
as pointed
of submarine creatures such as sea dragons, sea serpents,
foamy waves of the sea. The whole shape has the swerve of a mark and the vigor of an exclamation point; it is life,
and aquatic insects. Over the curved proscenium arch and and box railings, metal spider webs are stretched; above the stage is suspended a gruesome monster of mixed origin, part squid, part jellyfish, and part sting ray, while the curtain is decorated with ornaments suggesting, butterfly cocoons, caterpillars, and seed pods such an ensemble can scarcely be qualified as architecture. Endell decorated the Buntes Theater for Ernst von Wolzogen and his artistic Vberbrettl cabaret revue. "Since not much money was to be spent, a dreary old dance hall in the distant Kopenickerstrasse was redecorated. Endell shot off the whole fireworks in his decorations which were full of spikes, restlessly sparkling, flickering in little flames; the rows of seats were of different colors,
without sense or aim, eternally quivering and
indicating the different prices; even the usherettes, dressed in green
although presented almost in confusion.
bilities,
finable cellular mass, sharp antennae emerge
gantic protruding thorn
comet's
tail.
Beneath
it,
which terminates on the
in the opposite direction,
ragged form like a bat's wing,
its
From an unde-
from beneath a left in a sort
gi-
of
emerges a sharply
ramifications reminding one of the
question
aggressive in
itself,
sea horses,
the balcony
—
pliantly eluding all attack, a creation of magnificent decorative
and mauve, wore aprons which ended
whole of Art Nouveau (plates 199, 200). These forms are varied and repeated in the relief of leaves above the door, in the window grilles, and in the
giving the arriving audience the impression that the
effect, a significant
form unparalleled
in the
interior staircase.
The ornamentation of the Elvira Studio
is
carried out in relief
which gives the appearance of looking as though one of Obrist's
in points
above and below, little
theater
number of the program. As a piece of brilliant was the highest achievement of Jugendstil. Had it been achieved with less wit, it might have turned into the most shocking 218 tinsel amusement park decoration." itself
was
grotesque,
Like
all
the first it
other significant
German
Jugendstil
artists,
Endell was
embroideries had been enlarged to enormous size and spread over
very versatile; he designed furniture, carpets, fabrics, and jewelry.
The façade is entirely flat except and the top ledge which proceeds to
In the big department stores and other buildings which he built
the façade of the entire building. for the base at the foundation
curve outward forming a gentle overhang. The
window
apertures
any ledges or molded curves, and wooden grilles of the central window, the
later in Berlin
and Brcslau, the ornamentation was greatly reduced
without however being entirely suppressed. The swing which had
are cut into the walls without
mostly been applied to the surface was
except for the wave-like
to the
windows and
the thidter portions of their inner frames are quite
different in style
houettes of the
from the ornamentation of the façade. The
window
apertures are geometrically defined, con-
sisting of right angles at the
203
sil-
bottom with convex quarter-circles
body of
now
extended to space and
the building itself; however, these buildings
fell
short of the originality of his first works.
OttoEckmann (1865-1902) 219 was
considered in
Germany the un-
disputed master of floral Jugendstil. As in Obrist's case, Eckmann's
beginnings date back to the decisive year 1894.
A
native of
Ham-
burg, he used to
furniture, lamps, in
and
his
subsequently turning to the designing of
"artistic legacy," before
was achieved
by auction, considering them
pictures
sell his
articles of
common
two-dimensional
half-illustrative decorations for
art, in
work
usage. But his best
ornamentation and often
books and periodicals such as Die
Jugend and Pan. Die Jugend was started in Munich in 1896 and
was decidedly popular critical in its choice
a very high level.
in its editorial policy, being
of contributors,
Eckmann
its
somewhat un-
presentation rarely reaching
therefore submitted his finest works
Die Jugend. As early as 1895, Berlin was in compeMunich, with and with the publication of Pan it became the
to Pan, not to tition
German
second
art center.
The
spiritual father of this unprece-
202),
where they are reduced
upward
consisting of lines of such uniform width that they
may
to suggest plants.
Not only
is
every descriptive
movement has also been diverted from the repreany concrete vegetal pattern. Only four years later, in 1 90 1, did Van de Velde create anything similar, in the supports of the Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum) in Hagen. This is all the more worthy of attention because Eckmann, in the polemical writings of Van de Velde, is named as the principal sentation of
representative of "sentimentality as expressed in ornamentation."
Eckmann continued to produce floral designs, many a sentimental blunder, he had been the first in
and
left),
almost
surging
Actually, although
welcomed contributors from all over Europe, taking in its stride diversified talents ranging from Nietzsche to Toulouse-Lautrec, from Khnopff to the poet Scheerbart, Van de Velde to Hofmannsthal (who wrote under the nom de plume of Loris), from Seurat and Signac to Klinger, Bocklin, or Liebermann, and from Beardsley to Minne. It was Pan that published the first and probably the finest vignettes and decorative borders by Otto Eckmann, Thomas Theodor Heine, and Emil Rudolf Weiss; works by such writers as Fontane, Schlaf, Dehmel, and Bierbaum were also published there, and museum directors such as Bode, Brinckmann, and Lichtwark were among its other contributors. Some of Eckmann's finest works created for Pan were synthesized and simplified floral vignettes (page 9, right, and page 205,
lines,
impulse lacking in their form, but the basic theme of a supple,
dented periodical was Julius Meier-Graefe. Pan was a luxuriously
it
powerful
In 1897, he also designed some architectonic supports (below)
which might be said
produced publication, large in format, printed to perfection on exquisite paper, and very exclusive in tone. Its policy was one of openmindedness and generosity, and
to swinging,
reaching the abstraction of calligraphic symbols.
in spite of
Germany
to achieve an abstract
"Belgian"
line.
His
lettering, the
dynamism equal to that of the Eckmann type, is also abstract and
dynamic (page 210); it may now be considered his main achievement, and its final form was created in i899.-- u True, he may have seen similar initials published by Van de Velde in 1896 in the periodical, Van Nu en Straks:
More clearly than in the case of Obrist and Endell, one recognizes in Eckmann's work the part played by Japan in the final form of Jugendstil. As a native of Hamburg, Eckmann in early youth had seen examples of Japanese applied arts in that city's Museum of Arts
be
considered as linear two-dimensional bodies that sink into the white
paper
like inlaid
always
distilled
essence, but his his affinity
work. In Eckmann's other creations his style as it is here to the point where it yields its
form
is
is
not
finest
never heavy, never without grace. Despite
with Obrist, Eckmann's work refrains from appearing
it has a less interrupted flow of form and a movement. softer Nor do Obrist's and Endell's symbioses of organic hybrid forms occur to any appreciable extent in the work of Eckmann, who is mainly preoccupied with floral themes, using blossoms possessing swinging leaves and antenna-like stamens, above all with lilies, irises, and other long-stemmed flowers; or else, with those swans which have now become almost the symbol of his art, with their gracefully curved necks and proud bearing. He represented them more figuratively, as in a colored woodcut (plate 201), or more ornamentally abstracted, as in his frieze of swans (plate
as
hard or as pointed;
O'lTO
ECKMANN
Sketches for supports
(
1
897)
204
and Crafts, "whose enlightened founder and curator, Justus Brinck-
mann, had been the
first in
Germany
to acquire products of Japa-
man-high vases, but ornamental sword guards, small objects in lacquer and jade, and colored wood21 cuts"-' in fact, objects which in Japanese art come closest to Art Nouveau. Eckmann and his contemporaries were very conscious of the inspiration they were deriving from Japan; they also were aware that the English had preceded them in adapting and assimilating Japanese elements.-— It is moreover in Eckmann's work that one sometimes comes across examples of a direct relationship between nese art, not the usual sumptuous
—
German
Jugendstil and English Art Nouveau.
Eckmann's 1895 decorations for a poem in Pan display in theme and style a very strong affinity with Beardsley's decorative borders for Malory's Morte d'Arthur (at right). The movement of the soft tulip leaves is borrowed from Beardsley, particularly the downward pointing leaf tips and the vertical construction of the entire design. In both cases, the design fills the wider, outer margin of the book, proving that the
artist
visualized the total effect of the
open page. Beardsley's
own
borders, however, were not independent of the
woodcut borders of books designed by William Morris. Morris had also stylized flowers in two dimensions, and the strange spiral curves of his stems and tendrils are much more strongly emphasized
Left:
OTTO ECKMANN
Right:
Margin design from "Pan" (1896)
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Margin design from Sir Thomas Malory's
"Le Morte d'Arthur" (1893)
than in his subsequent "late medieval" designs. Beardsley thus lays bare the latent Art
Nouveau element
in
Morris and also
utilizes the
powerful white-on-black effects of the Morris woodcuts, exaggerating them and transforming them into something quite new. In contrast with the detailed fabric designs of Morris, Beardsley
who followed in the footsteps Jones, and Whistler), Eckmann in turn attained a and specifically German style. exist for Beardsley,
of Morris, Burne-
highly individual
Peter Behrens (1868-1940) 223 was another of the more important
few individual flowers and brings them into the foreground. Eckmann, in turn, also transforms what he has borrowed:
Munich
the black-and-white effects vanish, as well as the dense structure
founder of the VereinigtenWerkstdtten (United Workshops)
singles out a
in
which form and complementary form alternately condition the Eckmann's tulip dominates the entirely neutral page as a
other.
self-contained drawing. The linear design striking, the ley, the still
is
more opulent and more
format larger and of greater significance.
If, in
Beards-
undecided symbolical content of the very expressive
(who was more nonEckmann's broken tulip stem has a very strongly defined meaning: it is the symbol of the premature death of the girl who was the protagonist of the poem. Eckmann takes his point of departure from the studies of natural floral
to
artists
Behrens, like
Eckmann, had
which of
his
work
what can be
carried
in Jugendstil are
artists.
205
his
prototype
is
the perfected stylization of the English
Having learned much from Beardsley (and nature did not
objects.
The
in 1897,
and where he chiefly designed
also started his career as a painter
him far beyond Jugendstil into the realms modern art of building. His earliest works
called the
butterflies alighting
mentation
from Japanese
carpets and furniture, and at last arrived at architecture, a field in
flowers had already surpassed that of Morris
growth, but when he transmutes actual botanical forms into orna-
inspiration
designer, then turned to the applied arts,
committal
in his decoration),
draw
ornamental drawings
like the delicate sketch of
pads framed by rushes (plate 328), and in this design his affinity with Japanese art is obvious. But unlike the other Munich artists working in the early floral phase of Juon
lily
from the outset, continued to produce work that integrated, somewhat heavier, hesitant, and viscous in conception, instead of being spikey and vigorous. In the above-cited butterfly design, the lily pads and the faintly indicated paths of the
gendstil, Behrens,
was more
OTTO ECKMANN Foundry
toward the oval
fluttering butterflies already reveal his inclination
form, while the rushes indicate his predilection for broad, ribbonlike,
two-dimensional bodies. The forms are surrounded by contours
in contrasting colors, a feature
was subjected
which vanished
as soon as
to the influence of the "Belgian" line
Behrens
and shifted
to
Decorative border designed for the Rudbard Type
{circa 1900)
large Hanseatic liner. Jugendstil to create a lighting system
new
was moreover the
adapted to
first style to try
electric light, then a relatively
invention. Pankok's designs in this field were very original,
consisting of glass plates covered with bronze lighting fixture
was transformed
openwork
so that the
into an ornament. Besides, the
wiring was freely displayed, as at Haby's, the Court
the abstract.
electrical
The color lithograph, The Brook (plate 205), shows a highly abstract stream in the flat Japanese style flowing between tree trunks and framed by large leaves. If, at this point, pictorial description
barbershop in Berlin, decorated by Van de Velde, where the entire
has been already replaced by a highly symbolic representation of
they did not wear their
idyllic nature, the
flow of the water
two
in
lateral panels of the triptych repeat the
issue
German Romantic
rens' art distills, so to speak, the essence of
art in
rendering landscape and nature, making it pleasantly unfamiliar and adding an exotic element as a piquant note. The lyric, poetic atmosphere of the drawing has the cool reserve that we find in all of his works, and for all its instability and lack of structure, solidly static and constructive values are still present: in fact, Behrens' work belongs in the abstract and constructive phase of Jugendstil. the style of Bernhard
belongs to that of Obrist's and Endell's
Pankok
(1
872-1 943)
224
Born in Munster, Pankok lived in Munich after 1892 and, in 1897, was one of the founders of the Vereinigten Werkstdtten. His career also began as a sculptor and a designer of surface ornament, before he went on to the applied arts and finally to architecture. His furniture and incircle.
teriors as well as his surface decorations represent
an individual
with
this
was
visible. Berlin wits
took
premature style of functionalism by remarking that
own
entrails across their waistcoats like a
watch chain. 225 In his graphic work,
an entirely ornamental and symbolic manner.
Far removed from any conventional representation of nature, Beh-
On the other hand,
electrical installation of polished brass
Pankok combined
with ornament, particularly
in his large
naturalistic verisimilitude
border designs iorPan, best
exemplified by those for the Phantasus poems by
Arno Holz, who
merits a place of honor close to the younger Rilke and Stefan George in
German
Jugendstil poetry. Pankok's best design
is
probably the
color lithograph for the frontispiece in the official catalogue of the
German
section for the Paris International Exhibition of
(frontispiece). This
1900
a poetic and decorative creation in which,
is
however powerfully abstracted, a fairy-tale spring unfolds, wells up, foams forth, and flares up like fireworks: a new symbol for the metamorphosis of nature's forces
as joyously exemplified in flowers.
halfway between Obrist's embroideries and Van de Velde; here again but none the less as we find a floral style that had become almost abstract.
In style, this design
is
—
the line drawings of late as
1900
—
226 tr»e only one of the Mu868-19 J7), nich group to have been born there, was the first to follow this
Richard Riemerschmid
who
(1
He
variation of Obrist's and Endell's forms. His knotty and antler-like
trend and the one
forms are far removed from nature; irregular and gnarled after
as a painter, but as early as 1896 he designed
Durer's fashion, and almost grim. As quasi-organic growths, they
house
reveal a certain affinity with Hector Guimard's furniture (plate
ing from architecture to fabric design, glassware, and silver flat-
But elegance and a narrow linear construction are lacking; everything in Pankok's work is much heavier, knottier, specifically
ware. But he was most of
of his chairs (plate 210), though
middle-class and cozy, creating an atmosphere like that of
stil, is
166).
fairy-tales. like living
One
of Pankok's most beautiful interiors, the alcove-
room with an entrance through
was designed in
doorway, and shown again two
a vast curved
for the Paris Exhibition of 1900
years later in Turin. This
succeeded
Grimm's
room proves anew how German Jugendstil
conceiving and carrying out interior decoration in
terms of an integral work of
Pankok's ensemble thus shows signs of
"Yachting Style," except that the room
so ageless
it
to
its
farthest point.
and
too began
built his
own
near Munich. His field was just as universal, rang-
all
important as a furniture designer. it
obviously belongs within Jugend-
and so convincingly right that
the furniture firm of
Dunbar
is
only the slightest modification.
One
in the
currently producing It is
United States it
again, with
devoid of ornament, having
become a plastic ornamental form in space. The chair's supple supporting and connecting wooden frame seems alive, but not itself
really "organic" or even at all "floral." It
is
the very manifestation
of vital forces, translated here into terms of ornament and symbol.
art.
Actually, the style of Van de Velde had already influenced this interior.
in Pasing,
carried
is
his
awareness of the
not reminiscent of the
cabin of a streamlined motorboat, but rather of the stateroom of a
No
Van de Velde, who was faithful to the tradition of William Morris and Arts and Crafts in advocating integrity and skilled workmanship, found these combined in Riemerschmid and said that "each of his works is a good deed."
wonder then
that
206
modernism (not only in the Jugendstil sense), Riemerschmid was primarily inspired by folklore and regional tradition. In his small easy chair of about 1900 (plate 212), he combined sturdy rural craftsmanship and urban elegance. Constructed of flat boards but still organic and plastic, a bit clumsy but almost toylike, compact as a block but interrupted in its design within this context, it is purposeful but manifestly exaggerated, simple and labyrinthine, rustic and elegant. This piece of furniture offers indeed a For
all his
dialectical synthesis of the essential qualities of Jugendstil and, at
the same time, a convincing link between curved
and geometrical
German effects.
late
High
Jugendstil
Art Nouveau.
ceramics of this period aimed just as consciously at rustic
The most important masters of pottery were
Max
Laeuger
very
tions. In the
first
number of Pan, he already
illustrated (or
rather symbolized) Nietzsche's Konigslied.
Apart from Royal Copenhagen porcelain, Scandinavia guished
itself
mainly
in this period
through
its
woven
distin-
tapestries,
Gerhard Munthe's Daughters of the Northern Light and it was Pan that, at an early date, encouraged these endeavors which are related to Gallén's style. A Swedish example, so far unknown, is an endpaper by Ivar Arosenius (plate 204), 227 which stands midway between High and late Jugendstil. Abstraction and lightness are present in it to the same extent, while ambiguity of form that is at the same time organic and geometric is represented in pleasing repetitions. The snail-like chiefly
Frida Hansen's Milky Way. Again
coils
of hair on either side of each of the
and the openly revealed
little
heads recall actual
(1864-1952) and Johann Julius Scharvogel (1 854—1938). Schartwo handles like an amphora,
snail shells,
which give
an almost circular outline. The vessel has a swelling
of beading, and the fiat spirals of the coils of hair are matched by
only
the twined ribbon-like strips that alternate with the rows of heads
shape modeled in clay and from the
and beading. The harmonious proportions of the uniformly sized circular heads, the rows of beading and the breasts, the thinly out-
vogel's beautiful vase (plate 323) has
plasticity,
it
without any hint of nature's forms, deriving
from the movement of mottled, down-flowing
its
glaze. It
its life
of course inspired by Chinese
is
breasts are also seen to be re-
versed hearts. The circular faces match the small circles in the rows
faint colors, all contribute to give the design an
models, but in such a vase the sophistication of the Far East has
lined forms
regained the spontaneity of pure craftsmanship.
evenly distributed density. Artlessness and subtlety are skillfully
Some French ceramics
offer a comparable rustic character, con-
trasting with the tendency prevailing in Paris
and Nancy. True,
in
a vase like that of Adrien Dalpayrat (plate 324), the rustic quality is
much more apparent and
Actually, in
Dalpay rat's
counterbalanced, and together with
scale
In the
round
228
from cubic
to
cheery quality (as rare in
its
Art Nouveau) combine to assure masterpiece a place of its own.
Jugendstil as
illusory than in Scharvogel's vase.
piece, the transition
and
1944),
it is
work of
in
the
this small-
Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-
Scandinavia achieved great art
in the truest sense of the
and contour, and the relationship between the body and the neck of
term (plate 276, colorplate XII, and page 208). Although Munch borrows from Gauguin (whose paintings, together with Van Gogh's,
are very deliberate. For once, the proportions are not
he had seen during his 1898 sojourn in Paris) the essential elements
form, the subtle distinctions of curved and straight lines in surface
the vase
all
unduly elongated squat. It
is
as
is
usual in Art
Nouveau; they
are consciously
a late and entirely artificial work, and, as so
creations of this period, coquettish in
its
many
other
simplicity.
of form that belong to his unmistakably personal style, the nature of his art
is
so obviously
the context of
German
"Germanic" that
it
can be best understood in
Jugendstil.
During the eighties Munch joined the bohemian group of artists working in Christiana (present-day Oslo) this group's outlook combined both libertinism and criticism of middle-class society, and this viewpoint influenced the themes of the great works he was ;
Scandinavia
and popular art is also present in the armchairs and straight chairs which the Finnish artist Akseli Gallén-Kallela (1 865—193 1) constructed of birchwood and upholstered in a very beautiful wool material with fir-tree patterns appliquéd in green and blue (plate 211). These designs appear somewhat alien to all the other trends current at that time, and stress a middle-class and even rustic note, renewing the Biedermeier tradition. Akseli Gallén was most famous for his murals and illustraThis mixture of craftsmanship
207
soon to produce. In 1892,
Munch
held an exhibition in Berlin at
provoked few days after the opensuch a scandal that it had ing; this closing resulted in the founding of the group known as the the invitation of the Berlin Artist's Union. This exhibition to be closed a
Berliner Sezession.
During his Berlin years Munch lived in those circles of the Berlin bohème that were frequented by such writers as Arno Holz, Richard Dehmel, Otto Bierbaum, and August Strindberg, and by the art
EDVARD MUNCH
Paraphrase on Salome
For Munch, the outline was an quently circumscribed in flowing
(
1
898)
essential device of creation, frelines
of color. After 1894, he also
used such graphic media as etching, lithography, and the woodcut;
he was equally great as a painter and as a draftsman. In those of Munch's works which were typically Jugendstil, the lines are so fluid, soft, and undulating that compared with them Gauguin's harmonious outlines seem almost hard, rigid, and reminiscent of
woodcuts. In spite of their animal but helplessly revealed
his first literary
Munch's forms are capable of the most delicate curves, shapes that may be large and synthesized, even clumsy, but with an expressive and evocative quality which makes us feel with almost frightening intensity the demonic power of the elementary side of nature and
Stanislas Przybyszewsky published an anthology
of the sexual nature of man. Colors play an important role and
and founder of Pan, Julius Meier-Graefe. At that time he also the acquaintance of some of the great German collectors, including Count Harry Kessler, Eberhard von Bodenhausen, and
critic
made
Walter Rathenau. Berlin also provided supporters in :
1
8 94,
vitality,
Mundi with
Works of Edvard Munch. This collection contained by many of the men who moved in the perceptive group of artists that founded the Genossenschaft Pan (Pan Society) that same year, and the following year launched Pan, German Jugendstil's most brilliant and articulate periodical. Active literary support was also provided by August Strindberg, who in 1 896 reviewed an ex-
may appear bloody and
of writings, The
courageously include black; Munch's reds
articles
poisonous; his colors are often crude and stabbing, but they never
Munch's works held at Bing's gallery in Paris. Strindberg's critique appeared in the Revue Blanche, 229 the most important publication of the Nabi group. Between 1890 and 1900, Munch's paintings bear such titles as
allow us to forget the great painter in Munch, over-obvious display of psychology.
veau
its
Munch
in spite
of
all his
shares with Art
Nou-
great decorative quality; but his anger, his torment, his
greed are never constrained by calligraphic effects.
hibition of
Jealousy, The Kiss, Puberty, The Cry, After the Fall of
Man, An-
Flower of Sorrow, In the Masculine Brain, Attraction, Detachment, and Fertility. Though his power carried him beyond the limits of the movement, Munch shared with the whole of Art Nouveau an inclination toward the Symbolist movement, and also toward hysteria, hypersensitivity, and a fascination with eroti-
guish,
cism.
He
lacked the elegance, the fashionable playfulness, and the
Munch
aloofness of the dandy: "The animal breaks out in
as a full
expression of his unbroken being." 230
"Landscapes of Hell, somewhat threat,
many
like Strindberg's
.
.
.
Each rock a
a tree a conspiracy, endless desolation in things. Once,
everything was convulsion: soon, everything will be a cry. the cry of Nature,' says
Munch. When Pan died, the
trees
T
hear
wept and
Ferdinand Hodler and Ludwig von
Hofmann
The inclination of many German and,
in particular,
Scandina-
vian artists of Jugendstil tended toward the bucolic and a world of
unbroken
local
tradition;
similarly,
other
German
attracted to the world of the child and youth. Both trends reveal
the nostalgia of that age for the sources of unspent and intact forces; both fight against historicism. The longing for youth in art and life can be felt everywhere, but most clearly in English early and High Art Nouveau as well as in late Jugendstil, wherever the convulsive excitement of Continental High Art Nouveau does not predominate. This nostalgic longing fills Kate Greenaway's and Walter Crane's children's books; 232 while interiors, above all those
by Voysey, look
like nurseries. It
is
precisely the oft-used "inno-
cent" white color employed in furniture and rooms that recalls
We
meet
withered: they turned into crosses." This text by Theodor Daubler
nurseries suggestive of an almost clinical hygiene.
(already Expressionistic, but without denying
tendency, inspired by Voysey and later by Glasgow, in the
its
relationship to
were
artists
Hoffmann and
this
work
Jugendstil and Symbolism) goes on to say: "Palely priapic, the
of the Viennese architects
mauve
for the Princesses that Olbridi built in 1901 at Schloss Wolfsgarten
pulls the sexual tentacles of a lunar ghost
shivers
and the room: it
birth of the nocturnal sky breaks into our existence
and
senses that
which
is
febrile
.
.
.
the North, in an upheaval of vast eroticism.
storm was released: Edvard Munch." 231
world into His art
was born facing
A magnificent thunder-
bei
Langen, near Darmstadt (plate 343),
actual function, a sort of house for dolls general,
Van de
Velde's
feature except once;
in
Olbrich. The Playhouse
is,
in
and
accordance with
its
children's games. In
more "adult" creations do not reveal this 1903 it is present in Count Harry Kessler's
208
handsome dining room in Weimar (plate 203). The white lacquered furniture and panels and a childlike, naive mural painting by Maurice Denis all seem to be intended for a young girl's room.
ground, and even as far as the background, the flowers are
German
tive effect of the pictorial surface.
The flower backgrounds were no doubt inspired by Japanese art but have been transformed into something quite individual. In the
artist, Ferdinand Hodler (1853— 191 8). In its conception and execution his work Spring shows a freshness and youthfulness and a desire for a youthful art and a youthful style. Such paintings
same way, Hodler's relationship
are entirely devoid of the complicated, half-artificial childhood
but this relationship has in no
element that Von Hofmannsthal detected in the English style;
234
they are free from decadence or a coy toying with the childlike.
Eros awakens in the souls and in the undeveloped bodies of the girl is
and the adolescent boy;
in the fascinated
gaze of the latter there
something resembling surprise, something also
gesture of the girl
who, with eyes
closed,
is
like fright in the
listening to an inner
of
nearly the same size and thereby greatly contribute to the decora-
Features of this kind also appear in the paintings of the Swiss233
all
to French painting
ticularly to the equally fresco-like
evident, par-
is
works of Puvis de Chavannes,
way made
Hodler's work derivative
Nor does one find any trace of an affinity between Hodler's paintings and those of the English Pre-Raphaelites, at any rate not in his early works. His style developed so logically
of French painting.
and evenly and matured ing The Night, there
But
either.
is
so soon that, as early as
no reason to believe
in spite of all his
1
890, in the paint-
in later influences
independence, there
a certain link
is
Jugendstil, in spite of
between Spring (plate 206) and Rossetti's Ancilla Domini (plate 57). Both show absolute purity, on the human level as well as in the
of
style of painting; in
voice. In
its
form
as well, Hodler's painting
is
closely related to
its powerful plastic quality and the heaviness from ethereal figures, in spite of comparatively realistic representation and the firm structure of the work. With his often symmetrical and slim figures developed parallel to each other, and
far
its
with the parallelisms of his
Hodler achieves a clear, ornamental composition that confers decorative and expressive effects, symbolism and monumentality, on paintings bearing pretentious names: Eurythmies, The Chosen, Spring, Day, and Night. Hodler's art is perhaps the best example of a monumentality rare in painting that
is
details,
not necessarily inherent in the style. The simplified and
almost ornamental outlines
make
and manner of
the plastic figures strictly
inevitably fuse with the surface of the picture. Hodler's
painting suggests no painterly quality; his treatment of color
is
and devoid of surface
which
his art
is
brilliance, as in fresco technique, to
also close in spirit.
Wthin
dry
the contours, the colors are rela-
homogeneous, with scarcely any effect of light or shade and no cross-hatching. A fruitful relationship exists between the powertively
fully fascinating figures that transcend themselves like their impressive plastic qualities
and the
symbols
in
entirely flat background,
which has practically no spatial depth. The horizon line is frequently drawn quite high, so that the highly stylized landscape
background (usually consisting of flowery meadows) lies like a kind of wallpaper behind the figures, but in such a way as to include them in its carpet-like pattern and structure. The large, round flowers which Hodler likes to scatter through his ratively
irregular
meadows
groups are individually seen
in
in
deco-
perspective,
causing the round form of the flower to be flattened into an oval. In the relationship between foreground this perspective
209
and background, or horizon,
remains almost without effect: up to the middle-
if
Hodler employs
both cases the theme
it
is
the Annunciation, even
in a transposed sense. In
both works there
is
a half-reclining figure and a half-upright figure; both are represent-
ed in juxtaposition and contrast, and in
and
in
full face
and
in profile;
both the empty space between the two figures
stressed. In spite of the
gap of
fifty intervening years, the
tures are closely related even in their proportions
and
heavily
is
two
pic-
structure.
The atmosphere pervading the paintings of Ludwig von Hof-
mann less
(1
861-194 j) 235
Art Nouveau
latter,
Hofmann
is
equally vernal, although his
in style
work
is
slightly
than that of Hodler. But, unlike the
also illustrated
and decorated books
in a typically
Jugendstil manner.
Ludwig von Hofmann was inspired by the works of Puvis de Chavannes and it is perhaps interesting to note that Hofmann was the teacher of the young Hans Arp 236 though he softened Puvis' severe and rather stiff forms and transposed the quiet immo-
—
bility
of the
—
French painter's idealized Arcadian
figures
into
something possessing a dancelike movement.
Hofmann went
where he became friendly with the painters, Klinger, Leistikow, and Liebermann. From the beginnings of the nineties his art developed along lines suggested to him by that of Hans von Marées, an earlier painter in whose work Hofmann sensed elements that anticipated Jugendstil. What the poet Theodor Dàubler wrote about Hans von After studies in Paris in 1889,
Marées' paintings in his
now
to Berlin
neglected book, The
New
Viewpoint,
might also apply to Ludwig von Hofmann's works: "His trees murmur above blissful groves through which an enchanting green light, as
tremulous
in color as aspen-leaves, filters
down
onto the
OTTO ECKMANN Foundry
bodies of youths and maidens as
had not been encountered
cissistic;
.
.
.
such youth [and youthfulness]
since Botticelli. These figures are nar-
they suddenly perceive their maturity, for the
first
time
legible
Decorative border designed for the Rudhard Type
(circa 1900)
and
their general aspect
is
harmonious. They are completely
abstract; letters transformed into ornament, yet these printed letters retain the character of flowing
penmanship, as though written with
they are aware that they are young." 237 But, unlike the pre-
a soft, thick brush. Freely designed, they were naturally more
dominantly dark and heavy splendor of the palette of Hans von
accordance with Jugendstil than the more architectural Antiqua
Marées, the sweetness of watercolor tints prevails in the paintings
type face, even though the lettering of Jugendstil
of
Ludwig von Hofmann.
Hofmann comes (plate 344),
latter
closest to
which are
at the
real Jugendstil in
same
time illustrations
his
lithographs
and symbolic borders: Pan reproduced many of them. In 1903, Hofmann was appointed to the art school in Weimar, a city which, thanks to Count Kessler and Henry Van de Velde, had become a small but important center of art immediately after 1900. Hugo von Hofmannsthal has expressed essential thoughts about
Hofmann
in his
book, Prologue to Ludwig von Hofmann's Dances:
"These drawings are beautifully assembled, like an album of
cates,
which the soul
is
born of the
bliss their
figures express nothing but their nudity. Rhythmically, they
them through page
space; the imagination can play with
and
is
softly rocked
Mo-
rhythm communieagerly accepts through the eye and ear. His
zart sonatas. Their unity
by them,
as
on a
blissful
neck gently curved backwards; a woman's
fill
after page
sequence of tones.
arm
A
raised so straight
According to the nature of
ward
architectural in
empty of lushness so that they are vernally at one with the world of the young trees which rise into the pure sky from the hills of spring, at one with the contours of the isles which emerge yonder from lyre-shaped Southern bays into the fragrance of the morning." 238
Mature and Late Jugendstil The work of Eckmann, Behrens, and Riemerschmid had already way toward an abstract and constructive phase of Jugendstil. To the decorative designs which he had published in 1897 under the title New Forms, Eckmann had then added a few prepared the
with abstract curvy
lines,
somewhat
after the spirit of the "Belgian"
His ornamental capitals and typographical ornaments for the Rudhard type foundry (page 207 and page 212, left) are firmly
line.
constructed in spite of their soft curves, and never
make
use of
any
purely decorative accessories. The letters are perfectly clear and
first
Every "promise" contained in his lettering, his ornaments, and his drawings already seems to be fulfilled in the most personal manner in the rooms of this house, particularly in the very unified library which may be counted among the best examples of Jugendstil interior design, and also in certain details, such as the magnifitime.
wood with the linear design of however, we cannot overlook the
cent door of dark-green lacquered its
fittings.
fact that a
At
the
new
same time,
stimulus had operated from without: Van de Velde
and
a bull; a dance of maidens, bare to the waist. But,
in 1898. In his first
work, the house he built for himself on the Mathilden-
Belgian master whose
body of
is
Darmstadt, Behrens used abstract Jugendstil for the
forms riding faun-like on naked shoulders; crouching on the ground, animal-like, hand on heel; feminine bodies strained against the
shown in the fine the book decorations
drawing, The Brook (plate 205), as well as in and lettering designs that he began to produce
hohe
Behrens tended to-
his talent, Peter
a serious, heavy, constructive form, as
that the hollow of the armpit becomes flat; nude, slender-limbed
despite all their voluptuousness, these pictures are
based on the
and though only accessory elements were borrowed from
Gothic characters.
and arabesques,
idyllic scenes
is
in
his "Belgian"
opment of
line.
the style)
We
can detect here the influence of the
work (through his contribution to the develhad made him one of the main figures of Ju-
gendstil, not only in the
comparative weightiness of
his
forms,
which corresponded to the ideas of Behrens concerning form, or his conception of space, but also essentially in the
in
"Yachting Style"
flavor that permeates the Behrens library.
The rooms which Van de Velde exhibited in Bing's gallery in Paris in 1895-96 met with unfavorable criticism. He showed the same rooms in Dresden in 1897, with the addition of a newly created "relaxation-room"; there, in general, he was successful. These rooms launched Van de Velde in Germany, and in 1899 he began to work in Berlin where he at first decorated store interiors. But Van de Velde's most important work of these years was the interior of the
the
main
Folkwang Museum
hall,
Hagen, completed in 1902. In the cylindrical fountain is dominated by Minne's in
five sculptured youths with their tensely angular
143).
Not only
movement
(plate
the severe banisters of the staircase, but also the
side rooms and the small music room (plate 208) are worth mentioning. The unity of these rooms is achieved without the aid of additional ornaments, whether painted, woven, or carved. Here the
"Belgian" line appears
in
wide, calm curves.
210
WASSILY KANDINSKY exhibition in
Munich (191
Catalogue jacket for "Der blaue Reiter*
1)
BlA(/eR6f7£K Even elements of
Art Nouveau can be
Van de Velde's work, expressing themselves in the interiors he designed for Count Kessler in Weimar in 1902-03 (plate 203) in his noblest and rare for Van de Velde most elegant manner. The interior architect, decorator, and designer in him is subordinated here in order to serve the purposes of the work of art. The convulsions of Belgian High Art Nouveau are abandoned in favor of delicate curves, with a suggestion of Biedermeier modesty and neatness. late
felt in
—
—
These rooms are expressly decorated as a setting for Count Kessler's eclectic
such
collection of
moderns
as Maillol,
works of
art,
of old masters as well as of
Bonnard, and Maurice Denis; and no con-
spicuous decoration was to diminish their effect.
say that Van de Velde,
who was
One
is
tempted to
not entirely free from dictatorial
tendencies, has surpassed himself here through self-effacement.
Among Van
de Velde's works in the field of the applied
his set of silver
Most of Van de Velde's other works also show this synthetic quality. The curved rhythm of High Jugendstil, which is often expressed in a very noble and simplified compactness of form, prevails in his ornaments and bookbindings, his furniture, jewelry, and handwrought silverware, in his candelabra and tea services (plates 213, 329). The noble distinction of Count Kessler's diningroom ensemble or the distinctive shape of the silverware already pointing toward future styles was seldom again achieved by Van de Velde, but
many
of his other creations
may
be considered as
prototypes of Art Nouveau: for instance, his masterpiece of a "linear" Art
Nouveau, the candelabra of about 1902; or his main example of a three-dimensional Art Nouveau, the silver tea service of 1905-06 (plate 329); or his ideal form of an Art Nouveau armchair, for which Georges Lemmen designed the upholstery fabric.
arts,
flatware from about 19 12, in which beauty and
simplicity are perfectly
combined
(plate 207),
is
particularly note-
From
Jugendstil to
Modern Trends
worthy. Knives, forks, and spoons revert to fundamental forms; here form attains the highest functional value and, from the point
most appropriate to the method of production. This tableware which even today might win the highest award for good functional form, is one of the rare works of Van de
of view of the artisan,
is
Velde (and of Jugendstil in general) that achieved a timeless the aim pursued
Far
less
by Jugendstil with
so
much
style,
ardor.
unostentatious were the sumptuous rooms for the Dres-
den Exhibition of 1906, the central hall in particular. Here, after some years of working in a simple, distinctly geometric style that
was in keeping with his time, Van de Velde reverted to a curved and linear style which he now greatly simplified, thereby alienating himself more and more from the actual trends of the future. One of his chief architectural works, which at the same time proved
how
long he remained faithful to a curved Jugendstil,
is
the
Werk-
hundtheater, built for the 19 14 Cologne Exhibition (plate 214).
Had
it
been built ten years earlier,
we might
consider
it
as a
main
achievement of Jugendstil and Art Nouveau architecture. In spite of the extreme compactness of the bulk of the building, which seems to
have been molded out of some liquid matter,
well as
its
directions
its
main body
as
separate parts are rhythmically arranged. Contrasting
and forms blend
in a synthesis
which comprises the geo-
The immediate transition from High and then late Jugendstil to modern architecture is clearly seen in the work of Peter Behrens. Soon after 1900, leading personalities among German architects and designers adopted a new Biedermeier style: the poet, Rudolf Alexander Schroder, for instance, in the rooms he decorated in 1901 for Alfred Walter Heymel in Munich, the founder of the famous Insel books and publishing house; or Bruno Paul (1 874-1954) in the rooms he designed for the Deutsche Werkbund, founded in 1905; or Joseph Olbrich in 1901 in his own house in Darmstadt. For more important buildings, Behrens developed a kind of neo-Classicism,
from which he soon progressed to a more functional style. The which he built in 1909 and 191 1 in Berlin for the Allgemeine Elektrizitàts-Gesellschaft (AEG), a huge electrical and enfactories
gineering industrial concern, deserve particular mention here. But
house in Paris on the rue Franklin (plate 175) and his garage on the rue Ponthieu (plate 317) stand between late Art
just as Perret's
Nouveau and modern lin
do the above-mentioned Berbuildings by Behrens reveal a link with the Jugendstil past. The
Berlin
and
steel.
an "architecture that speaks for pillars,
mantic echo of Jugendstil.
this
211
turbine factory, for instance,
a rectilinear skeleton of glass
and the ornamental elements. In spite of the quality of its form this building, which was designed only five years after Behrens' AEG turbine plant and three years after the Gropius Fagus Factory, might almost be considered a rometric, the organic, the functional,
AEG
architecture, so
whose tapering reminds
To
itself,"
us of
exaggeratedly heavy-looking gable
is
constructed entirely as
illustrate the principle of it
has powerful corner
Egyptian forms;
lies
across the
besides, an
body of the
building, which thus acquires, as a whole, a certain grandeur, since its
weight is
— now
quite static
— seems
to symbolize energy.
scarcely in accord with pure functionalism. Mies
But
all
van der
Rohe then followed Behrens in pius and Le Corbusier worked
his Classicist phase,
and both Gro-
for a while in his office: Europe's
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER illustrations to
Border design from the
series of
"Mann und Weib* (1900-02)
three leading architects thus reveal an affinity with Behrens.
In the field of painting, Munich Jugendstil offered the most
ground for the growth of modern art. Its Blaue Reiter group, in their Romantic tendencies, were not so very far removed from the Romantic element inherent in German Jugendstil, nor adverse fertile
to the efforts to revert to
popular
art. It is
known
that
among
the
artists, Paul Klee had studied the works of Beardsley and Blake. Franz Marc's paintings are largely composed of swinging
Blaue Reiter
and rhythmic relationships. In this works of Wassily Kandinsky (i 896-1944) offer perhaps the most interesting examples of such a transition. His watercolors and colored woodcuts, with their somewhat Romantic and withdrawn moods, are not only related to Jugendstil but also satisfy most of its criteria of form (facing page). Flat areas and surface-bodies that condition each other with swinging and gliding outlines and remain entirely homogeneous in color (though with somewhat painterly patches in certain areas) reveal a powerful stylization in their forms which seem to be laid into the surface rhythmically, almost as if they were inlaid. The early woodcuts might even be classified as examples of Art Nouveau "volume effects," being composed only of broadly formed, two-dimensional bodies; but they still reveal convulsive movement in the swing of the curves and in their self-sufficient (or narcissistic) calligraphy. Later curves, two-dimensional bodies, respect, the early
works, such as Kandinsky's cover design for the Blaue Reiter catalogue of 191
1
(page 211) and some of his early abstract compo-
sitions are closer to Jugendstil in this respect.
underwent all the transformacaused by contemporary developments but remains so original
style of building, often anticipatory,
tions
that
it
develops every aspect of style to
its
utmost
possibilities.
Antoni Gaudi's Early Works
The son of an ironworker, Gaudi was born in Reus. As a boy he practiced his father's craft, a craft which for centuries the Spaniards have developed with outstanding ability. This early training is evident in many of Gaudi's mature works, where the inexhaustible inventiveness of form and the admirable technique of the ironwork play such an important and integral part (plates 218, 226). Even his architecture
grew under
his
hands as though
it
from a smithy's forge, so that the completed work from the original plan.
were a piece is
often quite
different
Gaudi's studies of architecture were influenced by the theories of Viollet-le-Duc,
and from
his
youth Gaudi was also familiar with
and John Ruskin, and probably with illustrations in the early English Art Nouveau style. He was one of the first in Spain to admire Wagner. As a young man, he lived the life of a dandy and constructed palaces, villas, and architectural "follies" for patrons to whom money was no object. During the the writings of Walter Pater
Barcelona
n Spain, Art Nouveau flourished chiefly in
Barcelona, the rich capital city of
Catalonia. Barcelona's greatest master of Art
Nouveau was Antoni Gaudi
Cornet (1852-1926),
239
who was
i
also
the outstanding genius of the entire in-
ternational
Art Nouveau movement.
Starting with historicism and passing
through the various phases of early,
High, and
late
Art Nouveau, Gaudi's
last
decades of his long
life,
he retired like a hermit
in
order to
superhuman task of building the Church of the Sagrada Familia (plates 217, 228). Gaudi had always been deeply religious; he felt increasingly that a mystic symbolism inhabits the forms of architecture. His death through a street accident was considered a national misfortune; the people of Barcelona, who had loved both him and his art, accompanied the devote himself exclusively to the almost
funeral procession for miles.
212
213
VIII
WASSILYKANDINSKY
Moonrise (1902-03)
2
1
ANTONI G AUDI
6
Detail of the roof of the Casa Batllô, Barcelona
(1905-07)
Gaudi's conception of a building as an integrated whole, his love
seek English influences there.
Still,
we have proof
that
Gaudi knew
of rich decoration and decorative as well as symbolic elements in
English works of this kind at least in theory, and that his patron,
and finally, the forms he created and which draw elements from every domain of plant life and animal life (here too, in the figurative sense, he was eminently "catholic"), made him an artist who, through an idiom of unconventional and individualistic form, achieved the inner intentions of Art Nouveau in the most
Count
his constructions,
grandiose manner.
nerism. This affinity with Art
Nouveau
Gaudi designed for
Viccna (1878-80). This built in
what was then
fanciful variation in
odical found
Gaudi's
In 1877, as assistant to the architect José Fontseré, Gaudi began working on the great waterfall in Barcelona's Parque Ciudadela, a construction that was strongly inspired by Espérandieu's Palais Longchamps in Marseilles. In the sculptured ornaments on which Gaudi also worked, one can detect features of Art Nouveau in spite of an otherwise historistic style partly dependent on Man-
furniture which
Giiell, was a decided Anglophile. English examples of form were of importance to Gaudi, and his biographer, Ràfols, states that the Casa Vicena contained mural decorations and draperies which were inspired by illustrations contained in an English peri-
is
is
even more clearly
his first
felt in
important work, Casa
a small but sumptuous villa-like house,
and conceived as a the Spanish-Moorish Mudéjar style. The entire
romantic dream-castle
a suburb of Barcelona,
fits
into the style of historicism, with
its
built
among Gaudi's private papers
first
masterpiece
is
after his death.
the palatial building he designed and
between 1885 and 1889, near the old so-called "Gothic" downtown Barcelona, for the shipowner and industrial-
quarter of
Don
Giiell. The original design for the façade reveals and decorative reminiscences of early Venetian palazzos, but there is no sign of these features in the completed façade. The interior, however, is largely influenced by such Gothic and Venetian styles which are blended with Moorish influences. ist,
Eusebio
certain stylistic
Whether
in the interior
decoration or in the final version of the
double portals of the façade,
we
nevertheless find no pointed Gothic
ogives or Moorish arches; instead, a creative development of both
— Gaudi's own parabolic arches, forms which seem irregular but are mathematically conceived and,
in the
arrangement of the colon-
disrupted and detailed forms, the asymmetrical connection between
nades leading toward the loggia (plate 221), display a refined
ele-
its polychrome and decoratively handled and the floral pattern of its glazed ceramic tiles (called azulejos) which are lavishly employed on the exterior and the interior, and with its small Moorish basket-shaped balconies fitted
gance. The capitals and the abutments blend in an entirely
new
its
heterogeneous parts,
surfaces,
with wooden or iron
railings.
But the small chimney-towers, the
more grandiose sculptured chimneys, already strike one as inventive and entirely original, while the ironwork railings express Art Nouveau ideas even earlier than Mackmurdo's earliest creations. The garden railings, for instance, are precursors of Gaudi's later and
element of construction and, in contrast to
all historical
and
tradi-
upward to form cone-shaped arches. As if formed out of a ductile substance, these conic forms glidingly cut into the stalactite-like, downward-hanging spandrels. Nowhere but in Art Nouveau were such forms possible and, in fact, nowhere can tional examples, taper
they be found except in Gaudi's work.
The interior is the most interesting feature of Palau Giiell. In the ground plan as well as in the vertical construction, different space
rods terminate in the soft curves of the "whiplash rhythm." The
whole a magnificently labyrinthine open or half-open rooms, openwork walls, balustrades, railings, and columns, all of which (in quite different, and above all far heavier, forms) anticipate Mackintosh's open-walled rooms (plate 248). This series of rooms culminates in the central domed hall which reaches up to the topmost floor and receives its light from a lantern-like cupola
comparatively naturalistic form of the details places these railings
window
in the category of early
Art Nouveau. Here, as in the somewhat and timorous bunch of flowers carved on a door of the billiard room and in the wide curves of the terrace railings, the new style as was the case in all other countries expresses itself first in terms of line and two-dimensional area.
parabolic arches. The impression of a very thin-skinned wall
detailed
firmed by the hexagonal
the most vigorous achievements in this field of flamboyant extrav-
agance (plate 330). Above a skeleton consisting of square areas marked off by horizontal and vertical bars, and surrounded by
palm fronds are juxtaposed and superAt each jointure of the squares, plump lotus-buds push forward and, at the top and bottom, linear iron
circular forms, star-shaped
imposed
in endless repetition.
—
Considering the originality of such a building,
—
it
would be
idle to
units intermingle to give the
aspect: a unit comprising sections of entirely
(plate 220).
The actual cupola tiles
rises like
an airy tent above is
con-
which honeycomb the inner surface
of the cupola; through the circular apertures, daylight or, at night, electric light, illuminates the
creation
is
dome
in a
very subtle manner. Gaudi's
no doubt the most original new version of
since Borromini's
and Guarini's cupolas and,
theme same time,
this old
at the
214
2'7
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216
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219
217
ANTONI GAUD!
East façade 0) the Church 0) the Sagrada
Familia, Barcelona (1XS3-1926) 2
S
ANTONI GAUDÎ
Detail of the façade 0) the Casa Mild,
Barcelona (1905-10)
219
ANTON] GAUDl (1905-10)
Main entrance
0) the
Casa
M da,
Barcelona
220
221
218
22'
220
ANTONI GAUDI Domed
ceiling of the
music room
in the
Palau
Guell, Barcelona (1885-89) 221
ANTONI GAUDi
Drawing room
of the Palau Giiell, Barcelona
(1885-89) 222
LLUIS
DOMENÈCH Y MONTANLR
torium of the Palau de 223
LLUIS
DOMENÈCH
Y
la
Chandelier
in
the audi-
Musica Catalana, Barcelona (1906-08)
MONTANLR
Catalana, Barcelona (1906-08)
Palau de
la
Musica
224
AN
225
AMONIGAUDI
["ON)
GAUDJ
Detail of a built-in bookcase (circa 1901)
Chandelier (area 1900)
224
"S 220
221
226
ANTONI GAUDÎ
Banister in the Casa Milà, Barcelona (1905-10)
227
ANTONI GAUDÏ
Chaise longue (1885-89)
rx \
i
v^.
ANTONI GAUD1
228
Model
for the nave of the Church of the
Sagrada Familia (circa 192$)
disconcertingly recalls prehistoric architecture: the interior of sim-
cone-shaped constructions of the Stone and Bronze Ages.
ilar
A
great wealth of materials
and forms
is
combined
in the
Palan
some indications of the Art Nouveau tendency toward synthesis. One might almost say the same about the Tiffany rooms in New York, which are equally opulent but less original. selves
combine to give the
The furniture, particularly the chairs, which Gaudi designed for the Casa Calvet in Barcelona between 1898 and 1904, is much simpler. Here, the suggestion of copying earlier styles is no longer noticeable. Instead, an element of purity of style and of independ-
anything but suggestive of mere comfort.
ence (in spite of their peculiarity) makes these pieces legitimate
Almost ten years before Horta had incorporated structural details as part of his architectural ornamentation, Gaudi freely revealed
examples of High Art Nouveau. Not only do they perfectly achieve
on the ground floor and also those above the curve of the staircase leading from the mezzanine to the main floor. Furthermore, the marble slabs in the reception rooms are sometimes secured to the walls by visible iron supports.
like snails
amazingly daring structural inventions. In
Giiell in
Gaudi belongs
entirely to the 1880 period. Pillars
this respect,
and
slabs of
marble, costly woods even more expensively worked, and a great
profusion of hand-wrought ironwork,
rooms a splendor that
is
all
the iron supports of the hall ceilings
Here, as with Horta, elements of modern functional construction achieve a hitherto
unknown
In this composite structural
not been included), one
is
unity with those of opulent decoration.
work of
art (where only painting has
again impressed mainly by the ironwork,
especially the vehement, serpentine curves of the grilles
upper part of the parabolic arches of the portals. interest are certainly the far smaller
interior of the master tals
Of
on the
even greater
the fusion between the structural and the decorative, but, coiled
tal
and dynamic
as springs, they give the impression of vege-
and organic growth.
These qualities are developed on a gigantic scale in the chief
works of Gaudi's High Art Nouveau. The vaulted roofs of the Park Giiell (plate 13) swell like an enormous colored and shimmering Portuguese man-of-war; the scaly, tiled roof of the Casa Batllô (plate 216) is humped like the back of a dinosaur. The outline of the parapet of Park Giiell seems like the petrified curved line of a wave which the receding sea might have porter's lodge in the
left
imprinted upon the sands of a shore (plate 16).
wrought-iron ornaments in the
bedroom, which playfully surround the capi-
and the abutments of an open arch with a design (plate 235) of and imaginative power; although more mature,
Luis
Domènech y Montaner
incredible inventive
such forms recall the stone ornamentation of Furness (plate 231),
and Sullivan's early designs (plate 236). Equally admirable
is
the
small grid centered in the panel of a door, as delicate as lace, yet full
of the cruel, vital force which
is
so characteristic of Spanish
The linear wood construction (plate 232) of this door (which leads from the main staircase to the former offices on the
wrought
iron.
mezzanine) serves as a setting for hand-wrought or engraved metal plates inserted like
membranes, with flowers reminiscent of early
English floral Art
Nouveau
differently disposed
on each
plate.
The furniture designed by Gaudi for the luxurious Palau Giiell include a dressing table and a chaise longue (plates 332, 227) which are particularly remarkable. In the continuous curve of the latter,
reaching compactly out into space,
High Art Nouveau can
already be discerned, although the profusion of detail in the forms, especially in the dressing table,
two
is
still
very heterogeneous. These
and lack and the dynamic tension of Van de Velde's They are showpieces of the grand bourgeois' "conspi-
pieces of furniture are indeed excessively elaborate,
During the time Gaudi was creating these works, he was undoubtedly acquainted with the Art Nouveau of northwestern Europe,
was the most cosmopolitan city in Spain, a city eager for novelty and closely in touch with the latest European trends. Even apart from Gaudi's personal style, the Stile Modernista design of upper-class apartment houses was more popular in Barcelona than in any other city. 240 Symbolistic and Art Nouveau periodicals appeared, among them a counterpart of Gerfor during those years Barcelona
many's Die Jugend, the Catalan Ioventut. Catalan Art Nouveau concentrated mainly on architecture and pictorial art, and the applied arts and textiles were somewhat neglected. The fine binding designed as early as 1 899 by the poet Riquier for a volume of his poems, Crisantemes (plate 81), deserves our attention if only because
it
shows that the Japanese
style also
came
to Barcelona as an
element already legitimately adopted by Art Nouveau.
The different
styles
which mingle
in the
Palau de
la
Musica Cata-
the simplifying element
lana (Hall of Catalan Music) are as heterogeneous as the inspira-
creations.
tions that
cuous waste" of the eighties; on the other hand, they show that the conglomerates of the studio-style already carried within them-
223
marked Gaudi's early works. This building (plates 222 and 223) was built in Barcelona between 1906 and 1908 by Luis Domènech y Montaner (1850-1923), and is the most brilliant and
artistically
terated
important example of a "hybrid" Art Nouveau adul-
by historicism
to be
found anywhere
in
Europe.
241
Particu-
hailstones, the
Doric columns and their Baroque capitals explode
into the rich colors of the ensemble, into the naturalistically chiseled
larly during the years following 1900,
when it became very popuArt Nouveau did not always progress from its curvy and organic High phase to the cubic and geometric late phase, but sometimes
leafy trees, the foaming masses of clouds,
lar,
Whirling motion
experienced a revival of what was characteristic of late historicism:
tradition derived
a tendency toward the conglomerate, or the synthesis of heterogene-
Nouveau with remote
ous elements. Such a blend of Art styles
is
not inevitably inferior, but
markable
results
may
historical
sometimes lead to re-
which seduce us through their sheer fantasy and
and winged
horses.
opposed to motionless calm: on the semicircular
is
proscenium wall, the quiet forms of floating maidens
recall the
from Walter Crane, Grasset, and even Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters. These forms add a new variation to the hybrid ones of Art Nouveau. Out of the flat mosaic, the upper
grow
part of the bodies
into relief
and
their heads, treated in the
round, project into space. Domènech y Montaner's not very selec-
power expressed
magnificence, such as D'Aronco's building for the Turin Exposition
tive imaginative
(plate333),orDomènech y Montaner's Palau de la MusicaCatalana. With virtuosic ease and a barbaric strength much like Gaudi's,
chandeliers, in the colored glass balustrade of the balcony, in glazes,
Domènech y Montaner unites Romantic, Gothic, and Venetian styles. The magnificent raw brick walls are decorated with manycolored mosaics and ceramics worked in relief. Above these walls rises a dome and turret whose style is easier to feel than to define: certainly Byzantine influences
(somewhat neglected by true
histori-
colored this
tiles,
remain
visible. In his designing
Through all beams supporting the ceiling
of the chandelier for the middle
existed before. It consists of a skylight which provides lighting both
by day and by night and
Sacre Coeur in Paris and Tiffany's 1893 chapel for Chicago. In
come
is
steel
of the ceiling, Montaner created a hybrid object which had never
jellyfish
building, the Byzantine element
strongly inclined
roses in relief decorating the ceiling.
ceramic facing, the horizontal
cism) play a strong part in their overall conception, just as in the
Domènech y Montaner's
and
itself in oblique,
swells
downward
into the hall like a huge
hanging upside down. Skylight and chandelier have be-
one.
vaguely
reminiscent of Saint Mark's in Venice, and even more of Russian churches.
The cupola of the tower
is
carried
by supports that
re-
Gaudi's Late Works
semble spears from which are suspended shields, bringing to mind the sword-flourishing Tartar hordes of Genghis
Khan. By transpos-
ing the studio-style into architecture the result becomes phantasma-
Art Nouveau's predeliction for the fairy-tale world now reaches out as to the Arabian Nights. Japan and its art and, perhaps at the same time also its subtle ability to choose and simplify, loose gorial:
and are superseded by the Orient. After 1900, there is moreover a reaction against the decadent and morbid quality of Art Nouveau; instead, we can detect an enjoyment of sheer brutality which no longer seeks the vital element in primary forms of
their hold
life, in
delicate seaweeds or in the stamens of flowers, but rather in
the art of the South Seas or of Africa. The cult of brutality in the early phase of
modern
art, in
Fauvism, Cubism, and béton brut
architecture, finds a parallel in
Domènech y Montaner's
the exuberance of Gaudi's and
buildings.
The Diaghilev
creasingly successful after 1909 because
it
came
ballet
was
in-
at exactly the right
If Domènech y Montaner combined heterogeneous elements in his work, Gaudi achieved genuine synthesis in his Park Giiell (190014), a creation that
time.
By
is
as grandiose as
it is
bizarre and unique for
its
integrating organic nature with the forms of art and trans-
posing nature into ornament, he nevertheless fulfilled the aims of
Art Nouveau. The center of ture
is
this
ensemble of garden and architec-
the great terrace which rises above a peristyle of slightly
inclined Ionic columns. The parapet (which also doubles as a con-
tinous bench) winds around the edge of the terrace in wide,
regular curves. It
various shapes,
is
set
sizes,
with myriad fragments of ceramic
and
colors, all
crowded together
ir-
tiles in
to
form
variegated patterns of infinite variety. Scintillating like the colored scales of a petrified sea serpent
time immemorial, tions of
this
parapet
which seems to have lain there from is one of the most incredible crea-
Art Nouveau. However,
it is
interesting to note that the
moment and was animated by
serpentine contours of Gaudi's parapet had been anticipated else-
discipline,
where: during Blake's time, when
at
of houses that form Bath's
the same brutal vitality, rigorous and luxuriant sensuality; besides, its productions were first nearly always based upon Oriental or barbaric themes. If any variety of style was missing on the exterior of the Hall of
Catalan Music,
it
can certainly be found
in the interior:
sharp as
may
be seen in the curved row
Lansdown Crescent
the late nineteenth century, in linck's
it
(plate 42);
and
in
an illustration for one of Maeter-
works by the Belgian designer, Doudelet
(plate 43).
224
IX/X
225
ANTONI GAUDl
Stained-glass
(between 1898 and 19 14)
windows
in the chapel of the
Colonia Giiell
ANTONI G AUDI
Ground plan
for the Casa Mild (1905-10)
The same combination of the
reptilian
and submarine may
also
be found on the roof of Gaudi's Casa Batllô (plate 216): in the soft
dome crowning the small turret and capped by a type of Gothic cruciform plant shape, as well as in the unduyet powerful form of the
lating ridge of the roof to
by small
right.
its
bits of irregularly
it
half of this roof
broken marble, giving
of chain mail; the other half
which lend
One
is
it
is
covered
the appearance
sheathed with scale-like shingles
a rather saurian quality; while the dividing ridge
seems somewhat like the vertebrae of a gigantic sea monster or dinosaur. The Casa Batllô
is
an apartment house situated on the
Paseo de Gracia, a fashionable Barcelona thoroughfare. The main
was already in existence before Gaudi transformed it between 1905 and 1907. The front of the second story is enlivened and opened up by loggia-like galleries which suggest movement. Nevertheless, the separate forms, as well as the entire ensemble remain continuous and closely related, never structure of the building
achieving the open Baroque form, with which this façade
The inner aspirations and goals of Art Nouveau architecture were perhaps best realized in the necessarily labyrinthine construction of staircases. With its contrast of freely revealed steel supports, softly colored tiles, cellular-patterned walls, risers of creamy colored marble, railings looking like aquatic plants, and unusual, undulating banisters on the upper floors, the staircase of the Casa Batllô may well be considered the most distinguished example of Art
Nouveau. A few hundred yards farther down from the Casa Batllô, and on the same sumptuous street, stands the Casa Milâ (plates 218,
often
219). This building looks something like the walls of a gigantic
compared. The supports of the loggia appear to be constructed of bones, while above them the surface of the façade is covered with
undulating parapet decorated with mosaic, above
La Pedrera. The Casa Milâ was built between 1905 and 1910, but was never actually completed. It is a stylistic continuation of the Casa Batllô, progressing more and more toward a unified synthesis and simplification expressed in larger forms. The nature of the site suggested the building's convex bulges and irregular form. A typical floor plan (above) is composed of curvy, asymmetrical units connected in the manner of a
the snaky silhouette of the roof itself (plate 331). The
labyrinth. The inner courts are also shaped irregularly: the one to the
is
a mosaic consisting of colored glass tesserae whose delicately changing hues lend
it
the quality of neo-Impressionist pointillism.
the back of the house, the façade
windows and wrought-iron ribbon-like,
which
rises
is
more
unified;
it is
At
pierced by
balconies culminating at the top in a
parapet of the top balcony and the wall above
it
are covered
by
mosaic flowers which also climb up the sides of the building. These flowers are similar to the rosettes of Viennese late Art Nouveau.
The stairwell of Casa Batllô rises up through the entire structure, and the last flight is illuminated by two small free-form skylights. On the ground floor the stairwell reminds one of a labyrinthine cavern washed by tidal waters: its walls are decorated with a dado faced with smooth surfaced triangular tiles arranged in sets of four to form square diamonds. These alternate with tiles having raised borders and centered with rosettes in relief. The colors of the tiles are subtle and unusual: the smooth tiles are cream-colored, and those in relief are pale gray with a touch of lavender. The first flight of the stairway is sheathed in milk-white marble and has seaweed-like metal banisters and railings colored a yellowishgreen. At close range the apparently bare walls above the tiled dado are seen to be covered with painted cell-like designs which the walls look like a cross section of an organic substance
one the impression that the entire building
— an organism composed of magnified
is
cells.
made
make
and giving
of living matter
quarry, and
is
popularly
known
as
somewhat kidney-shaped, and the one to the left a kind is composed of widely spaced steel girders which act as the building's main supports, and thus free the inner walls from their function as props, thereby allowing greater freedom in the distribution of the rooms. No two floors are exactly right being
of hémicycle. The interior skeleton
alike in their layout, but in each apartment (the sizes of the apart-
ments vary considerably) the main rooms are always connected without any dividing partition.
The same movement which animated the floor plans is also found in the vertical projection of the exterior. The columnar supports of the ground floor seem to lurch obliquely both inward and outward, with
this
levels; the
movement continuing upward through
the subsequent
parapet of the outer edge of the façade beneath the
attic
movement, and rises and falls like the horizon of hilly ground. On the upper roof, chimneys spiral upward like nightmarish towers, creating a veritable "mass in movement" that, level terminates this
however,
is
not in the least Baroque; despite their
many
apertures
which swallow space, the individual details of these chimneys are compact and self-contained, and therefore un-Baroque. The plastic
226
mass of the entire building and
its
outer contours are so viscous and
fluid in their gliding spatial effects that the total impression
space flowing
away
in all directions
is
of
from the central mass of the
building.
The Casa Milà has quite correctly been compared with dune formations, and the abstract sculptural decorations of the balcony railings look like frozen sea
spume found on
The decorative theme of organic irregularity
a beach after a storm. carried out with the
is
The inner façade of the end of the transept is entirely different Here we see geometrically pure, rectangular, rectilinear, or cubic forms that comply with the cubes and smooth surfaces found in Glasgow's and Vienna's late Art Nouveau: in all of Gaudi's work this occurs only here. Nor is the Casa Milà, in its extraordinary compactness and simplification, far removed from late Art Nouveau; only the qualities of that stylistic phase allow (plate 17).
such a synthesis, though the latter
is
generally found in the phase of
Art Nouveau that employs geometrically hardened forms.
utmost consistency. Even the seaweed-like staircase railings (plate
late
226) and, above
The Casa Milà would thus appear to be an exceptional example of curved or plastic late Art Nouveau, whereas the inner side of the transept façade of the Sagrada Familia, with its delicate cubic articulations, remains the only example of geometrical late Art
tals,
all,
the fine
with their coral-like
and
totally unique iron
interstitial parts,
and
glass por-
remain faithful to
this
one theme.
On
Gaudi
from using colors in the Casa Milà. due to the plastic quality of their design and their rough surfaces, and only the strip which forms the porthole-windowed attic is faced with white tiles. The vast main entrance hall and the lowest part of the staircase are colorful, however, but the paint has almost entirely worn off, and today one can merely discern that the wall and the ceiling above the base of the staircase were once covered with watery, wavy forms and a the whole,
refrains
The effect of the masonry walls
mass of flowers conceived
in the
is
Japanese
style.
The whole development of Gaudi's art can be traced diose but never completed
in the gran-
Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barceworked on this church (cer-
lona (plates 17, 217, and 228). Gaudi tainly
most important
the
ecclesiastic
building
since
the
late
eighteenth century) from the beginning of the eighties until his
—
words during the whole of his life as an supervisor was the architect Villar, who in 1882 began building it in the neo-Gothic style. At the end of 1883, Gaudi began to direct the work himself and completed the crypt and the window side of the choir according to Villar's pre-
death in 1926 architect.
in other
The church's
vious plans.
first
From 1891
to 1903, the façade of the transept of the
Nativity was erected according to an entirely
Dream by Ingres (plate 283), with snow dripping icicles and its swarm of snail-shaped figures. Here, High Art Nouveau is mingled with Gothic elements, and in the towers (built between 1903 and 1926) Gaudi transcends the style of his previous buildings in order to achieve what might best be qualified as Expressionist architecture. unlike certain forms in Ossian's
clouds like canopies of
The towers
rise like
hollow anthills or infinitely elongated beehives.
In spite of their "cubistically" sharp edges, they seem to be
made
of
organic matter, and are not unlike the arms of an octopus with their
227
honeycomb
in
Gaudi's work.
New York
Chicago and
North America's contribution to Art Nouveau was mainly the work of two artists: the architect, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), 242 and the decorator and glassware designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). 243
veau
From
the outset, they both conceived of Art
as a surface style, but their final results
were
Nou-
dissimilar, just as
they had both distinguished themselves individually from European
Art Nouveau. Beginning
in the mid-nineties,
Tiffany had a decisive
influence on the Continental style as a whole, but Sullivan never
became known
in
Europe.
Sullivan and the Chicago School
new plan Gaudi had
designed. The three stalactite-like gables over the portals are not
its
Nouveau
design of ornaments looking like suckers.
Before settling in Chicago at the age of twenty-three, Louis Sullivan had become well versed in the historistic architectural styles of his day through two of its more prominent exponents: Emile Vaudremer in Paris and Frank Furness in Philadelphia. Sullivan worked in Vaudremer's atelier as part of his studies at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and with the very individualistic Furness two years previously.
works that show the beginnings of his extremely were the Max M. Rothsdiild houses in Chicago, which
Sullivan's first
personal style
he designed in 1880 together with houses was designed in the tradition
Dankmar Adler. This row of of Norman Shaw's brick build-
ings (plate 298).
with rosettes
in
The woodwork of the bay windows was adorned chip-carving and with vertical, highly abstract
plant ornaments, like symbolic "trees of life" carved in high
relief.
Here, Nordic popular
art,
Greek palmettes seemed
to blend in these strangely rigid forms.
Gothic
Similar but richer ornaments,
much
closer to
ment Store
style, Celtic interlacings,
more
free
Art Nouveau, are found
and
in the
is
and
Although
also
built of
purely a skeleton structure, the supports and
props of the skeleton being mainly connected by glass "membranes."
The origin of the highly abstract ornaments used here remains obscure, although we nevertheless perceive in them touches of Sullivan's later and more Gothic plant-like and plastic decorations. But it can be assumed that Christopher Dresser's books on ornamenta-
Owen
which an echo
work
is
found
to be
curved ceiling girders. The iron-
in the
up
in this hall, like the staircase banisters leading
composed of metal
quasi-linear patterns
to
it,
reveal
rods. In the lighter, net-
and almost geometric structure of the elevator doors for the Guaranty Building in Buffalo (1894-95), Sullivan almost achieves a quality like that of the late phase of Art Nouveau. Nearly geometrical semicircles, octagonals, and beaded lines, as well as spiral and organic forms in delicate open-work stone relief, also occur in Getty's Tomb, a cube-shaped mausoleum designed in 1 890. like,
Rothschild Depart-
in Chicago, designed a year later.
stone, this building
plastic
and
big auditorium in terms of the generous curve of the galleries, of
Grammar
In the famous department store built for Carson Pirie Scott in
Chicago
well as
899-1904),
(1
more
we
ornaments
see luxuriant
reticent surface-ornaments (plates 7, 237,
The ground floor and mezzanine of
& Co.
in relief as
and 239).
covered with
this building are
and
of Ornament, were already as well known in American schools of art and architecture and in public libraries as in England, and that Sullivan was acquainted with them. An American edition of The Grammar of Ornament had appeared in 1880. The similarity with Dresser's ornaments (plate 103) is easily detected in the Rothschild store, even though the plastic quality of Sullivan's details is new. True, even this ornamentation is conditioned by the surface on which it appears, and
detailed, powerfully disrupted metal ornaments: overflowing
Sullivan's later architectural decorations (plate 229) are likewise
employed
developed
metric but very complex and imaginative forms are cut out of thin
tion, if
not
Jones'
terms of the façade's surfacing: only rarely do they
in
assume rounded, column-like forms. Only
later, in
the outwardly
curving upper cornice of the otherwise entirely rectilinear Guar-
anty Building (1894-95), do architecture. Softer, to
appear
in
we
find a swinging
more Gothic, and
1887-89
movement
and
in the
huge audi-
torium of the Chicago Auditorium Building (plates 234, 243), as well as on the exterior of the Walker Department Store, both built in
metal. The upper floors are entirely different: here the façade
Chicago during approximately the same time (1888-89). These
look like single bands, anticipating the style of the present day.
Each of the broad windows is framed and the bands of windows are connected by friezes above and below which show discreet geometric interlacings. In the interior, gate-like
wood and produce of their forms.
however
Sullivan's buildings themselves,
Art Nouveau. His oftquoted theory that ornament must form an organic whole with the building and give expression to the structure
However much
in actual practice.
surfaces of his buildings
may
shift
employer, Frank Furness (1839-1912),
had adorned the
School of Arts in Philadelphia in 1872-76 (plate 231). Furness con-
scarcely be changed
neo-Gothic style of somewhat exaggerated propor-
ornaments were clearly derived from the natural plant-like forms of late Gothic. The flamboyant style of tions (plate 233); his
late
Gothic
is
transposed here into something fluid and lush,
its
if
very loosely applied
the stone, terracotta, or metal life to
the imagina-
ornaments often cover the entire exvery scantily connected
with the basic structure. The general form of
his buildings
would
ornamented surfaces were simply
their
peeled off.
ceived his buildings in a very imaginative, independent, and strongly articulated
is
from organic
terior of the building), they are nevertheless
his first
significant in their ar-
chitecture, can scarcely be considered as
ornamental designs which Sullivan had created
244
partitions are
a clear, ornamental effect in spite of the variety
tively geometric (the vegetal
1884-85 (plate 236). In turn, these were closely related to ornaments with which
wooden
as if to filter space (plate 238); their powerfully geo-
decorations are evidently a translation in sculptural terms of the in
is
covered with a smooth sheath and, from a distance, the windows
in his
plant-like ornaments began
in the staircases, the bar,
thorny acanthus leaves intertwining with smooth spiral ribbons of
In the flowing outlines of in
Chicago
in
1891 by
veau. Although
modern
steel
ing skeleton
its
bulk, the
Burnham and Root,
is
Building, built
very close to Art Nou-
has stone supporting outer walls, and
it
skeleton structure,
by
Monadnock
its
it
is
thus no
produces the effect of a support-
narrow spandrels of
stone, the
windows being
vegetal forms almost assuming a reptilian aspect. In the interior of
stretched between these spandrels like membranes. Although
the Auditorium Building, Sullivan organizes the entire space of the
outer surface
is
totally undecorated,
it is
elegant thanks to
its
its
clear
228
formance (Diaghilev said that
Loi'e Fuller
was
a greater genius in
her ligthing effects than in her dancing): she employed moving colored spotlights to illumine her veils, an effect which nobody before her had ever thought of using. 245
Louis Comfort Tiffany
It
difficult to find a
is
common ground
in the entirely different
worlds of Sullivan and Tiffany, and much easier to establish a
and Tiffany's vases in American conceptions of form, than in terms of an extremist American version of High Art Nouveau found in both dancer and designer. Lo'ie Fuller must have produced the effect of a moving, iridescent, illumirelationship between Loi'e Fuller's dances
though
less in
terms of a certain consistency found
nated Tiffany vase, whereas Tiffany's slender, soaring, spiral vases
seem to be veiled dancers frozen into
glass.
However, the common
element that strikes one in such different manifestations of art expressed in Tiffany's vases, Loi'e Fuller's dancing, and Bradley's
WILLIAM H. BRADLEY
Poster for a bicycle
company
(n. d.)
and gently curved lines and contours, produced by the protruding bay windows and the concave overlapping effect immediately above the ground floor and beneath the overhanging roof ledge. The proportions of its window openings, the relationships in its mass between height and width, and between solid walls and apertures, are all
unusually and individually stressed so that the build-
smoothly abstract,
and relatively uncomplicated conception of form. Tiffany's forms seem indeed simple when compared to Gallé's glassware, so differentiated in their more subtle, morbid, and almost autumnal moods. Moreover, this applies even to American architecture like that of the Monadnock Building. Louis Comfort Tiffany did not work in his father's famous Fifth Avenue jewelry store. After taking up painting and then going to Paris, he turned to interior decoration. His evolution was thus similar to that of William Morris, Van de Velde, and the majority posters
is
their
German
of the
Jugendstil masters.
clear,
From
the very start, however,
ing seems as light
Tiffany was not concerned with simple structures
friezes,
instance) nor with
decorator of the
impression so often given by Art Nouveau: matter appears here to
homes of
of rooms in line
have been stripped of its skin and cut to the quick. It was also in Chicago that the periodical, The Chap-Book, was published, whose pages carried drawings by William H. Bradley
with the studio-style, which might have existed but soon Japan also aroused his
(born in 1868), designs which so closely resembled Beardsley's. The
room
finest
and the most personal and independent of these is the almost American dancer, Loi'e Fuller (plate 35), who was so successful on the European continent and who, in the medium of dance (that is to say in real movement), was the very embodiment of High Art Nouveau. She wrapped herself in long, undulating veils which rose in whirls and spirals during her dance, and thus produced an almost abstract rhapsody of movement and
adopt
abstract image of the
ulation
light
229
and almost as thin as paper. The entire absence of framework, or conventional contours contributes to the
— for
lighting indeed played an important part in her per-
(in furniture for
new forms of expression. As the New York millionaires, he created suites
in
the Arabian
Nights. Like Gaudi, Tiffany had a preference for the Moorish style,
in the Bella
Apartments
in
interest. In 1880,
Japanese
style,
and
he decorated a this led
him
to
and geometric arrangements in the articand decoration of his wall surfaces. The chestnut-leaf motif of Jones now becomes manifested as a two-dimensional surface design, and as openwork relief in the Japanese manner. In spite of an eclectic and conglomerate quality inherent in his groupings of various luxurious pieces of furniture employed throughout Tiffany's interiors, every so often one finds simple Thonet chairs revealing the flatness, conciseness,
sleek curves of their construction.
LOUIS SULLIVAN
229
Building, Buffalo,
Since his workshops also produced lamps and other glass and
metal objects for daily use, Tiffany studied the chemical composi-
and various
tion of glass
agents for his pieces.
He
effects of metallic vapors as coloring
then patented his
cent and opalescent glass, calling
new invention At first this
of irides-
Detail of the main entrance of the Guaranty
New York
(1894-95)
and
The forms of these lamps softly modeled sculpture of his 1884 chimneypiece combined with the shapes occurring in the molten glass of his opalescent in favrile glass (plates 4, 36, 240,
242).
employ the
stained-glass
windows
(plate 334).
The
glass
is
sometimes opaque,
was
sometimes transparent, but with threads, whirls, or clouds, some-
used only for decorative "stained-glass" windows, but in one such
times with smooth, or else with ingeniously roughened surfaces of a
window, made
in
it
1880 for the hall of
he suddenly hit upon a design that
is
favrile.
his
own apartment
glass
(plate 334)
pure High Art Nouveau. This
and even and evenly flowbe different and unique.
metallic patina; the pieces are incredibly varied in color,
more
so in their grandiosely conceived but precise
manifests itself here, as in most cases, in a two-dimensional manner. The pattern on the window is entirely abstract and soft, it flows
One
asymmetrically in the manner of veined marble. Art Nouveau, with
shapes suggestive of Attic amphorae. Their scintillating, corroded
Tiffany, simply starts in the decorative use thetic appreciation
Only much
— of
— and thus
movement expressed
in
in the aes-
solidified glass.
1893, did these beginnings lead
him
ing forms, so that each of
them appears
to
senses affinities with Persian flasks, antique
Roman
and
glass,
surface reminds one of ancient glass that has been buried in the
earth for centuries. Tiffany's formal inventiveness of form
is
par-
to ex-
ticularly striking: in spite of the regular, uninterrupted flow of
periments which resulted in the famous Tiffany vases. Tiffany did
the contours and of an ornamentation solely due to the haphazard
not
work
later, after
the glass himself, but his forms were created according to
his personal instructions,
and are thus expressions of
his
own
con-
flow of the molten
glass, these
magnificent individual pieces suggest
something bizarre and extravagant which
is
always convincing and
ception of form.
of great taste and distinction. The veined, marbled pattern of the
Meanwhile, Tiffany continued to design new interiors. In 1884, he decorated a studio and penthouse apartment for himself, in the
resemblance to the peacock-feather design so popular throughout
main room of which there stood a chimneypiece with four fireplaces (plate 335) placed away from the wall. With its smoothly curved forms, it is the first example of plastically conceived American Art Nouveau. Quite unconventional and inspired by no models extant in traditional Western rooms, but possibly inspired by Moorish or Byzantine examples, this room also has lamps of many kinds hanging from the ceiling, suspended by chains or bunches of chains in asymmetrical groups and at different heights. Most of these hanging lamps are spherical in shape; among them hangs an ostrich egg. Tiffany later found other original solutions for lighting fixtures: for instance, an electric lamp created shortly before 1900 is set on a straight bronze stand and carries on its long stem a globe consisting of strips of metal between which is inserted black glass which has a green shimmer when lighted (plate 230). Until glass became his main preoccupation, Tiffany often designed objects to be executed in metal. The banisters of the astounding "hanging staircase" in the Havemeyer residence consist of threads of metal juxtaposed in spirals and adorned with a metal fringe. The pointed pendants on the hanging lamps are made of the same filigree work, and the lamps are pierced by unusual apertures which seem to have been achieved by cutting out pieces of metal, a procedure which was later employed in Tiffany's above-mentioned standing lamp.
glass takes
on a metallic shimmer
Art Nouveau.
A
as
it
hardens and assumes a
vase in the Metropolitan
Museum
(plate 242)
enchants us as a pure object rather than as an imitation of a pattern
found
no more abstract than the superbly outfeathers of an actual peacock. Tiffany also shares Art
in nature, yet
stretched tail
it is
Nouveau's predilection for "cutout forms"; his patterns go all the way through the glass, as if the vessel had been formed out of a slice cut from a homogeneously structured mass. The few ceramics that Tiffany created are not so famous as his glass, but they include some very fine pieces. After 1900, Tiffany left the designing of his glass more frequently to his craftsmen and, in general, his creative powers diminished with the decline of
High Art Nouveau. Replicas produced almost
as a series,
and of far
poorer quality, appeared with a greater frequency; the only satisfying the
enormous demand for
his
way
wares was to produce the
same model over and over again and to employ craftsmen of skill.
of
lesser
Until quite recently, Tiffany's workshops turned out lamps,
penholders, inkstands, and other articles mostly of doubtful quality.
By means
of his personal creations, however, and most of
all
through the glassware he produced between 1893 and 1900 that was
fame (he was clever in displaying it advantageously in exhibitions, and in bestowing particularly fine specimens to museums), Tiffany became one of the most prominent artists of Art Nouveau. responsible for his universal
After 1893, at the height of his career, Tiffany created his vases
230
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COMFORT TIFFANY
230
LOUIS
231
FRANK FURNF.SS h
ademy
Floor lamp (before 1900)
Detail of the entrance to the Pennsylvania
of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1872-76)
232
ANTONI GAUDl
233
FRANK FURNLSS
Door
in the
Palan
Provident Life
Giiell,
Barcelona (1885-89)
& Trust Company, Philadelphia
('«79)
234
LOUIS SULLIVAN Chicago (1887-89)
234
2 33
233
Staircase in the Auditorium Building,
23é
235
237
235
ANTONI GAUD!
Ornamental
detail in a
bedroom
of the Palau
G»e//(i88j 236
237
LOUIS SULLIVAN
Sketch jor a decorative design (1884)
LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the façade 0} the & Co. Department Store, Chicago (1 899-1 904)
Carson Pine Scott
_
238
LOUIS SULLIVAN Latticework Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store,
239
LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the window liâmes of the Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store, Chicago (1X99-1904)
on the façade of the Carson Chicago (1 899-1 904)
Carson
240
LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY
241
LOUIS
242
COMFORT TIFFANY
LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY
Vase (circa
Bowl
i
9 oo)
(before
.
X
96)
Vase (before 1896)
241
236
24^
243
LOUIS SUI
I
IVAN Main
ball in the
Auditorium Building, Chicago
(
i
SS7-89)
238
NTtRNAI ONALtXIIIDlTlONQLAJOOW corrtTmoNDcsKiN duldinos
m
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Title for
a brochure outlining
an architectural competition (1901)
As
Glasgow
to the style of this frieze,
no
parallel to
it
can be found
in its
day, whether in England or elsewhere. Years before Beardsley and
work of
In the
the Scottish artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh
(1868-1928),
246
nineties. This
phase found
in
Art Nouveau entered its
Mackintosh's style and
its late
phase during the early
most important and
bear witnesses to the close
tie
is
not surprising that in
forms which
historic
still
have been discarded and tions of the style of our
its
Mackintosh had demonstrated the originality of his forms. Indeed, from the very start, he was much less dependent on outside influ-
between High and
appeared
late
phase
in early
that, in their stead,
own
Art
late
all
reminiscences of
Art Nouveau should astounding premoni-
twentieth-century art and architecture
should begin to appear.
ences than has been supposed.
The tallboy in the photograph is clearly the first piece of furnimade by Mackintosh, almost quadrangular in outline, its lower two-thirds being box-like and fitted with doors, whereas the top is ture
open and contains a
shaft-like pillars
Sources of the Glasgow Style
Mackintosh developed his style within the surface of his work. Although his buildings and rooms are often almost free of any adornment, surface ornamentation was actually his point of depar-
monograph on Mackintosh, Thomas Howarth has
fully
shelf. This
is
a typical example of his earlier
and also of his architecture, are already discernible, but as- yet have not assumed a clarity and purity of form. The corners of the lower part terminate in two work; features of
his later furniture,
which are covered by widely protruding
— but at a later period —
is
frequently found
metrical metal pulls. The main part of the cupboard
investigated the sources of his style, not only the influence exerted
two
on him by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Japanese school, but also
symmetrically subdivided, with only
certain secondary or less direct influences. essential
appear
and
is
The early date
at
in
which
relatively independent features of Mackintosh's style
noteworthy. In a photograph of the interior of
his studio
taken around 1890 (plate 339), we see Japanese woodcuts hanging on the walls together with such reproductions of Burne-Jones paintings as The Six
the ceiling
paper: in
Days
of Creation. The decorative frieze beneath
had obviously been painted on a long roll of wrappingcenter, the vertical figure of what appears to be an
its
angel forms a sort of symmetrical axis for other groups which, in
moon, two pair of figures
is
cats
On
below an immense circular face one another. The stylization of the
turn, are also symmetrical.
the
left,
very powerful: they are conceived as concisely limited,
homogeneous, two-dimensional forms with broad spaces between them. With the exception of the purely geometric, circular disk, these two-dimensional bodies are all curvilinear, but without
any trace of the heavily flowing or convulsive outlines of High Art Nouveau. In this instance it is rather a matter of wide and flat curves, like oval segments, almost in the style of late Art Nouveau.
239
plinths.
works by Voysey (plate 319), and the common source for both Mackintosh and Voysey was Mackmurdo (plate 96). The lower part of the tallboy is already an example of what is called "broken symmetry," the combination of symmetry and asymmetry which was later to be of such importance in Mackintosh's architecture. The bottom drawer takes up the entire width and is provided with three symThis device
ture. In his
Glasgow group, could have had any influence
the style of the
who
Nouveau, both of which spring from the same roots, though the more frequently geometric, rectilinear, and cubic late phase may at first appear to be diametrically opposed to the curved, organic High phase. It
are both generally quoted as the probable sources of
(Beardsley had not yet produced anything at that early date),
were intimately connected with him. The creations of these Scottish artists
who
fruitful expression
of a small group of artists
in that
Toorop,
halves, the left side being covered
is
in
divided into
by a door, while the its
right
is
right half fitted with a
door, the open portion on the left containing pigeonholes; above this subdivision there
is
a shallow drawer. This articulation
spatial divisions of the piece
show
and
clear signs of Japanese influences,
and what was somewhat primitively attempted here was later carried out very lavishly and in perfectly balanced proportions; above all, in the façade of the Glasgow Art School. The metal candelabra standing before the fireplace in Mackinand bedroom are as far removed from any Occidental tradition as the ornamental frieze, and even more radically alien tosh's study
than the tallboy. They consist of nothing but cylindrical iron rods
and sending out small side branches which hold the candles; the rods are capped by a large circular metal disk. The vertical thrust of slender shafts terminated by a horizontal covering is a pattern which (in many variations and with additional details) acts as the fundamental component in much of Mackintosh's furniture, lamps, and fireplaces, and particularly in his architecture rising vertically
previous to 1901. Mackintosh's creations differ radically from historicistic
examples
in that
they no longer use the plastic frames, con-
tours, friezes,
architecture.
and
On
Japanese models;
we
see
cornices, all of
which basically stem from Greek
the other hand, these candelabra can be traced to
Howarth copied
a woodcut by
very similar candlesticks, and
it
was
Utamaro
in
which
chiefly Japanese style
Morning
the
extremely
Stars
Sang Together
flat picture into
(plate 337): the division of the
oval and semi-oval sections,
filling
up
empty spaces with figures, and the blending of representational and abstract elements. She likewise borrowed from Blake's waterthe
that helped Mackintosh to carry out his original conceptions of style.
color, The Procession
However, what did not derive from Japanese art was the emphasis on symmetry that so markedly distinguished the early ornamental drawings of Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters (plates 252 and 338) from asymmetric High Art Nouveau. In spite of the probable influence exerted by Toorop's painting, The Three Brides,
the figures which, however, she presented partly in profile as they
reproduced
of poetic imagination sees
The Studio of 1893, none of the basic features of the figurative graphic work of the early period of the Glasgow school in
up to about 1896 are derived from historicism. Here, even though no documentation confirms this fact, we find a relationship which was of great importance to the whole of English Art Nouveau: the impact of William Blake's work. In the early watercolors by the Macdonald
sisters,
such as Frances
/// Omen (1893) and A Pond (1894), and November jth by Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh (she was Mackintosh's
Macdonald's
wife), the affinity with Blake
is
easily discerned.
One may even
compare Mackintosh's design for a diploma of the Glasgow School of Art (1893) with a specific watercolor of Blake's: in both we find a composite ornament, a central figure seen fullface, with arms outstretched and wings unfolded, flanked by figures in profile, and
a pattern of indefinable shape consisting of circular and oval forms,
which gives the group
its
structure
and
its
frame. Though the Scot-
tish artists translated Blake's ideas into their
own
individual idiom
of form, the basic conception and certain details of their patterns
from Calvary,
bear the load of the outstretched body. The main difference
all
again the transformation of the picture into a decorative
it"
much
also precisely trace the origins of the style of the
and
stripes
which
Glasgow
subject to Pre-Raphaelite influences, so that no direct contact with
Rossetti or Burne-Jones, for instance,
Yet
in the
work of
Glasgow school we find
would have been
necessary.
a concrete link with a specific
the early phase of Pre-Raphaelitism: an unfinished paint-
by Ford Madox Brown (plate 254). This picture, Take Your Son, was strongly influenced by Rossetti, though it retained a definitely personal note. Here we find the first appearance of those feminine figures which the Scottish artists transformed into expressive ornaments, and we also see here the expression of adoration and self-abandonment in the certainly not beautiful but very characteristic faces and in the position of the woman's body. But let us first of all examine the formal theme: the shape of a ing
Sir (1856-57),
an unbroken, pear-shaped contour, her garment swing-
ing from neck to hem, hiding her feet; her small oval face framed hair. In
appears against a mirror placed behind lines,
without
group back to the Pre-Raphaelites of the late eighties and early nineties. The whole world of Art Nouveau artists was naturally
by the simplest arrangement of
The tangle of powerfully curved bands,
in either direction
difficulty.
We can
added purely geometric elements, and emptied the theme of content.
work
has given birth to a type of wall-
paper pattern which could be expanded
woman with
its
is
which has little meaning but remains vaguely symbolical. Blake's vision "which represents the exterior universe such as the inner eye
remain so similar that a comparison shows that the analogy cannot be merely coincidental even though they had simplified the forms,
—
the parallel arrangement of
Brown's painting, the head it
like a
vaguely symbolical
halo which corresponds to the most variegated abstract figures or
works of Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters. The motif of the abstract rose, which the Scottish artists often
(without their having any recognizable sense as objects or symbols)
circles
and disks
enclose the very stylized nude figures was later transformed by Mackintosh into entirely abstract ornamentation, while the Macdonalds were more inclined to remain faithful to figurative and
placed in the middle of an either circularly enlarged or vertically
in
representational ornament (plates 251
elongated figure (plate 249), and Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh's stylized rose in the center of a work in stucco depicting a small child
course, find Blake's curves
(plate 252),
and 252). We do not, of and rhythms here, but we do see evidences of his geometric structures, his rigid symmetry, and his arangements in rows and parallels. The Glasgow artists indeed discovered late Art Nouveau through Blake's work. Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh, cifixion of 1894 (plate 338),
in her greatly
ornamental Cru-
borrowed much from Blake's When
the baby
is
ever, in his
is
anticipated in Ford
Madox Brown's
painting, where
wrapped in a cloth draped in the form of a rose. Howwork even the indistinct form to the right of the young
mother, the bed-curtains loosely hanging from a curved metal rod
over the small cradle, has also
left
its
impact on later works,
although not as a figurative motif, but as an abstract and ornamen-
240
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH of the
Elevation of the north façade
Glasgow School of Art (1896)
metry
—so
to speak
—predominates.
As a
characteristic sign of
Mackintosh's work, a clear and unconventional
functionalism
blends with an imagination expressed in plastically conceived
and decorative forms. However, this synthesis of contrasts does not express itself in the Baroque manner that is, movement does not become the dominant spatial
tal one, in the
downflowing
right-hand side of the
strip to the
stuccowork and also in curves on the left, which look like the eyes -of needles. The interruptions of lines and forms by means of small rosettes or circles
was
conceived by Beardsley
first
whereas the sense of proportion
(in spite
of
its
in his
drawings,
development and
exaggeration by the Glasgow artists) already appears in Ford
No
Brown.
Madox
—
factor. Actually, the overall effect in terms of unrelieved tension
closely related to Michelangelo's
Mannerism
of San Lorenzo. This tension in Mackintosh's design expresses as a disruption of
is
as seen in the Sacristy itself
forms minimized with great sensitivity through
doubt, the unfinished state of the picture, in which the
beautifully balanced proportions giving the impression of passive
blend of abstract and concrete elements, the sleek contours, and the
form. Yet despite this inner reserve and refined simplicity, the
two-dimensional bodies are stressed,
may have
exerted a particular
influence over these subsequent works.
innate vitality of the building
is
clearly evident,
and the façade's
apparent quality of combined symmetry and asymmetry
is
an
illu-
by a balance of forms that are both unrelated and
sion effected
disrupted.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh In the beginning of his career as an architect, Mackintosh (1 868—
1928) worked for several years in the office of the architects,
Honeyman and
Keppie, and on
many
buildings designed
by
this
firm; in Glasgow's Martyrs' Public School (1895), in particular, characteristic features of his
own style have begun to appear. But, own style, derived from flat orna-
according to the standards of his
ment and interior decoration, one of his first really important works was the interior decorations for Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms. In 1897-98, he decorated the first of these restaurants, the famous Buchanan Street Tea Room in Glasgow, having previously published his designs for
them
in
The Studio.
on the other, labyrinthine interpénétration of powerful plastically conceived units, deep apertures, and incisions. As a unit, however, produces a homogeneous impression, and only within the context
of the general contour do
truding forms,
with
and
241
massive,
see the
now
play of receding and pro-
hollow.
On
the north façade,
enormous windows, the static, calm element predominates: the symmetry of its broad rectangular form, internal asym-
its
in
now
we
means of eight shafts, or sections, of masonry which are placed between the window apertures. This arrangement is conceived so that none of the eight shafts is centrally positioned. In spite of this, the main entrance, which is placed in the fourth shaft, actually falls in the exact center of the façade. However, this fourth shaft does not occupy the entire center section, as this section contains only the asymmetrically placed entrance or portal. As an architectural unit this portal
is
actually twice as broad to the left of the building's
geometrical center as fourth shaft
In 1897, he was fortunate enough to have his design for the Glasgow School of Art accepted. The main part of the building, the first important work in geometric late Art Nouveau, was finished in 1899 (seen above, and plate 244). The heavy, block-like building was erected on an unusual site which slopes steeply to the rear, and on its south side is mostly blocked off from the sun. The design represents a complex synthesis: on the one hand, close units as forbidding as fortresses and formed by sharply impinging walls;
it
The plans of the building demonstrate far better than any photograph how Mackintosh achieved these effects (above). The elevation clearly shows that he has divided the rectangular façade by
is
it is
to the right, so that one
an integral part of the façade's
shaft's eccentric position distinguishes
it
still
feels that the
left half.
The fourth
from the seven others
the former contains narrow, fortress-like window
slits,
as
while the
by very broad windows that open out widely. But these seven other shafts also offer dissimilarites. The two on the right, for instance, are somewhat narrower than the other five, so that the sequence of shafts starting from the left presents the following: three wide shafts, an irregular fourth, two more wide ones, and ending with two narrow shafts on the right. However, the "disturbed" part of the entrance appears to have two shafts of its own, so that the entire façade might be said to consist of nine shafts, others are pierced
the fifth of which
is
situated in the exact center of the building.
This extremely subtle and almost acrobatic balance of
and asymmetry
symmetry
also extends to the horizontal plane of the building
as well as to the vertical.
The fourth shaft
is
three storeys in height
and bears an asymmetrically placed chimney, while the other shafts
two
and the windows on the ground floor level are horizontal rectangles, while those on the second floor are the same width but are twice as high. These proportions which have been analyzed in the plan of the building's elevation become even more complex to the eye of the passer-by who perceives them three-dimensionally and in perspective from the street level looking upward. Seen from this angle, the are only
storeys high,
"disturbed" area its
is
distinguishable
topmost part terminates
profile.
from the other shafts because somewhat rock-like in
in a cubic form,
All the other shafts, however, are terminated by
flat,
board-like cornices which project far out from the building, and
windows from the direct rays of the midday sun. The whole conception and theme of the building (which is elaborated far more than in any of Voysey's buldings) shows a kinship with Mackmurdo's designs and also recurs in Mackintosh's subsequent country houses as well as in his famous House for a Lover protect the large
of design: a fine, linear network of iron railings and window-frame
decorations surrounds the building like a halo, bringing
it
into a
kind of harmony with the space surrounding the building. As Nikolaus Pevsner stated: "... this row of metal lines reveals one of Mackintosh's most important qualities, his intense feeling for spatial values.
Our
eyes have to pass through the
first
layer of
by metal brackets, before arriving at the solid stone front of the building. The same transparency of pure space will be found in all of Mackintosh's principal works." 248 A theme upon which Mackintosh was later to produce variations, especially in his interiors, is here employed on an exterior as a device for reducing space to a linear, abstract network stretched across the three-dimensional volume of the building. space, indicated
247 of the Arts (below).
and almost ascetic quality of the Glasgow Art School's façade also contains an additional subtlety and richness The
severe, solemn,
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH "House for a Lover of
Preliminary sketch for the
the Arts" (1901)
242
243
XI
CHARLES REN NIE MACKINTOSH
Door
to the
"Room
de luxe" of The Willow Tea-Rooms (1904)
JOSEPH MARIA OLBRICH
Sketch for the exhibition hall of the
"Wiener Sezession" (1899)
In
its
typical form, Viennese Art
Nouveau
is,
almost without
exception, free from any admixture of Rococo and Baroque ele-
would have been particularly easy in Vienna to We can detect here no relationship to Horta or Guimard, though in the beginning, we may find now and then Van de Velde's typical curves. Very soon, the boxy shapes of English Arts and Crafts furniture and rectangular or rectilinear architecture appeared in Vienna, with smooth surfaces that suggest the styles of Norman Shaw, Voysey, Ashbee, and Townsend. Other inspirations came mainly from the Scottish artists, Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters. In addition, there were affinities with Khnopff and Toorop, Minne and Hodler. ments, although
it
revert to the Baroque style.
Vienna In 1898, Berta Zuckerkandl, a friend of
ical,
Ver Sacrum, entitled Examples of Viennese Bad Taste, in which "Where has our refinement vanished? The ideal of our
she said:
present-day cultured society
on the Ringstrasse, with,
if
still
seems to be the possession of a flat
possible, a private entrance leading
from
the street. In one of these first-floor apartments in a four-storey
luxury tenement one lives amidst a perpetual cloud of dust and noise rising
from the
street.
We have no
cially since the interior of such a flat
is
.
.
man
as banal as the exterior of
.
1
90 1, however, Viennese Art Nouveau inspired some Ger-
groups, for instance in the exhibition on the Mathildenhohe in
Darmstadt, which bore Obrist's distinctive
veau also depended on Vienna,
by
as well as
sign. Italian
Art Nou-
on English architecture,
borrowed from the famous firm. Italian attempts at Art Nouveau were indeed founded mainly on imported ideas and limited to details, without achieving any integrated idiomatic Italian Art Nouveau style. as
is
indicated
its
name,
Stile Liberty,
London
Vienna's great architect, Otto Wagner (1841-1918), 249 had for
sense of real elegance, espe-
Our decorators and upholsterers are usually hostile any artistic taste, being totally unaware of the important role which might be played by such taste in interior decoration. To say the building
After
Alma Mahler-Gropius-
Werfel, wrote an article for the second issue of the Viennese period-
many years designed
buildings in a historistic style that ranged from
the Renaissance to Rococo, with finally a touch of Louis
XVI. But
to
the simplicity of his box-shaped buildings and the clear fundamen-
the least, they are terribly stubborn
and obtuse: for instance, unlike and Berlin they do not stock an entire range of decorative art products designed by such artists as Walter Crane, Gerhard Munthe Kopping, Galle, Obrist, and so many others.
creasingly apparent in his work. The most important examples of
the decorators in Paris
Wagner's late Art Nouveau style include the façade of
.
Our
.
.
Viennese decorators take the rooms
to celebrate within
cade, plush,
and
As may be
them
their
own
we
entrust to
them merely
perfectly absurd orgies of bro-
by the above statement, Vienna was the last number of influential artists working there was small, including, among others, the painter and designer Gustav Klimt, and the architects Wagner, Hoffmann, and Olbrich. The latter two, after the manner of other many-sided Art Nouveau artists, not only designed buildinferred
but also interiors, objects for daily use, furniture,
above
textiles,
ornaments, which are very much like those The architect Adolf Loos was only vaguely connected with this group, though we can detect in his work a tendency toward late Art Nouveau, toward simplification, rectanlettering, and,
all,
in Klimt's paintings.
gularity, rectilinearity
elements on which his architecture
and amor vacui.
is
founded began
to be in-
his building
on the Wienzeile (1898-1900), which is decorated with colored tiles, the somewhat Byzantine domed church in Steinhof, near Vienna, the famous central Vienna office of the Administration of Postal Savings Accounts the last two buildings both date from majolica
1906
gilt."
of the major European capitals to adopt Art Nouveau. The
ings,
tal
— and,
—
the charming administrative offices of the
finally,
River Traffic Authority on the Danube embankment, built in the style of his
in 191
former pupil Obrist.
In 1895, Wagner published his important and widely read book,
Moderne
Architektur.
Though Art Nouveau
here, all the important Viennese to his school.
Wagner
is
not often mentioned
Art Nouveau
architects belonged
liberated Viennese architecture
shackles of historicism. "It
is
only a birth," he wrote. Josef Hoffmann also noted, "I
am
from the
not a rebirth of the Renaissance, but in this context:
particularly interested in the square as such and in the use
of black and white as dominant colors, because these clear elements
have never appeared
50 in earlier styles."-
In Wagner's architecture, the proportions of the cubic and com-
244
.
-
pact block-shapes of his entirely flat surfaces or of his discreet geometrical ornaments nevertheless revealed a slight touch of the
work of
his pupils, the architects
and
on
their part, the typical
appeared
style first
The
in their
earliest building
and
rectangle, transplanted to
no longer
visible
hohe, a most original piece of
Hoff-
style
mann (1870-1955) 251 and Joseph Olbrich (1 867-1 908), 252 and the designer Koloman Moser (1868-1916). 253 After some initial indecision
the cube
and almost geometrical Viennese
Germany.
endowed
work whose independently personal new landmark.
the city of Darmstadt with a
To the left of its entrance the hall of the Wiener Sezession bears the words Ver Sacrum, which became the title of the whole movement's publication. The periodical's appearance and its almost
drawings for the periodical Ver Sacrum.
conceived in this general context was Olbrich's
hall for the exhibitions of the
Wiener Sezession,
and 1899 (page 244), which looks
as
though
it
built
between 1889
had been made of
Anonymous
Poster for the Exhibition of the
"
Vereinigung Bildender
KUnstler Qsterreichs. 1901" (1901)
compact, sharp-edged, flat-surfaced blocks topped by three-quar-
The latter is an openwork dome made of gilt bronze The tendency to add a relatively incongruous element,
ters of a sphere.
laurel leaves.
sudi as this dome, appears frequently in Viennese
works of
this
period. In this building, the forms are not only reminiscent of
Wagner's earlier Empire
style,
but also of the retour d'Egypte
an
artist's
many
row of
houses.
A group of houses designed
kr-vcrcink
one BiLDcn KRKuNrcR oSTCRRSKHS
colony on the Mathildenhohe near Darmstadt in Ger-
also bears the imprint of Olbrich's personal style. This entire
Olbrich's
own
secessi°N IDKM.FRKD RI01SSTR-12
N<>U«mBCR ibcccm IBCRgS
house in the colony proved to be particularly fe-
kJLJTBCCfc
distinguished from the other buildings by
ç*ofrncT9-7 CIMTRITTilk
licitous in its design. It
row of
XlldUKICLft
for use as
community was designed by Olbrich (with the exception of one house built by Peter Behrens), and is particularly interesting because it was especially commissioned by Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hessen who had it built for an exhibition called A Document of German Art, a title that was subsequently given to the colony itself. is
which girdle the structure, and by the roof of rustic design (reminiscent of English country houses). Here and there themes borrowed from designs by Webb, Norman Shaw, Voysey, or Baillie its
m
ele-
ment displayed in much early Napoleonic Empire; all the blocks and pylons decrease gradually in volume towards the top. This exhibition hall, conceived in terms of cubes, squares, and spheres, provided the groundwork for Vienna's late Art Nouveau. It had, moreover, borrowed some decisive elements of design from Townsend's Whitechapel Art Gallery (plate 320), where the structure's cubic articulation and the decorative carved foliage ornamenting the façade were both more constrained to the two-dimensional plane because Townsend had merely redesigned the front of an already existing building that was part of a group forming a integrally designed
tiles
them in an A real playhouse was built by Olbrich for the young princesses of Hessen in Wolfsgarten, near Darmstadt (plate 343). It is a good example of the Viennese predilection for
Scott can be recognized, but Olbrich has transposed
inventively playful mood.
245
Later, in 1907,
Olbrich built the Wedding Tower (plate 258) on the Mathilden-
designers, Josef
pire style or of Classicism; but these elements are in the
Em-
UCR-iflCRUm rvMFKSJflriR
244
square format likewise metric form.
As a
make
periodical,
the most important artists of
use of the simplicity of a basic geoit
its
introduced to the public time. Japanese prints
many
of
were repro-
duced; Hermann Bahr, Rilke, and Loris (the nom de plume of the young Von Hofmannsthal) contributed articles of great subtlety on art; articles in memory of Burne- Jones or Puvis de Chavannes were printed; photographs in the manner of Art Nouveau by the Viennese Camera Club were reproduced; the new interior decorations of the Sezession building, such as those by Klimt for Klinger's Beethoven, were shown; and throughout its pages the specific Viennese style of ornament was displayed. This ornamentation, mostly designed by Hoffmann, Olbrich, and Moser, rarely uses the gliding lasso-like line; what one finds there most frequently are rosette-like forms which were multiplied and used in rows, friezes, and frames. After 1900, lines disappear almost entirely, leaving mostly regular squares, circles, dots,
and checkerboard
patterns. These last
were
HOFFMANN
Sketch for a country house (1900)
Main entrance Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (1897-99)
of the
by the most refined of the Viennese artists, Hoffmann, who was even nicknamed "Checkerboard-Hoffmann." Such rows of squares were used especially on edges and borders in interiors, and on exteriors often around windows which were set in entirely unadorned, whitewashed areas.
particularly used
Viennese furniture of this period
many
reveals
affinities
is
almost always box-shaped and
with English furniture of the Arts and
Crafts movement, but with a
new element
of charm and eclecticism
which was not unknown to the English though
oped
in
it
was now devel-
Vienna with a more refined and feminine elegance. The
Viennese transformed these pieces of furniture into objects of luxury
by using materials of the highest quality. All this, and indeed the entire style, was still strongly influenced by Japan; and it was mainly through The Studio that Japanese and English art became known in Vienna after 1893. The impression that this English periodical made there is illustrated by one of Peter Altenberg's charming stories in which he describes what a great event it was when a
JOSEF
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
new
issue of
The Studio arrived in an art-loving, wealthy house-
hold: a kind of silently aesthetic celebration, after which the master
of the house had scant hopes of the fulfillment of more profane desires.
The Viennese or Sezession style was represented first and foremost in Ver Sacrum, but found its last truly creative expression in Hoffmann's Palais Stoclet, built in Brussels between 1905 and 191 (plate 257). This spacious building limits itself almost entirely to
and rectangular forms and to the relationships between them. However, it gives us no impression of cubic forms; its extremely varied structure seems to be disembodied, as if composed of rectilinear
The different sections of the walls are faced with slabs, in turn, are framed by golden friezes, the
plates of glass.
white marble; these
ornamentation of the entire exterior being limited to these frames. Reminiscences of Olbrich's Sezession exhibition building seem to
appear at the top of the tower of the Palais Stoclet, whidi displays an element of drama not entirely suitable for a private home. The garden of
this building
tectural plan,
certain Art
and
is
Nouveau
was conceived
as part of the general archi-
an extension of the structure
itself (just as
paintings frequently are extended into their
and its stone pylons, hedges, and small clipped trees all suggest the same architectural style of the building. The dormer windows protruding squarely from the top of the façade are also a frames),
noteworthy feature of the building. These windows bear out Art Nouveau's avoidance of the sculptured cornice (so characteristic of Renaissance and Baroque styles), and are clearly borrowed from
England where
this architectural style
appeared for the
first
time
246
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CHARI.I.S
RENNIE MACKINTOSH
School of Art,
Glasgow (1907-09)
Library of the Glasgm
248
246
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH in the
bedroom
Mirror and
of the Mackintosh residence,
closet
247
24S
249
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH the Mackintosh residence,
Glasgow (1900)
Glasgow
( 1
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH Glasgow (1904)
Fireplace in the studio of
900)
The
Willow
Tea-Rooms,
25C
249
251
250
249
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Decorative wall
banging (1902) 250
CELTIC
Wandsworth's Shield
(third or second century
B.C.)
251
MARGARET MACDONALD-MACKINTOSH FRANCES MACDONALD
252
MARGARET MACDONALD-MACKINTOSI Motherhood
^ W i
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J 254
251
I
902)
253
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
254
FORD MADOX BROWN (1856-57)
25^
( 1
and
Candle-holder {circa 1897)
Taifec
Fo«r
Chair (1900) So/7, 5/r
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255
CHARLES RENNI! MAC K.INTOSH
Hallway
in
Hill House,
Helensburgh, near Glasgow, Sait!. nul (1902-03)
CHARLES RENNI1 MACKINTOSH
Chair (1900)
256
2
233
57
JOSM- HOI
I
MAW
l\ihii
'.«
S toclet, Brussels (1905
.1)
2j8
JOSEPH OLBRICH
Exhibition Hall and Hoch/.eitsturm,
Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt, Germany (1907)
254
259
JOSEF HOFFMANN
260
ADOLF LOOS P. ins
261
Vase (before 1906)
Street façade of the Tristan
Tzara residence,
(1926)
JOSEF
HOFFMANN
Staircase 0) the B. H. Villa {circa 1904)
260
261
M9
Jro
i(,i
263
KOI OMAN MOSKR
ADOLF LOOS
Decorative fabric (1S99)
Garden lacade
of the Tristan l'/ara residence.
Pans (1926)
262
263
Opposite:
264
ADOLF LOOS
Kamtner
Bar, Vienna (1907)
256
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GUSTAV
KL.IMT
Portrait of
F ran Adcle Bloch-Baiwr (1907)
258
in
Norman Shaw's Old Swan House
was
later
in Chelsea (plate 298),
and
developed by Mackintosh.
Such a building as the Palais Stoclet
is
a perfect example of the
bare and unadorned style of late Art Nouveau, where curves appear
with
less
and
less
frequency, as can be observed in the buildings
designed by Mackintosh or Perret. As a disciple of Voysey, the for-
mer no doubt exerted a great influence in Vienna: Meier-Graefe and Ahlers-Hestermann both describe the enthusiasm with which Mackintosh's works were received in the Austrian capital, 254 especially on account of his refinement of means, and his curiously evanescent or disembodied charm, so typical of his style. Mackintosh's predilection for white lacquered furniture
was bound
To begin with, the formats of Klimt's paintings are unusual: not infrequently, they are rigorously square. Producing an extraordi-
to appeal to the Viennese,
who had
and dark wood
similar tastes. Fritz
nary effect from a distance, the human figure
in his works is transformed into an ever-asymmetrical and pictorial ornament. His people appear to be overgrown with many small ornaments, striking us as strangely unfamiliar beings; actually his ornaments and designs are not derived from any pre-existent sources, however exotic. However, his treatment of eye forms as ornaments was borrowed from ancient Egyptian art. Klimt's world of ornament is founded mainly on geometric forms such as the square, the circle, and the spiral, and within these we find similar or slightly varied
forms grouped in an irregular fashion. The fact that
— especially
gold
— are
his colors
sometimes applied so thickly that they
Waerndorfer, the Viennese translator and collector of Beardsley,
achieve relief effects, reinforces the impression of jewel-like splendor
had a large music room decorated by Mackintosh, and an issue of Ver Sacrum, with color reproductions, was dedicated to Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters. But there are fundamental differences between the styles of Vienna and Glasgow. At first encouraged by English examples, the
in his paintings. Klimt's figures are stiffly
Viennese style became independent and had developed a character of
its
known
own
before the closely related ideas of Mackintosh were
any appreciable extent among Austrian Art Nouveau
to
tine icons, but their faces are treated realistically,
and
rising
from the
posed like those in Byzanmore three-dimensionally and
rigid bodies they
produce a kind of
shock in the viewer (plate 265).
Klimt was especially proud of the three symbolical or allegorical decorations he painted on canvas for the ceilings of the main lecture hall, or
Aula, of the University of Vienna. They represent Philo-
sophy, Medicine, and Law, and Klimt worked on them from 1900
and courageously original works provoked
enthusiasts.
until 1903. These vast
While Van de Velde fought against the Romantic element in the ornament of floral Jugendstil in Germany, in Vienna, where neither
one of the great art scandals of the age.
the floral trend nor the "Belgian" line were popular, a distaste for
signed small
any kind of ornament was felt at a very early date. Developing the ideas and tendencies of Wagner, Adolf Loos (1870-1933), 255 soon after 1900, pronounced a veritable anathema on ornament in
Wittgenstein home. Klimt also designed mannequins for modeling
most of the theoretical writers on Art Nou-
in public as a bearded, collarless, Messiah-like figure, generally
general. In contrast to
veau, he was true to his
smooth and cubic
own
principles
style of architecture
and very soon attained a and interior design (plate
264) that appears to be related to the slightly exaggerated proportions of late Art Nouveau, but which tends quite independently toward modern architecture. In the house that Loos built in Paris in
1926 for the Dadaist poet, Tristan Tzara (plates 260, 263), only
the proportions remind us at all of late Art
The most powerful personality among Viennese painters of this 236 Highly gifted as a deco(1 862-191 8). rator, he may probably be compared with Beardsley in that his
period was Gustav Klimt
works, quite apart from their ornamental element, are charged with
an alarming expressiveness which scious
from an obscure subcon-
domain, an inner world which Sigmund Freud, concurrently
(and also
259
arises
in
Vienna) had also begun to explore.
GUSTAV KLIMT
The
artist's
women's
draped
signature
small colored sketch for in a
room which Hoffmann decorated
clothes,
very elegant and
style. Less felicitous
in robes
dered by society
in
very delicately dein
Vienna for the
keeping with the Sezession
seems to have been his habit of appearing
with ornamental epaulettes which were embroi-
women who were
Oskar Kokoschka (born
in
and close friends. emerged as an artist from
his devotees
1886)
Klimt's circle before shifting to his
257
own
Expressionism. In his book,
Die traumenden Knaben (plate 342), Kokoschka created a work which, in form, content, text, and illustration, represents one of
homogeneous and valuable examples of its kind in the declining period of Art Nouveau. With a great flair for folklore, Kokoschka also suggests the same curious impression of the nursery atmosphere as may be found in certain interiors by Hoffmann which, however indirectly, had their source in England. the most
Nouveau.
A
Philosophy was used as a design element
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ART NOUVEAU
'All art
is
at
who go who
once surface and symbol. Those
beneath the surface do so at their
peril.
Those
read the symbol do so at their peril."
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Biological Romanticism
During
highest phase, at least, the homogeneity of form and
its
structure in Art
with
ic,
lines,
Nouveau remained unusually
transversal axial curves,
original
and idiomat-
and uninterrupted contours
dominating. However, asymmetry of form appears nearly every-
where
phases of Art Nouveau, and signifies
in all
life
and move-
ment. All the swinging, swirling, throbbing, sprouting, and blos-
soming it intended to be an unequivocal sign of organic
life,
of living
form. Occasionally, the "life" of the elements manifests leaping flames, rushing wind, and, most of
all,
itself:
flowing, rippling
waters. There are hints, too, of natural organic forms: the irregular spots or stripes of the skins of the leopard or zebra; the "eyes" in
the feathers of peacocks and the wings of butterflies. Frequently, these natural forms remind us of anatomical preparations preserved in alcohol
under
glass and,
our minds suggesting "that strange interregnum inhabited by
in
the lower forms of
ALFRED ROLLER Day
and Night (1900)
even more frequently, associations arise
life
— the plantlike animals of the sea bottom,"
that underwater world which, with
and elegance,
sive grace life,"
its
its
unfamiliar and even repul-
"half-sucking, half-suspended
way
of
fascinated the artists of this period. 258
Nouveau, skeleton and membrane dominate as a and smaller three-dimensional forms. Powerfully dynamic lines (like veins through which the lifeblood flows) compose the structure and, between them, thin and transparent planes extend like the wings of dragonflies. Rooms, halls, or transparently constructed façades appear to be In linear Art
structural principle in both architecture
groves of upward-striving saplings or supporting stems of flowers.
On
the other hand, three-dimensional Art
Nouveau produced
vases
and building exteriors that look rooms that remind us of dunes swept by wind and water. In Gaudi's buildings, there are passages with thin and perforated cellular like caverns,
like mollusks,
walls, like the shell of a snail, while the interior construction of his
houses
is
as
complicated as a labyrinth. The measurements of the
human form
are never
employed
as a
module
to illustrate pro-
portions and rhythms. Instead of being habitations designed for
firmly built, square-shouldered men, these buildings seem to be
intended for gliding, floating beings whose bearing and movements
would tend
to suggest Rossetti's
Art Nouveau nymphs, or the grace-
260
fui
motions taught by Isadora Duncan. Considered from a
point of view, Art
Nouveau
structure at
seemingly without firmness or solidity,
it
its
peak
classical
nonstructural;
is
appears weightless and in
the walls of Gaudi's
of Art Nouveau,
we
Casa
Batllo.
Enlarged by the magnifying eye
find here the core of protoplasm, the original
units of living substance.
Above
a frieze with sea monsters
and
depicted on the ceiling
a constant state of flux.
between coral-shaped lamps,
The materials employed in the construction of these buildings is of a similar nature, ambiguous in spite of clearly determined and
of Endell's Buntes Theater in Berlin, and Blake's watercolors for
sharply defined forms. The substance seems forever changing and
tending toward fusion and metamorphosis. In most cases the substance
employed
is
smooth, almost gelatinous, somehow managing
to give the impression of nudity
— not so much a
substance deter-
mined by the actual material used, as an undefined, living subHowever much Art Nouveau developed form from nature
stratum. (in
opposition to historicism), the material of a
Guimard
vase, for
instance, remains ambiguous, scarcely betraying the fact that
it is
porcelain. If pieces of furniture are lacquered white (a usual practice
during Art Nouveau's main phase), they are so masked with
the purposeful intention to conceal the a
homogeneous mass of white
wood, disguising
it
under
so that one does not recognize the
material used for the construction.
Only seldom, and
principally
cells are also
Milton's Paradise Lost begin to intimate these themes.
A
few typical themes stand out in the iconography of Art Nouveau. The theme of the swan and that of the lily (which have in common a pure white and a clear outline) were of course chosen on account of their beauty. But the swan was also elected because it is a rare, proud, and solitary bird and because its quiet gliding on glittering waters arouses a vague nostalgia. The swan had Romantic predecessors: not so much the decorative swans of the Empire period as those of Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake, and the swan in Wagner's Lohengrin. Francis Vielé-Griffin entitled a book of his poems
W. Degouve de Nunques painted Le swans The of Eckmann, of Toorop, and of the 896.
Les Cygnes (1885-86) and
Cygne noir
in
1
Berlin Sezession painter, Leistikow, find their counterpart in the
English peacocks
— also very decorative birds which,
with Gaudi, does the wall (or the "flesh") of a building wear a
play Art Nouveau colors, blue and green,
kind of armor consisting of mosaic, or ceramic "scales" (plate 216).
ing, brocade-like
However, when the wall
peacock, determined either by
is
so covered
it is
because
it
was meant
to
is seldom intended to wood. The substance invariably depends on the imposed form, and this form alone determines the outward appearance of the materials used.
appear iridescent. Stone
feathers, corresponds to
look like stone, or
wood
the
The figures on one of Gaudi's architectural pendants (plate 273) thus seem to be corals, set in a tangled swirl of seaweed. Glass, also,
may appear most
to be a veined substance, half plant, half animal, al-
as distasteful to the eye as living
matter torn from the body
is gracefully wrought and presented (plate 266). In his fairy-tale, The Fisherman and His Soul, Oscar Wilde writes: "... and putting forth all his strength,
of a sea creature, but which, at the same time,
he tugged at the coarse ropes
like lines of blue
till,
enamel round a
Who else might have noted this simile before? Who else could have expressed it with so much aesthetic feeling? Wherever high quality is concerned, vase of bronze, the long veins rose up on his arms."
Art Nouveau
treats
even what
is
repulsive in the lower organic
forms with delicacy and often with playful grace. All serious Symbolist
and Art Nouveau
artists
from Baudelaire
Beardsley
to
in the metallic, scintillat-
splendor of their feathers. The silhouette of the
either scintillate or
like
in addition, dis-
its
trailing tail or
Art Nouveau's
ideas, as
unfolded
do the
tail-
details of
tail's scale and eye patterns; moreover, peacocks always strike an exotic note. We have mentioned Whistler's Peacock Room; Beardsley 's Salome wears a peacock train; and Herod, in Wilde's
Salome, speaks at great length of his white peacocks. Art Nouveau
would not be what it is without its love of the glorious exception and the perverse inversion: it produced white peacocks and black swans, and Oscar Wilde invented the "green carnation." In England, a book of poems was entitled Grey Roses. Ricketts designed a peacock on his cover for Wilde's House of Pomegranates. Heinrich title page for Von Hofmannsthal's The Emperor and on the title page of the German periodical Die Insel, drew the peacock as a fabulous bird, and Thomas Theodor Heine then seized the opportunity of making charming parodies of
Vogeler, on the
and
the Witch
these designs.
The peacock
is
not only the symbol of beauty and
vanity, but also the bird of legends.
Up
until the early
Middle
Ages, traditional iconography showed the bird of paradise in the
shape of a peacock. The circle
is
then closed with Stravinsky's
possessed a magical ability to "transform the most loathsome things
Firebird and Maeterlinck's Blue Bird (though not peacocks per
into objects of particularly enticing beauty." 259
both were fabulous birds), both of which played a part
How regress
261
far back to the origins of life this substance is
is
made
to
revealed in the irregular small cells which entirely cover
in the
se,
neo-
Romanticism of 1900 not unlike that played by the "blue flower" during the German Romantic movement of 1 800.
Art Nouveau's lily early paintings, where of the
Holy
is
derived from those one sees in Rossetti's
it
represents the flower of the Annunciation,
Virgin, of purity, retaining an element of consecration.
From Rossetti's day, the lily became the heraldic flower of the London aesthetes. Lady aesthetes appeared in society with longstemmed
lilies
in
their hands;
street; Proust's little actress,
Oscar Wilde carried one
who endeavored without success
in
the
to recite
fragments from Maeterlinck, made her appearances holding a
lily
and wearing a gown copied from Rossetti's Ecce Ancilla Domini; Otto Eckmann is famous for his fine lilies in Pan. Art Nouveau's conception of form was, of course, also satisfied by the lily design; a long, linear stem with sharply outlined and narrow leaves that
Nouveau
are
Heywood Sumner's
Undine, the
first
representational figure in
pure High Art Nouveau (plate 113), Jean Dampt's Melusine, with her thick, jointless, snake-like arms, and the mermaid in Wilde's The
Fisherman and His Soul. The French poet Henri de Régnier entitled a volume of his poems Aréthuse, after the Greek fountain-nymph.
is
Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau painted and repainted numerous versions of the birth of Venus, and in one painting, Redon shows her under water, emerging from a shell. A Symbolist periodical was named after the sea shell, La Conque; another was called
fancied flowers with
Le Centaure. Verlaine wrote Poèmes saturniens; Symbolist and Art
bears aloft a flower of striking shape, the beauty of which
revealed especially in profile. Art
meaning which, in another sense, is not far removed from the biological domain. Art Nouveau and Symbolism were particularly attracted to nymphs, mermaids, and other hybrid creatures. Related to them
cattleya has acquired a special
long stems and blooms with petals that could easily be transposed
two dimensions: above all, irises, then poppies, and tulips, too. Roses occur rarely in High Art Nouveau, being too substantial with their petals that cover one another and whidi cannot be in
Nouveau representations right); Khnopff painted
of sphinxes are innumerable (page 186,
picted chimeras or aristocratic and marvelously adorned sirens. This nostalgia for creatures that are half
human and
arranged in juxtaposition as a surface-design. But roses were then
characteristic of the
rediscovered by late Art
Nouveau on account of their geometriWater lilies were, naturally, popular; firstly because they evoke water, and secondly because their stems sway under the surface of the water like long and pliant tubes. Orchids are also important; the first cattleya-like blossoms appear in
Jugend,
cally circular outline.
ideal images of unbridled eroticism; but in
Blake's watercolor for Dante's Purgatory; later, they reappear
also appear.
ty
volume of Proust's
A
la recherche
du temps perdu, the lovely
we
we
whole
style. In
half animal
popular publications
is
Die
like
and nymphs as the works of a higher qualithe dangerous attraction and the demonic and magic
find laughing mermaids, satyrs,
also feel
elements of this intermediate world. Beside personifications of voluptuousness, those of the enigma, of mystery, and of corruption
Another symptom likewise reveals
especially in three-dimensional objects sudi as glass vases. In the first
Moreau often de-
the Blood of Medusa,
of the merely
human
dissatisfaction or weariness
condition: the closer relationship of the other
arts to music. This approach can already be felt in the great im-
portance ascribed to rhythm in Art figure provides the basis for all
Nouveau
forms. "The
human
thought and art except music
.
.
.
where pure humanitas is not necessarily contained; there even exists a kind of music which sets out to deprive man of this higher form of his condition by bringing him back, with all the power of its sweet seductions, to prehuman conditions." 200 Actually, this kind of music developed mainly as a parallel to Art Nouveau, or even
preceded in
it
in
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, with
its
fusion of love
death and death in love. Later, from Debussy's Pelléas
et
Méli-
sande to Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps, such music offers infinite temptations to abandon oneself to the primitive moods of the
dawn
of humanity (although Debussy's filaments of sound and Stravin-
rhythms are poles apart, they both arc descriptions of that curious admixture of sex and death). In Stravinsky, we thus reach the borderline of brutality and barbarism sky's brutal avalanche of
which
is
often suggested in
ROBERT BURNS
modern
art,
but a decade earlier, Scriabin
Natura Naturans (1891)
262
i66
263
i
mu
|
GAI
II
Bowl(ii 99 )
267
ANTONI GAUDl Sagrada
Detail of the façade of the Church of the
I'amilia, Barcelona
{ana
1900)
V
RM X ,,
>Sf?**& r
269
268
(
270
(
268
ANTON' GAUDl I
Rain pipe on the exterior of the Church of the
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (1887 269
ALFRED GILBERT
(known
265
270
as the
j'j
Detail o) the Shaftesbury Manorial Fountain
"Eros Fountain") in Piccadilly Circus, London (1887 93)
Sea anemone
27i
271
HECTOR GUIMARD
272
ODILON REDON
*7*
Detail of a small table (circa I900)
Illustration for
"La Tentation de Saint-
Antoine" (1888) 273
ANTONI GAUD!
Pendant
in the cloister 0} the
Church of the
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (1887-91) Z74
m
HECTOR GUIMARD
Detail of a Paris Métro station (circa 1900)
266
274
^73
267
.-,
'-75
275*
RENÉ LALIQUK
276
EDVARD MUNCH
Brooch (circa 1900)
Madonna
(1895)
276
268
1
I
277
RENÉLALIQUE
278
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
Pendant
{circa 1900)
decorative fabric (cira [884)
269
"Thorns and Butterflies,"
English
Plate {circa 1900)
270
CHARLES RICKETTS
Bookplate (1892)
had already expressed the voluptuousness of self-annihilation in its most perfect form in his Poème d'extase. The subconscious remembrance or nostalgia for man's interuterine avatars asserts itself in Art Nouveau's forms and substances as well as in the choice of thematic materials;
encounter the themes of water, marine
life,
we
repeatedly
or the lower organic
life
and silverware are the chief mediums for this type of decoration. At the boundary between English early and High Art Nouveau, Walter Crane represented mermaids in his ceramics, and designed a wallpaper depicting water with a swimming fish here and there. In William Burgess' house in Melbury Road, Art Nouveau expresses itself in the frieze above the fireplace: incongruously enough, for a fireplace decoration, it shows the waves of the sea with fishes frolicking forms
in general.
among
Wallpapers,
textiles, ceramics,
the surging billows.
William Blake's predilection for interest in aquatic themes, as
from
fire
motifs did not exclude his
can be seen in an illuminated page
which in addition also carries marginal decoshowing many varieties of submarine or worm-like crea-
his Jerusalem,
rations
High Art Nouveau, such themes are so frequent that we need only cite two examples: Gilbert's fountain in Piccadilly Circus (plate 269), and the choir in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (plate 268). In the latter, the gargoyles in the buttresses appear in the form of huge lizards, snakes, sea-shells, salamanders, and snails all successors to the demons of Gothic cathedrals. These creatures are connected to the building with tube-like drainpipes that look like umbilical cords. For the novel, Astarte (a title chosen by its "mystic" author, Sâr Mérodack Péladan, in remembrance of the Middle Eastern moon goddess of fecundity), Fernand Khnopff designed a cover depicting a female half-figure growing out of what seems to be vaguely organic matter. As can be seen, the development and tures. In
—
metamorphosis of organic
Nouveau
artists.
One
life in all its
phases fascinated
of Toorop's drawings
is
many Art
called Evolution, one
of the "brethren" in Sâr Péladan's Rosicrucian circle painted The
with flames, an image that looks as though the fire-flower
in
had been transformed into a Blake, the fire-flower was a womb-image, here,
Blake's Songs of Innocence (plate 27)
column of water
(in
the water could be taken to represent the element in which the fetus
we
works on embryology, and his fascination with this subject may be seen in some of his drawings (page 273), although most of these were published privately. In these latter works he not only gave expression to images that reveal unashamed desires, but he also made use of gynecological themes which he developed with great precision, delighting in details suggestive of both horror and disgust. At the same time, however, these black-and-white drawings were treated with a certain fanciful playfulness. Far from being frivolous, Munch, in turn, represented a human embryo in his lithograph, the so-called is
suspended). Beardsley,
Madonna
are told, studied
(plate 276). Here, the figure of the
mously surrounded by a border
Some
—a
woman
is
blasphe-
flow of spermatozoa, the
Source of Life, and, long before any of these, William Blake had
"springs of life."
already spoken of the "springs of
Alfred Jarry, wrote a "modern novel," Le Surmâle: to Nietzsche's
life."
The aims of Art Nouveau were not so much directed at nature in the popular sense, as at the basic forces of life itself. The sources of life, and the power of life to transform itself eternally, could also be made apparent without employing themes borrowed from nature: they could be expressed in terms of eroticism.
Munch
painted
Puberty, and revealed the merging of bodies in The Kiss (colorplate XII). In one of Ricketts' illustrations for Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx, the diver seeking the ring
271
is
shown
in a
kind of water tank outlined
years later, in 1902, the French author,
superman he opposed the supermale, a monster of sexual potency. In some of its brutally clinical details, Jarry's novel anticipates The Kinsey Report by fifty years. Art Nouveau's characteristic and fundamental concern with life is confirmed by its literary production; the eloquent titles of many of these works, the verbal images, and, of course, by the various manifestoes, periodicals, and other literary mediums expressing its doctrines. The principal Jugendstil periodicals in Germany were
Die Jugend and Pan. The
meaning "youth," speaks for itself; Pan, the title of the second, recalls the Greek god of nature, the master of the nymphs and satyrs who personified erotic and orgiastic existence. Nietzsche distinguished Apollonian and Dionysiac art by assigning to the former category all that is luminous, clear, and meditative, and to the latter all that is passionate and unbounded. To the latter, he seems almost ready to categorize all the works of Richard Wagner, who certainly influenced Art Nouveau through his later music and his Symbolist writings. L'Après-midi d'un faune is similarly the title of one of Mallarmé's poems, and Rodin created fauns and nymphs many times; ageless creatures, ideal images of eternal youth
first,
and exuberant
life.
Ver Sacrum, "the sacred spring," was the name of the leading Art
Nouveau
periodical in Vienna.
The meaning of
this title
was made
quite clear in the cover design of the first issue: an ornamental shrub in a
roots
wooden tub which
the tremendous vital forces of the plant's
had burst asunder.
A
later cover design
erupting flowers instead of lava
—
the springtime of
A
soms breaking forth with volcanic power. periodical
was named
showed
Floréal, the "official"
life
a volcano
and
blos-
French Symbolist
name
for
May
after
Awakening) is the title of a drama on puberty by the German playwright, Frank Wedekind (who also wrote a play called Erdgeist Earth Spirit). The name of the Scottish periodical, Evergreen, suggests eternally youthful life, and its individual issues were given the names of the seasons rather than the usual numbers assigned to magazines. Though there was a great deal in Evergreen relating to the Celtic renaissance in Scotland, its pages also contain articles on biological themes, treated with surprising frankness for the times. Nor was it an accident or coincidence that an expert in sexology, Havelock Ellis, contributed to Beardsley's sophisticated and worldly magazine, The Savoy. In the Spanish Art Nouveau periodical, L'Avenç the French Revolution. Friihlingserwachen (Spring's
—
we have suddenly force
eternal
is
discovered that
the Pre-Raphaelites, this general subject,
who
Sawa wrote about
vitalism. 261
cation on art, founded in his youth
by
Rossetti,
life:
a publi-
was thus
called
The Germ. Seed or germ are, of course, used here merely as meta-
phors for the origin of a structive, so are verbal
new
art,
but just as certain
images which
may
titles
are in-
reveal an unconscious
—
toward the actual meaning they express. Van de Velde to quote only one example among many certainly displayed great control in his art, but, just as certainly, his verbal association was completely spontaneous of any double meaning when he wrote: "Beauty is once again filled with lifegiving sap and inner strength; attitude
—
its
vital
and indestructible and can always produce new
Under the influence of Darwin's theories, Romantic historicism was transformed into biological historicism. When a new Romanticism began to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century, it was Romanticism of the early 1800s, and became How much Darwin (who considered all life, from the amoeba upward, in terms of "historical" development) had indeed influenced even the art theory of his time, becomes evident in a text by EberhardBaron vonBodenhausen. Bodenhausen, a German industrial magnate who later became a friend of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, wrote in an 1899 issue of Pan: "Since Darwin's achievement, we view the world in the light of his docrelated to the nature
a "biological Romanticism."
trines
.
.
modern
.
according to
ethics will respond to the trend of
our time
ability to develop according to the basis of his
its
doctrines." 262 Art
Nouveau did not
choose to favor forms that are
anemones and other such lower organisms, half plant, half animal, for their flowery elegance and ornamental form alone, similar to sea
but also because they are close to those forms which
when
life
was beginning. The
biologists
began their careers with research on asks:
"What can
stir
first
appeared
Darwin and Haeckel both and medusae. Obrist
jellyfish
our vital emotions more strongly than the
graceful, long, sinuous, linear tentacles of a jellyfish swaying in the
water?" 268 As
if
Nouveau
and rhythms were to be and confirmed, Haeckel had written about
the Art
scientifically illustrated
lines
"the curvilinear progression of the procreation of
Abstract
life."
264
Dynamism "Energy
is
eternal delight."
William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Even
otherwise revealed no great interest in
were concerned with the germ of
has not withered, since
blossoms."
,
the Catalan poet, Alejandro
it
Even
in
concrete expressions of fanciful ornament, abstract
forms already existed
in
High Art Nouveau,
suggesting
movement
and life without direct reference to any particular themes derived from fauna or flora, or from the natural elements. Though Horta's use of metal scaffoldings generally suggests elements of plant
many
life,
of his structures also become abstract by being conceived
in
terms of general and nonspecific dynamics. This abstract dyna-
mism, however,
is
also alive
and organic,
just as are the
forms of
Van de Velde, who, most consistently of all, aimed at abstract form. Somehow, even in the work of Van de Velde, there is always a suggestion of rippling muscles and taut sinews, though he uses
272
[J
3
La^
^H ^^L
v<
_
neither plants nor animals as his models. Representational Art
Nouveau had been
attracted to the lower or primal organisms, but
Van de Velde and abstract High Art Nouveau embody the dynamics of the elements of life itself, suggesting Henri Bergson's élan vital, that eternal
energy which continues
sation, regardless of the stage of
metamorphosis
B9k.
uninterrupted pul-
its
in
which
it
happens
and of the particular form assumed by any species at any given time. Van de Velde strove to at least in theory distinguish the dynamism of his forms from personal and individual form: "A line is a force, filled with the energy of him who drew it." 265 The "power lines" of Art Nouveau were thus conceived as bearers of energy, and the artist almost as an abstract source of to find itself,
—
energy. Such an abstract
dynamism
—
also has a lengthy previous
history, particularly in England. Joseph Paxton,
who was en
Art Nouveau, but, as one of the inventors of
sider to early
out-
v-
KHT7
'
K\\
•
water by their
own
266
•
^r
m 1 fl
I
^
"V
• ••
'••*
1
glass
\
and iron buildings, had created the conditions possible for Horta's buildings, was inspired to undertake his skeleton buildings on seeing the great leaves of the Victoria Regia
r
AV*
1
\ *J
^J^
^^r^
*'.v^'
1
which are upheld on the
veins, so that his architecture also
owes
its
style
to plant life. Christopher Dresser, the English designer, likewise
lSj
from botany; having studied the development of plant life, first to achieve, in his glass and silverware, an entirely abstract High Art Nouveau, and one of his designs is even entitled Force and Energy (plate 103). Here, we find hints of the started
he was one of the
vegetal element, as with Horta, such as unrolling spiral tips of
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
on
ferns or abstract forms of plants in the Gothic manner. But,
Drawing
(circa 1894)
the whole, these associations were only intended to create an im-
and dynamism. Art Nouveau's tendency toward functionalism, too strongly emphasized today, is closely related to this and was already anticipression of energy
pated
in certain vessels
designed by Dresser and in the furniture of
and Crafts movement, which can also be qualified its simple and almost primitive sense. From there, the line of derivation leads via Serrurier-Bovy to Van de Velde, who logically developed his principles of construction and decoration into functional Symbolism and, at least as a corollary of his theory, was the foremost representative of functionalism in Art Nouveau. Naturally, this apparently factual style of Van de Vclde's the English Arts
as functional in
is
to a great extent an art of fantasy too; in
some of
wallpapers, a poster, or in book illustrations, as the expression of a
function. al
On
273
see
power
and lines
in reality, has
no
the other hand, in opposition to entirely nonfunction-
historicism, there
in floral
we
dynamic tension which,
his fabrics
is
a considerable
Art Nouveau, where
it is
amount of "functionalism"
not a question of the function of,
say, a chair used as a seat, but of the function of vegetal
which underlies the form of the
chair.
Even
to
growth
Darwin, the notion
of functionalism was not unknown, for instance in the doctrine of natural selection in which the survivor
one best adapted to
its
the fittest creature, the
environment.
This abstract, functional,
now
is
and dynamic aspect of Art Nouveau,
divested of Romanticism and of the orgiastic elements of
nymphs and satyrs, leads on to late Art Nouveau as well as to modmodern functionalism. In late Art Nouveau, biological life and dynamism give way to rigid calm. The proportions are still directly related to those of High Art Nouveau and the rudimenern art or
tary forms of the older curve are equally present everywhere. But
we might
well
wonder whether, between geometrical
rigid late
Art Nouveau and organically animated High Art Nouveau, a profounder relationship had not been expressed
duced
in
in a
common
nostalgia
The feeling of discomfort that culture proFreud, the lure of music and of decoration developed into
for the primitive state.
music, the attraction of a chaos created by a general fusion of the forces of life
—might not the
as
an "urge
all this secret nostalgia, in fact
animated organic
in all
Art Nouveau be under-
rigor of late
stood as a necessary final phase of
life to
return to a
more primitve
condition," even to that of inanimate matter, of the crystalline stone? In his Jenseits des Lustprinzips, Freud,
beyond the
libido or
and its rights occurred, whether it was a genuine impetus coming from the depths or whether the whirlwind of time had but loosened a kind of ice pack that was already disintegrating The harmful effects of industrialization were to be limited, life itself was to be sanctified and declared the most precious of all possessions in an appropriately renovated devotion to religious service." This .
.
.
.
.
.
repose and permanent liberation, in Nirvana, from the tensions
is also mixed with melancholy and a feeling of uselessness: "The premonition of the instability of everything (which was be-
and
ginning to assume the appearance of an indisputable certainty) filled
sexual drive, detects another instinct, the para-libido or urge for
conflicts of
which
life is
Art Nouveau could not
made. Because of
its
inner conflicts,
live long. Its turgid universe of the hot-
house and the aquarium was destined to bring about a desire for immobility, for rectangular forms,
when
High
a reaction against
Art Nouveau assured, on the other hand, the continuity of metamorphosis.
renewal
us with sadness. In the start, a feeling
whole movement there was, from the very
of finality, of fading away, of renunciation, even of
weariness." 268
How
its
was of German Jugendstil too, and even of Nouveau movement, in its attempt to establish a
true this also
the entire Art
contact with original traditions, "the most precious of
Art Nouveau and
disappointment and
Time
Its
disillusion.
of self-frustration within
However
number of precious objects, admirable in their fragile beauty, Art Nouveau may have produced, the universal regeneration of art and life that it attempted was condemned to failure from the outset. The kind of return to the orginal source it tried to achieve over and over again cannot be successful if undergreat the
taken too deliberately.
Nor
could the inner constitution of
this
style or the sociological background of its artists and patrons make Art Nouveau an important movement of renewal. It was the ideal world of a select group, and when at last it reached the public at large it had already been corrupted by derivative and commercial
"When
artists:
crowd
A
is
left
social
fate, that
the leaders lose themselves in their dreams, the
empty-handed." 267
phenomenon
Art Nouveau shared the same
of the Wandervogel, a youth movement, resembling the
Boy Scouts, that remained peculiar to German-speaking countries. Here too a longing for a new beginning (like the one that characterized Art Nouveau) strove to take shape. Werner Helwig, who belonged to the movement, wrote in "melencholy memory" of the Wandervogel: "The urge for 'realization,' the longing to make a fresh start, the refusal of what was felt to be artificial, untrue, or a
all this
upward and sprouted
.
cult to say at
by
which point,
side
.
.
and
it
as
not so much because of
its
strong
and morbidezza, as because shrink from the harsh reality of modern siècle
in order to seek the
"uncorrupted" land-
screens covered with peacocks
unwelcome view with after the manner of the
and
lilies,
Aesthetes.
The Aesthete and of Art Nouveau.
symptom of
his brother, the
Max Beerbohm
Dandy,
said in
1
are the true key figures
895 that Dandyism
one's feeling of loneliness and, at the
sense the least egoistic of all the arts, since the self to the
whole nation
home, when
all
as soon as he emerges
same time,
Dandy
is
a
in a
reveals him-
from the privacy of
people, whether princess or peasants, are free to
his masterpiece. 269
Dandyism, according to Sir Max, is one of Dandy, as long as he is nothing but a Dandy, never produces any work of art but turns himself and his life into a "work of art." All "your days are your sonnets," Oscar Wilde states
admire
the decorative arts; the
in The Portrait of
Dorian Gray, so that the Dandy
is
even obliged
to raise the accessories of his life to the level of art. (Van de Velde
designed silver knobs for walking-sticks.) "Mr. Whistler's top hat a true nocturne and his linen a
symphony
in
white major,"
270
is
Beer-
pressed forward, thrust
of appearing on the stage studied "eurhythmic" movements with
will
always be as
diffi-
in this general psychological shift of
emphasis, youth's awakening awareness of
and youth
swiftly ensuing
and
nature, self-preservation
devotion to the universal whole: ...
life its
bohm waggishly declared, adapting Whistler's "musical" titles to the painter's own appearance. A number of ladies who had no intention
diversion from the essential, the restoring of relations between
man and man, between man and
itself,
it
whether
well as
scapes of the Wandervogel, or to shut out the
his
parallel to
side
romantic nature made
industrialization,
adoration of
Art Nouveau thus contained a kind
element of decadence, of fin de its
its
all possessions," as
itself
and of
its
struggle
Duncan or with Dalcroze at Hellerau, in order that the synthesis of rhythm and ornamentation, the "homogeneous system" of their Art Nouveau homes, should not be disturbed by the all-tooIsadora
274
J
275
XII
EDVARD MUNCH
The Kiss (1902)
ARISTIDE MAILLOL
Illustration for Virgil's "Eclogues" (1910-26)
donated to Barcelona the park named after him, he did
manner of kers
who
a private patron, in the
manner of
this in the
the Continental ban-
continually underwrote the losses of Diaghilev's Ballets
Russes.
Louis Comfort Tiffany, the extremely wealthy son of a
York
New
homes of men like Hamilton and Havemayer, designed a suite of studios for himself (plate 33 j) so lavish that they were fit to receive the court of Byzantium. James McNeill Whistler, the son of an American engineer who jeweler, before he decorated the
Fish
human behavior
of not yet fully stylized inhabitants. Oscar Wilde
the representative of the state of culture,
West Point education and thereafter led a provokingly elegant existence. His famous Peacock Room was commissioned by the Liverpool shipowner, Frederick Leyland, 273 who was also a personal friend. Whistler painted the room in Leyland's absence, overstepping the limits of their agreement both in his exorbitant fee and in the overdecoration of the room (he had painted over the walls which had been covered with
Nouveau. Through
priceless
more than art imitates life, not only because life is driven to imitate in any case, but above all because it consciously sets out to express itself and because art offers discovered that
it
imitates art far
life
beautiful forms in which
the critical Aesthete
united in him, the
made
it
it
Dandy was his
whom
this urge.
Together with
who are sometimes of human being, or
artisan
thus the type
who best determined Art demands, he closed the magic circle that
possible to change the
Jugendstilman of
can satisfy
and the productive
human
figure into an
ornament
— the
the Viennese writer Karl Kraus said that
"the very convolutions of his brain became ornaments." 271 All this leads us inevitably to determine
more exactly
of this art
grow from
the socio-
the creative substance of a great mind. But
such a seed could prosper only in the favorable, well-prepared offered by the material comfort of cultured and wealthy homes
soil .
.
—were,
.
.
—
like Perret's houses in the rue Franklin,
ed for occupancy by socially undistinguished tenants.
not intend-
When
leather
hangings),
thereby
terminating
their
friendship and resulting in a lawsuit. Leyland's house at
Hyde Park Corner
It
home
in
London, and
of the rich
man
in
its
was situated and interior exterior
Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga.
contained Leyland's extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite paint-
—who,
Romantic leanings were not incompetent businessmen. Burne-Jones was said to be the highest paid painter of his time; Rossetti (whose Italian ings
by
Rossetti
and Burne-Jones
despite their
was a Dante scholar and political exile), who died of melancholia and overdoses of laudanum, did not have to exhibit his paintings to sell them. Collectors came to him and paid exorbitant sums for pictures which had not even been painted, and for which they had to wait many years, sometimes in vain. Arthur Mackmurdo, whose designs were the first expressions of Art Nouveau, was well-to-do. He published the Century Guild and The Hobby Horse as a hobby. Although Ricketts lived a modest life at first, he later was able to afford thousands of pounds worth of flowers per year. Oscar Wilde's parents were a Dublin doctor and a lady who wrote novels under the name of Speranza. He was educated at Oxford and then lived in Mayfair, and after his marriage moved to Chelsea where Whistler and Godwin created the perfect specifather
.
The capacity for enjoyment, refined through many generations finally, the security of inherited wealth; here is the soil in whidi this art is rooted." 272 Ernst Robert Curtius wrote this about Marcel Proust's novels. With the key passages left out, it becomes true of Art Nouveau, to which Proust was no stranger. Art Nouveau is indeed a style of the upper bourgeoisie, that of the cultured and urbane middle class in the heyday of classical capitalism. It is essentially the first genuinely universal style of a period which was no longer under the domination of the clergy or aristocracy. Like Impressionist paintings, its creations were not commissioned by patrons but were offered directly to the purchaser by the artist. For whom did the leading Art Nouveau artists work, and what was their socio-economic milieu? The Palau Guell, said to be the costliest private dwelling of that time, was built by Gaudi for the cosmopolitan industrialist and shipping magnate, Don Eusebio Guell, who was the architect's friend and patron, and was later raised to the nobility. Gaudi's apartment houses the Casas Milâ, Batllô, and Calvet
Spanish
suggested the
background of Art Nouveau. "The delicate iridescent blooms
logical
built Russia's first railroads, received a
Guell
men
of the "house beautiful" for him.
and Nancy, Art Nouveau developed a decidedly worldly character and, not infrequently, had a luxurious quality that even suggests the demimonde. Guimard's Métro entrances arouse in us expectations of the abode of Venus deep down in a mountain rather than a democratic subway; they seem to lead straight to In Paris
Maxim's, the interior decoration of which
is
still
unrivaled as a
276
Count Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa, a
restaurant interior.
descendant of the Crusade leader Godefroy de Bouillon, did not
depend for a living on the
sales of his pictures.
He made
a gift of
web of one
the
of his
nymph
Arachne, about
whom
Marcel Schwob wrote
"Now
most astonishing and fanciful prose passages:
my
distinctly feel both of Arachne's knees gliding onto
my
I
body and
mouth. Soon
my
the entire edition of his color lithographs of Mademoiselle Lender,
the gurgling of
en buste to Meier-Graefe, the editor of Pan;
publication then
will be sucked
caused such an upheaval in
Germany among the professors and Pan Association that Meier-Graefe resigned, whereupon Pan became a "German art review." 274 Victor Horta of Brussels, later raised to the nobility, built the Maison du Peuple for the Belgian Socialist party, but worked
white threads.
museum
ders to the dazzling network of the stars. Using the silk skein which
its
directors of the
mainly for upper-middle-class and capitalist patrons. The mansion he constructed for the industrial magnate, Solvay, was of princely
To be
proportions.
sure, there are exceptions to these
success: the sculptor
examples of
Georges Minne almost died of starvation and
was, in an artistic sense, in love with a
life
of poverty, the sort that
Maeterlinck praised but had never experienced. Minne's early
drawings do not suggest destitution so much as what Meier-Graefe has called "the splendor of destitution." 275
Symbolist
On
the other hand, the
Fernand Khnopff, came from a patrician
painter,
family with international connections; he lived in a labyrinthine
house at
in Brussels in
home. In
its
which the Minotaur would have
very much
almost Surrealistically disposed mazes, with
its
And
it rises
will
I? I will flee
Arachne will throw to me,
I
to her
remain smothered
through the kingdom of the
shall flee
fair hair shivering in
morning wind." The young fisherman in Wilde's The Fisherman and His Soul acts much in the same way: thanks to magic, he follows the little mermaid into her realm of submarine voluptuousness but, in spite of all, is buried under the stars. With all its cynicism, Art Nouveau is extremely sentimental. Starting from this psychological fin-de-siècle mood, and founding his theories on his studies of hysteria, Sigmund Freud later wrote a book on Uneasiness in Culture. Gauguin actually escaped from the confinements and discomfort of civilization to the island of Tahiti. But this escape was opposed to the more general trend or Art Nouthe
veau, which shut itself in
its
eyes to the reality of everyday
life,
enclosed
the artificial paradise of the imagination, frequented the
chimera, and regressed from the world of
human
beings to the re-
Nouveau
surprising vistas like those in the back-
overdecoration alternated superbly with
never succeeded in shattering the glass walls of civilization.
in the
whole of Art Nouveau
— imprisoned
— the phrase
is
true for the
like the oyster in its
mother-
of-pearl shell, or entangled like the insect caught in the spider's
When
comfort and the self-indulgence of the mal du
siècle were by a rough hand by the sudden appearance of Gauguin and Rimbaud, we have found that point in cultural history where we must place the first real origins of modern art.
aesthetic
palace of art" 276
spi-
with her and leave to you
— poor fools— a pale corpse, with a shock of
its
"Imprisoned
heart
in its prison of
his pictures,
bare walls and empty rooms.
destroyed as
if
CHARLES RICKETTS Pomegranates"
277
it
gions of biological prehistory. But despite all this, Art
unusual proportions,
grounds of
felt
blood as
empty; then
(
1
891 )
Vignette from Oscar Wilde's
'A House
of
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Jugendstil and Art art historians
Nouveau were
and by the Paris
first
Surrealist
rediscovered by
German
group surrounding Salva-
dor Dali. As early as 1925, when this style enjoyed as little prestige as anything else which is merely outdated or relegated to the junk heap, Ernst Michalski published a study on the significance of Jugendstil as a phase in the historical evolution of taste: Die ent-
Bedeutung des Jugendstils. In 1934, Fritz Schmalenbach followed this farseeing introductory essay with a doctoral dissertation on Jugendstil; though he limited his research ivicklungsgeschichtliche
to
Germany and
to two-dimensional art, he thereby supplied the
basic concepts for all further studies in this field.
in 1933 Salvador Dali published in Le Minotaur e an essay De la Beauté Terrifiante et Comestible, de I' Architecture Modern' Style.
photographs by
Man
Ray,
stressed those aspects
it
of the style which tend to shock us or to appear outrageous. In 1934, the
Neue Rundschau published an
Dolf Sternberger, who interpreted
essay, Jugendstil,
by
phenomenon
in
this style as a
and emotional evolution. In 1936, Nikolaus Pevsner published his Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius, a book that is now a classic and that its author had been preparing since 1930. Brilliantly defined, Art Nouveau was here treated for the first time as an entirely valid and independent style in art, as an international phenomenon, and as one of the prerequisites for the development of modern architecture and intellectual
design. Reminiscing as one
who had
participated in the movement,
the painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann wrote a delightful small
book, Stilwende (TheTurn of Style), published in Berlin in witty and reliable, pretation of the
it
German and Austrian
was reprinted
1
941. Both
remains unsurpassed as a wellrounded interJugendstil movements. In
where the author was at last free to give due credit to those Jewish friends and artists whom he had not been allowed to mention in the earlier edition. 1956,
it
in Berlin in a revised edition
After the war, Nikolaus Pevsner's book was published
in
New
in
an expanded edition, and was later translated and pub-
lished in
Germany. Together with the 1952 Art Nouveau exhibition
York
in Zurich,
exhibition,
it
heralded a revival of interest in this subject. For this
Hans
Curjel collected from
all
available sources and
from many countries a great variety of works of superb quality for the Zurich Kunstgewerbemuseum's exhibition of Art Nouveau and Jugendstil of the turn of the century. Curjel also wrote an excellent introduction for the catalogue, stressing the phenomenon's context in the history
of art and of culture, and Willy Rotzler provided
explanations of the individual objects exhibited. At the same time,
279
winter of 1952-53, there followed an
tirely to Jugendstil. In the
London of
Edwardian decorative arts which Peter Floud organized at the Victoria and Albert Museum; limited to the applied arts, it covered the whole field of the English and Scottish contributions to the Art Nouveau movement as a whole. Peter Floud's catalogue remains a reference book of rare quality, full of reliable and exact data. Numerous other exhibits and publications followed these initiaexhibition in
Victorian and
tives: 1955, a Jugendstil exhibition, together
logue, in Frankfurt
Viewing Art Nouveau from an entirely different point of view,
Illustrated with
the Swiss periodical, Werk, published a special issue devoted en-
am Main;
cago, with a catalogue exhibition at
New
with a published cata-
1956, a Louis Sullivan
by Edgar Kaufmann,
York's
Museum
of
show
in
Chi-
Jr.; 1957, a Gaudi
Modern
Art, with a cata-
logue containing numerous reproductions and an outstanding essay by Henry-Russell Hitchcock. In the early part of 1957, Brussels devoted a memorable exhibition to Le Mouvement Symboliste, dealing especially with its literature, its book decorations, its figurative art, and its posters; the catalogue of this show remains a
booklover's treasure as well as a valuable source of objectively collected data. In 1958, there
were three remarkable exhibitions: a
Louis Comfort Tiffany show in
New
York, with a catalogue by
Robert Alan Koch; a Munich from 1869-1958 exhibition, Aufbruch zur Modernen Kunst (The March Toward
Modern Art)
in
Munich, with a whole section devoted to Munich Jugendstil, which
and a Henry van de Velde show in Zurich's Kunstgewerbemuseum, with a catalogue by Hans Curjel. On the occasion of its Art Nouveau exhibition in i960, the New York Museum of Modern Art published an informis
also discussed at length in the catalogue;
ative illustrated book: Art
Nouveau: Art and Design
at the Turn
of the Century. In the winter of 1960-61, these exhibitions culmi-
nated Siècle,
1962,
in
the magnificent Paris exhibition, Les Sources
du
XX'
which had been sponsored by the Council of Europe. In its
exhaustive catalogue was followed by the publication of
a profusely illustrated
book which was published
guages under this same exhibition's
in several lan-
title.
fifties also saw the pubnumber of important new works in this field. In 1952, Thomas Howarth published his monumental work on Charles
Independently of these exhibitions, the
lication of a
Rennie Mackintosh, a systematic piece of research accompanied
by an unusually satisfactory variety of illustrations. Nikolaus Pevsner had already anticipated the publication of this standard work in a useful small book on Mackintosh, published in Milan in the series, // Balcone. In i960, an exhaustive work on Gaudi was published by Josep Llui's Sert and James Johnson Sweeney. As a
presentation of Art
Nouveau
cock's Architecture Nineteenth
mains indispensable. 20.
A
architecture, Henry-Russell Hitch-
and Twentieth Centuries (1958) Der Weg
collective study, Jugendstil:
re-
was 1959 by Helmut Seling, offering valuable information on the individual arts. Our best source of information on published in
Nouveau
is
Stephan Tschudi Madsen's
still
Sources of Art Nouveau, translated into English and published in New
York
in
To
ins
Jahrhundert {Jugendstil: the Road to the Twentieth Century),
the origins of Art
The author avails himself also of this opportunity to express gratitude and thanks to the following persons in particular:
have been brought together
book, providing us the most
in this
in this field.
But Madsen has concentrated
his attention
London and Cambridge Unihas provided invaluable aid to him in his
Professor Nikolaus Pevsner, of
versities,
who
since 195
1
research, with innumerable suggestions,
facts,
and practical
details.
To Professor Dr. Wilhelm Boeck, of Tubingen, under whom the author had the honor of preparing his doctoral dissertation in this field.
To
1956: newly discovered facts, quotations, and references
comprehensive historical bibliography that has yet been published
his
his
German
most generous the original
in
publisher,
Gerd Hatje, of
Stuttgart,
providing material assistance
German
in the
who
has been
production of
edition of the present volume.
To the many persons who were particularly kind in providing illustrative material or in making very use-
mainly on
the applied arts. Nikolaus Pevsner, in The Architectural Review,
photographs and other
and John M. Jacobus, Jr., in Art Bulletin, then published comprehensive reviews of Madsen's book which should be consulted for
ful suggestions, especially to Valeska Biese (Tubingen);
the additional information they supply concerning other fields of
(Museum of Modern Art, New York); Peter Floud (Victoria and Albert Museum, London); Susanne Heiland (Museum der bildenden Kunste, Leipzig); Philip Johnson (New Canaan); Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. (New York); Mr. and Mrs. Eric de Mare (London); SenoraMont-
Art Nouveau
activity.
Art Bulletin deserves particular praise for
its
editorial initiatives,
having published Clay Lancaster's Oriental Contributions to Art 1952 and Joseph Grady's Nature and the Art Nouveau in 19 j j. But the more important architectural publications have, on the whole, provided the more massive contribution in this
Nouveau
in
general field of research. London's Architectural
ready taken the lead when
H. Mackmurdo
it
Review had
al-
published Pevsner's study on Arthur
in 1938, and, in 1955, the present author's essays
Casanelles (Amigos de
Gaudi
serrat-Blanch de Alcolea (Arxin Mas, Barcelona); Joan Prats y Vallès
(Amigos de Gaudi Society, Barcelona) Willy Rotzler (Kunstgewerbe;
museum, Zurich); Wulf Schadendorf (Museum fur Kunst und GeMme. Wittamer-de-Camps (Brussels). I take particular pleasure in dedicating this book to my parents.
werbe, Hamburg); M. and
on Robert Schmutzler
The English Sources of Art Nouveau and Blake and Art Nouveau,
where the part that Blake played
Enrique
Society, Barcelona); Greta Daniel
Nouveau Stephan Tschudi Madsen also
in the
was
evolution of Art
first discussed in detail. In 1955, published his study on Horta's buildings in The Architectural Re-
view. To Horta's masterpiece, the Solvay residence in Brussels, Ed-
gar Kaufmann, Jr. devoted a detailed description in 1957 in the
American periodical
Interiors; with the aid of Paul
May en's
excel-
and beauty same on Louis Comfort
lent photographs, he successfully stressed the elegance
of the building and of
its
periodical then published
Tiffany's glass (which
interior decoration. In 1955, the
Kaufmann's
Kaufmann
article
collects along
with other out-
standing examples of Art Nouveau) and his other study of Tiffany as an interior decorator. In Italy,
Casahella Continuitâ and issues or
two
important groups of
compendium of
have published special
on individual Art Nouveau
articles
architects. All the other sources consulted this general field,
architectural periodicals,
V Architettura,
by the present author
over and above the works
the
more important
listed in the
sources, are
in
PAS 1ST DAS
preceding
mentioned indi-
eNPOTlifD -"*—
vidually in the notes and bibliography.
j -^ *^-wv*
EMIL RUDOLF WEISS "
Gugeline' (1899)
Vignette from Otto Julius Bierbaum's
280
NOTES
An
asterisk
the source
indicates that full information on
(*)
may
14 1
Pioneers
Nikolaus Pevsner,
(New York,
An
I
in
1
Modern Design
of
15
1949). P-
the main
as
motif for
5 5-
his
Modern
publication, The
be found in the Bibliography.
poster advertising the
Poster
(New York,
1895).
Fritz Schmalenbach, Jugendstil, pp. 12-22.*
Henry Wilson, "The Work of Sir Edward BurneMore Especially m Decoration and Design."
Jones; original conception of Alois Riegl's, set forth
The Architectural Review, 16
p. 9.
Pan
No.
I,
5
was different
in color
25
Gilchrist,
26
(Berlin, 1895), p. 336.
"No
death
individual can keep these laws, for they are /
To every energy of man and forbid the from Jerusalem: The Emanation of
springs of life."
Poems and Prophecies of William Max Plowman (London and New York,
the Giant Albion.
Blake, ed.
17
p. 212.*
28
André Malraux, Psychologie der Kunst; Das imaginàre Museum (Hamburg, 1957), p. 114.
Much
of the literature of the 1900s used the terms
"complementary 4
Gauguin designated
his art as a synthesis,
and Van
de Velde wrote an essay called "Aperçus en vue d'une Synthèse d'Art" (Brussels, 1895). 3
Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Physi-
ognomic,"
in
Die Neue Rundschau.*
*
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 73.*
7
Julius Meier-Graefe wrote a study devoted to the
sculpture of Georges
under the
title,
"Das
Minne
that appeared in
plastische
werbliche
(Van de Velde,
lines"
Laienpredigten*),
and
iiber Entwurf und Bau Moderner Mobel," Pan*). In 1898, Karl Scheffler spoke of the possibility of making a reverse copy of a design where the empty spaces of the original would become the design elements in the reverse copy (or "negative" copy). Quoted in Fritz
Ornament."*
This idea
may
be found in Fritz Schmalenbach,
Jugendstil, pp. 3-1 1.* 8
Van de Velde's
essay,
"Aperçus en vue d'une Syn21
thèse d'Art" appeared in
German under
the title
"Allgemeine Bemerkungen zu einer Synthèse der Kunst." Pan V, No. 4 (Berlin, 1899), •
The Life of William Blake*; Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Blake, A Crit-
p.
261
ff.
p. 135.*
Essay*;
James Johnson Sweeney and Josep Antoni Gaudi, p. 44/'
Llui's
Sert,
Darrell Figgis,
Aleksis Rannit, 8
"M. K. Ciurlionis." Das Kunst-
&9
(Krefeld and Baden-Baden,
! 95°)> PP- 34"37- Titles of certain of Ciurlionis' paintings are: Komposition, Fruhlingssonate (Spring
Sonata), Sonnensonate (Sun Sonata), Allegro, and
Andante (all 1907). Also see: Vytislav Ivanov, Ciurlionis and the Case of Synthesism in Art in Russian (Moscow, 1916).
—
—
12
Richard Dehmel, Pan
I,
No.
2
(Berlin, 1895), p.
13
In the
1
890s, the art of the poster began to be
widely used well as a
Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau," The
as a
medium
and conceptions.
medium of
artistic expression
as
for the display of serious thoughts
Many
articles
were written on the
poster as an art form during this period, and
many
Review*
Aldous
31
Madsen coined
(New
Variations
this
m
phrase
his Sources of
Art
to the earliest phases of the
movement when it reached its highest point of development (here called "early Art Nouveau"). Madsen's conception of proto-Art Nouveau has its anology in that phase where the term "proto-Renaissance" the style has begun to assert itself, and before it has swung into its full development. 32
Laurence
Blake*;
Followers
The
Binyon,
Geoffrey
Grigson,
William
of
Samuel Palmer:
The
Visionary Years (London, 1947). 33
Otto Boucher, PhilippOtto Runge (Hamburg, 1937).
34
Georges Wildenstein, Jean Auguste Dominique
Ingres, 1780-1867 35
(New York,
1956).
Dagobert Frey, Englisches Wesen
in der
Bildenden
Kunst.* 36
Henry
Cole,
who
played an active part
in
the
also the founder, under the pseudonym of Felix Summerly, of the firm Summerly's Art Manufac-
Courtauld Institutes (London, 1954), pp. 193-215. 23
37
The Life of William Blake,
recent and revised edition (London and
24
1950), p. 27.
p. 291.
Nouveau*, referring
Work,
Gilchrist,
Theme and
Huxley,
of Art III: The
(New York,
Thomas Howarth, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement, p. 228.*
was
New
York,
tures. See: Sir
2 Vols.
Osbert
Henry
Cole, Fifty Years of Public
(London, 1884).
Wyndham
Hewett, "The Waldgrave Straw-
berry Hill," The Architectural Review
CXXII, No.
728 (London, 1957), pp. 157-61.
2-
Blake etched both picture and text into
(usually copper), but he
same way that
a
employed
his
wood engraver makes
his plate
acid in the a
woodcut
— thereby
to be printed
(rather
in etching: those parts
making the parts than the usual method
reliefs
books and periodicals began to employ posters as
etched into the plate being printed). Blake then ap-
an advertising medium. Will Bradley used a peacock
plied both ink
281
André Malraux, The Psychology
Anthony Blunt, "Blake's Pictorial Imagination," England and the Mediterranean Tradition: Studies in Art, History, and Literature, ed. Warburg and
Alexander
f.
organization of London's Great Exhibition of 18 ji,
22
1945). P-
114.
The Paintings of William Blake*; William Blake's Engravings*;
Keynes,
Architectural
122
p.
30
192 1); Laurence Binyon,
The Drawings and Engravings of William Blake*;
Geoffrey
werk IV, Nos.
Ellis
(New York,
William Blake
10
II
Edwin John
Study of the Songs and Manuscripts
Arthur Symons, William Blake (London, 1907),
York, 1950),
Gilchrist,
and William Butler Yeats, The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic and Critical*; Geoffrey Keynes, A Bibliography of ical
Ernst Michalski, Die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Be-
deutung des Jugendstils,
Alexander
A
—
p. 28.*
Pan 20
Joseph H. Wicksteed, Blake's Innocence and Ex-
Kunstge-
"complementary
forms" (Van de Velde, "Ein Kapitel
Schmalenbach, Jugendstil,
The Life of William Blake,
Twilight of the Absolute 29
19
intensity.
p. 101.
18
'
1950), p. 196.
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nouveau,
and
p. 62.*
(London, 1928), 27
3
Alexander
Second edition,
perience,
p. 117.*
901, Spatromische Kunstindustrie, second edition
(Vienna, 1927),
printing added more colors, so that each impression
and watercolors to
his plates,
and after
38
Olivier
Georges
Henry Currie
Destrée,
Marillier,
William Michael Rossetti
Les
Préraphaélites*;
Dante Gabriel Rossetti"; (ed.),
Ruskin;
Rossetti;
Pre-Raphaelitism: Papers 1854 to 1862 (London and
New
York, 1899); Evelyn Waugh, D. G. Rossetti, and works (London, 1928); Robin Ironside
his life
and John Gere, Pre-Raphaelite
Painters."-
39
John Guille Millais, The Life and Letters of John Everett Millais/'
Sir
40
Lady GeorgianaBurne- Jones, Memorials of Edward 2 Vols. (London, 1904); Malcolm Bell, Edward Burne-Jones; A Record and a Review'-'; Henry "Wilson, "The Work of Edward Burne-Jones, more especially in decoration and design," The ArBurne-Jones,
Review.*
chitectural
"William
;
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood* ; Frances Winwar,
Poor Splendid Wings; The Rossettis and Their Circle* 41
Roger Dévigne, "La
pedant
la
lettre et la
décor du livre
période 1880- 1905," Arts et Métiers Gra-
phiques.* 45
Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen, preface by Aem.
Fendler.* 44
45
p.
1951); Peter
Ferriday, "The Peacock
Room," The
Architectural
Review.* 55
56
Gosse, The Life of Swinburne (London,
«7-
72
Eduard von Bodenhausen, "Englische Kunst im
Art Furniture from Designs by E. W. Godwin*;
73
Ibid.
tural 57
Review*
74
M. H. Spielmann and G.
Paul George Konody, The Art of Walter Crane,
Of the Decorative Books Old and New, pp. 16 1-62.
pp. 24-26'''; Walter Crane, tration of 58
Illus-
away (London, 75
Novalis speaks of an "art with a pleasant
es-
Owen
76
and inviting." Life and Works Vol.
77
Ill (Berlin, 1943),
Richard Redgrave. Quoted
Mechanization Takes
78
Otto Eckmann. Neue Formen, preface by Aem.
ter
Formensatz,
Japanischer
first
edition,
Whistler,
Mr.
Whistler's
"Ten
O'Clock"*; James McNeill Whistler, The Gentle Art
Making Enemies (unauthorized edition), ed. Sheridan Ford (Paris and New York, 1890). Authorized edition (London and New York, 1890). German edition (Berlin, 1909); Joseph Pennell, The Life of
James McNeill Whistler*; The Arts Council of Great Britain and The English-Speaking Union of the United States, James McNeill Whistler, exhibition catalog (London and
volume of
New
forming part of
illustrations
Work
of
Aubrey Beardsley (Lon-
The Decay of Lying,
Complete
Works: Prose.» T. R.
Way and G.R.Dennis,
McNeill Whistler (London, 1903),
p. 64.
Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill WhisPart 7, p. 170.*
tler,
M Nikolaus p. 86.»
Pevsner, Pioneers of
Modern Design,
Grammar
"The Work of Christopher Dresser," The Studio*;
Nikolaus Pevsner, "Christopher Dresser, Industrial Designer," The Architectural
Review*
Art Furniture from Designs by
W. Godwin*
83
Ibid., p. 4.
64
See the bibliography in Stephan Tschudi Madsen's
84
Christopher Dresser, Unity in Variety,
85
Christopher Dresser, Principles
E.
Sources of Art Nouveau, pp. 189-90.
Werner
Blaser,
Wbhnen und Bauen
(Teufen, Switzerland, 1958), p.
in
Japan
9.
Museum
fiir
87
in
Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankàufe auf der Weltausstellung Paris, 1900, pp. 40-41, 54.* 8*
Henry
Cole.
Quoted from
p. 351 70
Jones, The
Giedion's
York, 1948),
f-
Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches
of
Ornament, Intro-
in
p. i.»
Design (Lon-
p. 121.
Christopher Dresser, Studies in Design, Forward,
87
Christopher Dresser, Principles in Design (Lon-
88
I,
p. ill.
Arthur H. Mackmurdo, "Nature
The
Hobby Horse*; Nikolaus
in
Ornament,"
Pevsner, "Arthur H.
Mackmurdo," The Architectural Review* 8"
Edward Charles Pond, Arthur Hey gate MackAn Account of his Life and Work, manu-
murdo.
Sigfried
Command (New
I,
Grammar
p. 4.*
don, 1870),
Henry van de Velde, Déblaiement d'Art* Quoted Van de Veldes's Zum Neuen Stil, p. 29.*
Mechanization Takes
Owen
don, 1870), 86
Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches
to Art
of Ornament, Chapter
93
88
The Art of James
81
The
duction, p. 5.*
stellung Paris, 1900, pp. 46-47.*
Oscar Wilde,
Owen Jones, XX, p. 154.* 80
Ibid.
Beardsley's letters that certainly demonstrates that prior to 1891.
Clay Lancaster, "Oriental Contributions Nouveau," The Art Bulletin, p. 298.*
«
Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankàufe auf der Weltaus-
Room
1948),
Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, ChapXX, p. 154 and Introduction, p. 8.»
82
86
Gideon's
p.251.
29$) permits one to recognize decorative elements that prefigure those in the Peacock Room.
don, 1925), plate 58 shows a drawing from one of he had seen The Peacock
in Sigfried
Command (New York
79
H. Montgomery Hyde, "Oscar Wilde and His Architect," The Architectural Review* Godwin and Whistler had already worked together at an earlier date in 1878 they collaborated on a display for the Paris World's Fair: this was an "English-Japanese" room. The contemporaneous photograph (plate
65
York, i960).
of Ornament, Intro-
1
—
of
The Uncollected
Life
61
James McNeill
In the
Fendler/
Grammar
Jones, The
duction, pp. 5-6.*
60
Bing,
p. 65.
trangement, an object of an alien cast, yet familiar
p. 623.
Layard, Kate Green-
S.
1905).
George Moore, Modern Painting, revised edition
(London, 1898),
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modem Design, 67.* Following this, the Italians called the style,
S.
p. 63.
Hause," Pan*
Edward William Godwin*
48
M
George Moore, Modern Painting, revised edition
of
Ibid., p. 15.
M
71
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende*
47
50
stellung Paris, 1900, p. 3.*
(London, 1898),
Edmund
1917). P-
Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankàufe auf der Weltaus-
Dudley Harbron, The Conscious Stone; The
p. 11.*
49
C,
59
Stile Floreale. 46
The Whistler Peacock Room, Freer Art Gallery
Publication 4204 (Washington, D.
Nikolaus Pevsner, "Art Furniture," The Architec-
Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood* Ford Madox Ford,
41
54
script in the collection of
90
Museum
fiir
The Royal
Institute of
British Architects (London, 1958).
Owen
Jones, The
Grammar
of Ornament, Intro-
duction, p. 6.»
282
•'
Edward Charles Pond, Arthur Heygate Mack-
murdo.
An Account
of his Life
script in the collection of
and Work, manu-
The Royal
Institute of
British Architects (London, 1958). 92
Quoted from The Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts (London, 1952), p. $8.
w At
that time Lewis F.
and most
influential,
Day was
through
his
known, writings on the
also figures as
Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau,"
The Architectural Review, 107
The design on the binding was taken from Blake's Note-book (the so-called "Rossetti Manuscript"). However, this watercolor was not by William
(who died
Blake, but by his brother, Robert
None
1787).
thought
it
the
in
one of the artist-designers of
108
The Studio
109
jfoe
XIV
work
Konody, The Art of
Norman Shaw (LonNikolaus Pevsner, "Richard Norman
Shaw," The Architectural Review
95
96
LXXXIX
(Lon-
Laurence Binyon, The Drawings and Engravings
z*
(London, 1898)
p.
1
Century Guild Hobby Horse
I
Walter Crane,
Of
Jan Verkade, Le Tournement de Dieu
George Bir-
Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nacblehen Literatur des
79.
und
in der
20. Jahrhunderts
(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), pp. xx, Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.
9, 14
ff.
George Bir-
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-
130
112
Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles
Madeleine Octave Maus, Trente Années du Lutte
(Lon-
Ricketts
113
A. E. Gallatin, Beardsley: Catalogue of Draw-
114
and Bibliography, No. 217.*
131
Stephan Tschudi Madsen and Arne Brenna, "Hor-
ta:
Works and
Aymer
Vallance, Reproductions of eleven designs
115
first
Morte
edition of "Le
d' Ar-
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-
veau, pp. 174-175.* 1,6
J.
There are plenty of caricatures to be found on
contemporaneous publications;
in
Jugend,
117
et
de
la
Couleur,
Album
d'affiches (a
publication of the magazine, La Plume, Paris, 1900);
Robert Allen Koch, "The Poster Movement and 'Art
for instance.
Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nachleben
Henry van de
und
20.
in der
Jahrhunderts
(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), p. 27.
119 101
William Blake, Descriptive Catalogue No.
XIV
(London, 1809).
Lady Georgiana Burne- Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, 2 Vols. (London, 1904), i, p. 231;
103
to
Post-Impressionism
from
Van
Gauguin.*
136
Ibid., p. 184.
136
Owen Jones, XX, p. 154.*
englischen
Literatur des
79.
und
20.
(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), p.
in der
Jahrhunderts
228.*
Grammar
Camille Mauclair, Puvis de Chavannes (Paris,
Ornament, Chap-
of
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture Nineteenth 287, 450. Also see
Van
de Velde's recently published account concerning
Van de Velde
in connection
with the
1928).
Horta's
furnishing of the Maison Tassel in Van de Velde's
Jean Laran, Gustave Moreau (Paris, 1913); Paul
Fiat
Le Musée Gustave Moreau, revised edition
Geschichte meines Lebens, p. 93
(Paris, 1926).
138
121
in
André
Mellerio, Odilon
nateur et Graveur (Paris,
Odilon Redon
Redon: Peintre, Dessi1923);
Charles Fegdal,
visit to
139
Henry van de Van de Velde's
f.*
Velde, Déblaiement d'Art*, quoted
Zum
Edgar Kaufmann,
neuen S til, Jr.,
p. 31.*
"224 Avenue Louise," In-
teriors, p. 88.*
(Paris, 1929).
7.
104
Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau," The Architectural Review, p. 92.*
106
137
The
the Decorative Illustration of p.
and Twentieth Centuries, pp.
pp. 290, 343.
Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nachleben
Of
Walter Crane,
Books Old and New,
ff.*
120 '**
II,
Rewald,
John
Gogh
Robert
Velde, Die Renaissance im moder-
nen Kunstgewerbe, pp. 61
ter 118
79.
;
Horta*
Robert Schmutzler, "The English Origins of Art Nouveau," The Architectural Review, p. 116.*
Nouveau,'" Gazette des Beaux Arts.* englischen Literatur des
Jr.,
132
134
Les Maîtres de l'affiche*;
Horta Before 1900,"
"Letture di Victor Horta," L' Architettura* L. Delevoy, Victor
133
M. Bracquemond, Du Dessin
Style of Victor
The Architectural Review*; Edgar Kaufmann,
"224 Avenue Louise," Interiors*; Vittoria Girardi
pp. 218, 223.*
beck Hill (London, 1897), p. 241.
100
(Paris,
«9 2 3)»P-94-
pour l'Art*
97
in
128
p.
the Decorative Illustration of
thur" illustrated by Beardsley (London, 1927), p. 14.
this
Robert L. Delevoy, Victor Horta,
Books Old and New.*
omitted from the
99
6*
127
(Orpington,
beck Hill (London, 1897), p. 241.
•8
Giovanni Papini, Medardo Rosso, second edition
ff.
Paul George Konody, The Art of Walter Crane,
ings
Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.
englischen
(circa
(Milan, 1945).
don, 1933), forward (unpaged).
1 941), pp. 41-46-
of William Blake, p.
Harmonie"
Camille Mauclair, Auguste Rodin* ; Sommerville
129
111
don,
iiber
(Berlin, 1917).
veau, pp. 250-52.*
Reginald Blomfield, Richard 1940);
Das Kunstblatt
Story, Rodin.*
p. 24.*
Walter Crane*
don,
1890), 125
Kent, England), p. no. 110
94
Paul Gauguin, "Notiz
126
of the former.
the time, but belonged (in a wider sense) to the Pre-
Raphaelites. See: Paul George
124
Shields, as well as Rossetti,
less,
to be the
Merette Bodelsen, "The Missing Link in Gauguin's Cloisonism," Gazette des Beaux Arts.*
p. 92.*
chiefly
decorative principles of objects in daily use. Walter
Crane
106
122
Arthur Symons, "A French Blake," The Art Review (London), July, 1890. 123
Paul Gauguin,
Noa Noa, Voyage
de
Tahiti.
Fac-
140
Jiirgen Joedicke, Geschichte der
modernen Archi-
tektur, second edition (Stuttgart, i960), p. 44. 141
Henry van de
Velde, Déblaiement d'Art*;
Henry
Zum
Geoffrey Keynes, Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts by Blake (Cambridge, Massachusetts,
simile edition of Gauguin's illustrated
son
neuen Stil*', Henry van de Velde, Geschichte meines Lebens*; Karl Ernst Osthaus, Van
1927), Preface (unpaged).
temps*; Robert John Goldwater, Paul Gauguin*;
de Velde*; Zurich Kunstgewerbemuseum, Henry van
.
283
.
.
(Berlin,
1926);
Charles
Chassé,
manuscript
Gauguin
et
van de Velde,
de Veldt, 1863-1957. Persônlichkeit und Werk, exhibition catalogue (Zurich, 1958);
Henry Van de
Velde,
number of the Casabella Continuai (Milan), March, i960, No. 237.
special
141
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-
Compare with Max Osborne's
statement:
"To him
belongs the honor of having introduced to Brussels
new decorative forms from London." quoted
the
Roger Marx, "René Lalique," Art Gustave Geffroy, René Lalique.''' 180
in
Stephan Tschudi Madsen's Sources of Art Nouveau,
Décoration*
;
Work
ter
trans.
177
Julius Meier-Graefe,
"Das
Ornament," Pan*; Leo van Puy velde, Georges Minne*; Andre de plastische
Ridder, Georges Minne.*
Franck Gibson, Charles Condor; His Life and
by Random House,
178
(New York, 181
Inc.
Reprinted by permission),
of Things Past, two-volume edition
195
1), p.
592.
In 1895, the magazine Pan inserted a prospectus
of Bing's which alluded to the imminent opening of his display
182
rooms of decorative modern
art.
Pan
A.
W. King, An
178
Ibid.
,8°
Julius Meier-Graefe, Entwicklungsgeschiohte der
modernen Kunst,
2 (Berlin 1895), p. 141.
Julius Meier-Graefe,
"Das
plastische
Ornament,"
Pan, p. 261.*
Bing,
184
Ibid., p. 260.
147
L.
Ibid.
183
Aubrey Beardsley; Letzte
Emile Galle, Écrits pour l'Art*; Louis de Four-
I
Hermann
184
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 101.*
185
Carola Giedion-Welcker. Paul Klee (Stuttgart,
Apollo*
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-
Ibid., p. 196.* Ibid., p. 177.*
188
Hector Guimard, Le Castel Béranger*; Hector
Guimard, "An
W. Shaw Sparrow, "Herr Toorop's 'The Three I
(London, 1893), pp. 247-48.
Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles
Ricketts,
Forward
(unpaged).*
Decorative Art in America.
Opinion of 'Art Nou-
Record*
188
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,
p. 52.*
188
Robert L. Herbert, "Seurat and Jules Cheret,"
(New York), No.
The Art Bulletin XL, April, 1958
2,
170
(New York,
1906), pp. 123-26.
Edward Gordon Craig, On the Art of the TheEdward Gordon Craig, Gordon Craig's Book Penny Toys (London, 1899); Edward Gordon
atre*;
of
New
Theatre (London and Toron-
to, 1913).
Maurice Joyant,
edition
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec*
;
(Berlin,
1929), second edition
first
(Erlenbach-
Zurich, 1943); E. Julien, Les affiches de Toulouse-
Lautrec (Monte Carlo, 1950); Douglas Cooper, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Stuttgart, 1955).
John Betjeman, "Charles Francis Annesley Voy-
sey;
The Architect of Individualism," The Architec-
tural
Review*; Nikolaus Pevsner, "Charles Francis
Annesley Voysey," Elsevier' s Maandschrift*; John
Brandon Joncs, "C.
A. Voysey," Architectural As-
F.
sociation Journal*; Peter Floud, "The Wallpaper 171
M. Creutz, Johan Thorn Prikker*; August Hoff, Johan Thorn Prikker.*
172
John Rewald, Pierre Bonnard (New York, 1948). Maurice Denis, Aristide Maillol*; John Rewald,
Maillol* Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, first edi-
signs of C. F. A. Voysey," The Penrose
173
Ernesto Rogers, Auguste Perret (Milan, 1955).
knew
158
174
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way,
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Gedanken iiber Stil in der Baukunst*; Max Eisler, De Bouwmeester H. P. Berlage*; Jan Gratama, Dr. H. P. Berlage Bouw-
Inc., reprinted
meester*
Remembrance
187
(New York,
Sigfried Giedion, Space,
Time and Architecture,
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Gedanken p. 52 f.*
well,
and said that the freshness of
spring seemed to emanate from
Modem
Library,
181
Inc.),
Charles R. Ashbee,
Teachings of
J.
it.
An Endeavour Towards
the
Ruskin and W. Morris*
two-volume edition 182
Charles Harrison Townsend, "Originality
in
Ar-
1), p. 151.
chitecture," The Builder* 176
ninth edition, p. 245.*
195
work
K. Scott
by permission of Random House, of Things Past,
his
trans. C.
Moncrieff (copyright 1928 by The
De-
Annual*. By
1893, Voysey was already known through The Studio, and by 1893 he had exhibited with the Vingt, and their successors, the Libre Esthétique. Van de Velde
tion, p. 56.*
der Baukunst,
W.
Lecture by O.
Oscar Wilde, "Some Literary Notes," The Wo-
Craig, Towards a
pp. 156-58.
164
188
A
man's World, (London), January, 1888.
180
Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Physiognomie," Die Neue Rundschau, p. 258.*
188
Architect's
Gotthard Jedlicka, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
152
153
187
Toorop*
Brides'," The Studio 181
Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles Ricketts*
R. Butler Glaenzer
veau,'" The Architectural 188
150
188
Together with Letters, Reviews, and Interviews, ed.
167
ff.
A. Plasschaert, Jan Toorop*; John Baptist Knip-
ping, Jan
"ff-
Bahr, "Fernand Khnopff," Ver Sacrum
(Vienna, 1928), No. 12, p. 247
148
Max Meyer-
Emile Galle*; Gabriella Gros, "Poetry in
166. 148
Brief e, ed.
feld (Leipzig, 19 10), forward.
veau, p. 196.* 186
1946), p. 131.
182
'954). PP166
ff.
treiben wir?" Dekorative Kunst.*
Glass; the Art of Emile Galle,"
Dumont-Wilden, Fernand Khnopff*; Wolfram Waldschmidt, "Das Heim eines Symbolisten," Decorative Kunst IX (Munich), January, i960, pp. 158-
Vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1904), pp. 605
Martin Birnbaum, Jacovleff and Other Artists
61*
cauld,
148
"Wohin
A. Beardsley Lecture (London,
1924), pp. 72-73.
181
S.
1914).
I,
us Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design, p.
145
A. E. Gallatin,
Work (London, New York, and Toronto,
(New York, 144
Aubrey Beardsley*;
of
Beardsley: Catalogue of Drawings and Bibliography*
C. K. Scott Moncrieff (copyright 1924, renewed 1951
No.
p. 324.
et
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove,
Remembrance
veau, pp. 318-24.* 143
158
Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-
veau, p. 300.*
The Early
W. MacDonald
Sinclair,
"New Church Work
at
Great Warley," Art Journal*; John Malton, "Art
iiber Stil in 178
,,s
Work
of Aubrey Beardslty*; The La-
Nouveau
in
Essex," The Architectural
Review*
284
John Malton, "Art Nouveau chitectural Review, p. IOI.* 184
The Ar-
in Essex,"
214
Carola Giedion-Welcker, Plastik des
hunderts (Stuttgart, 1955),
XX.
Jahr-
233
Cézanne und Hodler*; Ewald Ben-
Fritz Burger,
der and Werner Y. Miiller, Die Kunst Ferdinand
p. 281.
Hodlers*; Walter Hugelshofer, Ferdinand Hodler* 215
185
Ibid., p. 102.
186
Also see Tiffany's Chapel for the Chicago Co-
lumbian Exposition Cathedral 1,7
J.
in
1893, Bentley's Westminster
in
London (designed
1894).
Hatton, "Alfred Gilbert, R. A.," The Easter
Art Annual of The Art Annual*; Isabel Macallister,
188
Published in book form:
and His Circle (London, 188
Rossetti
August Endell, "Gedanken: Formkunst," Dekorative Kunst*; August Endell, "Formenschonheit und
218
dekorative Kunst," Dekorative Kunst*; August Endell,
p. 120.*
237
Roswitha Riegger-Baurmann,
need be, useful." Jessie Newbery, wife of the
Max
Schmid,
Max
Review*
"Schrift
im Jugend-
Borsenblatt fur den deutschen Buchhandel, pp.
1958),
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Prolog zu Ludwig von Hofmanns Tanzen," I nsel- Almanack auf das Jahr 1906 (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 25-26.
525-32.*
238
221
Bergôs, Gaudi,
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, pp. 27-
(New York,
Theodor Daubler, Der Neue Standpunkt (Leip-
220
Glasgow School of Art, 1892. Quoted Nikolaus Pevsner's "Beautiful and If Need Be
1899);
Arp, ed. James Thrall Soby
238
p. 10.
(Frankfurt,
p. 20.
Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen*
Useful," The Architectural 201
236
Fischel,
219
director of the in
Oscar
Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, Pa-
Meyerfeld (Berlin, 1909),
I
Ludwig von Hofmann*
235
See also: Oscar Wilde, Asthetisches und Po-
Max
Englischer Stil (1896),
1950), P- 3°°-
zig. i9 I 9).P-74-
1922).
"I believe in everything being beautiful, pleasant, if
Kunst*
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,
stil,"
and
"Architektonische Erstlinge," Dekorative
Hugo von Hofmannsthal,
included in Gesammelte Werke, Prosa,
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 73.*
lemisches, ed. 200
234
218
From
tience.
Max Beerbohm,
Curjel, "Konfrontationen," Werk, pp. 382-
383.»
217
Alfred Gilbert*
Hans
José F. Ràfols, Antoni Gaud!, 18)2-1926*; Joan
L'Home
i
I'Obra*; Henry-Russell
George
Gaudi*;
Antonio
28.»
Hitchcock,
222
Gaudi*; James Johnson Sweeney and Josep Lluis Sert, Antoni Gaudi.*
Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen, preface by Aem.
R.
Collins,
Fendler.*
Klinger (Bielefeld and Leipzig,
Hans Wolfgang
Singer,
Max
Klinger, Meister
240 223
Fritz Hoeber, Peter Behrens*; Paul Joseph Cre-
mers, Peter Behrens*; Peter Behrens, special issue of
der Zeichnung (Leipzig, 191 2).
Alexander Cirici
Catalan*; José
Pellicer,
Ràfols,
F.
El Arte Modernista
Modernismo y Moder-
nistas*
Casabella Continuitâ.* 202
Munchen, Haus der Kunst, Miinchen, 1869-19)8, Aufbruch zur Modernen Kunst (Munich, 1958), exhi-
bition catalogue, pp. 149-300.
ÎM
Hermann
tur,"
Dekorative Kunst*; Hermann Obrist, Neue
Wilhelm Bode, "Hermann Obrist," Pan* 204
Georg Fuchs, "Hermann Obrist," Pan 1896), No. 5, p. 321.
des
XX.
206
Georg Fuchs, "Hermann Obrist," Pan
1896),
No.
5,
Konrad Lange, "Bernhard Pankok," Dekorative Kunst*
225
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,
pp. 59-60.* 226
Hermann
Muthesius, "Die Kunst Richard Rie-
I
(Berlin,
Arosenius stayed for a while at Pont-Aven and
advised his Goteborg patron, Furstenberg, to pur-
p. 281. I
Gauguin painting. This painting may be seen today in the Goteborg (Sweden) Museum. (Told to the author by Edouard Roditi.)
chase an early
(Berlin, 228
p. 320.
Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Das Werk von Edvard
208
Ibid., p. 325.
208
Ibid., p. 319.
228
Munch*;
Ibid., p. 324.
Quoted from the exhibition catalog of the Zurich Kunstwerbmuseum: Um 1900. Art Nouveau und Ju-
gendstil (Zurich, 1952), p. 34.
2,2
215
been
had not developed on
adapted
and
to be
in those
own
its
assimilated
almost
is a good example of this, the Italians having taken over the ready-made formulae of both northwestern Euro-
Gustav
Schiefler,
riety.
Both of these
Viennese va-
on exterior design, so that the Italian
fluence
tects excelled chiefly in façades.
of this result tini's
late
styles exerted their strongest in-
in
may
A
archi-
charming example
be found in a villa of Ciro
Con-
Ferrara (1902). Taking the basic square-
shaped Mediterranean house, the designer added strongly sculptural flower motifs plus geometric linear forms.
The most imaginative
Italian
example
is
probably Raimondo D'Aronco's Pavilion for the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin
210
111
—having
pean High Art Nouveau and the 227
Edvard Munchs graphische Kunst*; Frederick B. Deknatel, Edvard Munch*; Otto Benesch, Edvard Munch*
207
"Hybrid" examples of Art Nouveau are
found everywhere, but are most common
wholesale from other countries. Italy
merschmids," Dekorative Kunst*
Quoted from Carola Giedion-Welcker's Plastik Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1955),
224
places where the style
Obrist, "Die Zukunft unserer Architek-
Môglichkeiten in der bildenden Kunst, 1896-1900;*
205
241
d'Edvard
230
(1902).
work
Theodor Daubler, Der Neue Standpunkt (Leip-
Another
fine
of Giuseppe
monumental
style
example is to be found in the Sommaruga, whose heavy and reminds one of Frank Lloyd
Wright. The cohesion of design typical of Viennese
Art Nouveau becomes clearly apparent work of Ernesto Basile, whose designs are
late
Quoted from Werner Haftmann's Malerei im
285
"L'Exposition
Munch," La Revue Blanche*
231
Ibid., pp. 33-34.
I,
Strindberg,
zig. '9«9» P- «oo.
Ibid., p. 34.
Jahrhundert,
August
p. 79.''
232
20.
Ibid., pp. 95
f,
9^, 85.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal,
Englischer Stil (1896),
included in Gesammelte Werke, Prosa, 1950), p. 300.
I
(Frankfurt,
good example of the Neapolitan
in the
also a
Floreale."
"Stile
Manfredi Nicoletti, Raimondo D'Aronco* "Una ;
la
del
Vil-
1902 a Ferrara," L'Architettura IV (Rome,
2,
pp. 772-73; L'Architettura di
Vittoria Girardi, "Joseph
Giuseppe Sommaruga
(Milan, 1908); Francesco Ten-
cato," L'Architettura*
Wandervogels. Vom Aufstieg, Glanz und Sinn Jugendbewegung (Gutersloh, Germany, i960).
e52
eM
1
No.
959)> March,
"Contributo
tori,
alia storiografia di
maruga," Casabella Continuitâ*
;
Giuseppe Som-
Renato de Fusco,
Floreale a Napoli (Naples, 19J9). 242
Louis
Henry
Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats
and
Other Writings*; Hugh Morrison, Louis Sullivan, Prophet of Modern Architecture'"'; John Szarkowski,
p. 309. 270
Ibid., p. 311.
271
Karl Kraus, "Heine und die Folgen," Auswahl
253
Interiors*;
Edgar Kaufmann,
Jr.,
Then and Now," "At
Home
with
Louis Comfort Tiffany," Interiors*; Robert Alan
Furness, an
Kunst*
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 93
'w/ien.
246
ff.
Gleeson White, "Some Glasgow Designers and
Their Work," The Studio*; Nikolaus Pevsner, Charles
Rennie
Thomas Howarth, Charles
Mackintosh*;
Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement*;
Ernst Robert Curtius, Marcel Proust (Berlin and
Frankfurt 273
(Munich, 1957), p. 190.
am
Main, 1952),
p. 86.
Peter Ferriday, "The Peacock
Room," The
Archi-
tectural Review.*
Alfred Lichtwark, "Entwicklung des Pan," Pan
No.
I
3, p. 173.
Vereinigung der Bildenden Kunstler Oster-
Kollektivausstellung Gustav Klimt, exhibition
catalogue (Vienna, 1903);
Boris Kochno, Le Ballet (Paris, 1953), p. 124
dem Werk
(Berlin, 1895),
American Pio-
Furness," Ardoitectural Forum*.
272
274
The Architectural Review*; "Fearless Frank
neer,".
ff.*
Adolf Loos*; Heinrich Kulka, Adolf Loos*; Ludwig Munz, Adolf Loos*; Adolf Loos, special issue of Ca-
reichs,
245
aus
Adolf Loos, Ins Leere gesprochen, 1897-1930*; Adolf Loos, Trotzdem, 1900-1930*; Franz Gliick,
256
W. Campbell, "Frank
"Koloman Moser," Dekora-
sabella Continuity*
Koch, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1848-1933.* 2,4
Berta Zuckerkandl,
tive
255
"Tiffany,
Max Beerbohm, "De natura barbatulorum," The Chap-Book IV (Chicago), November-May, 1896,
Olbrich*
Architecture/' Jr.,
einer
Joseph Maria Olbriclr'; Giulia Veronesi, Joseph M.
254
Edgar Kaufmann,
Architektur von Professor Joseph M. Olhrich*;
Joseph Maria Olbrich, Ideen*; Joseph August Lux,
The Idea of Louis Sullivan''; Willard Connelly Louis Sullivan as He Lived: The Shaping of American
243
Hoffmann maestro dimenti-
Max Eisler, Gustav Klimt*;
275
Julius Meier-Graefe,
"Das
plastische
Emil Pirchan, Gustav Klimt*
276
267
auf das Jahr 1906 (Leipzig, 1905),
Oskar Kokoschka, Die traumenden Knaben (VienHans Maria Wingler, Oskar Kokoschka; Das Werk*
Ornament,"
Pan* Arthur Symons, "Walter Pater,"
Insel- Almanack
p. 66.
na, 1908);
258
Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Phy-
siognomic," Die
Neue Rundschau,
p, 258.*
Ferdinando Anichini, "Incontri con Charles Rennie 259
Mackintosh," L'Architettura*
Martin Birnbaum, Jacovleff and Other Artists
(New York, 247
In
1900,
Darmstadt publisher, Alexander
the
260
Koch, offered a prize for the best design submitted for
"A House
for a
was awarded
prize
Hugh
Lover of the Arts." The
José Ràfols,
Mackintosh was awarded
262
Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, "Entwick-
and reproduced in color: Hermann Muthesius, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Haus eines in large folios
Scott.
Haus
;
Hermann
eines
lungslehre
263
Muthesius, M. H. Baillie
Kunstfreundes*
Modernismo y Modernistas,
und Asthetik," Pan
V
p. ji.*
(Berlin, 1900),
No.
4, p. 236.
Hermann
Obrist,
denden Kunst, 264
248
am Untergang (Ham-
261
second prize. However, both designs were published
Kunstfreundes*
Friedrich Sieburg, Die Lust
burg, 1954), p. 286.
by Mackay
to a traditional design
Baillie Scott, while
first
1946), p. 131.
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,
Neue Môglichkeiten
in der bil-
p. 25.*
Ernst Haeckel, Die Perigenesis der Plastidule oder
die Wellenzeugung der Lebenstheilchen (Berlin, 1876).
p. 101.*
265 249
Otto Wagner, Moderne Architektur*; Otto Wagner, Einige Skizzen, Projekte und ausgefiihrte Bauwerke*; Joseph August Lux, Otto Wagner*; Vittoria
Henry van de
Velde, "Prinzipielle Erklarungcn,"
Kunstgewerbliche Laienpredigten: quoted
van de Velde's
Zum
neuen S til,
in
Henry
pp. 130-31.*
Otto Wagner," L'Architet-
266
tura.*
Kenneth W. Luckhurst, The Story of Exhibitions (London and New York, 195 1), pp. 88-89.
250
Hoffmann: quoted in Stephan Tschudi MadSources of Art Nouveau, p. 401.
297
Girardi,
a
j ose f
sen's 251
"Commento
"A Brussels Mansion Designed by Prof. Josef Hoffmann of Wien," The Studio*; Leopold Kleiner, josef Hoffmann*; L. W. Rochowanski, A.
Josef
S.
Levetus,
Hoffmann*; Giulia Veronesi, Josef Hoffmann*;
bis
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Aufzeichnung 1895," Corona
1941), 248
No.
4,
X
1890
(Munich, Berlin, and Zurich,
pp. 443-44.
Werner Helwig, "Wehmutiger Ruckblick auf den
Wandervogel," Stuttgarter Zeitung, October 24, 1959, p. 51; also see: Werner Helwig, Die Blaue Blume des
286
The Phenomenon
Proto-Art Nouveau (circa 1800 a.d.)
(Pages 7-28)
(Pages 53-55)
282
PHILIPP
OTTO RUNGE
The Small
Minoan So-called "Throne
280
fresco in the Palace of
Minos
in
of Minos,"
and
Knossos, Crete (circa
1700-1400 B.c.)
William Blake (Pages 35-53)
v w»\7
WILLIAM BLAKE
281
Eve
'It
(detail) (1807)
287
- r
'
Raphael
"' •
warm Adam and 284
English
" Morn'
2S3
JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES
Le songe d'Ossian
(1808)
Upright piano (1830
?)
(detail) (circa 1812)
u Art
Nom eau
(Pages \%
287
JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS
drawing for "Christ
in the
Preliminary
House of His Parents"
(1850)
285
American
Lining of a tintype case
(circa 1850)
The Japanese Style
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle
(Pages 73-97)
Pages 62-72)
XV
2S9
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
Rocket: Nocturne
288 of
DANTE
Mary
2S6
GABRII-l ROSSETTI
Black and
Gold
The Falling
(circa
1
S74)
The Girlhood
Virgin (1849)
EDWARD BURNE- JONES
wardrobe
m
1
1
S
5
Painted
8)
288
-rTjiiiji-
290
'
«
^~rCv>
*
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
_
Illustration
for "A Catalogue of Blue-and-White Nankin
Porcelain" (1S78)
293 JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER Symphony in White, No. IV: The Three Girls (1876-79)
ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN FACTORY Bott7(i888)
291
«•>*>**
Tt ijfc.t b b.b Vfc.V'-A.l''
v.b
''.*.t,tv,t,e.,vvci>i* ,
bbb
ibbb
t».vvfc»»r6.. .> ce.*. V VC> ,b A*-» «• Vt V«< b b b b b.b.b.b b* ^tvtttvt'-tt b.b v'- .*C -,
itttbs
-s* ,
^ b.b b
*Zb> «.
tVt bb b
vtt> bb
b b,bb C.b, > b '.(,'. '.(,'. (. •- . & b.c. c b (,,*„ », b b,b î. b fc b b b '. b.'-bv.tt.t.Vbb'- .'^.ttt .bib C b b b.b.b %.' - * b b b -.b.b.b.b.i.b.b.b.b' /-.bbb.b kl 1 / * I b t b b b b b.b b« V .bb b '
lb .bbbVbt bbb .' v b b.b b b b b b b bb « b b b b -, -, 1.
,C
fc
b.tb.vtbbbbb.bbb.bbbb b b.b.b V. ib,b.Vb»»b
t 1,
<«>» b b b.b t b b bbbbt &«.bb>bbb,bbbvb fc.Vb.b b V,b b.b.b.b b.b'b'b b b _fc.bt.bb rb.bbbbbbbbb tfi>v,i, C,
.
Ibb,b,bbV -bb>bb'-bbb*. b bb.b b b bb b> b -.bit b b b b b.b.b b
?*- b.b.b w 1. b.b b b.b *.c.b
bbb
-
b»
b b b b b b.b b . b bb -. b b b b '. b t b b b '* fc b b b b.b.b t,'<«,-.t; b b b b.b b b. bbbb .
bbbt
,'.
ittbbbbbbbbbbwbbbbb
lb b b b b bb b b b b b b'b b b> b f b b b b b b . b b b b b b b> b i> c fbbbb/" bbb.b.bbbbbbbb H'-bbt; vbbcbb.b.b>.b.b> ^KkiLfeiL. ft b C.b.b. cA!b.b_b.c>. '
-
b'bt'v'v b C'v^
>»bb>.
'^B
Japanese
Built-in
furniture in
Tea-Room
-
(first
hah of
.
W—
?^
i9i
the seventeenth century)
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETT1
"Ballads and Sonnets" (1881)
295
EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN
McNMl
1
Fait (1878)
-b
.bbbbbb, /.tb.b» b..t.vv^i_ri^3 b.b.b bb^ 1 -J
289
the
of the Detached Palace, Katsura
bbb>>>»
.
-.' %f
b
294
Binding foi
WHISTI ÊR
Stand
at the
and
JAM!
S
Pan, World's
The Masters oi
Iiulustri.il
Design
The Influence (Pages icy
296
French
1
oi
William Blake
14)
Sideboard in Baroque style (circa 1S50)
29S
RICHARD NORMAN SHAW
Old Swan
House, London (1876)
300
JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS
Design for a
Gothic window (1853)
301
Body 297
WILLIAM BLAKI
Angels Hovering over the
of Christ (1808)
ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO
Chair (1881)
299 CHARLES ANNESLE Y VOYSI } Broadleys residence, Lake Windemere (1S9S)
290
Preliminaries to Art (Pages
302
i
m
Nouveau
in
France
124)
GUSTAVE EIFFEL
The Eiffel Tower, Paris
303
JULES CHÉRET
306
GUTAVE SERRURIER-BOVY
Ravine (1889)
Brussels
Poster for "Folies-Bergère,
305
VICTOR HORTA
residence, Brussels
(1
Wall Limp
in the
Solvay
A ^ffl^^Sr ^1[
m
"l
_
0L
WW
n
1
J
! I
Interior
display for an exhibition (between 1X94 and (898)
895-1 900)
ïjEMÛ
291
VINCENT VAN GOGH
(Pages 125-141)
(1889)
Les Girard" (1877)
304
3o 9
GERRIT WILLEM
DIJSSELHOF
Dijsselhof
Room
(1890-92)
310
JAN TOOROP
Willows
GEORGES MINNE
307
Under
the
(n. d.)
Drawing (1890)
Holland (Pages 141-152)
THEODORUS
308 I
311
fi
A. C.
COLENBRANDER
886)
HERBERT HORN!
"The Angel with the
trumpet," decorative fabric (circa 1884) 312
JAN TOOROP
New
Art) (1893)
Lijnenspel (The
Old and
the
292
»
,
Paris ges
and Nancy \n-171)
EMILE GALLE
313
Pitcher,
with a design
3
WALTER CRANE
314
Hellas" (1888)
293
Illustration for "Echoes of
1
5
EMILE GALLE
Top of a small table
(circa 1900)
representing Thetis (before 1890?)
316
HECTOR GUIMARD
Sèvres, France (1903)
Castel Henriette,
317
AUGUSTE PERRET
Paris (1905)
Garage rue Ponthieu,
;
Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland
ondon
(P.igcs 191-212)
318
CHARLES ANNESLEY YOYSEY
Living
room in the artist's home, "71)e Orchard," Chorley Wood, Buckinghamshire (1900)
319
CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY
Covered
322
HANS VON MARÉES
Ganymede
armchair (before 1897)
71>e
Abduction of
(1887)
Right: 323
320
CHARLES HARRISON TOWNSEND
Whitechapel Art Gallery (1897)
JOHANN
JULIUS SCHARVOGEL
Vase
(circa 1900)
324
ADRIEN DALPAYRAT
321
MAX BEERBOHM
Rossetti
is
heard for the
The
Flask
(circa
1S93)
name of Dante Gabriel
first
time in the Western
States of America. Time: 1882. Lecturer: Mr.
Oscar
Wilde (1916)
294
PETER BEHRENS
328 Lilies
Butterflies on
HENRY VAN DE VELDE
329
Water
(between 1S96 and 1897)
Tea service
(1905-06)
325
HERMANN
OBRIST Monument
to the Pillar
331
(1898)
326
Left:
ERNST BARLACH
Barcelona (Pages
PETER BEHRENS
Library in the Behrens
home, Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt (1901)
295
Rear façade of the Casa
Portrait of Justus
Brinckmann (1902)
327
ANTONI GAUDf
Battle, Barcelona (1905-07)
330
2
1
2-227)
ANTONI GAUDÎ
railing of the
Banister and garden Casa Vincens, Barcelona (1878-80)
332
ANTONI GAUDi
Dressing table (1885-85)
RAIMONDO D'ARONCO
Pavilion for the 33) International Exhibition of Decorative Art, Turin (1902)
Glasgow (Pages 239-243)
Chicago and
New York
(Pages 227-238)
337
WILLIAM BLAKE When
the
Morning
Stars
Sang Together (1825)
334
LOUIS
COMFORT Till ANY
artist's flat in the
Street,
New
York
338 MARGARET MACDONALDMACKINTOSH Crucifixion (1894)
Window in the
"Bella" Apartments on East 26th (circa 1880)
DANIEL HUDSON BURNHAM and JOHN WELLBORN ROOT Detail of the facade of the
336
Monadnock
Building, Chicago (1891)
Left:
335
LOUIS
COMFORT TIFFANY
the artist's house on
Avenue,
New
York
72nd
Street
Fireplace
m
and Madison
(18J
296
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
339
artist's
room
at
The
340
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Xorth
façade of "Windyhill," Kilmalcolm, Scotland
Dennistoun, Scotland (area 1890)
(1899-1901)
Vienna (Pages 244-259)
i4 :
OSKAR KOKOSCHKA
tr'àujnenden
341
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Library
343
-jjing
of the
Glasgow School
JOSEPH OLBRICH
of Art (19c-
The Playhouse for the
Princesses, Schloss Woljsgarten near Langen,
(1902)
297
Germany
Knaben" (1908)
Illustration for
'Dit
The Significance of Art Nouveau (Pages 260-277)
344
LUDWIG VON HOI-MANN
Vignette from
°Pan"(iS 97 )
347
Diffraction pattern of the transversal section
of a tube
348
,45
EMILE GALLE
plants (circa
346
1
Vase,
Austrian
Decorative fabric (before 1902)
with a design of aquatic
900)
Japanese
Sword guard
(eighteenth or nine-
298
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Revue Wagnérienne, The Architectural Record,
New
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Paris, 1880-1912
Paris, 1885-88
—
York-London, about The Savoy, London, 1896
1891
The Architectural Review, London, about 1896
L'Art Décoratif, Paris, 1898-1914
Rome, 1898-1901
L'Arte,
Arte Italiana Decorativa e Industriale, Rome-Venice,
The Later Work of Aubrey Beardsley, London-
New
York, 1901
Simplizissimus, Munich, about 1896
Behrens, Peter. Feste des Lebens und der Kunst, Tiie
Studio, London, about 1893
Van
Nu
Jena, 1900
en Straks, Brussels-Antwerp,
—
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1
Ein
The Yellow Book, London, 1894-97
Art
Zeitschrift fur Innendekoration,
Bell, Décoration, Paris, about 1897
die Ausstellung
1901
1890-1914 et
Dokument Deutscher Kunst:
der Kùnstler-Kolonie in Darmstadt, 1901, Munich,
Ver Sacrum, Vienna, 1898; Leipzig, 1899-1903
Darmstadt, Germa-
Malcolm. Edward Burne-Jones; A Record and
a Review, London, 1892
ny, about 1890
L'Art Moderne, Brussels, 1881-1914
Bénédite, Léonce. René Lalique. Paris,
n. d.
Avalun, Munich, 1901
Berlage, Hendrik Petrus. "Over Architectuur,"
Bouw-
Tweemaandelijks
en Sierkunst, Haarlem, 1898- 1902
1896, Part
The Century Guild
Hobby
Horse, Orpington, Kent,
England, 1884, 1886-92; The
Hobby
1893-94
New
Literature (To 19 14)
Abbot, Thomas K. Celtic Ornaments from the Book of Kells, London, 1892-95
The Chap-Book, Chicago, 1894-98
The Craftsman, Eastwood,
Contemporay
Horse, London,
York,
1
901 -16
"L'Affice internationale illustrée," Vol. I (October, 1895),
Dekorative Kunst, Munich, 1897-1929
No.
Poster,
New
York,
Drame Wag-
nérien, Paris, 1895
The Dome, London, 1897- 1900
—
L'Emulation, Brussels, about 1874
Ashbee, Charles R. "A Short History of the Guild
The Evergreen, Edinburgh, 1895-97
and School of Handicraft," Transactions of the Guild and School of Handicraft, London, Vol. I, 1890, pp.
Die Graphischen Kiinste, Vienna, about 1879
19-31
Das
Intérieur, Vienna, 1900-15
Interiors,
New
W.
Paris, 1889-1913
Le Réveil, Ghent, about 1891
La Revue Blanche,
299
898-1 921
Petersburg, 1899- 1904
Paw, Berlin, 1895-1900
La Plume,
1888-91;
Paris, 1891-1903
Rus-
— —
La Culture
and
Essays,
Le Japon
Artisti-
Illustrations
edition,
German
edition,
Japanischer
"Wohin
Vol.
—
artistique en
Amérique, Paris, 1896
Salon de l'Art Nouveau, Paris, 1896
I,
treiben wir?" Dekorative Kunst, Munich,
1898, p.
1
"L'Art Nouveau,"
New
Record,
The Architectural
York, Vol. XII, 1902, No.
3,
pp. 279-85
Blanche, Jacques-Emile. Portraits of a Lifetime. The Late Victorian Era. The Edwardian Pageant. iByo-1^14,
and designed by Thomas Theodor Heine,
Aurier, G. Albert. "Le Symbolisme en Peinture," Mercure de France, Paris, Vol. II, 1891
New
No.
5,
Berlin,
I,
pp. 326-28
Bodenhausen, Eduard von. "Englische Kunst im Hause," Pan, Berlin,
Bracquemond,
Bahr, Hermann. Sezession, Vienna, 1900
York, 1938
Bode, Wilhelm. "Hermann Obrist," Pan,
Berlin, 1897
1
kiinstlerische Be-
n. d.
Formenschatz, Leipzig, 18S8-91
1896,
Die Kunst, Munich, 1899-1945
The Pageant, London, 1896-97
J.
d'AuBECQ, Pierre. Die Barrisons. Ein Kunsttraum,
Jugend, Munich, 1896-1933
Kunst und Kunsthandwerk, Vienna,
The Teachings of
Morris, London, 1901
Modern English Silverwork, London, 1909
illustrated
St.
Oscar. Die Wand und ihre
Bing, S. Artistic Japan: London, 1888-91; French
—
Die Musik und die Inszenierung, Munich, 1899
—
York, about 1888
loventut, Barcelona, 1900-03
Mir Iskustva,
Grundlagen und Entwicklung der Architektur,
Bie,
The Dial, London, 1889-97
kin and
der Baukunst, Leipzig, 1905
iiber Stil in
1895
— An Endeavour Towards
II,
Berlin, 1908
que, Paris,
1899-1901; Leipzig, 1902
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155, pp. 409-62
Appia, Adolphe. La Mise en Scène de
Insel, Berlin,
Amsterdam,
Paris,
many, 1897-1934
Die
Gedanken
handlung, Berlin,
Alexandre, Arsène. The Modern Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Darmstadt, Ger-
La Plume,
— —
Tijdschrifî,
I
J.
II,
1896, p. 332
M. Du Dessin
et
de
la
Couleur,
Paris, 1885
Baillie Scott,
Mackay H. "An
Artist's
House,"
The Studio, London, Vol. IX, 1896-97, pp. 28-37
—
"On
dio,
the Choice of Simple Furniture," The Stu-
London, Vol. X, 1897, pp. 152-57
Bajot, Edouard. L'Art Nouveau
Ameublement,
Paris, 1898
— Décoration
et
Brinckmann, Justus. Hamburgisches Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe. Die Ankàufe auf der Weltausstellung, Paris, 1900; Hamburg, 1901 Caffin, Charles, H. "Edward
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An
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Appraisal,"
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Camera Work,
Steichen's
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—
1903,
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307
JOSEF
HOFFMANN
Vignette from "Ver
Sacrum" (1898)
1952,
LIST OF PLATES
AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Colorplates
Illustrations in the
Text
48
Théo van Rysselberghe.
Page from Alma-
Title
nack: Cahier de Vers d'Emile Verhaeren, Brussels, I
Bernhard Pankok. Endpaper design. For the Amt-
licbcr
Katalog der Ausstellung des Deutschen Reichs,
1900, issued by the at
German Empire
for their exhibit
1900 Paris World's Fair. Color lithograph,
the
1900. 9V2 x 7V2". Art Library of the former Berlin
State
The number before each note indicates the page number on whidi the illustration may be found. 5
Vignette
Whistler.
from
The
London-New York,
1890
Aubrey Beardsley. Isolde. From The Studio VI, London, 1896. Color lithograph, circa 189$. 9V4X
7
yh"
I,
Walter Crane. Illustration, From Flora's Feast,
London, 1889. Color lithograph. Private Tubingen,
collection,
Aubrey Beardsley. Initial from Sir Thomas MalLe Morte d'Arthur, Vol. 1, London, 1893
ory's 8
Thomas Theodor Heine. Vignette from Die Berlin, 1900, No. 2
Insel
Annie Mackie. Vignette from The Ever-
(left)
Book
poster,
Crafts,
14V8 x
1898.
nW.
Museum
of Arts and
Hamburg
Jan Toorop. Delftsche Slaolie. Color-lithographed poster amvertising salad oil, before 1897.
27W.
Berlin, 1896,
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Ger-
No.
H.
Cook. Easy
Fitz
London,
Piroli chair,
"The
Day Dreamer,"
and Illustrated Catalogue of London i8}i
Eugène-Emmanuel
from Entretiens sur
the Great Exhibition
Voillet-le-Duc.
Illustration
l'architecture, Vol. II, Paris, 1872
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Title page for Christina Goblin Market and Other Poems, London-
Rossetti's
Cambridge, 1862
from The Evergreen:
leaf
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The artist's signature. from The Blessed DamozellSancta Lilias, 1874. The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by
63
The Book of Summer, Edinburgh, 1895
Detail
Charles Ricketts. Vignette from Oscar Wilde's
1
Engraved by
cuted in papier-maché from the Official Descriptive
II,
1
Helen Hay. Calendar
A House
series of
of Winter, Edinburgh, 1897
Otto Eckmann. Vignette from Pan
(right)
10
V
39 x
9
from the
Illustration,
about 1850, made by Jennens and Bettridge, exe-
62
IV Henry van de Velde. Tropon. Color-lithographed
John Flaxman.
1795.
61 9
green: The
Germany
54
illustrations for the Tragedies of Aeschylus,
56
Museums, Berlin-Charlottenburg
II
III
McNeill
James
Gentle Art of Making Enemies,
Woodcut
1895.
of Pomegranates, London, 1891
courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
many 12
VI Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. May Milton. Color-
Hoffmann. Vignette from Ver Sacrum
Josef
VII
Annesley
Charles
Voysey.
Tulip
and
Bird.
Wallpaper, 1896. Manufactured by Essex and Co. Victoria and Albert
Fernand Khnopff.
14
ex
On
n'a que soi (bookplate),
page from Ver Sacrum
libris
Vienna, 1898, No.
I,
Selwyn Image. Title page from The Century Guild Hobby Horse, Orpington, Kent, 1884, No. 1
Wassily Kandinsky. Moonrise. Colored wood-
VIII
16 cut, 1902-03.
9V8 x 5V8". Stàdtische Galerie im Len-
Henry van de
Straks,
bachhaus, Munich
IX/X Antoni Gaudi.
Stained-glass windows, bein the
29
Colonia
"Room
de luxe" of the Willow Tea-Rooms. Painted wood, metal, and colored glass,
1904.
Each panel 77
1
/»
en
l
The
Kiss
(fourth
version).
Two-color woodcut, 1902. i7 3 /4 x 17V4". Oslo
Kom-
munes Kunstsamlinger, Oslo, Norway
Vignette
from Oscar
73 Aubrey Beardsley. Caricature of James McNeill Whistler (referring to Mallarmé's L'Après-midi d'un
London-
faune), from George Egerton's Keynotes,
Boston, 1893
74
Aubrey Beardsley. The Peacock
tion
30 Aubrey Beardsley. Initial from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Vol. 1, London, 1893 32
Koloman Moser.
Oscar Wilde's
for
Salome,
Skirt,
illustra-
London-Boston,
1894
33
Jean Middle.
Monstre,
Vignette from Ver
Sacrum
7$ (left) James McNeill Whistler. Preliminary sketch for a decoration for "The Peacock Room," 1876.
page
Pen and ink drawing, from size
Philip bequest
from Alphabet Lapidaire
Initials
7j
Aubrey Beardsley. The
(right)
for
illustration 1
a series of sketches,
12V8X7V8". University of Glasgow, Birnie
II,
No. 4
Oscar
Toilet of
Salome,
Wilde's
Salome,
London-
834-3 j Boston, 1894
34
Gottlieb Leberecht Crusius. Capriccio. Copper-
plate engraving, circa
5V8X4V4", from Ru-
1760,
dolf Berliner's Ornamentale Vorlage-Blatter des rj. bis 18.
Jahrhunderts, plate
4,
Leipzig, 1924-26
William Blake. The Divine Image from Songs of Innocence, London, 1789. Copperplate engraving 3 j
(monochrome) in plate 25
don
THOMAS THEODOR HEINE
Ricketts.
of Pomegranates, London, 1891
64 (right) Charles Ricketts. Illustration for Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates, London, 1891
Woodcut. Biblio-
1893.
Marcus Behmer. Drawing from Oscar Wilde's
Leipzig, 1899,
x zy h". The House of Frazer, Glasgow
XII Edvard Munch.
Brussels-Antwerp,
Nu
Salome, Leipzig, 1903
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Door to the
A House
Giiell,
near Barcelona
XI
Velde. Title page from Van
thèque Royal de Belgique, Brussels
tween 1898 and 1914. Chapel
Charles
(left)
12 15
Museum, London
64
Wilde's
lithographed poster, 189$. 31V8 x 25V4". Kaiser Wil-
helm Museum, Krefeld, Germany
I,
Vienna, 1898, No. 9
— similar
— 4V4 x
to
2 3 /s",
the
The
shown Museum, Lon-
illustration
British
76
James McNeill Whistler.
Butterflies
Gentle Art of Making Enemies,
from
71>e
London-New York,
1890 86
(left)
Charles Ricketts. The
illustration for
Moon-Horned
Io,
Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx, London,
1894 86
(right)
Charles Ricketts. Chloe from Daphnis
and Chloe, London,
1896.
Woodcut
Vignette from
"Pan" (1900)
308
1
Philipp Otto Runge. Geometric drawing of the
98
cornflower, Kunsthalle,
Pen
1808.
pencil,
15V4 x 7 7 /s",
Hamburg
Dante Gabriel
100
and
Rossetti.
Carpet design, 1861.
George Bir-
beck Hill, London, 1897
Christopher
from
Illustration
Dresser.
Heywood Sumner.
la
The
Vignette from Friedrich de
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo.
Félix Vallotton. Portrait of Henri de Régnier
Remy
from
Title
168
No.
I,
Berlin,
2
barrière, circa
la
Germany Charles Ricketts. Vignette from The Dial, Lon-
112
don, 1889, No.
John Duncan.
114
Book 1
1
Initial
from The Evergreen: The
of Spring, Edinburgh, 1895
logue of an exhibition at the Café des Arts (Volpini), Paris, 1889
Illustration
from Méthode de
Maurice Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes,
No.
189$,
126
poem from Pan I, Berlin,
Max
2
Max
(left)
Henry van de
London
circa 1895.
Woodcut
Henry van de
blaiement d'Art, Brussels,
Velde. Initial from 1894.
kamp's
Dominical, Antwerp, Royal de Belgique, Brussels
1892.
Max
page
Title
Bibliothèque
(left)
Georges Minnc. Illustration for Mau-
rice Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes, Paris, 1889. Biblio-
186
Laurence Housman.
(left)
End
Title
page for Jane
and Albert Museum, London
186
(right)
Daphnis
142
Aristide Maillol. Illustration for Lonet
Museum, London Charles
188
Brussels-Antwerp, 1893, No.
309
2.
Nu
en Straks,
outlining
an architectural competition. De-
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Elevation of the
242
Annesley Voysey.
Elevations
for
a
lieben Gott
Title
the Arts" (1901),
from
Darmstadt, Germany, 1902
page for Rainer Maria
und Anderes, Berlin-Leip-
1900
Max Amor und
Klinger.
Page
border
from
244
Joseph Maria Olbrich. Sketch for the exhibi"Wiener Sezession," from Ver Sa-
Otto Eckmann.
Sketches
for
supports
from
Berlin,
Eckmann. 1896, No. 5
Margin
design
from
Aubrey Beardsley. Margin design Thomas Malory's Le Morte d' Arthur, Vol. I,
205
(right)
from
Sir
37V8 x 12V8",
London, 1893
Museum
of Arts and Crafts,
Hamburg
die Praxis,
246
Otto
Leipzig, 1899
245 Poster for the Exhibition of the "Vereinigung Bildender Kunstler Osterreichs. 1901." Lithograph,
Berlin, 1897 (left)
II,
Apuleius'
Psyche, Munich, 1880
Neue Formen: Dekorative Entwurfe fur
I,
"House for a Lover of
tion hall of the
192
Pan
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Preliminary sketch
Hermann Muthesius' Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Haus eines Kunstfreundes, Meister der Innenkunst II,
Vom
Glasgow
north façade of the Glasgow School of Art, 1896
for the
Emil Rudolf Weiss.
191
Chloe, Paris, 1937. Woodcut
Jan Toorop. Vignette from Van
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Title for a bro-
1901. University of
241
Charles Ricketts. Illustration for Oscar
(right)
205 140
William H. Bradley. Poster for a bicycle com(n. d.). The Library of Congress, Washington,
of Elfintown, London, 1894. Vic-
thèque Royal de Belgique, Brussels
gus'
Antoni Gaudi. Ground plan for Casa Milâ,
for
crum Els-
Weib,
signed for the International Exhibition, Glasgow,
204 140
Ricketts
cliure
Rilke's
Velde. Title page for
229
239
zig,
Henry van de
Mann und
Barcelona, 1905-10
and Leander, London, 1894. Woodcut
Dé-
Woodcut, Biblio-
of illustrations to
1900-02. Woodcut, 2 x 7 7/s", Stàdelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main
Christopher Marlowe's and George Chapman's Hero
thèque Royal de Belgique, Brussels 138
Charles
(right)
house in Bedford Park near London, 1888-91
(right)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Border Design
series
D.C. 18 j
bert
Menu,
Velde.
designed
circa 1900
(right)
pany
Wilde's The Sphinx, London, 1894. Victoria and Al-
Le Mouvement Symboliste, 1957
letter
Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Ger-
Drayton's Nimphidia and the Muses' Elizium, Lon-
Elskamp. Vignette, circa 1900. Exhibition
catalogue for the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,
Otto Eckmann. Capital
(left)
many,
226
toria
137
Aubrey Beardsley,
Charles Ricketts. Title page for Michael
(left)
Barlow's The
Le Mouvement Symboliste, 1957
137
of
Elskamp. Vignette, circa 1900. Exhibition
catalogue for the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,
135
page for The Forty
Title
Charles Doudelet. Illustration for a
125
212
from the
don, 1896. Woodcut, Victoria and Albert Museum,
composition ornamentale, Paris, 1905
Wassily Kandinsky. Catalogue jacket for "Der
blaue Reiter" exhibition in Munich, 191
London, 1901 185
Eugène Grasset.
116
circa 1900
block
From The Later Work
Thieves.
Otto Eckmann. Decorative border designed for Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Germany,
210
212
Wood
Aubrey Beardsley.
183
Emile Schuffenecker. Illustration from a cata-
1
907.
Norway
Oslo,
for the
173 Edward Gordon Craig. Illustration for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Der weisse Fâcher, Leipzig, 1
circa 1900
208 Edvard Munch. Paraphrase on Salome, 1898. Woodcut, I7 3 /4X iiVs", Kommunes Kunstsamlinger,
211
Paul Gauguin. Bretonnes à
169
Pan
1889. Lithograph, 6 l U x 8Vs", Kunsthalle, Bremen,
Wren's City Churches, Orpington, Kent, 1883
many,
the
Vignette from
Félix Vallotton.
1895,
page from
de Gourmont's Le Livre des Masques,
and 1898. Woodcut
Paris, 1896
Motte-Fouqué's Undine, London, 1888
1 1
lands, 1899. Paper, 11 x 7V2"
$2
Otto Eckmann. Decorative border designed Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Ger-
207
for the
Jan Toorop. Binding for W. G. van Nouhuy's Egidius en de vreemdeling, Haarlem, The Nether-
1
Rudiments of Botany, London, 1859 104
I,
2
148
In Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.
101
Charles Ricketts. Illustration from The Dial
147
London, 1889, No.
Josef
Hoffmann. Sketch for a Country House,
from Ver Sacrum 259
260
Leipzig, 1900
Gustav Klimt. The
Pirchan's
crum
III,
Alfred Roller. III,
artist's signature,
from Emil
Gustav Klimt, Vienna, 1956
Day and
Leipzig, 1900
Night, from Ver Sa-
262
Robert Burns. Natura Naturans (1891), from
The Evergreen: The Book of Spring, Edinburgh, 1895 Charles Ridketts. Bookplate, for Gleeson White,
271
1892
Aubrey Beardsley. Drawing Hyperion II, Munich, 1908, No. 3 276
(circa 1894),
from
Aristide Maillol. Illustration for Virgil's Ec-
logues,
Weimar, Germany, 1926
(series
begun 1910).
Woodcut 277
A House 280
of Pomegranates, London, 1891
&
Co. Department Store. Cast iron,
899-1904. Chicago
8
Bierbaum's Gugeline, Berlin, 1899. 7 3 /sx spor-Museum, Offenbach, Germany 9
Emil Rudolf Weiss. Vignette from Otto Julius
Thomas Theodor Heine.
Berlin, 1900,
No.
Charles
Vignette from
Pan V,
of Arts
Ricketts.
Binding for Oscar Wilde's
of Pomegranates. London, 1891.
Stamped
8V4 x 7V8". The British Museum, London
Art,
New York;
gift
of
Mme. Hector Gui-
room of the Solvay residence (presently Wittamer-De Camps residence). 1895-1900.
Guell, Barcelona
The number before each note indicates not the page
Wittamer-De Camps
Victor Horta. Solvay residence (presently the L.
the
The Metropolitan Museum of York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer 2
Art,
(?).
The William Morris
dome above
the staircase of
gilt,
circa 1900,
from the Solvay residence, Brussels. Height 4 3 /s", width 18V8". Collection La Baronne Horta, Brussels
Aubecq residence (now destroyed).
1900. Brus-
Glass vases: Favrile glass, circa 1900. Height
13V8" to 15V4". Three-footed candlestick: bronze,
Emile Galle. Small goblets
(left
and
right of center).
Glass, circa 1900. Height 8 s /s". All: collection
Jr.,
New York
Adrien Dalpayrat. Vase. Glazed pottery, circa
1900. Height 5'/e". Austrian Arts,
Vienna
27
Museum
for
Applied
of Inno-
William Blake. Infant Joy. From Songs of InnoLondon, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate en-
28
William Blake.
Title page.
Museum, London
From Songs
Human
Soul,
Two
of Inno-
Contrary
London, 1794. Hand-coThe British
Museum, London 29
Matthias Lock. Rocaille. Copperplate engraving,
30 Léon Bakst. Vaslav Nijinsky in "L'Après-midi d'un faune." Watercolor, 1912. 15V8 x ioVs". The
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn. The
Ella
Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Niccolo
16 Antoni Gaudi. Balustrade of the terrace of the Park Guell, Barcelona. Before 1906
dell'
Abbate. The Frogman (design for a
costume). Pen-and-ink drawing with wash,
third quarter of the sixteenth century. 14V* x 9V8".
The National Museum, Stockholm 17
Antoni Gaudi. Detail from the
the
Church of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Circa
east façade of
32
William Blake. The Mission of
series of 102 illustrations for
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mirror for the
1
"Room
Canto
14V8". City
de luxe" of the Willow Tea-Rooms, Glasgow. Leaded colored glass and mirrored glass, 1904. 3iVsx9'/s".
England
Collection of the University of Glasgow
33
II).
Watercolor,
Museum and Art
William Blake.
Tf)e
Virgil.
From
Dante's Divine
the
Comedy
1824-27.
zo'/sx
Gallery, Birmingham,
Great Red Dragon and the
Woman
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Wall-bracket light-
19
ing
of
20
Edgar Kauffmann,
From Songs
cence,
31
fixture.
Tin-plated
metal
and colored
glass,
1900-02. Height 12". Collection of the University
Height 11V4"
Title page.
London, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British Museum, London
ballet
Louis Comfort Tiffany. Glass vases and candle-
circa 1900.
William Blake.
(Inferno,
Victor Horta. Inkstand. Bronze
stick.
26
sels
1910
Gallery, Walthamstow, England
5
895-1900. Brussels
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Cromer Bird. Print-
son and Godlee, Manchester
4
1
New
ed cotton fabric, circa 1884. Manufactured by Simp-
3
residence).
Victor Horta. Glass
1 5
Museum,
British
5 1764. II 3 /4X 8 /s"
the illustrations printed
fore 1896.
The
London
lored copperplate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8".
Black-and-white Plates
Louis Comfort Tiffany. Bowl. Favrile glass, be-
William Blake. The Divine Image. From Songs
States of the
14
1750.
of Innocence, London, 1789. Hand-colored copper-
the L.
Antoni Gaudi. Cupola of the porter's lodge. Colored tesserae and broken tiles, before 1906. Park
1
25
cence and Experience Showing the
13
number but the number of
French. Carpet design. Watercolor, circa
the dining
Brussels
on coated paper.
24
graving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British
Victor Horta. Detail of the main chandelier in
12
Charles Gamier. Grand staircase of the Paris
Opéra. 1861-75
cence,
pearwood,
Modern mard
London
plate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8".
Hector Guimard. Detail of a small table. Carved circa 1908. Height 43V2". The Museum of
1 I,
4
Museum
and Crafts, Hamburg, Germany
A House
the Ball. Be-
Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris
Kwanshosai Toyo. Lid of a Japanese lacquer box.
linen.
307 Josef Hoffmann. Vignette from Ver Sacrum Vienna, 1898, No. 10
5W. Kling-
Anonymous photographer. Before
tween 1854 and 1864. Victoria and Albert Museum,
23
Emil Rudolf Weiss. Endpaper. For Otto Julius
10
Bierbaum's Gugeline, Berlin, 1899
308
son Pirie Scott
Late nineteenth century. 9 7 /s x 7V2"
Charles Ricketts. Vignette from Oscar Wilde's
22
Louis Sullivan. Detail of the façade of the Car-
7
1
273
Persian. Bowl. Ceramic, thirteenth century
6
and 1810
(?).
ington, D.
15V4X 11V4". National Gallery, Wash-
C; Rosenwald
Collection
Glasgow Louis Jacques
Mandé Daguerre.
Still Life.
Da-
guerreotype, 1839. Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires 21
Clothed with the Sun. Illustration for the Revelation of St. John. Watercolor, between 1805
du Rousillon, Perpignan, France
Louis
Comfort Tiffany. Hamilton New York
dence. Circa 1880.
William Blake. Paolo and Francesca in the Whirlof Lovers in The Circle fo the Lustful. From the series of 102 illustrations for Dante's Divine
34
wind
Comedy Fish
resi-
(Inferno,
14V8 x 20 7 /s". City
Canto V). Watercolor, 1824-27. Museum and Art Gallery, Birm-
ingham, England
310
35
36
No.
I,
2,
Chicago, 1894-95
Louis Comfort Tiffany. Vase. Favrile glass, be-
fore 1900.
37
The Serpentine Dancer.
William H. Bradley.
From The Chap-Book, Vol.
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
William Blake. Lot and His Daughters
New 38
(detail).
x 11V4". Auckland City Art Gallery,
William Blake.
The
82 1. Woodcut.
39
53
Illustration.
Edward
British
Calvert.
For Robert John Pastorals, London,
Museum, London
William Burges. Frieze. From a mantlepiece
London
English. Bowl. Glass, circa i860.
Made by
Samuel Palmer. The Valley Thick with Corn. Se-
pia drawing, 1825. 7V8 x 10V4".
Ste-
67
Thomas
The campus of the Uni-
II
54 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (detail). Oil on canvas, 1849. 33V8 x 24 3 A".
The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy
John Palmer. Lansdown Crescent. Bath, 1794
43
Charles Doudelet. Illustration (detail). For the
poem, Trois soeurs aveugles, from Maurice Maeter-
Dante Drawing an An-
55
Dante Gabriel
gel
on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death. Water-
Rossetti.
68
Paris, 1896.
Woodcut
Richard Ovey. The Scarlet Ground White Pas-
Flower Chintz. Printed
sion
fabric,
1802. Victoria
16V2X24". The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England
47
English. Jug. Glass, circa 1820. Victoria
and Al-
Museum, London
Edward Burne- Jones. Painted
cabinet.
Oil on
Height
Co.(?).
Made by T.F.Christie and
io'/«". Victoria
and Albert Museum,
London Molding from a doorframe in the Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill. Wood, before 1762.
Room
Twickenham, England
57
Dante Gabriel
Richard Redgrave. Christening cup. Embossed
and chased
Made by Harry Emanuel, London and Chesnau, for Summerly's Art Manufactures.
silver,
Height
Ecce Ancilla Domini
Rossetti.
5'/s". Victoria
and Albert Museum,
in
51
1850. Pub-
and Illustrated Great Exhibition London 18 }i
the Official Descriptive
Catalogue of the
Peter Cooper. Rocking chair. Steel framework
with velvet upholstery, circa i860. Height 87V8".
311
Vanna. Oil on
No.
)).
Oil on canvas, with a
oils
courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
James McNeill Whistler. The Peacock Room (origthe dining room in the Leyland residence,
London). Shelves designed by Thomas
D.C.
lery of Art,
Tate Gallery
Webb. Red House. 1859. Bexley Heath, Kent, England 58
Philip
and landing.
Philip Webb. Staircase
1859.
Red
leather, 1876-77.
Jeckell. Oil on The Freer Gal-
Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
Edward William Godwin. White House. London
1877.
Chelsea,
72
Edward William Godwin.
Chair.
Made by Wil-
liam Watt. Black lacquer on oak, originally uphol-
House, Bexley Heath, Kent, England
stered in Japanese material, circa 1885. Height 42V8".
60 Edward Burne- Jones. Drawing. From an album
Victoria and Albert Museum, London Edward William Godwin. Small table. Made by Wil-
of drawings by Burne- Jones. Gouache, after 1884.
61
7
5
/s".
The
British
Museum, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Aurelia
i4 5/s".
I Fazio's
Mis-
Oil on canvas, 1863 and 1873.
Room
63
decoration supervised by Mor-
and Co.
Edward Burne- Jones. Drawing. From an album
of drawings by Burne-Jones. Pencil, after 1884. The
64
Museum, London
Fernand Khnopff.
/
Lock
My Door Upon
73
Edward William Godwin.
ware and imitation leather panels,
Myself.
74
toria
Rossetti.
The Blessed Damozel
I
Oil on canvas, 1874. i8Vbx
for furniture.
75 Christopher Dresser. Teapot. Made by James Dixon and Sons, Sheffield, England. Silver plate with ebony handle, circa 1880. Height ?'/•>". Collection James Dixon and Sons, Sheffield, England
76
Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen. Covered Height 4". Museum of
Arts and Crafts, Hamburg,
(detail).
Height
and Albert Museum, London
Collection of Pictures, Munich
Dante Gabriel
circa 1877.
Edward William Godwin. Designs
vase. Porcelain, circa 1900.
Sancta Lilias
Made by
silver hard-
Pencil and watercolor, circa 1876. 7V2 x 9V2". Vic-
Oil on canvas, 1891. 28V8 x 55V8". Bavarian State
65
Sideboard.
William Watt. Black-stained wood with
70 7 /s". Victoria and Albert Museum, London
62 Philip Webb. Stenciled ceiling frieze. For the Green Dining Room in the Victoria and Albert Mu-
ris
liam Watt. Black lacquer on oak, 1874. Height 27V8".
City Art Gallery (Georgian Room), Bristol, England
i6Vsx The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by
tress (detail).
British
Grainger. Pitchers. Ceramic, circa
lished
Monna
and gold, circa 1865. 24V8 x The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by
wood, 1850. 28% x 1 j 3 /4". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the
1848.
London 50
Silver,
frame painted with
wood, canvas, and
seum. 1866-67.
49
and
in Blue
(The Annunciation). Oil on canvas stretched over
courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
48
Rossetti.
James McNeill Whistler. Old Battersea Bridge: Nocturne in Blue and Gold (original title: Nocturne
70
seum, London
Diameter
Richard Redgrave. Water decanter. Painted and
gilded glass, circa 1847.
the supervision
69
i9 5/V'.
59 45 English. Pitcher. Glass, circa 1820. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
bert
Dante Gabriel
1853.
and Albert Museum, London
46
Anonymous photographer (under
canvas, 1866. 35 x 33 7 /s". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate
71
44
I,
inally
42
Douze Chansons,
From Pan
Tenderness.
Gallery
of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
versity of Virginia, 1823
linck's
Khnopff.
Berlin, 1895
Circa i860. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
56
Jefferson. Wall.
1.
Height 5V2". Collection John Northwood
wood, i860. Height 46V8". Victoria and Albert Mu41
Fernand
No.
The Ashmolean Mu-
seum, Oxford, England
66
vens and Williams, Brierley Hill near Stourbridge.
color,
40
in a
of Dante Gabriel Rossetti). Mrs. William Morris.
O God! Thy Bride Seeketh Thee.
Copperplate engraving, 1828. The British Museum,
The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by
i8Vs".
courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
Zealand
Thornton's translation of Virgil's 1
52
for the Arts of Decora-
house in Melbury Road, London. Circa 1875-80
Pen-and-ink and wash (inscribed to John Flaxman), circa 1820. 7V8
The Cooper Union Museum tion, New York
77
Germany
Japanese. Silk brocade. Eighteenth century. Vic-
toria
and Albert Museum, London
78
Chinese. Bowl. Carved agate, eighteenth century.
Width Main 79
Museum
j'A".
of Handicrafts, Frankfurt
Made by William
Russian. Bowl. Carved agate, end of the nine-
Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,
Pottery,
Vase.
J.
"Clutha"
1892-96.
Swadlincote.
Noh
Made
glass, 1896.
94 Kate Greenaway. Design for a 1864
tile.
Watercolor,
Henry van de Velde. Glass skylight. 1901. Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum), Hagen, Germany
Alexandre de Riquer. Binding. For "Crisan-
Swinburne's Atalanta
leaf
on
linen.
The
96 Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Writing desk. Oak, 1886. Height 39". The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, England
For Algernon
Calydon,
in
1865.
Grammar
83 Ogata Korin. Screen. Painted and gold-leafed paper, circa 1700. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New
Owen
97
Museum, London
British
Horse Chestnut Leaves. From The Ornament, London, 1856.
Jones.
of
Charles Annesley Voysey. "Tokyo" wallpaper.
98
1893. Printed
York. Fletcher Fund, 1926
Aubrey Beardsley. Binding. For Ernest Dowson's Verses, London, 1896. Parchment. 8 x 5 7 /s". Victoria and Albert Museum, London 84
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Decorative
Printed cotton fabric,
Woven
1883.
by hand
at Essex
and Co. Victoria and
(not reproduced) 9 x 9".
no
tury Guild by Simpson and Godlee, Manchester
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London 86
Joseph
Height i2
5
Angell. /s".
Pitcher.
Silver
gilt,
1825.
in Dante
Museum, London
for the
Flowers.
87
Thoughts. Watercolor with printed text, 1796. 20 7 /s
& Co.,
scriptive Catalogue of the
in
the Official
Orna-
104
Damask. Silk, and Albert Museum, London Jones.
Christopher
Dresser.
Made by William Height
8 1 /!".
Ault's
Collection Miss
Ceramic,
Pottery,
C
J.
S.
Swadlincote.
called
Ault
Miss
J.
"Rossetti
Manuscript"), begun by William
Blake's brother, Robert. Watercolor, 1787. ish
106
Height of mirror 23V8". Collection
Drew and
British
Museum, London
Heywood Sumner.
Binding. For Friedrich de
Motte-Fouqué's Undine, London,
1888.
Blind-
stamped on imitation leather William Blake.
A
Cradle Song. From Songs of
Innocence, London, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British Museum, London
Frederick
edition,
Surrey, England
ish
The
Brit-
Museum, London
Gilchrist's Life
H. Drew, Aldbury Heath,
Heywood Sumner.
5
Shields.
text
by Henry
and Works
Museum, London
For
Alexander
of William Blake, second
London, 1880. Gold
leaf
on
S.
Leigh, London, 1882.
William Blake. Christ Ministered
116
From T.
Gold
leaf
on
linen.
The
Brit-
to
by Angels.
the series of illustrations to Milton's Paradise
Watercolor,
1807
or
1808.
6V4 x
s'/s".
H. Riches Collection, London Jan Toorop. Sketch for "The Three Brides."
117
Black crayon, 1892. 24V4 x 29V8". Gemcentemuseum,
The Hague 118 and 119 signs.
and
Paul Gauguin. Vase with Breton de-
Ceramic, circa 1888. Height irVa". Musées
Royaux d'Art
et d'Histoire, Brussels
Paul Gauguin. Honni
120 Binding.
Binding. For Cinderella, a
Fairy Opera in four acts, music by John Farmer,
Regained.
Christopher Dresser. Design for a stained-glass
Robert Blake. The King and the Queen of the Fairies. From William Blake's Note-Book (the so-
Walnut, inlaid with ebony and sycamore, circa 1855. Top of dressing table: inlaid marble. Height of dresMiss
The
linen
105
1879.
William Butterfield. Dressing table and mirror.
sing table 37 3 /s".
Victoria and Al-
window. From Christopher Dresser's Principles of Decorative Design, London, 1873
circa 1870. Victoria
Pitclier.
Woolams and Co. Museum, London for
1870
don i8;i
91
of
Christopher Dresser's Principles in Design, London,
in the Official
Descriptive Catalogue of the Great Exhibition Lon-
90
Grammar
Christopher Dresser. Force and Energy. From
103
English. Carpet design. Circa 1850. Executed by
Owen
Made
1886. bert
H. Brinton, Kidderminster. Published
Ai".
113 la
1 1
i8}i
89
Jones' The
Charles Annesley Voysey. "Cereus" wallpaper.
102
DeGreat Exhibition London
Crag. Published
s 1
ment, London, 1856
English. Carpet design. Circa 1850. Executed by
Bright
88
From Owen
Sir Galahad, Sir
William Blake. The Chorus of the Skies. From Edward Young's Night
112
Arthur Heygate
Christopher Dresser. Plans and Elevations of
How
But Sir Percival's Sister Died by the Way. Water-
the series of illustrations to
101
Arts of Decoration,
Gabriel Rossetti.
Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sancgreal;
114
1854-55.
The Cooper Union Museum New York
From the series of illustraBook of Job. Copperplate engraving, 8'A x 6V4". The British Museum, London
tions to The
99 William Morris. "Pimpernel" wallpaper. 1876. Printed by Jeffery & Co., London. Victoria and Al-
Mackmurdo. Screen. Satin, embroidered in silk and gold threads, 1884. 47V2 x 42V8". The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, England
(?).
William Blake. Then the Lord answered Job
out of the Whirlwind.
Albert Museum, London
100
Cen-
The Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, England
color, 1864
bert
fabric.
for the
in a series
1875. Diameter 8V4". Size of entire sheet
Pencil,
x 85
Edward Burne- Jones. Orpheus. One
109
95
temes," Barcelona, 1899. Tooled leather. 7V8 x 4 3 /s". Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg, Germany
Gold
William Blake. The Dream of Jacob. Water14V8X 11V8"
of works on the subject of Orpheus and Eurydice.
and Albert Museum, London
Charles
Oil
color, 1808.
Germany
Rossetti. Binding.
Stairs.
the Tate Gallery
108
by James Cooper and Sons, Glasgow
play. Eighteenth century. Victoria
Dante Gabriel
Edward Burne-Joncs. The Golden
107
on canvas, 1880. 109X46V8". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of
Ault
Japanese. Silk brocade for the costume of an
actor in a
82
George Walton.
93
Width 7V4". Collection His Royal Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein.
81
Ceramic,
Vase.
Ault's
Height 8V2". Collection Miss C.
teenth century.
80
Christopher Dresser.
92
am
soit qui
mal y pense (Leda
the Swan). Design for a plate used as a jacket
for the series, Dessins Lithographiques. Lithograph,
1889.
Art,
11V4 x 10V4". The Metropolitan
New
Museum
of
York. Rogers Fund, 1922
312
A
Emile Bernard. Breton Women. Colored wood-
i2i
cut. 4'As
x 15V8". Kunsthalle, Bremen,
Paul Gauguin. Portrait-vase of
122
Ceramic,
ecke>
Emery Reves,
1888-89. Height
Germany
Mme.
SchuffenCollection
9V2".
Victor Horta. Dining room of the Horta re-
139
1
Henry van de
Haymaking. Oil on can29V2 x }7 3 /s". Estate of Henry van
vas, circa 1893.
d'un faune." Design for the ballet produced by Sergei
140
Velde.
Velde.
Bloemenwerf
126
Maurice Denis.
Amour: Douze
For Maurice Denis'
Title page.
lithographies
en
couleurs,
Henry van de Wooden chairs with
seats of
woven
room
1
furniture.
straw. Table of
Museum
Musée Rodin, Paris
Painted
wood
bas-relief,
40V2
x 28V8". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Door handle
the L.
in the
Solvay residence (presently
Wittamer-De Camps
residence).
Bronze
gilt,
142
Henry van de
Velde.
Woman's
dress.
Circa
the L.
Solvay residence (presently
Wittamer-De Camps
residence).
Bronze
gilt,
Georges Minne. Fountain with five kneeling
boys. Marble,
1
145
1892-93. Brussels
132
Jurriaan
J.
Kok
(designer of piece) and
J.
W.
The Hague
dence.
Mahogany upholstered
Height
34".
Collection
L.
From
the Solvay resi-
in velvet,
1
895-1900.
Wittamer-De
Camps,
Brussels
Agatha Wegrif-Gravesteyn. Wall hanging. Ba-
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
133
Victor Horta. Detail of a door in the Solvay
sidence).
134
Wood, 1895-1900.
Wittamer-De Camps
re-
resi-
dence). Parquet, 1895- 1900. Brussels
Victor Horta. Detail of the balcony of the
Horta residence. Cast 136
iron, 1898- 1900. Brussels
Victor Horta. Auditorium of the Maison du
Victor
Horta.
1896-99. Brussels
313
frame,
12V8X23V4" (without Museum, Otterlo, The Ne-
1893.
therlands 148
Camille
Maison
du
1
Gauthier.
878".
Peuple,
façade.
Vase.
Glass,
circa
1900.
Musée des Beaux- Arts, Nancy, France
René Lalique. Ornamental comb. Horn,
158
circa
1900. Austrian
Museum
gold,
for
Ap-
Vienna
Emile Galle. Vase. Multicolored, carved, and
159
etched glass, circa 1895- 1900. Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Nancy, France Hector Guimard. Staircase
160 1.
i6t
in the artist's house.
Paris chair. Pearwood, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Hector Guimard. Upholstered
l 1904. Height 43 /i".
162 Hector Guimard. Upholstered chair. Cherrywood^), upholstered in leather, 1908. Height 44V1". The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, New York 163
Hector Guimard. Auditorium
in the
Humbert
de Romans Building. 1902. Paris
Jan Toorop. Preliminary study for 'The Three 1891 or
1892.
164
Hector Guimard. Detail of a Paris Métro
tion.
Painted cast iron, circa 1900
165
Hector Guimard. Metal picture frame (with an
sta-
7V2 x 10V4". Krôller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands 149 Christophe Karel de Nerée tot Babberich. Benediction. Embroidery on silk, executed by the artist's
mother,
Mevrouw
C. de Nerée tot Babberich-
van Houton, before 1909. 2iVsx museum, The Hague 150
ii 3 /s".
Gemeente-
Johan Thorn Prikker. De Bruid. Oil on canvas, 57'/2X33 7 /8". Krôller-Muller Museum,
Bronze of
The Netherlands
Hendrik Pctrus Berlage. Great Hall of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. 1898-1903. Amsterdam 1 5
gilt,
Modern
Japanese
color
print).
before 1900. Height 8V4". The
Museum
Art,
New
York. Gift of Mme. Guimard
166 Hector Guimard. Desk. From the artist's house. Ashwood, circa 1903. Height 28V4", width 101". The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mme. Hector Guimard
1892-93. Otterlo,
Peuple. 1896-99. Brussels 137
wood
frame). Krôller-Muller
Brussels
Wittamer-De Camps
Made by Mu-
Bally
157
early-nineteenth-century
Victor Horta. Inlaid floor in the Solvay re-
sidence (presently the L.
135
Jan Toorop. Song of the Times. Black chalk and on brown paper in a painted and
pencil over colors
Brides." Colored crayons and pen,
residence (presently the L.
am Main.
Hector Guimard. Detail of a Paris Métro staPainted cast iron and colored glass, circa 1900
191
tik-dyed chiffon velvet, circa 1900. 78V8 x }j 3 /s".
carved
Victor Horta. Armchair.
boot. Kidskin, 1902.
tion.
plied Arts,
van Rossem (decorator). Vase. So-called "eggshell" porcelain, circa 1900. Height 12V4". Made by Manufaktur Rozenburg, The Hague. Gemeentemuseum,
147 Victor Horta. Staircase in the Tassel residence.
and
enamel,
898-1906. Height (of figures) 30V4".
1895-1900. Brussels 131
Gold,
seum of Shoes, Schônenwerd, Switzerland 156
143
146 in the
circa
glass,
Rotzler, Zur-
1896
1895-1900. Height 7V8". Brussels
Door handle
Brooch.
Otto Herz und Co., Frankfurt
Minne, Ghent 1890.
W.
Height 4V8", width 2V4". Austrian
Woman's
French.
155
residence, Uccle, near Brussels
Paul Gauguin. Soyez amoureuses, vous serez
heureuses.
Multicolored
for Applied Arts, Vienna
and enamel,
am Main
Strasser-
brass inlays. Height of chairs 37", 1895.
144 Georges Minne. Le petit porteur de reliques. Bronze, 1897. Height 26 3 /s", 1897. Collection Baron
Frankfurt
Vase.
Lalique.
Auguste Rodin. Dandide. Marble, 1885. Height
128
130
René
54
pearls, circa 1900.
Height
12V4", length 28 3 /«".
129
wood with
Velde. Dining
The State Art
Institute,
C.
Switzerland
Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum), Hagen, Germany
1898. Colored lithograph. 22 x 16V2".
127
Paris,
A.
residence. ich,
Bloemenwerf
125 Odilon Redon. The Death of Orpheus. Oil on wood, 1898. nVs x 29 s /«". The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Collection
1895-96. Uccle, near Brussels 141
York
29' li".
Emile Galle.
153
Henry van de
Height
1900.
Berlage, Berne, Switzerland
1895. Height 7'/s". Collection Dr.
Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Watercolor, 191
Gustave Moreau. Dusk. Watercolor and gouache. 1 24 14V8 x 8 s /s". Formerly in a private collection, New
Hendrik Petrus Berlage. Desk. Mahogany with
152
brass hardware, desk top covered with felt, circa
898- 1 900. Brussels
de Velde, Brussels
Paris
Léon Bakst. Stage-setting for "L'Après-midi
123
138
sidence.
167
Pierre
Bonnard. Screen.
Four colored
litho-
graph panels, 1899. Each panel 53V8X18V8". The
Museum
of
Rockefeller,
Modern Art, New York. Mrs. John D. Jr. Fund
1
Raoul
68
Larche.
Dancer
Veil
(Loie
Fuller).
181
Charles Robert Ashbee. Pendant. Silver, gold,
Height 5V8". Made
Bronze, wired for a table lamp, circa 1900. Height
and mother-of-pearl,
2i 5/s". In the background: detail of Alfons Mucha's
by the Guild of Handicraft. Collection Miss Jean Stewart, Letchworth, England
La Dame aux Camélias
poster,
I
Sarah Bernhardt.
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris 169
circa 1900.
Aubrey Beardsley. Caprice. Oil on canvas, The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate 182
Pierre Roche. Loie Fuller. Bronze, before 1900.
Height 21V8". Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
31V.»". Victoria
and Albert Museum, London
Aristide Maillol. The Laundress. Bronze, circa
7 1893. Height 7 /s". Collection Helmut Goedeckemeyer, Frankfurt am Main
Andiron
(detail).
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Loie Fuller
(1).
Color lithograph, 1893. 14V8 x ioVs". The Ludwig
and Erik Charell Collection,
with medallions of chased copper and colored
iron,
glass, 1896. Medallion 7V8 x 8 /s". Made by J. Rowntree and Sons, Scarborough. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Aubrey Beardsley. Binding. For Oscar Wilde's Salome, London and Boston, 1894. Gold leaf on
Edward
Steichen.
New York Victor Hugo, and
Rodin,
'The Thinker." Photograph, 1902. 10V4 x n'A". The Art Institute of Chicago. Alfred
Steiglitz Collection
174 Maurice Denis. Nos âmes, en des gestes lentes. From Maurice Denis' Amour. Douze lithographies en couleurs, Paris, 1898. Color lithograph. 16V2X22".
The Metropolitan Museum of
New
Art,
York. The
Dick Fund, 1941 175
Auguste
façade). 1903.
Perret.
Apartment
Rue Franklin,
house
(street
Paris
J.
Powell
(?).
with applied drops of green
glass
Mirror
186
Desborough
from
b.c. The British
(detail).
Museum, London
Beggarstaff Brothers (William Nicholson and
James Pryde). Don Quixote. Poster for a dramatization of Don Quixote at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Papier collé, 1895. 76 x 77V8". Victoria and
glass, circa 1899.
Height
Sons, Whitefriars
Albert Museum, London
177
Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson.
187
green glass, and semiprecious stones, circa
of Handicraft.
Museum
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey.
Woven
deco-
and wool, 1899. Made by Alexander Morton and Co. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London
1900.
of
English. Sugar
howl and creamer.
Made by W. Hutton and
Modern
Art,
Sons.
Silver, circa
The Museum
New York
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey. Printed deco-
and wool, 1899. Made by Alexander Morton and Co. Victoria and Albert Museum,
179
190
191
Silver,
decorated
1900.
11V4 x 6 x 3V4".
Made
by
Liberty
London. The Museum of Modern Art,
New
& Co., York.
Gift of the family of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller,
180
Aubrey Beardsley. Poster for
(detail).
a
Color lithograph, circa 189$. Dimensions
29V8 x nV«". Victoria and Albert Museum, London
1901. Buntes
200
August Endell. Façade of the Elvira Photo-
Munich 201
Otto Eckmann. Fighting Swans. Colored wood1900. 6 3 /sx i} 1 /»".
Museum
of Arts and
Hamburg
Otto Eckmann. Sketch for a decorative design.
From Otto Eckmann's Neue Formen, Henry van de
204
room (wall paint1902-03. House of Count
Velde. Dining
ing by Maurice Denis).
Harry
Berlin, 1897
Weimar, Germany
Kessler,
Ivar Arosenius. Endpapers. For Ivar Arosenius'
together
Fàrg, Gôteborg, 1909. Both pages
i
nVixai*.
Collection Mr. and Mrs. Eric
de Mare, London Peter Behrens. The Brook. Colored woodcut,
before 1901. 14V8 x 18V2". Former Art Library of
Alfred in
Gilbert.
The
Piccadilly
Shaftesbury
Circus
(detail).
Memorial
the Berlin State Museums, Berlin-Charlottenburg
1887-93.
206
Victor Horta. Maison du Peuple, detail of the
Hodler.
Ferdinand
Oil
Spring.
1901. Folkwang Museum (now the hau<: Museum), Hagen, Germany
on
canvas,
Karl-Ernst-Ost-
façade. 1896-99. Brussels
William Reynolds-Stephens. The choir screen
of St.
Mary
the Virgin (detail). 1904. Great Warley,
Essex, England
William Reynolds-Stephens. Detail of the interior of St. Mary the Virgin. Pulpit and lectern 193
covered with sheets of metal. Screen leading into side chapel: walnut.
Relief
over
Parapet of choir screen; marble.
pulpit:
hammered aluminum.
Great Warley, Essex, England
Henry van de
Silver, circa
Weimar; ner,
Jr.
book publisher
screen.
graphic Studio. Colored stucco, 1897-98 (destroyed).
207
Charles Knox. Jewel box.
August Endell. Radiator
Munich
205
London
192
with mother-of-pearl, enamel, and turquoise, circa
Germany
Tjugonio Bilder
London 178
for Applied
199 August Endell. Frieze on the Elvira Photographic Studio. Colored stucco, 1897-98 (destroyed).
203
Fountain
of Applied Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
198
Brussels
1900. Height of mustard pot 4 /s"; length of spoon
Made by The Guild
Monument.
a
for
Museum
Binding.
3
3V8".
Design
Theater, Berlin
202
189
Charles Robert Ashbee. Mustard pot and spoon.
stadt,
For Thomas More's Utopia, London, 1893. Gold leaf and leather. Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,
rative fabric. Silk Silver,
Obrist.
1902. Height 35 7 /e".
197 Peter Behrens. Door in the artist's house. Wood, with wrought metal, 1901. Mathildenhôhe, Darm-
Crafts,
Glassworks, London. Collection Whitefriars Glass-
works, London
Hermann
cut, circa
rative fabric. Silk
Made by James Powell and
8V4".
Blown
Wineglass.
Celtic.
Bronze, 2nd century
188
Harry
176
8V2 x 7". Private collection, Leipzig
linen,
185 173
196
Wrought
184
172
46V8 x 72V4". Munchner Stadtmuseum, Munich
Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
George Walton.
183
5
171
195 Hermann Obrist. "Cyclamen" wall hanging I "The Whiplash." Silk embroidery on wool, 1895.
Plaster,
170
24% x
Charles Robert Ashbee. j8 Cheyne Walk. 1903.
1894. ii 3 /*x 9~/s".
Gallery
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Troupe de Mlle. Eglantine. Colored lithograph poster, 1896.
194
London
later
and spoon. made by Thcodor Miillcr,
Velde. Knife, fork,
1912. First
by the tableware firm of Franz Ban-
Diisseldorf.
Collection
Dr.
Eich,
Dusscldorf,
Germany Henry van de Velde. Music Room. 1902. Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum), Hagen, Germany 208
1904.
209
Richard
Riemersdimid.
Chair.
Oak,
with
314
leather seat, 1899. Height 30V4". crafts,
Frankfurt
of Handi-
with leather
Modern
Height 31V2". The Museum
seat, 1899.
New York
Art,
Antoni Gaudi. Chaise longue. Designed for the
227
Palau Guell. Wrought iron, upholstered
Richard Riemerschmid. Armchair. Mahogany,
210 of
Museum
am Main
in calfskin,
244 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Main entrance of the Glasgow School of Art. 1897-99. Glasgow
1885-89 Charles
245
Antoni Gaudi. Model for the nave of the Church of the Sagrada Familia. Circa 1925. Barcelona 228
Gallcn-Kallela.
upholstered
Armchair.
handwoven
in
wool
Birchwood,
material,
circa
Height 30". Museum of Arts and Crafts,
1900.
Hamburg wood,
before
Height
1900.
Museum
33V2".
of
Applied Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
Henry van de
213
laine's
Velde. Binding. For Paul Ver-
191 o. Executed by Eisa
Vers, Leipzig,
von
van Deventer, De Steeg, The Netherlands
214 Henry van de Velde. Entrance to the Werkbundtheater (destroyed). 1914. Cologne, Germany
Hermann
215
Obrist. Fountain. For the
Krupp von
Bohlen residence. 191 3. Essen, Germany
1905-07. Barcelona
Antoni Gaudi. East façade of the Church of Sagrada Familia (seen from the inside).
the 1
883-1926. Barcelona.
218
Milà. 1905-10. Barcelona
220 Antoni Gaudi.
Domed
ceiling
of
music
the
Domenèch y Montaner. Chandelier
auditorium of the Palau de 1906-08. Barcelona Lluis
223
la
in the
Musica Catalana.
Domenèch y Montaner. Palau de
la
Mu-
Antoni Gaudi. Detail of a built-in bookcase. From the Casa Cal vet. Circa 1901. Barcelona Antoni Gaudi. Chandelier. Wrought iron and
226
315
1900
Antoni
Wrought
Academy
to the
of Fine Arts. 1872-76. Phil-
Antoni Gaudi. Door in the Palau Guell. Wood, with embossed metal plates and wrought iron, 232
Gaudi.
Banister
iron, 1905-10.
in
Barcelona
the
Casa
the
From
the bedroom of the Mackintosh residence. White lacquer on wood, 1900. Glasgow
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Fireplace.
247
From
the studio of the Mackintosh residence. 1900. Glas-
gow Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Willow Tea-
248
Rooms
.
Balustrade of wrought iron and glass; frieze
Glasgow
of stucco, 1904.
adelphia, Pennsylvania
249 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Decorative wall hanging (detail). Stenciled linen, 1902. I3'x24". Collection of the University of Glasgow
1885-89. Barcelona
233 Frank Furness. Provident Life & Trust pany. 1879. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Com-
250
Celtic.
Wandsworth's Shield. Bronze, third or
second century
b.c.
Width
15".
The
British
Museum,
London Louis
Sullivan.
Staircase.
The
Auditorium Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh and Frances
251
Building, 1887-89. Chicago
Macdonald. Antoni Gaudi. Ornamental detail in a bedroom of the Palau Giiell. Wrought iron, 1885-89. Bar-
235
Candle-holder.
Copper, circa
1897.
Height 29 7 /s". Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery,
Glasgow
celona
236 Louis Sullivan. Sketch for a decorative design.
237 Louis Sullivan. Detail of the façade of the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store.
238
Louis Sullivan. Latticework on the façade of
the
Carson Pirie Scott
Wood,
1
Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh. Motherhood.
252
Painted stucco on wood, 1902. 43V4 x 42V2" 253 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Chair. White lacquer on wood, upholstered in stenciled linen, 1900.
Height 59". The University of Glasgow
899- 1 904. Chicago
&
Co.
Department
Store.
899-1904. Chicago
254 Ford Madox Brown. Take Your Son, Sir. Oil on canvas, 1856-57. 27V4X15". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of
239 Louis Sullivan. Detail of the window frames of the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store.
255
Ceramic, 1899-1904. Chicago
House. 1902-03. Helensburgh, near Glasgow, Scot-
Milà.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Hallway in Hill
land
240 Louis Comfort Tiffany. circa 1900.
241
Vase.
Favrile
glass,
The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts
New York Museum
of Art,
New
York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Chair. 1900. Height
256 59".
Louis Comfort Tiffany. Bowl. Favrile glass,
before 1896. The Metropolitan
224
glass, circa
Stamos,
Frank Furness. Detail of the entrance
Pennsylvania
of Decoration,
Catalana. 1906-08. Barcelona
225
Collection Theodoros
Library of
Glasgow
the Tate Gallery
Antoni Gaudi. Drawing room of the Palau Guell. 1885-89. Barcelona 221
sica
1900.
Palau Guell. 1885-89. Barcelona
in the
Lluis
before
glass,
1
Antoni Gaudi. Main entrance of the Casa Mdà. Wrought iron and glass, 1905-10. Barcelona 219
222
New York
Pencil, 1884
Antoni Gaudi. Detail of the façade of the Casa
room
1894-95. Buf-
tiles,
New York
234
Antoni Gaudî. Detail of the roof of the Casa Batllô. Glazed tiles, pottery and marble fragments, 216
217
Guaranty Building. Ceramic
falo,
231
Guaita. Gold leaf on leather. 9V2 x 6V4". Collection S.
the
230 Louis Comfort Tiffany. Floor lamp. Metal and
Richard Riemerschmid. Armchair. Red-painted
212
Louis Sullivan. Detail of the main entrance of
229
Art. 1897-99.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mirror and closet.
246 Akseli
211
Rennie Mackintosh.
Glasgow School of
The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
257
]ose{Hof{ma.nn. Palais Stoclet. 1905- 11. Brussels
258
Joseph Olbrich.
zeitsturm.
Comfort Tiffany. Vase. Favrile glass, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer 242
Louis
243
Louis Sullivan. Main hall in the Auditorium
Exhibition
Hall and Hoch-
Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt, Ger-
many
before 1896.
Building. 1887-89. Chicago
1907.
259
Josef
Hoffmann.
Vase. Silver
and
glass,
before
1906. Height yVtT. Made by the Dresdener Werkstatten. Collection of the
Landesgewcrbeamt Baden-
Wurttemberg, Stuttgart, Germany
260
Adolf Loos. Street façade of the Tristan Tzara
261
Josef
Hoffmann.
H.
Staircase of the B.
Koloman Moser. Decorative
fabric.
Printed
circa
cotton,
Godlee, Manchester
(?).
The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, England Silk
Made by Backhausen und Sonne, Museum for Applied Art, Vienna
wool, 1899. Austrian
decorative fabric.
Made by Simpson and
1884. Villa.
Circa 1904
262
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. 'Thorns and But-
278
terflies,"
residence. 1926. Paris
and
Vienna.
English. Plate. Glass over mercury
279
Made by
1900. Diameter 9 ? /s".
circa
(?) silvering,
Stevens and
Williams, Brierly Hill near Stourbridge, England. Collection John Northcote II
263
Adolf Loos. Garden façade of the Tristan Tzara
280
residence. 1926. Paris
264
Adolf Loos. Kdrntner Bar. 1907. Vienna.
The Palace of Minos,
Knossos, Crete
Paradise Lost. Watercolor, 1807. 10V4 x 8V«".
Vienna
E.
266
Emile Galle. Bowl. Cut and engraved crystal,
1899. Length
nVs". Musée de
l'École de
Nancy,
267 Antoni Gaudi. Detail of the façade of the Church of the Sagrada Familia. Circa 1900. Barcelona
(detail).
Antoni Gaudi. Rain pipe. Church of the Sa-
the series of illustrations for Milton's
California
282
Philipp Otto Runge, The Small "Morn". Oil on
Sea anemone
271
Hector Guimard.
Hamburg,
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Le songe d'Os-
on canvas,
jW x
circa 1812. 11'
Napobedroom in the Palazzo Quirinale, Rome. MuIngres, Montauban, France
io8Vs". Originally painted for the ceiling of
284
of Arts
Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. Binding.
briel Rossetti's Ballads
and Sonnets,
For Dante Ga1881.
Gold
leaf
James McNeill Whistler. Symphony in White, No. IV: The Three Girls. Oil on canvas, 1876 293
294 Japanese. Built-in furniture. First half of the seventeenth century. Tea-room in the Detached Palace,
Katsura, Japan
295
Edward William Godwin and
(mantlepiece, small
and James McNeill Whistler (color scheme and decoration). Stand at the Paris World's chair)
Fair. 1878
English
(?).
Upright piano. 1830
(?).
Height
Stuttgart,
Made by
A. G. Fourdinois. Victoria and
Albert Museum, London
297 Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Chair. 1881. From The Studio Vol. XVI, London, 1899 298
Richard
Norman Shaw. Old Swan
House. 1876.
London 299
Germany
French. Sideboard in Baroque style. Walnut,
circa 1850.
Charles Annesley Voysey. Broadleys residence,
Lake Windemere. 1898. Westmorland, England 285
Carved pearwood,
292
296 283
beamt Baden-Wurttemberg, 270
Museum
Germany
42 Vs", width 53V8". Collection of the Landesgewer-
London
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. Bowl.
and Crafts, Hamburg
table,
Memo-
Fountain (known as the Eros Fountain). 1887-93.
Piccadilly Circus,
Henry
leon's
Alfred Gilbert. Detail of the Shaftesbury
291 Royal
Porcelain, 1888. Diameter ij 3 /*".
Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino,
sée
rial
From
sian (detail). Oil
grada Familia. 1887-91. Barcelona
269
William Blake. Raphael warns
canvas, 1808. 4i 3 /4 x 31V8". Kunsthalle,
Nancy, France
268
281
Henry Thompson."
-79
Adam and Eve
Gustav Klimt. Portrait of Frau Adele BlochBauer. Oil on canvas, 1907. 55V8 x 55 7 /s". Osterreichische Galerie des XIX und XX Jahrhunderts, 265
Sir
on morocco
Minoan. So-called "Throne of Minos," and
fresco. Circa 1700- 1400 b. c.
Forming the Collection of London, 1878
a
small
table.
Height
29W.
Musée
Detail
circa 1900.
of
North American. Lining of a tintype
vet, circa
case. Vel-
1850
des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
286 Edward Burne- Jones. Painted wardrobe. 1858. Height jiVs". Subject matter taken from Chaucer's
Odilon Redon. Illustration for "La Tentation de Saint- Antoine." Lithograph, 1888. 8Vs x j 1 /i".
Prioress' Tale;
272
Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland 273 Antoni Gaudi. Pendant in the cloister of the Church of the Sagrada Familia. 1887-91. Barcelona
300 John Everett Millais. Design for a Gothic window. Watercolor, 1853. From John Guille Millais' The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, Vol. I,
wardrobe designed by Philip Webb
London, 1899
(?).
William Blake. Angels Hovering over the Body
Victoria and Albert
301
loan from the
of Christ. Watercolor, 1808. i6Vs x
Museum, London. Permanent Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
1
1V4". Collection
Sidney Morse 287
John Everett
Millais. Preliminary
drawing for Gustave
The Eiffel Tower. 1889. Paris
"Christ in the House of His Parents." Pencil, 1850.
302
274 Hector Guimard. Detail of a Métro station. Painted cast iron and glass, circa 1900. Paris
7V2X12". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced
303 Jules Chéret. Folies-Bergère, Les Girard. Color lithographed poster, 1877. 22'/* x 16 /*". Biblio-
René Lalique. Brooch. Gold and enamel, circa 1900. Height 3 7 /g", width i'/e". Musée des Arts Déco-
288
275
ratifs, Paris
Edvard Munch. Madonna. Color lithograph,
276 1895.
Oslo,
277
and
24 x i6'/î". Oslo
Komunes Kunstsamlinger,
Norway René Lalique. Pendant. Gold, enamel,
pearls, circa 1900.
Height
2 3 /s".
brilliants,
Collection His
Royal Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und Rhein, Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,
bei
Germany
by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
Eiffel.
1
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. Oil on canvas, 1849. 32V8X25". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the
thèque Nationale, Paris
304 Vincent van Gogh. Ravine. Oil on canvas, 1889. 27 s/s" x 35V8". Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The
Trustees of the Tate Gallery
Netherlands
James McNeill Whistler. The Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black and Gold. Oil on wood, circa
dence (presently the L. Wittamer-De
289
1874. 23V8 x 18V*".
The Detroit
Institute of Arts,
290
James McNeill Whistler. of Blue-and-White
Victor Horta. Wall lamp in the Solvay
resi-
Camps
resi-
dence). 1895-1900. Brussels. (Wallpaper by Charles
Annesley Voysey, circa 1885)
Detroit, Michigan
Catalogue
305
Illustration for
Nankin
'A
Porcelain
306
Gustave Serrurier-Bovy. Interior display for an Between 1894 and 1898
exhibition.
316
i
307
Georges Minne. Drawing. From Van Ntt en
Straks, 1890. Pencil
308
Theodorus A. C. Colenbrander. Bowl. Ceramic, Height
1886.
seum, The
3'/*",
diameter y 1!»". Gemeentemu-
Hague
Room. 309 for Amsterdam. Created Dr. Hoorn, Wall 1890-92. decoration in batik-dyed linen. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague Willem
Gerrit
310 n.
Jan Toorop. Under the Willows. Oil on canvas,
24V4 x 29 7 /s". Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
d.
311
Dijsselhof
Dijsselhof.
Home. "The Angel with the Trumpet," Made by Simp-
Herbert
decorative fabric. Velvet, circa 1884.
son and Godlce, Manchester. The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, England
watercolor, 1916. 26V8 x ifU". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of
Book
the Tate Gallery
6V4"
322 Hans von Marées. The Abduction of Ganymede. Oil on canvas, 1887. 38V8 x 30V4". Bavarian
338
State Collection of Pictures,
Jan Toorop. Lijnenspel (The Old and the New Art). Black and colored crayon in a painted and decorated frame, 1893. i6 1 /îxiS 1 /î" (without frame),
24V8 x 26V4" (with frame). Gemeentemuseum, The
339
Emile Galle. Pitcher, with a design representing
Thetis.
Carved
Museum
glass,
before 1890
of Arts and Crafts,
(?).
Height
8 5/s".
Hamburg
3
1
Emile Galle. Top of a small
colored woods, circa
table. Inlay of vari-
1900. Collection His Royal
Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein, Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,
316 vres,
317
Germany
Auguste Perret. Garage rue Ponthieu.
1905.
318
Charles Annesley Voysey. Living room in the
artist's
home, "The Orchard." 1900. Chorley Wood,
Buckinghamshire, England
319
lacquer on wood, before 1897.
From The Studio
Vol.
XI, London, 1897
320
Charles Harrison Townsend. Whitechapel Art
Gallery. 1897. 321
London
Max Beerbohm.
Monument
325
Hermann
326
Ernst Barlach. Portrait of Justus Brinckmann.
Obrist.
to the Pillar.
1898
Memorial plaque honoring Brinckmann's twenty-
Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts. Bronze, 1902. 6Vs x 9V2". Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg
Rossetti
is
heard for the
first
Peter Behrens. Library in the Behrens home.
327
1901. Mathildenhôhe, Darmstadt,
Germany
Wilde.
From
the series of illustrations to
Mr. Oscar
Max
Beer-
bohm's Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle, published
317
Peter Behrens. Butterflies on Water
328
ored woodcut, between 1896 and 1897. 19V8 x 25V4". Stàdelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
Henry van de boxwood handles,
by William Heinemann,
Leipzig
343
Ltd., 1922. Pencil
and
Joseph Olbrich. The Playhouse for the Princesses.
1902. Schloss Wolfgarten near Langen,
344
Ludwig von Hofmann. No. 3
Vignette.
Germany From Pan
III,
Berlin, 1897,
Emile Galle. Vase, with a design of aquatic 1900. Height 15V4". Musée de
plants. Glass, circa
l'École de
Nancy, Nancy, France
am Main
Velde. Tea service. Silver, with
329
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Library wing of Glasgow School of Art. 1907-09. Glasgow
342 Oskar Kokoschka. Illustration for "Die traumenden Knaben." Vienna, 1908. Private Collection,
345
Col-
Lilies.
1905-06. Executed by Theodor
Japanese.
Sword guard.
Iron,
nineteenth century. Diameter 2V2".
eighteenth
Museum
or
of Arts
and Crafts, Hamburg
Miiller.Karl-Ernst-OsthausMuseum.Hagen, Germany 347
330 Antoni Gaudi. Banister and garden railing. Wrought iron, 1878-80. Casa Vincens, Barcelona Batllo.
1905-07. Barcelona table.
DeAmigos de
1885-89.
Gaudi, Barcelona
Raimondo D'Aronco.
333
Pavilion for the Interna-
tional Exhibition of Decorative Art, 1902, Turin
Louis Comfort Tiffany.
flat in the "Bella"
New
York
tistic
Houses,
Window
in the artist's
Apartments on East 26th
City. Circa 1880.
New
Street,
From Appleton's Ar-
York, 1883-84
335 Louis Comfort Tiffany. Fireplace in the artist's house on 72nd Street and Madison Avenue, New
From H. W. Desmond's and H. Homes in America, New York, 1903
City. 1883.
Croly's Stately
336 Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn Root. Detail of the façade of the Monadnock Building.
337
1
Austrian. Decorative fabric. Printed poplin, be-
fore 1902. Collection of the Landesgewerbeamt Ba-
den-Wurttemberg, Stuttgart, Germany
Antoni Gaudi. Dressing
332
Diffraction pattern of the transversal section of
a tube
348
Antoni Gaudf. Rear façade of the Casa
time in the Western
States of America. Time: 1S82. Lecturer:
the
year as director of the
York The name of Dante Gabriel
room
341
334
Charles Annesley Voysey. Covered chair. White
artist's
324 Adrien Dalpayrat. Flask. Stoneware, circa 1893. Height 10V4". Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
signed for the Patau Giiell. Collection
Paris
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The
340 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. North façade of "Wmdyhill." 1899-1901. Kilmalcolm, Scotland
331
Hector Guimard. Castel Henriette. 1903. SeFrance
Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh. Crucifixion.
at Dennistoun. Circa 1890. Dennistoun, Scotland
346
314 Walter Crane. Illustrated page. For Echoes of Hellas, 1888
the series of illustrations for The
1825. Copperplate engraving. 8V4 x
seum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg
Hague 313
From
of Job,
1894
Munich
323 Johann Julius Scharvogel. Vase. Porcelain covered with flowed glaze, circa 1900. Height 4 3 /s". Mu-
fifth
312
Together.
89 1. Chicago
William Blake.
When
the
Morning
Stars
Sang
INDEX OF NAMES
Numbers
on which
in italics indicate pages
illustra-
Umberto 194
dell' 47;
42
Dankmar 229 Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich 192, 259 Adler,
Botticelli,
Dante
Dante Alighieri
see
Allingham, William 64 Altenberg, Peter 246
André, Emile 167 Angell, Joseph 90
Aronco, Raimondo D' 224; 296
Sandro (Alessandro
Arp, Hans 209 Ashbee, Charles Robert 104, 126, 187,
Dalpayrat, Adrien 207; 20, 294
Dampt, Jean 262 Dante Alighieri 35,
47,
1
14,
262
Filipepi) 210
Bouillon, Godefroy de 277
Debussy, Claude 12,116,262
Bracquemond, Félix 73, 114 Bradley, William H. 10, 74, Brangwyn, Frank 103 Bresdin, Rodolphe 123
Degas, Edgar 73, 168, 169 Degouve de Nuncques, William 261
153, 184, 229; 44, 229
Dehmel, Richard 204, 207 Delacroix, Eugène 116 Delaherche, Auguste 97 Denis, Maurice 11, 116, 124, 209, 211; 72 7, 76;
Brinckmann, Justus 204, 205 Brown, Ford Madox 240, 241; 2$i
Arosenius, Ivar 207; 799
Dali, Salvador 168
Darwin, Charles 185,272,273 Daubler, Theodor 208, 209
Borromini, Francesco 103, 224
Alastair 184
Mandé 37
Daguerre, Louis Jacques
Bocklin,
Abbate, Niccolo
Alighieri,
Boccioni,
Arnold 204 Bode, Wilhelm von 204 Bodenhausen, Eberhard von 208, 272 Bonnard, Pierre 115, 124, 169, 170, 211; 160, 161
tions appear.
Burges, William 271; 59
Diaghilev, Sergei de 14, 224, 229, 276
Burne-Jones, Lady Georgiana 173
Dijsselhof, Gcrrit William
176, 182
Burne- Jones, Sir Edward
Domenèch y Montaner,
Avril, Jane 153
102, 109,
1
88, 244; 17),
no,
14, 63, 64, 76, 85, 87, 97,
112, 123, 126, 141, 152, 153, 173, 174,
183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 205, 239, 246, 276; 66, 69,
Bahr,
Hermann 246
Baillie Scott,
Mackie
70, 106, 107,
Hugh
100, 104, 188, 245
Burns, Robert 262
Barlach, Ernst 29s
Butterfield, William 102; 92
9,
IO4,
Baudelaire, Charles 12, 48, 73, 142, 154, 174, 183,
261
Baudot, Anatole de 61
Carlyle,
Bayros, Franz von 184
Edward
n,
63, 74, 76, 85, 86, 88,
112, 114, 126, 138, 147, 153, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 183, 184, 185, 186, 190, 204, 205, 229, 239, 241, 259,
261, 271, 272; 7, 13, 30, 73, 74, 7f, 84, 176, 177, 178, 183, 20}, 273 Sir
Max
Behmer, Marcus
190, 274; .294
29, 30, 184; 29
Beggarstaff Brothers see Nicholson, William
and
Pryde, James
'99. 295
49
54, 55
ii, 76, 88, 100, 101, 102, 103,
228, 273; 8l, 91, 92, 9S, 96,
$3
Bergson, Henri 185, 273 Berlage, Hendrik Petrus 88, 151; 146
Bernard, Emile 123, 124; 118, 119
Bierbaum, Otto Julius 204, 207
Cézanne, Paul 8,123, I2 5> Chassériau, Théodore 1 16
x<>8
Eastlake, Charles 88
Eckmann, Otto
Chéret, Jules 10, 115, 168; 291
73, 184, 203, 204, 205, 210, 261, 262;
9, 797, 204, 20;, 207, 210, 212
Chippendale, Thomas 188
Eiffel,
Chopin, Frédéric 173 Ciurlionis, Mykolas Konstantas 12
Gustave 114,135:297
Ellis,
Edwin John 114
Ellis,
Havelock 272
Cobden-Sanderson, Thomas James 779 Cole, Sir Henry (Felix Summerly) 56, 98, 100
Elskamp,
Colenbrander, Theodorus A. Chr.
Espérandieu, H.-J. 214
1
50; 292
Max
Endell, August
726, 13}
n,
170, 203, 204, 206; 796, 797
Evans, Sir Arthur 15
Conder, Charles 174 Fabergé, Carl 97
Contamin 114 Cook, H. Fitz j6
Feure, Georges de 152
Cooper, Peter 59 Corot, Camille 123
Fiorentino, Rosso 47
Finch, A.
Fish,
W.
126, 150
Hamilton 276
Binyon, Lawrence 103, 109
Edward Gordon Crane, Walter n, 64,
Blake, Robert iof
153,
Blake, William
Cranston, Catherine 241
Francis of Assisi,
Crusius, Gottlieb Leberecht 46; 34
Freud, Sigmund 259, 274, 277
Bing, Samuel 73, 97, 99, 138, 153, 154, 174, 208, 210
8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 35, 36,
53. 54. 55» 6 3> 85. 103, 109,
no,
707
Durer, Albrecht 126
Thomas 87
Constable, John 53 1
189,
Duncan, Isadora 153,261,274 Duncan, John 774
Colonna, Eugène 152
Behrens, Peter 205, 206, 210, 211, 212, 245; 796,
May
53, 54;
Il6,
Carries, Jean 97
Bazel, Karel Petrus Cornelius de 150
Bel fort,
Calvert,
Canova, Antonio
Beerbohm,
Douris 86, 174 Dowson, Ernest 174 Dresser, Christopher
153
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent
Doudelet, Charles 55, 148, 191, 224; }r, i2f
Douglas, Lord Alfred Bruce 184 Douglas, Lady Olive 184
288
Burnham, Daniel Hudson 228; 296
Bakst, Léon 170, 184; 42, 120
Barrison Sisters
150:292
Lluis 223, 224; 218, 219
45, 46, 47, 48,
111, 112, 114, 123,
Craig,
154,
184,
Hans
188,
14, 186;
86,
77J
112, 115, 125, 126, 150,
208, 224, 244, 271;
113, 293
Flaxman, John 54 Fontanc, Theodor 204 Fontseré, José 214 St.
36
135, 136, 141, 148, 185, 186, 224, 240, 261, 262, 271,
Curjel,
272; 3S, 4°, 4*. 43. 44. 49. '°6. '07, '08, 287, 290,
Curtius, Ernst Robert 276
Furness, Frank 61, 101, 126, 223, 228; 232, 233
296
Custance, Olive see Douglas, Lady Olive
Fuseli,
194
Fuller, Loi'e 10, 153,
229
Henry (Johann Heinrich
Fiissli)
54
318
Gaillard, Ferdinand 152
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von (Loris)
Gainsborough, Thomas 53 Galle, Emile 9, 11, 48, 54,
204, 209, 210, 246, 261, 272
Lemmen, Georges
Hokusai
Lepapc, Georges 170
56, 97, 98, 114, 116, 124,
12,
15,
141, 153,
15
Leistikow, Walter 209, 261
W.
12 j, ijo, 211
Holz, Arno 206, 207
Lethaby,
Gallén-Kallela, Akseli 207; 20/
Honeyman, John 241
Leyland, Frederick 276
Garnier, Charles 109; 39
Home, Herbert
152, 154, 170, 229, 244; /;;, if7, 263, 293,
Gaudî, Antoni
8, 9,
n,
298
16, 32, 55, 61, 98, 101, 126,
Horta, Victor
104,
m,
126; 292
9, 31, 32, 98, 103, ill, 114, 126, 135,
R. 104
Liberty, Arthur Lasenby 73 Lichtwark, Alfred 192, 204
Max
151, 152, 167, 170, 203, 212, 214, 223, 224, 226, 227,
136, 138, 141, 151, 152, 154, 167, 189, 193, 223, 244,
Liebermann,
229, 260, 261, 271, 276; 24, 26, 27, 21}, 216, 217, 218,
272, 273, 277; 18, 19, 23, 2}, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131,
Lloyd, Constance see Wilde, Constance Lloyd
220, 221, 222, 22}, 226, 232, 234, 264, 26}, 267, 29}
180, 291
Lock, Matthias 41
Gauguin, Paul
Loos, Adolf
150, 168, 170, 207, 208, 277; 117, 118, 119, 122, 169
Housman, Laurence 185; 186 Howarth, Thomas 239, 240
Gauthier, Camille i}7
Huxley, Aldous 47
Lorrain, Claude 174
Genghis Khan (Temuchin) 224
Huysmans, Joris-Karl
10, 12, 16, 73, 114, 123, 124, 125, 148,
Alexander 109, 110,
Godwin, Edward William
ni
Edmond
63, 110, 184, 224, 240, 244, 259;
2}0
Macdonald-Mackintosh, Margaret 63, 110, 184, 224,
73, 123, 125, 172, 207; 291
Jacobsen, Jens Peter 12
Mackie, Annie 9 Mackintosh, Charles Rennie
de 73, 138
Jarry, Alfred 271
110, 170, 184, 187, 189, 214, 224, 239, 240, 241, 242,
Jackson, Holbrook 16
289
Goncourt, Jules de 73, 138 Gonse, Louis 74
Jefferson,
Grainger }8
Jones,
Grasset,
Thomas }o
Eugène 101, 115, 116, 153, 224; 116
Owen
8, 64, 85, 87,
244, 259; 28, 239, 241, 242, 243, 247, 248, 249, 2}0,
11, 99,
100, 101, 102, 103, 116, 126,
Mackmurdo, Arthur Heygate
m,
14, 88, 102, 103, 104,
112, 126, 135, 151, 152, 172, 187, 188, 189,
228; 91, 94
109,
Jonson, Ben 174
193, 214, 239, 242, 276; 18, 89, 93, 94,
Kandinsky, Wassily 76, 212; 211, 213
154,
Gropius, Walter
Keppie, John 241
Mahler- Werfel-Gropius, Aima 244
211, 212
Kessler,
Guarini, Guarino 214
Don
Eusebio,
Guimard, Hector
Count de
11,
98, 151,
11, 214,
152,
Count Harry 208,
Khnopff, Fernand
276 168,
167,
170,
206, 244, 276; 22, i}7, i}8, i}9, 160, 266, 267, 293
209, 210, 211
15, 64, 123, 125, 140, 141, 147,
224,261,262,277
Maillol, Aristide 9, 11, 170, 211; 140, 163, 276
Majorelle, Louis 152, 154
191, 204, 244, 262, 271, 277; 14, 70, 71
Mallarmé, Stéphane
Kinsey, Alfred Charles 271
271
Ludwig 212
Kirchner, Ernst
Malraux, André
Haas, Charles 153
Klee.Paul 184 Klimt, Gustav 141, 148, 244, 246, 259; 2}8, 2}9 Klinger, Max 192, 193, 204, 209, 246; 192
Knox, Charles 188; 17} Kok, J. Jurriaan 143 Kokoschka, Oskar 259; 297 Kôpping, Karl 244 Korin, Ogata 84 Krafft-Ebing, Richard von 183
Marc, Franz 212
Haeckel, Ernst 193, 272
Hansen, Frida 207
Havemeyer, H. O. 276 Hay, Helen 10
10, 184, 191, 204,
261;
8,
308
Helwig, Werner 274 Hessen-Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of
Heymel, Alfred Walter
Laclos, Choderlos de
14, 21
Andô
Laeuger,
75 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 135
Max
16, 47 Manet, Edouard 73, 115 Mantegna, Andrea 174
Marées,
Hans von
192, 209, 210; 294
Matisse, Henri 168
Maus, Octave 12$ Meier-Graefe, Julius 138, 153, 183, 204, 208, 259, 3-77
1
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 211, 212
74
207
Millais, Sir
John Everett
Lalique, René 152; i}6, i}7, 268, 269
Millet, Jean-François
Larche, Raoul 162
La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de 173
Milton, John 35 Milton, May 153
259; 12, 246, 2}3, 2}}, 307
Le Corbusier 86,212
Minne, Georges
Hofmann, Ludwig von
Ledoux, Claude Nicolas
Hodler, Ferdinand
Hoffmann, Josef
319
10, 11, 141, 208, 209,
244; 199
141, 170, 187, 208, 244, 245, 246,
208, 209, 210; 298
114, 115, 142, 154,
Michelangelo Buonarroti 47, 241 Midolle, Jean 33
193
245
Hiroshige,
15, 76,
Menzel, Adolph von 192
Kraus, Karl 276
Krupp von Bohlen
12,
Malory, Sir Thomas 138, 173, 183
Guys, Constantin 116
Heath, Ida 153 Heaton, Clement 104 Heine, Thomas Theodor
m, 269, 290
Maeterlinck, Maurice 12, 54, 140, 141, 142, 150, 153,
Greco, El (Domenico Theotocopuli) 47 Greenaway, Kate 98, 99, 102, 112, 126, 208; 93
Giiell,
103, 104,
2}i, 2}2, 297
Jeffrey, Francis 135
Gray, John 174
8,
2}7
Hugo von
240, 244, 259; 2}o, 2}i, 296
76, 86, 87, 88, 97, 102,
104, 137, 151, 174, 276; 79, 80, 81,
Gogh, Vincent van
87, 187, 244, 259; 2}}, 2}6,
Macdonald, Frances Image, Selwyn 104, ill, 126; 1} Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 54, 116, 227; 287
Gilbert, Alfred 173, 189, 190, 271; 180, 26}
Goncourt,
1,
Loris see Hofmannsthal,
14
George, Stefan 15,206
Gilchrist,
1
204, 209
5 5
63,
1
10; 288,
290
138
10, 11, 125, 138, 140, 147, 184, 204,
210, 244, 277; 134, 140, 292
Rathenau, Walter 208
Shaw, Richard Norman
244.245,254:290
120
Redgrave, Richard 55; J7, }8 Redon, Odilon 1 16, 123, 125, 262; 120, 121, 266
Morgan, William de 104
Régnier, Henri de 262
Siddal, Elizabeth 190
Morris, Jane 190
Réjane 170
Signac, Paul 125,141,150,204
Morris, William 11, 48, 64, 73, 76, 85, 97, 98, ioo,
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn 109
Solvay, Ernest 277
102, 103, 104, 109, 112, 125, 126, 137, 151, 152, 173,
Strauss, Richard 12
Moore, George 98 Moreau, Gustave
122, 123, 140, 141, 262;
15, 116,
104, 109, 151, 186, 188, 227,
Hi;
Shields, Frederick 104,
10
Speranza see Wilde, Lady Jane Francisca
174, 183, 188, 189, 192, 205, 206, 229; 94
Renoir, Pierre Auguste 53 Reynolds, Sir Joshua 109
Moser, Koloman 245, 246; 32, 256 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 210
Reynolds-Stephens, Sir William 189; 180, 181
Stravinsky, Igor 11,261,262
Ricketts, Charles
Steichen,
Munch, Edvard
172, 184, 185, 186, 261, 271, 276; //, 21, 64, 86, 112,
Strindberg, August 207, 208
147, i8f, 186, 271, 277 Riemerschmid, Richard 203, 206
Sullivan, Louis 11, 101, 126, 223, 227, 228; 20, 21,
io, 12, 124, 141, 173, 194, 207, 208,
271; 208, 268, 27}
Munthe, Gerhard 207, 244 Muthesius,
Hermann
10, 14, 31, 53, 64, 86, 112, 142, 148,
Nash, John 87 Nerée tot Babberich, Karel de 148; 14s Nicholson, William (Beggarstaff Brothers) 186; 179 Nietzsche, Friedrich 204, 207, 271
172; 16}
Sturge Moore, Thomas 53,185 ff.,
210; 200, 201
Maria 206, 246 Rimbaud, Arthur 277 Riquer, Alexandre de 223; 8j Rilke, Rainer
109, 189
Edward
231, 233, 234, 23}, 238
Summerly, Felix Sumner,
see Cole,
Heywood
Henry
104, 112, 126, 135, 172, 189, 262;
Roche, Pierre 162
104, 108
Rodin, Auguste 124, 125, 139, 140, 172, 194, 271; 122
Swinburne, Algernon Charles n, 85, no, 153, 190
Symons, Arthur 123
Roller, Alfred 260
Obrist,
Hermann
11, 98,
147,
154,
167,
192,
193,
Root, John Wellborn 228; 296
194, 203, 204, 20$, 244, 272; 19s, 202, 29s
Olbrich, Joseph Maria 104, 208, 211, 244, 245, 246;
Rossetti, Christina 63, 85
244, 2S4, 297
Rossetti,
Ovey, Richard }2
97> 99> I0 °> >°2, 104» i°9> II0 >
J.
Talbert, Bruce J. 88
W. van 143
Rossem,
Dante Gabriel
Tatlin,
Vladimir E. 194
Tchaikowsky, Peter
8, io, 11, 62, 63, 64, 76, 85,
i«.
!23. 126, 141,
142, 147, 148, 150, 152, 153, 184, 185, 189, 190, 209,
Ilyitch 261
Thorn Prikker, Johan 150; 14$ Tiffany, Louis Comfort 9, 10, 30,
31, 48, 54, 97, 98,
223, 224, 227, 229, 230, 276; 17, 19, 38, 44, 232, 236,
Palmer, John 51
240, 260, 262, 272, 276; 62, 63, 6f, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72,
237, 296
Palmer, Samuel $3; 49 Pankok, Bernhard 206
83, 100, 107, 288, 289
Toorop, Jan
Parmigianino, Francesco Mazzola 192
Rosso,
Pater, Walter 15,212
Rothschild,
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 10, 31, 115, 123, 124,
Rubens, Peter Paul 47, 109 Ruchet, Bcrthe 193
125, 138, 141, 153, 168, 169, 170, 174, 184, 186, 204,
277; 163, 164, 171
Péladan, Mérodack 271
Runge, Philipp Otto
Townsend, Charles Harrison
Perret, Auguste 9, 170, 187, 211, 259, 276; 166, 29J
Ruskin, John 64, 76, 98, 103, 137, 153, 212 Rysselberghe, Théo van 48, ijo, 191; 48
Paul,
Bruno
Rossetti,
21
Paxton, Sir Joseph
1
14,
273
Pevsner, Nikolaus 148, 203, 242
William Michael 109
10, 12, 47, 63, 125, 138, 141, 142, 147,
148, 150, 152, 191, 239, 240, 244, 261, 271; 108, 142,
Medardo 124 Max M. 227
144, 148, 149, 292
53, 54, 56, 101, 192; 98,
287
Picasso, Pablo 8, 168
188,
189,
244, 245;
294 Toyo, Kwanshosai 21 Tzara, Tristan 259
Pissarro, Camille 123
Sade, Donatien Alphonse Marquis de 174
Poe, Edgar Allan IJ4
Sawa, Alejandro 272 Scharvogel, Johann Julius 207; 294
Utamaro
Scheerbart, Paul 204
Vallance,
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 54 Schlaf, Johannes 204
Vallotton, Félix 186; if 2, 168
Schollkopf, Xavier 167
Velde,
Schônberg, Arnold 12, 184
ioi, 125, 126, 135, 136, 137, 138, 150, 151, 153, 167,
Poirct, Paul
170, 184
Pontormo, Jacopo 192 Pope, Alexander 174 Powell, Harry
J.
17
Pougy, Liane de 170 Primaticcio, Francesco 47 Proust, Marcel 152, 153, 170
74, 86, 240
Aymer
Van Gogh
see
112, 173
Gogh, Vincent van
Henry van de
8,
11, 31, 32, 88, 97, 99, 100,
ff., 262, 276 Prouvé, Victor 154 Pryde, James (BeggarstafT Brothers) 186; 179 Przybyszewski, Stanislaw 208
Schroder, Rudolf Alexander 211
170, 191, 204, 206, 208, 210, 211, 223, 229, 244, 259,
Schuffenecker, Emile 11 j
272, 273, 274; 16, 93, 132, 133, 137, 138, 139, 198,
Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre 116, 123, 174, 209, 246
Serrurier-Bovy, Gustave 88, 103, 126, 137, 138, 153,
Verkade, Jan 125
273; 291
Verlaine, Paul 262
Ràfols, José F. 214
Sérusier, Paul
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 47, 62
Seurat, Georges 125, 138, 141, 150, 168, 204
Schwob, Marcel 277 Scriabin, Alexander Nikolaievitch
200, 201, 29f 12,
271
ff.
124
Verhaeren, Emile 150
Vielé-Griffin, Francis 261 Villar, Francesc
de Paula 227
320
Viollet-le-Duc,
Eugène-Emmanuel
61, 101, 135, 212;
61
Vogeler-Worpswede, Heinrich 184, 261 Vogue, Eugène Marie, Vicomte de 154 Voysey, Charles Annesley Francis 48, 85, 100, 103, 104, 126, 151, 172, 186, 187, 188, 189, 208, 239, 242,
244, 245; 94, 96, 179, 187, 188, 290, 294
Wagner, Otto 244, 245, 259 Wagner, Richard 11, 12, 173, 174, 183, 212, 261, 262, Walton, George 92, 177
Warndorfer, Fritz 184, 259 Watteau, Jean- Antoine 53
Webb, Philip
64, 102, 103, 104, 151, 186, 188, 245;
68,69 Wedekind, Frank 272 Wegerif-Gravesteyn, Agatha 143 Weiss, Emil Rudolf 29, 30, 31, 204; 20, 191, 280 Werfel, Alma Mahler- see Mahler- Werfel-Gropius,
Alma Whistler, James McNeill 10, 11, 12, 73, 74, 75, 76, 8$, 86, 87, 97, 104, 125, 147, 151, 153, 173, 174, 183,
184, 205, 261, 274, 276; ;, 7S, 76, 77, 78, 288, 289
Wdde, Constance Lloyd 87, 152, 173 Wilde, Lady Jane Francisca (Speranza) 276 Wilde, Oscar 12
ff.,
15, 16, 74, 75, 76, 86, 87, 103,
112, 114, 142, 152, 153, 173, 174, 183, 184, 185, 186, 190, 260, 261, 262, 271, 274, 276, 277
Wittgenstein 259 Woestijne, Karel van de 12
Wolf flin, Heinrich 15 Wolzogen, Ernst von 203 Wren, Sir Christopher 1 1 Yeats, William Butler Young, Edward no
16, 103,
Zola, Emile 73, 174
Zuckerkandl, Berta 244
Zwollo, Frans
321
1
5
114
PICTURE CREDITS
found
Illustrations not
the following
in
list
have
been supplied by the author or by the publishers.
Numbers numbers
when
in
roman numerals
in arabic
refer to the colorplates;
numerals to the plate numbers or,
on which the
specified, to the pages
illustration
Hedrich-Blessing, Chicago 237
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
Lucien Hervé, Paris 175, 260, 263 Karl Holste, Berlin-Zehlendorf V, VI
328; page 212
Thomas Howarth, Toronto (from: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement. London,
appears.
1952) 248,333,339
A. C.L., Brussels ij, 137, 191
Museum, Otterlo 148, 150, 304 Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich 11, 18, 19, 36, 96,
am Main
126,
Hermann Stickelmann, Bremen 121; page 169 Dr. Franz Stoedtner, Dusseldorf 23, 127, 136, 151, 198, 208, 261, 299, 302, 320, 322, 327
John Szarkowski, Ashland, Wisconsin (from: The Idea of Louis Sullivan, University of Minnesota
Kroller-Miiller
London 42 Jean Alliman, Nancy 34c Archivo Amigos de Gaudi (photo by Aleu)
Aerofilms,
13, 16,
&
Annan
&
Glasgow 244, 340 The Architectural Press, London (photo by Eric de Mare) 192, 193 The Architectural Review, London 48 The Art Institute of Chicago 173 The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 40, 55, 109, 286 Association Henry van de Velde, Brussels Endpapers R.
100,
118, 119, 139, 141, 147, 152, 153, 154, 157, 159, 161,
The Tate Gallery, London
169, 177, 187, 195, 196, 197, 207, 212, 213, 249, 256,
182, 254, 287, 288, 293, 321, 337
54, 57, 61, 65, 68, 69,
1 1
1,
266, 271, 275, 276, 310, 315, 324, 329, 341
216, 332
T.
Press, 1956) 7, 229, 234, 243
Sons,
Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich 64
Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels 307; pages
Kunstmuseum, Winterthur 272
O. Vaering, Oslo XII Victoria and Albert
Museum, London (Crown Copy-
Landesgewerbeamt Baden-Wiirttemberg, Stuttgart
right Reserved) 2, 6, 22, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 56,
259. 284, 348
62, 67, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 84, 85, 89, 90, 91, 92,
The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
page
93» 98, 99. 102. 170» 176, 180, 183, 186, 188, 189, 245,
229 D. S. Lyon, London 278
246, 247, 251, 252, 255, 279, 295, 296; pages 185,
Eric de Mare, London 190, 194, 204, 269 André Martin, Paris 156, 164, 274
A. Zerkowitz, Barcelona 225, 268
MAS,
186 (2)
Zingher, Brussels 133, 134
Barcelona 217, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 232,
16, 137, 138, 140
Bijtebier, Brussels
Bildarchiv Foto
235. 331
144
Marburg
95, 143, 199, 200, 203, 206,
215,257,258 The British Museum, London 250 F. Catalâ
Roca, Barcelona
17,
New York
James
L. Dillon
51, 86, 162,
&
273
of Japan. 1955.
New
3, 4, 14,
135, 230, 231
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Museum
240
New York
fur
Percy Lund, Humphries 1,
83,
&
Co.,
London (from: The
Penrose Annual) VII Verlag Georg D.
W. Callwey, Munich (from: Jean
Cassou; Emil Langui; Nikolaus Pevsner, Durchbruch
zum
20.
Jahrhundert, Munich, 1962)
XI
Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt am Main
78, 79, 209, 277
Museum
und Gewerbe, Hamburg
fur Kunst
81, 201, 211, 291, 313, 323, 326, 346;
Museum
of
Modern
Art,
9,
76,
page 245
New York 160, New York),
(photo by George Barrows,
163, 165 166, 167,
172, 178, 179,210, 316
Company, Philadelphia 233
Dotreville, Brussels 12, 129, 130, 132, 305
Arthur Drexler,
New York
120, 174, 241, 242 Bernhard Moosbrugger, Zurich 155, 158, 168 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 128
Chevojon, Paris 317 Chicago Heritage Committee, Chicago 336 City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham 32, 34 The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration,
Colorplates for the following supplied by
Paul Mayen,
National Buildings Record, London
New
York (from: The Architecture York, The Museum of Modern Art,
52, 58, 59, 71,
298
National Museum, Stockholm 31
Photo by Sutemi Horiguchi) 294
George Eastman House, Rochester, Grete Eckert, Munich VIII
book was typeset by the Universitatsbuch& Sohn, Munich. The text was
This Usterreichische Galerie des
New York
285
derts,
XIX. und XX. Jahrhun-
Vienna 265
Osterreichisches
set in
Museum
Vienna (photo by Anton
angewandte
fiir
Fesl)
5,
Kunst,
262
The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 125
druckerei Dr. C. Wolf
Bernard Pfriem, Paris 218
Garamond Antiqua.
The black-and-white plates were made by the Graphische Kunstanstalt Brend'Amour, Simhart & Co., Munich. The colorplates were executed by Klischeeanstalt
Helmut Brullmann KG,
Stuttgart.
The endpapers were printed by Offsetdruckerei Fricke
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
117,
145,
146,
149,
Jacques Seligmann
&
Company,
New York
124
&
Co., Stuttgart-Feuerbach.
308, 309, 312
Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art,
The binding was executed by the firm of Franz
Photo-Atelier Gerlach, Vienna 264
Washington, D. C. 70 Former Staatliche Museen,
Spiegel
Joaquin Gomis and Joan Prats, Barcelona IX, X, 219, 220, 221, 267, 330
(photo by Karl H. Paulmann)
Berlin I,
205
(Art
Library)
The
KG, Ulm/Donau.
entire
book was printed and bound
in
West
Germany.
322
Y
Y
Y
ipr
I
\\1