Page 38 - joa-feb-23

The Comeback of

Art Nouveau

in 2023
By Regina Cole, Contributor,
Forbes, January 1, 2023
very style comes back sooner or later, they say, and this may well be
the year we reawaken our passion for the early 20th century style
Ecalled Art Nouveau. Popular between 1890 and 1910 during the
Belle Epoque period, the short-lived style quickly became wildly popular
as a reaction to the academic art, eclecticism, and historicism of 19th
century architecture and decoration. It was often inspired by natural forms
such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers and became a dominant
force in architecture, painting, sculpture, jewelry, furniture, typography,
and other design of every kind. Its undulating lines, swirling excesses, and
propulsive forms could be found everywhere; its signature whiplash
shape was appealing because it was blatantly sexy and even a bit vulgar.
The novel aesthetic of Art Nouveau wrapped modernism in the garb of
pleasure, instead of in the hair shirt of social obligation and moral uplift.
Implicitly antiestablishment and insinuatingly revolutionary, Art
Nouveau was the essential expression of the period’s uncertainly about a
new century. Its first houses were those Victor Horta designed in Brussels,
Belgium; later style exemplars included Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi,
the kinky black-and-white drawings of British author and illustrator
Aubrey Beardsley, the glassware of American Louis Comfort Tiffany, the
Austrian bentwood furniture of the Thonet brothers, and the radical
white-on-white interiors of the Scottish couple Charles Rennie Macintosh
and Margaret Macdonald Macintosh.
The anti-establishment
quality of Art Nouveau made
it a natural for the style's first
revival during the counter-
cultural 1960s. Its rhythmic,
sinuous lines were adopted
for poster and album cover
art of the psychedelic age, as
well as for such products as
the wrappers of rolling
papers. Art Nouveau-like
designs had already returned Poster for "JOB" cigarette paper (1896), by Alphonse
with the flower patterns pop- Mucha; Right: Big Brother and the Holding Company
ular in fabrics at the time. In Poster by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley (1966)
the 1960s, graphic designers (Graphic: Kevin L. Jones)
saw these seductive styles as the key to a new psychedelic vision. It’s easy
to see why. Flowers, curves, peacocks, and updates of Art Nouveau images
from the past (including skeletons and roses) dialed up with “eye-
vibrating” colors made the perfect visual accompaniment for the acid-
flavored Romanticism that took root during the Vietnam era. Even the
fonts were poached from turn-of-the-century graphic art. Art Nouveau
became the house style for the counterculture of the mid-20th century.
Today, Art Nouveau appears to be making another comeback,
heralded by a series of museum exhibitions and books. Among them is
Hector Guimard: How Paris Got Its Curves, an exhibit at the Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City now through
May 31, 2023; and then the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago,
from June 22, 2023, to January 7, 2024. It is a celebration of France’s
most famous art nouveau architect, Hector Guimard, who is perhaps best
known for his iconic Paris Métro entrances.
Interestingly enough, New York’s Museum of Modern Art decided in
1958 to permanently install one of Guimard’s cast-iron Paris Métro
entrances of circa 1900 in its Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden,
where the patinated metalwork of its sinuous vegetal forms harmonize
perfectly with nearby sculpture by Rodin, Matisse, and Picasso. It, no
doubt, presaged the worldwide Art Nouveau revival craze that was about
to begin. Maybe it even helped to spur it.
But whether Art Nouveau is out of style or not, we never quite get
enough of those sexy lines that speak of constant movement, uncertain
boundaries, and inevitable change. These are elements we recognize
and respond to. And that may be Art Nouveau's most compelling
characteristic: more than other styles, it reflects the human condition at its
most seductive, inevitable, and fragile best.
36 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles