Semester 2, Lecture 5

The Arts and Crafts movement you will remember was a reaction against the alienating effects of industrialisation and mass production. William Morris, who was the main figure in the movement, had a very strong social and political philosophy about the positive effects of good design on the lives of ordinary people, he and the others who were involved in the movement advocated a return to handcraftsmanship and traditional techniques. His ideas were supported by the British art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), who argued strongly for the unity of all the arts, for the end of segregation between the fine arts of painting and sculpture and the so-called decorative arts, or what we now call craft and design.

Follwing in the Design Reform footsteps of the Arts and Crafts movement was another movement called Art Nouveau, a philosophy and a style which also proposed that art should be a way of life, embracing all the art forms including architecture, graphic art, interior design, and jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, and fine arts as well. However, where the Arts and Crafts movement was oriented towards manual production and a more rural lifestyle, Art Nouveau was not opposed to mechanisation and it was a strongly urban movement.

In the 18^th and 19^th Centuries arising from a new scientific attitude towards nature, the art of botanical drawing became highly developed. This form was largely produced by scientists – botanists, zoologists, naturalists – rather than artists. The work of German biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel achieved a great deal of popularity within his own lifetime and exerted an influence over taste and aesthetics. The sinuous lines and "whiplash" curves in particular dominated the unfolding of Art Nouveau's flowing line, which may be understood as a metaphor for freedom and release from the weight of artistic tradition and critical expectations that Art Nouveau was trying to achieve.

Art Nouveau’s philosophy of art as a way of life resulted in an attempt to create total works of art, spiritually uplifting environments in which every single element was the result of an overall design aesthetics. The Tassel House by Henry van de Velde was one of these works, as was the House for an Art Lover by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Mackintosh, like many others in the Art Nouveau movement, was influenced by Japanes aesthetics. In the Japanese furniture and interior design, the focus was on the quality of the space produced, which was meant to evoke a calming and organic feeling to the interior.

This was designed as an entry for a competition of a German magazine in 1901. It was disqualified for technical reasons, but was awarded a special prize by the jury. The drawings were published in the magazine but the house was never built during Mackintosh's lifetime. 90 years later Glasgow City Council and the Glasgow School of Art built the house near Glasgow. Some of the rooms are open to the public, while others are used by the Glasgow School of Art.

Mackintosh admired the Japanese restraint and economy of means, and his own designs used simple forms and natural material. He developed a style of his own based on a contrast between strong right angles and floral-inspired decorative motifs with subtle curves. The Mackintosh rose is a distinctive element of his decorative work.

Art Nouveau emerged in a wide number of European cities in the years between 1880 and 1914, including Paris and London, but also Vienna, Barcelona, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Berlin, Milan, Riga in Latvia which is now considered to have the finest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world and even as far away as New York. It varied considerably from centre to centre and even went by a number of different names. In some places it was a restrained affair while in others it drew strongly on aspects of the Rococo style. At the more Rococo end of the scale we have the work of Paris-based Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, who produced many posters and advertisements, bringing the style into popular view.

The use of luxury veneers and finely cast gilt mounts in the furniture of leading cabinetmakers Georges de Feure (1868–1943), Louis Majorelle (1859–1926), Édouard Colonna (1862–1948), and Eugène Gaillard (1862–1933) indicated the Neo-Rococo influence of François Linke (1855–1946).

Art Nouveau quickly reached an international audience through the vibrant graphic arts printed in such periodicals as The Savoy, La Plume, Jugend, The Yellow Book, and The Studio. The Studio featured the bold, Symbolist-inspired linear drawings of Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898). Beardsley's flamboyant black and white block print J'ai baisé ta bouche lokanaan for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1894), with its brilliant incorporation of Japanese two-dimensional composition, may be regarded as a highlight of the Aesthetic movement and an early manifestation of Art Nouveau taste in England.