Who Led the Nineteenthcentury Resurgence of Stained Glass? Art Appreciaiton

Being dislocated all the time almost whether an object or edifice really is Art Nouveau or non, made me decide to get my facts straight and learn to recognise the characteristics of the style, and understanding its background.

The Industrial Revolution

In guild to understand the situation in which Art Nouveau emerged, nosotros're going back in time to find the Industrial Revolution taking place in the 1850s. People felt rich and wanted to accept things that before but really rich people could afford. Cheers to mechanisation (cheap mass production) imitations of luxury products and 'fine art' were made affordable to everyone. Previous styles were copied and quality was no longer important. Anyone could now live in 'style'!

The Arts and crafts Movement

As could be expected, the traditional craftsmen did not appreciate this new management at all! They insisted on paw fabricated, quality products. On the British Isles, these craftsmen formed the 'Craft Movement', led by John Ruskin and later by William Morris. Their objective was to create beautiful yet sustainable products for the ordinary homo. 'Arts and crafts' is therefore not a style, but rather a philosophy. A blueprint principle. For inspiration, they looked back at designs from befóre the industrial revolution. To the late Middle Ages and to Gothic design. Logically, their principle failed equally hand made products are so much more plush than mass produced imitations, and their ordinary human being could non beget them.

In 1892, Walter Crane (1845–1915) wrote 'The Claims of Decorative Art' which inspired many craftsmen of his generation, and of after generations. Existence an English artist and book illustrator, and a fellow member of the 'Arts and Craft Motility', it was his objective to bring art into the daily life of all classes.

Over at the mainland of Europe, artists and craftsmen had a lot of admiration for Walter Crane's theory and the English 'Craft Motility'. And those continental craftsmen were the ones that actually evoked a real alter! They were ready for anew art, an Art Nouveau, based on inventiveness and craftsmanship. Inspired by nature, they wanted no more than copying of styles from the past and no more mass production. And the ideal was besides for thís movement to surround the ordinary man with beauty. Even so again, we must conclude that the socialist principles backside Art Nouveau failed equally it was utterly luxerious and likewise expensive for ordinary people. Artistically though, it became a huge success!

Majorelle had lofty ideals virtually making fine design for the masses, but its expense ensured the clientele was solidly bourgeois. He failed in his egalitarian impulses, equally William Morris had before him.¹

Fine art Nouveau

Thanks to the philosophy that people should exist surrounded by beautiful products, Art Nouveau became a 'full style', meaning that it included a wide array of artistical territories – architecture, jewellery, lighting, printed fabrics, furniture, household silver and other utensils, wallpaper, typography and graphic design etc. "Fine art should be a way of life!"

The new art style developed in many countries at the same time, and was chosen diffently in each land. Nowadays, 'Art Nouveau' and 'Jugendstil' are accepted internationally equally the generic terms. Here are some of the names that are used in different countries:

• Art Nouveau (France, Belgium)
• Jugendstil (Germany)
• Nieuwe Kunst (The Netherlands)
• Modernistic Mode or Freedom Style (UK)
• Arte Nuova or Stile Liberty (Italy)
• Arte Nova (Portugal)
• Modernismo (Spain)
• Secession (Austria)
• Secesija (Croatia)
• Stil Modern (Russia)
• etc.

I discovered a nice graph that besides shows when Art Nouveau 'hit' unlike countries:

Fine art Nouveau Belgium | Art Nouveau The Netherlands | Fine art Nouveau French republic

Because Art Nouveau developed simultaneously over a large geographical expanse, there are considerable differences between the local varieties. In Belgium the so called whiplash was very popular where as in French republic more than realistic lines were used and in the Netherlands, geometrical forms were rather popular. There are some characteristics however, that clearly all local varieties have in mutual:

• Hit belief in the time to come
• Optimistic view on the world
• Aversion to symmetry (Japanese influence)
• The apartment-perspective and strong colors (Japanese influence)
• Flowing (moving) lines
• Motifs and patterns based on flora & fauna
• Glazed tiles and ceramicsinterspersed with brick
• Hard, low-cal coloured materials
• Employ of modern techniques and materials (large drinking glass surfaces, reinforced concrete, cast fe & steel)

The flowing (moving) lines are probably the best known feature of Fine art Nouveau. They are supposed to limited the emotion of this new period in time, a fourth dimension that can exist characterized by motion. We can find the lines in balconies, banisters, facades, etc.

The motifs and patterns based on flora & fauna are commonly long-stemmed, gracefully stylised plants and flowers – such equally lilies, callas, irisses, poppies, rosebuds – swans, peacocks, dragonflies, eggshapes, clouds, water and slender female figures with long hair and long flowing dresses.

The flat-perspective and strong colors of Japanese woodcuts, especially those of Katsushika Hokusai, had a strong consequence on Fine art Nouveau. The wave of Japonisme that swept through Europe in the 1880s and 1890s was particularly influential on many artists with its organic forms, references to the natural world, and clear designs that contrasted strongly with the reigning taste. Too existence adopted by artists like Emile Gallé and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Japanese-inspired art and blueprint was championed past the businessmen Siegfried Bing and Arthur Lasenby Liberty at their stores in Paris and London, respectively.

Siegfried Bing (1838–1905) was a German art dealer in Paris, who was prominent in the introduction of Japanese fine art and artworks to the W and the evolution of the Art Nouveau style in the late nineteenth century. In December 1895 he opened his famous gallery, the Maison fifty'Art Nouveau, which showed works of artists of what would become known as the Art Nouveau movement. Henry van de Velde designed the interiors of the gallery, while Louis Comfort Tiffany supplied stained glass. Bing's gallery featured entire rooms designed in the Art Nouveau way by his stable of in-house designers. During the gallery'southward most successful period, 1896–1902, Bing handled a wide range of artistic work, included fabrics designed by William Morris, glassware by Tiffany, jewelry, paintings, ceramics, stained glass, and furniture in the Art Nouveau style.

Bing's activities were important, perhaps crucial, to the Japanese influence on Fine art Nouveau. He published a monthly journal, Le Japon Artistique, which began in 1888 and was collected in 36 volumes in 1891. The journal is known to have had a great influence on artists like Gustav Klimt and George Hendrik Breitner. And hither I come full circle again as this painting by Breitner was one of my favourite paintings when I was a lilliputian girl! I bought a postcard of the painting which hang higher up my bed for many years.

Cheers to industrialisation (and the opportunity to mass-produce) tiles experienced a major revival. They were waterproof, fireproof and pollutionproof, and relatively inexpensive (compared to plastering, they have a longer lasting wear and lower installation cost. They besides price far less than stone). And because they were easy to make clean, they as well became very popular with the rise of the bathroom and the greater appreciation of the benefit of hygene in the kitchen. In the late 19th century, epidemics were even so very lethal! Every bit you can come across below, Art Nouveau artists adapted to this new building material speedily by designing the most beautiful handmade patterned tiles!

Besides new building materials such as glass, reinforced physical, cast atomic number 26 & steel became available to Art Nouveau artists thanks to the industrial revolution. Ane of the main 'new' building materials was bandage iron which had actually been invented in 6th century Communist china. Information technology was only after the industrial revolution that new production methods showtime immune cast iron to be produced cheaply enough and in big enough quantities to regularly be used in big building projects. Cast atomic number 26 was unremarkably made from pig atomic number 26 which had to be heated until information technology liquefied, and was then poured into a mould to solidify. It was mostly used for columns as cast fe is comparatively brittle simply very strong nether compression. (Not under tension!) Cast atomic number 26 columns enabled architects to build tall buildings without the enormously thick walls required to construct masonry buildings of whatever elevation. Such flexibility allowed tall buildings to have big windows and allow daylight enter. Slender cast iron columns could also back up the weight that would otherwise require thick masonry columns or piers, opening up floor spaces in factories, and enabling architects of theaters, churches and synagogues to amend sight lines when supporting balconies.

The employ of large glass surfaces in buildings grew during the second part of the 19th century with the growing popularity of cast atomic number 26. Drinking glass was used for functional reasons (large windows creating luminous living spaces) as well as decorative reasons (stained glass). And while stained and leaded glass allow in the wanted light, information technology still provided privacy for the abode owner. Skylights in private houses became a new miracle.

Reinforced Physical by François Hennebique

And last but not least, reinforced concrete was added to the list of new building materials. Though a concrete house was built as early as 1837 by J.B. White of England, cement did not become widely adopted until the 1850s and 60s when information technology was used for sewer systems. It nevertheless remained too expensive for large-scale apply until the 1900s.

In 1879 the Belgian François Hennebique enclosed wrought iron beams in cement, initially, to protect them from fire and corrosion, as well as from the chemical fumes found in factories; From 1892, after several new discoveries had been washed, Hennebique replaced the iron with steel and started to utilize his Béton Armé (reinforced concrete) in all supports (walls, columns, beams and ceilings). Equally important, he then started to realise that he needed to combine those supports into a monolithic element using hooked connections. This so chosen Hennebique system was one of the first appearances of the modern reinforced concrete method of construction.  The first edifice erected using this organisation was the 1897 Weaver Building in what was then the Docks area of Swansea.

The final step was taken in the early 1900s by Eugène Freyssinet, who recalculated all the formulas for reinforced cencrete and in the process re-developed pre-stressed concrete, which enabled curved supports to carry much greater loads and counteracted deterioration of the concrete itself nether pressure level. From here on, buildings could get much larger and could be built faster than ever before.

Recognition of Fine art Nouveau compages by UNESCO

Although Fine art Nouveau was replaced past 20th-century modernist styles fairly apace, it is considered today as an of import transition between the historicism of Neoclassicism and modernism. Furthermore, Art Nouveau monuments are now recognised past UNESCO on their World Heritage List every bit significant contributions to cultural heritage. The historic middle of Riga, Latvia (still on my bucket list!), with "the finest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe", was added to the list during 1997 in part considering of the "quality and the quantity of its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture". And in the twelvemonth 2000, four Brussels town houses by Victor Horta were added as "works of human creative genius" that are "outstanding examples of Fine art Nouveau architecture brilliantly illustrating the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in fine art, thought, and society".

¹ Quoted "Villa Majorelle: within an Art Nouveau restoration" in Financial Times

Read more:
Art Nouveau (Flemmish Paper OKV1977)
Le Béton Armé (1898-1939)
Fine art Nouveau – History and Legacy
What is Fine art Nouveau?
Nieuwe Kunst (in Dutch)

romanhathimerent38.blogspot.com

Source: https://aboutartnouveau.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/art-nouveau-in-history/