Art Nouveau  

As much as we are supposed to choose an event from the survey timeline, I broke the rules a little bit on this post. I love art nouveau and I really wanted to write about it. Art nouveau is a fascinating movement that I have frequently found myself inspired by when doing my own work. It has beautiful organic shapes, neutral colours, and amazing depth despite its flat colours. It also inspired much of the art in the 60’s and 70’s and served as a foundation for psychedelic art.  

Design  

Design was a big part of Art Nouveau, a key element to many of its iconic imagery and posters was incorporating text into illustrations or thoughtfully framing illustrations with text and embellishments. A lot of the most recognized pieces of art from the movement were advertisements and poster designs. I would say the foundation of current day poster design began with art nouveau. The artists took care with visual hierarchy and made meticulously detailed illustrations with plenty of embellishments. Alphonse Mucha is an iconic artist from this time period and probably who most people think of when they think of art nouveau. He is said to have had a skill with printing that was unrivaled.  

Features of Art Nouveau design is organic shapes, whiplash curves, detailed illustration and flat and neutral colours.  

Architecture  

Art Nouveau architecture is facinating and beautiful, using those same organic shapes and natural curves but this time in staircases and buildings. Architects like Hector Guimard ran with this style and designed beautiful pieces of ironwork for subway stations and buildings. The craftsmanship of ironwork and furniture is where the core of art nouveau really comes into play. The movement came from the arts and crafts movement. The ideology of that movement came from a rejection of industrialism and a value for well-made products with thoughtful design.  These products being well made and beautiful is a big reason we still see these antiques around today. They didn’t break down as easily as many of the mass produced products of that era.