Art Nouveau

Lore & Background

The style grew out of the floral patterns of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain, the Pre-Raphaelites, and graphic artists such as Aubrey Beardsley. In France, the rationalist ideas of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, whose 1872 book Entretiens sur l'architecture shaped Horta, Guimard and Gaudí, were a key influence, as was the craze for Japanese woodblock prints. The name first appeared in the Belgian journal L'Art Moderne in the 1880s and was popularized by the Paris gallery that Siegfried Bing opened in 1895. The first true Art Nouveau houses rose in Brussels, above all Victor Horta's Hôtel Tassel, finished in 1893.

Reader's Guide

From Brussels the style moved to Paris, where Hector Guimard used it for the entrances of the new Paris Métro, and it peaked at the 1900 Paris International Exposition. Key names include Alphonse Mucha in posters, René Lalique and Émile Gallé in glass, and Louis Tiffany. It spread across Europe under local names: Jugendstil in German lands, Secession style in Austria-Hungary, Liberty style in Italy, the Glasgow style in Scotland and Tiffany style in the United States. By 1914 it had run its course, giving way to Art Deco and modernism in the 1920s, before a critical revival in the late 1960s.

Did You Know?

• Detractors in Belgium mocked it as the whiplash, eel or noodle style.
• In Italy it was named after Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder of Liberty & Co in London.
• A 1970 exhibition of Hector Guimard's work at the Museum of Modern Art helped restore its reputation.
• Growing cities such as Glasgow, Barcelona, Munich and Helsinki used it to build an artistic identity.