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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Flowering of Modernity, August 15, 2003
This review is from: Art Nouveau (Hardcover)
A very large, comprehensive and definitive book on Art Nouveauâ€" with almost 480 sumptuous illustrations, many full page and double page, and almost all in beautiful color â€" of the highest quality photographic reproduction. Absolutely breathtaking example s of the great diversity of Art Nouveau as it is expressed in decorations, embellishments, objects of every description, jewelry, lighting and lamps, furniture, architecture and fine art. This overwhelming quest for the New (Nouveau) â€" a monumental art mo vement which swept across Europe and America around the turn of the centuryâ€" awakened western culture from the limiting concepts of the 19th century into the global enlightenment of the 20th. Revolting against repressive 19th century mores, Art Nouveau e xplored and reveled in the vital life-force of nature and its untold processes and organic mysteries. End Notes: "On the basis of shared ideas and ideals, artists strove after a homogenous style that would find expression not in uniformity but in variety. Despite all the inconsistencies, a unified framework does show through the many variations. . . Art historian and Art Nouveau scholar Dr. Gabriele Fahr-Becker pursues this yearning for an all-pervasive style in its impact on architecture, interior desig n, furniture, gold and silversmiths' works, art ceramics and glass, graphics and painting. She guides the reader through the various national schools in Scotland, England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Russia, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and the United States." . . . "The countless threads of Art Nouveau are interwoven to form a complex and yet clearly distinguishable picture of an art movement on the threshold of the 20th century."""
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Total Work of Art, July 30, 2007
Art Nouveau (French for new art) was a decorative arts, design and architectural movement that began in the last decade of the 19th Century and ended with the cataclysmic onset of World War I. Art Nouveau was a reaction to the shoddy, fussy and regressive historicism of most 19th Century industrial design and architecture... it truly was the dawning of the modern age in the fields of the applied arts. Art Nouveau had its germination in England of the 1870s and 1880s, first with the Aesthetic Movement, and then with the Arts & Crafts Movement, but the style came to full fruition in continental Europe during the 1890s. Variously inspired by nature, Rococo, Symbolist art and poetry, Japanese and Middle Eastern art and the female form, Art Nouveau was a dynamic and ebullient style that briefly captivated the fervid imagination of the turn of the century public.
Its first flowering was in France and Belgium and then later in Scotland, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Spain, the Austro Hungarian Empire and later still across the Atlantic in North America. Art Nouveau was a pan european movement that swiftly spread around the industrialized world during the first age of globalization, predominately being concentrated in larger urban areas. The new style flourished in towns and cities such as Paris and Nancy, Brussels, Darmstadt, Munich and Weimar, Barcelona, Glasgow, Helsinki, Vienna, Prague and Chicago amongst others. Early Art Nouveau was graceful and elegant with a stylistic vocabulary inspired by motifs drawn from nature, such as stylized plants with whiplash tendrils; it was curvilinear, curvaceous and sinuous. Later the style became more abstracted, rhythmical and severe (especially in Austria and Scotland) with an emphasis on straight lines or repeating squares and selective ornamentation. Art Nouveau was known under various names in many European countries; three amongst them being, Jungendstil in Germany, Stil Liberty in Italy, and Modernisme in Spain. Art Nouveau pursued an aesthetically unified goal with its best designers creating a gesamtkunstwek (German for total works of art) where every component in a buildings interior was coordinated and homogenous. Art Nouveau was an art of the Fin de Siecle or Belle Époque age with their enthusiasm for, yet apprehension over the fast pace of industrialization. The facade of the old world was crumbling to be replaced by a new social and economic order that frightened many people who were quite comfortable with the way things were... great change comes at a price. Art Nouveau artists and artisans created a wide range of products; from delicate ceramics, glass, carved and gilt furniture to gold, silver, jewellery, illustration, posters and paintings. An example of one of the new forms to be explored was the electric lamp; artificial lighting (replacing candles, gas and oil) had just been invented and Art Nouveau artists responded with great originality, gaiety and freshness.
There was a new generation of brilliant artists throughout Europe who willingly embraced the "new art" and in most large cosmopolitan cities they diligently worked away, thus contributing to this vibrant new aesthetic. In many European capitals one could find highly gifted artists working in a broadly unified, yet eclectic style. To list but a select handful would include the likes of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Aubrey Beardsley, and Archibald Knox in Britain and Emile Galle, Louis Majorelle, Hector Guimard, René Lalique and Alfons Maria Mucha in France. In Belgium one had artists of a singular vision working such as Victor Horta, Henry Van De Velde, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy and Philippe Wolfers. In Germany and Austria one had a cast of stellar artists such as Peter Behrens, Richard Riemerschmid, Bruno Paul, Herman Obrist, Otto Eckmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Otto Wagner amongst others. While in America one also had artists and architects such as Louis H. Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Comfort Tiffany and George E. Ohr. There were too many creative geniuses working in too many artistic centers to mention here, but suffice it to say that they all contributed greatly to this new style. Art Nouveau was an art movement with a social conscience; for many of its exponents naively believed that they could enhance the living conditions of the masses by bringing beauty into their lives, yet this noble goal sadly failed. The primary reason these idealistic artists were not entirely successful in this aim is that the objects they made were usually handcrafted and time consuming to make, and thus quite expensive. When Art Nouveau products were cheaply available to the average person they were invariably mass produced; and hence rather tacky, cheap and chintzy. The truth of the matter is that Art Nouveau chiefly appealed to the petty bourgeoisie, the aristocracy and the intelligentsia with its exquisite craftsmanship and daringly modernist sensibilities. In Paris the Exposition Universelle De 1900 was held to great acclaim with artists, artisans, architects and the curious public flocking from all over the world to its monumental gates. However in the next several years Art Nouveau would diminish in quality of vision and popularity with many artists brief careers fading or moving on to more productive endeavours. The influence of Art Nouveau on the arts slowly declined after the first decade of the 20th Century; and it increasingly came to be seen as decadent, neurotic and unhealthy with its wildly organic forms and erotically charged overtones. If one moves forward fifty years or so into the 1960s and 70s; Art Nouveau's fortunes underwent a resurgence of interest with a youthful and curious generation more than willing to embrace this misunderstood and much maligned movement, the tide had indeed turned.
Gabriele Fahr-Becker has written a book that is intellectually consuming, and with impeccable research it will keep one rapt for many hours with its fascinating history of Art Nouveau. From beginning to end this comprehensive volume will inspire and exhilarate with its tale of these pioneering artists attempts to reimbue the Western decorative arts and architecture with a new spirit of modernity. Art Nouveau is nowadays more popular than ever with many important books written on the subject, and today Art Nouveau objets d'art are highly collectible and sought after by the discerning art lover. Art Nouveau laid the ground for fully fledged modernism in the decorative arts, design and architecture that was to arise a little later in the 20th Century. So although Art Nouveau may seem quaint, quirky and strange to some this style has been nothing short of a revelation to many; and with hope this volume will inspire in you an abiding passion for all things Art Nouveau.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An all-encompassing study of Art Nouveau in all media ..., March 11, 2006
This review is from: Art Nouveau (Hardcover)
German art historian Gabriele Fahr-Becker gives us an immensely rich and vital resource, arguably the most comprehensive book of its kind. In its 420 pages, she fully documents Art Nouveau's origins from Japan to the Middle East, the Guilds to the Aesthetic/Arts & Crafts movements and the Pre-Raphaelites to the Symbolists. The scope of Art Nouveau is evident in its geography, the categorical basis on which the author presents an extensive range of material -- not only from Paris, Brussels and Vienna but also from Glasgow, the rest of Europe and America. Appropriate for both scholars and a popular audience, it is densely packed with hundreds of gorgeous color illustrations. Its special features include mini-biographies of artists associated with Art Nouveau and a complete glossary of terms. Conscientious and thorough, Fahr-Becker gives due attention to Art Nouveau's sensuous language, explaining how "...plants and animal symbols, more eloquent than words, became the emblems of eroticism." In Art Nouveau, she implies that there could be decadence without obscenity, as art went "back to nature". During the period, there were still "symbol's of man's (sic) sexual confusion" for which "Sigmund Freud tried to offer a remedy ... through psychoanalysis." She is careful to emphasize, however, that in the realm of the senses, Art Nouveau struggled to pick up where the Pre-Raphaelites left off, "with a fusion of eroticism and spiritual nobility."
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