Anderson Art Nouveau Architecture

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78500-768-2
Verlag: Crowood
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Distinguished by their lavish sculpture, metalwork or tile facades, Art Nouveau buildings certainly stand out. Art Nouveau buildings are unique, audacious and inspirational. Rejecting historic styles, considered inappropriate for an era driven by progress, architects and designers sought a new vocabulary of architectural forms. Their vision was shaped by modern materials and innovative technologies, including iron, glass and ceramics. A truly democratic style, Art Nouveau transformed life on the eve of the twentieth century and still captivates our imaginations today. Beautifully illustrated, this book explains how the new style came into being, its rationale and why it is known by so many different names: French Art Nouveau, German Jugendstil, Viennese Secession, Catalan Modernisme, Italian Liberty and Portuguese Arte Nova. It covers the key architects and designers associated with the style; Victor Horta in Brussels, Hector Guimard in Paris, Antoni Gaudi on Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna, Odon Lechner in Budapest and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow. There are detailed descriptions and stunning photographs of buildings to be found in Brussels, Paris, Nancy, Darmstadt, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona, Milan, Turin and Aveiro. Finally, it covers the decorative arts, stained glass, tiles and metalwork that make Art Nouveau buildings so distinctive.

Art Historian, lecturer, exhibition curator and broadcaster, Dr Anne Anderson FSA has studied Art Nouveau architecture and interior design for over thirty years. She has travelled extensively studying and photographing Art Nouveau buildings. Author or editor of seven books, Anne's research is widely published in learned academic journals, exhibition catalogues and popular magazines. She has curated six national exhibitions, the most recent being Beyond the Brotherhood: The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy. Her career as an international speaker has taken her all over the world, including, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Anderson, Anne

Leseproben

Chapter Two New Art: Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Secession, Modernisme or Liberty THE PLETHORA OF NAMES BY WHICH THE New Art is known is born out of its national and regional variations. French Art Nouveau takes its name from Samuel Bing’s Maison l’Art Nouveau, a commercial gallery opened in Paris (1895; destroyed). Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, is noted for its own Art Nouveau school, École de Nancy, officially founded in 1901. In German-speaking areas, including Scandinavia, the new design ethos is termed Jugendstil (Youth-style) after the avant-garde magazine Jugend (1896). Munich (1892), Vienna (1897) and Berlin (1898) witnessed a breakaway from conservative art institutions; Georg Hirth coined the term Secession (Sezessionismus) to characterize this dissent. The first German artists to ‘secede’ broke away from the Munich Artists’ Association in 1892. Secession was prompted in Berlin when a landscape by Walter Leistikow was rejected by the state-run Association of Berlin Artists; Leistikow was at the forefront in promoting modern art. Similarly, in Vienna, a group led by Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus, in 1897. In Darmstadt, reform came from above rather than below, when Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig (1868–1937) invited seven avant-garde artists to form a colony on the Mathildenhöhe; here the aim was economic as well as cultural rejuvenation. The Darmstädter Künstlerkolonie also fostered local identity, repositioning Darmstadt as a forward-looking, modern city, within the newly formed Reich. In Italy Stile Floreale was also dubbed Liberty style after the famous London store, Liberty of Regent Street, which had done so much since its founding in 1875 to promote artistic fabrics, ceramics and metalwork. But Liberty, meaning ‘liberation’, carried an obvious connotation given Italy’s recent unification. While all architects and designers turned to nature in search of a metaphor for modernity, each developed their own idiom. With individuality the driving force, Mackintosh, Horta, Guimard, Lechner and Gaudí all stand out as developing their own distinctive style that has left its mark on their native city. In evolving their own artistic language, they were all keenly aware of the design reforms associated with the English Aesthetic movement and the emergence of the Arts and Crafts. Le Style Anglais: The Aesthetic Movement and Arts and Crafts
In England, one of the first nations to industrialize, the catalysts for change were John Ruskin (1819–1900) and William Morris. Furnishing his new home, Red House, Bexleyheath (1859, Philip Webb), Morris was faced with commercial designs, all too often badly made, that lacked artistry. Rallying his friends, who numbered architects and artists, Morris established his own commercial decorating firm, initially named Morris, Marshall, Faulker & Co. (1861–75). Later this would become simply Morris & Co. (1875–1940). As beauty was a ‘positive necessity of life’, he was determined to transform the world with beautiful things1. Inevitably things lovingly crafted would be more expensive than those mass produced by machine, a conundrum that dogged the Arts and Crafts movement. For Morris, who gave his first public lecture on the decorative arts in 1877, architecture or the ‘art of house-building begins it all’; it stood to reason that ‘if we want art to begin at home… Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’2. Morris’s concept of ‘art in the home’ raised the status of wallpapers, curtains and carpets. Elevated to works of art they became the remit of the artist rather than the manufacturer. Design reform led artists down two very different paths: those who saw the answer in a return to the handicrafts and those who sought an alliance between art and industry. Christopher Dresser, England’s foremost industrial designer, fully accepted the implications of mechanized production and stressed the importance of good design. The application of art to industry offered the artist new opportunities. Designing provided a good source of income and a means of establishing a reputation. Voysey began and ended his career designing ‘flat patterns’. Renowned as an Arts and Crafts architect, Voysey was a very successful industrial designer. Selling patterns supplemented his income, especially in the lean years before he had established his reputation and after his practice declined c.1910. He sold his first wallpaper design in 1883; by the end of the decade his reputation was established at home and abroad. The Aesthetic Movement
Commercial manufacturers realized the potential of ‘Art at Home’, commissioning designs or establishing specialist workshops. By the 1870s, the consumer could procure art wallpapers, art glass, art pottery and artistic dress. Any commodity with pretentions acquired the label ‘art’. Walter Hamilton’s The Aesthetic Movement in England (1882) argued it was about educating taste and cultivating an individual style. Oscar Wilde, the self-appointed spokesperson of the ‘English Renaissance of Art’, took it upon himself to educate both British and American audiences. At the heart of this design revolution lay the House Beautiful, the desire to surround oneself with ‘beautiful objects of everyday use’. German scholar Jakob von Falke (1825–93) deemed it a ‘woman’s aesthetic mission’ to create a beautiful home, as an appreciation of the ‘lesser or industrial arts’ would cultivate good taste; ‘it humanizes us and idealizes our life’3. The mantra became ‘Art for Life’s Sake’. By the early 1880s taste had become a contentious issue. Lacking expertise, the wealthy could turn to their architect or interior decorator, a profession that was just emerging. Many relied on the plethora of domestic advice manuals that instructed the owner on the dos and don’ts of decorating a house. Architect and furniture designer Charles Locke Eastlake (1836–1906) led the way with Hints on Household Taste (1868). American journalist Clarence Cook’s House Beautiful: Essays on Beds and Tables, Stools and Candlesticks (1878) gave its name to the entire vogue. These publications elevated interior decorating into an art form, a means of self-expression. Arranging a room was likened to painting a composition or orchestrating a symphony. The watch word was harmony, as objets d’art, an oriental blue and white vase, a piece of Venetian glass or a delicate embroidery, were to be arranged to form a pleasing whole. Decorative unity was largely achieved through complementary colours or tones. Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architects and designers developed this concept into the gesamtkunstwerk, in which every aspect of the interior was integrated into a ‘total artwork’. Arts and Crafts
The art industries created a consumer boom that was at odds with the ethical values implicit in the Arts and Crafts movement. A reformist ideology, born out of the impact of the Industrial Revolution and urban expansion, it sought a revival of the crafts claiming the machine had reduced men to slaves. The division of labour meant that few had pride in their work and they certainly rarely enjoyed it. It was no longer necessary to understand the relationship between materials, design and production. Conversely, the craftsman understood the properties and limits of the material he worked in. A true architect needed to understand the art of building, to be a practising craftsman. Philip Webb led the way, embracing all aspects of design and execution, from the pointing of brickwork, the design of staircase rails to window fittings. By extension furniture and furnishings were now considered integral to the overall scheme, falling within the architect’s remit. According to Baillie Scott, ‘each piece of furniture is a thing to be considered not entirely alone, but qualities depend in every case on the proper relation to a complete scheme when this furniture finds itself happily at home in a little world of colour and form’4. Ideally, design and making were undertaken by the same person but this was a tall order; it was more practical for an architect to build up a team of craftsmen. The interdependence of design and craft encouraged workshop practice, the designer working alongside the craftsman. Restoring the status of handwork was essential; skills that had been lost, due to industrialization, needed to be revived. With making a group process, the founding of brotherhoods or guilds became a natural outcome. The quality of the life of the worker was imperative, restoring pride and sense of accomplishment. Words were put into action with the founding of the Art Workers’ Guild (1884), which provided a forum for discussing the relationship between architecture and the applied arts, and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (1887). The Century Guild
The Century Guild, a collective of artists who coalesced under the guidance of architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851–1942), sought to unify the arts emphasizing their inter-dependence5. In his own words, Mackmurdo hoped the Guild would ‘render all branches of art the sphere no longer of the tradesman but of the artist’ and would ‘restore building, decoration, glass painting, pottery, wood carving and metalwork to their rightful place beside painting and sculpture’6. Clearly inspired by Morris & Co., the Guild offered a complete service covering all aspects of furnishing; textiles, wallpapers, light fittings, furniture and stained glass. Many of Mackmurdo’s...