X

riARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

31111001898335

^p

ROBERT SCHNUTZLER

ABRAMS

the earliest hooks <

un twenty

^j

Nouve?

\rt

iK'd

begins v

"The mentaj image evoke

e:

aive.ui

icntion of

both outlandish

is

.ous

it

gives

001 89 8335

creeps!"

our appreciation

iy,

istic style

'

turn of the centun

ace.

undergone a complete

Nowadays, collectors and museums pay high

works

or

prevalent

and numerous exhibitions

in this style

with the art of

this fascinating

and provocative

ave recently attracted the attention of a broad

Nouveau no longer needs

:s

and

ideas;

extensive study of Art

,

interpreted. In this first

Nouveau published

in this

the author, Robert Schmutzler, undertakes to

the history, development,

et

a$d

social

Aer, Art

artistic sense)

Nouveau

is

and meaning (both

of Art Nouveau. For

not a brief and bewildering

mainstream of

in the

its

however, these precepts and ideas

expounded and

to be

apologists to defend

artistic

development, nor

merely transitional stage on the road leading to

^e know

art as

icnt that

it

can take

its

and

art

istorical styles

today:

it

a style

is

and

rightful place beside the

movements.

author shows that Art Nouveau's roots and

lents

go far back into the eighteenth century.

the idea that Art

Nouveau was an

He

artificially

development, and gives the reader an illuminat\ey of

its

evolution. Both the text and the ex-

chosen illustrations provide us with a better

ly

canding of one of the few complete movements

listory of art, a
:

painting, sculpture,

arts,

cture,
sts

as

that

encompassed the
erior decoration,

and objects for everyday use

and

architects in such distant

developed

Paris.

dictions;

this

and diversified

Chicago and Glasgow, Vienna and

Ma and

movenun

Brussels,

Art Nouveau was nourished by

volume

discloses the

inner unity

beneath them.

Jr.^1

RETUlt
MAH

kj

ENTRAL

'

CIVIC

CENTER

ITY

LIBRARY

DATE DUE

AX

^E R 1
M6ft
WCT

A^2

5 1986

71 9R5
6

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196"

2 1986

SEP

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JUN

9 1989

///
NIAfe n

5 1991^

AUG 1 2 1991
NOV 1 2 139ft
JAN 2 a 1992

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99

199

q709.C4

Schmutzler, Robert
Art nouveau

MARIN COUNTY LIBRARY

Art Nouveau

BERNHARD PANKOK

Endpaper for the

official catalogue of the exhibit of the

German Empire

at the /900 World's Fair in Paris

Robert Schmutzler

Aft NoUVCaii

Harry N. Abrams,
iv.arin

New York

County Free Library

Civic Center Administration

S?-,i

Inc. Publishers

Building

Rafael, California

10

The

front binding reproduces a design created by

Aubrey Beardsley

in

1896 for

the binding of Ernest Dowson's Verses (reproduced by courtesy of the Victoria

and Albert Museum, London).

The endpapers reproduce

artist

a wallpaper design

by Henry van de Velde which the

conceived in 1894 or 1895. The original wallpaper was produced

in three

separate color schemes (reproduced by courtesy of the Library of the Ecole

Nationale Suprieure d'Architecture

et

des Arts Dcoratifs de la Chambre,

Brussels).

English translation by Edouard Roditi

Library of Congress Catalog No. 64-10765

All rights reserved.

No

part of the contents of this book

may

be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers,

Harry N. Abrams
Copyright 1962
Printed

in

in

Inc.,

New

York.

West Germany by Verlag Gerd Hat je, Stuttgart

West Germany

CONTENTS

The Phenomenon

Form and

Structure of Art

Nouveau

Historicism and Studio-Style

33

The

35

Origins of Art

Nouveau

William Blake

35

Proto-Art Nouveau About 1800

53

Nouveau

55

Latent Art

Early Art

Nouveau

Dante Gabriel

Rossetti

61

and His Circle

The Japanese Style

Preliminaries to Art

Nouveau

France

114

125

Brussels

125

Holland
Paris and Nancy

152

141

London
Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland

172

Barcelona

212

New York

191

227

Glasgow

239

Vienna

244

The

Significance of Art

Nouveau

Acknowledgments
Notes

260

279
281

Selected Bibliography

299

of Plates and

308

List

"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" (1890)

in

97
109

High and Late Art Nouveau

Chicago and

Vignette from

61
73

The Masters of Industrial Design

The Influence of William Blake

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

29

Index of

Names

Picture Credits

Illustrations

318
322

THE PHENOMENON

rt

Nouveau

is

the term generally used

for defining the style of art which,

around 1900, had

long,

sensitive,

as its

sinuous

main theme 1 a
line

that

re-

minds us of seaweed or of creeping

Such a line might also be sugby the way the spots are scattered in a leopard skin or by the flick
plants.

gested

of a whiplash, flowing or flaring up,

moderato or jurioso, always moving

a sort of narcissistic self-delight.

likewise find

it

illustrated in the figures of

in

We

swans on a wallpaper,

or making the locks of nymphlike girls flow and undulate, or

thrusting electrical blooms into space from lampstands

stems are as delicate as those of

Historically speaking, Art

now known

as historicism

whose metal

lilies.

Nouveau developed between

and what

later

the style

developed as our

own

modern art. Like both of these, broadly speaking, Art Nouphenomenon of the Western world. "Between" does not
mean that it was a style of transition: Art Nouveau, the German
term for which is Jugendstil, its Viennese form being Sezessionsstil,
and its Catalan version known as Modernista, also became known
in Paris, in the nineties, under the name of "Modern Style," an
Anglicism that is explained by its English origins. As a style, it carried its emphasis and its value, its center and its purpose within
style of

veau

itself.

is

Seen in retrospect, styles generally appear rigorously defined.

In reality, however, their frontiers were often uncertain, representing a slow transition rather than a sudden break. In spite of the

countermovement of the pendulum which seems to govern all successions of styles, each style, in the living metamorphosis of art,
grows out of the one that preceded it and begins immediately to
develop the seeds of the one that is destined to replace it. The origins
of Art Nouveau are thus to be found in historicism, just as Art
Nouveau later became the point of departure of modern art, transcending itself with new aims and solutions. It is true that, while
Art Nouveau lasted, one was aware only of what had preceded it
and had already become
fought against

it

so exhausted 2 that

Art Nouveau artists

new forms and means of expresto achieve a new vision of beauty

in their desire for

sion, feeling themselves destined

and to find a form for new values and meanings. This creative will
which inspired Art Nouveau found its area of expression mainly
between London and Barcelona, between New York and Vienna,
between Brussels and Munich, in a great number of works which
achieved real perfection, even

if

the truly creative artists, here as

thus remain indistinct, each year being of great significance in such

when one

a confused period

Even

style dovetailed into another.

the nineties, truly creative works did not

all

in

necessarily belong to

Art Nouveau: Cezanne's paintings, for instance, stand apart, though

they are of course closely related to other phenomena that likewise
influenced the styles of Art Nouveau.

On

the whole, Art

Nouveau may not have culminated

any

in

"great art," being represented as a definite sdiool neither in easelpainting, so preponderantly popular in the nineteenth century, nor

work of

in the autotelic statue conceived as a

art in itself rather

we

than as a decorative element in some architectural whole; yet

find the first specific features of Art

THOMAS THEODOR HEINE

Vignette from "Die Insel" (1900)

Nouveau

in the pictorial art

of Blake and Rossetti, though mainly in objects of applied art re-

produced

in their paintings.

The subject matter of the human figure

and the landscape in painting,

the background by Art Nouveau, though

in sculpture, that of the portrait

elsewhere, were so rare that their style survived only for a short

were indeed relegated to

while.

these subjects all remained dear to the Impressionists,

Art Nouveau reached

its

maximum

diffusion

decade of the nineteenth century and

in the last

our own. Although

its

and concentration

it

produced

The

in the first years of

birth as a style can, in certain cases, be speci-

fied within a year, the art that

treated landscapes as

as a

whole cannot be

still-life,

if

one of Cezanne's two or three main

entirely missing in pure

Art Nouveau. Seen

morte arrangement of heterogeneous

lifeless objects

as a topic or as a

Horta the

interest to the adepts of a style that attached so

High Art Nouveau, appeared in

892 in Brussels, emerging completely armed like Athene from the
head of Zeus. Jugendstil likewise came into being in Munich in 1894,
1

almost without any recognizable preliminary stage. In London,

however, whence the European continent drew its inspiration to a

very great extent, the late form of Art Nouveau, with the organic
life

that animated

its

curves, began as early as 1880, after having

much

even

means of

subjects,

is

as a whole, the nature

circumscribed with any exactitude. In the case of the architect

style's richest phase,

who

they were handling portraits.

could not, either

distributing objects in space, be of

any

much importance

movement, to life and its sources, to "the springs of life," as William Blake had said prophetically. 3 Art Nouveau was indeed striving, in a single figure as well as in the integrated whole of an area,
after a connected whole and, if possible, a structural homogeneity,
to

the illustration of palpable objects always being of secondary im-

portance.

form in the middle of the century.

However, even before 1900 a countermovement could also be detected: in 1898 or 1899, the more geometrical or cubic late Art

Art Nouveau's center of gravity thus shifts very distinctly in

relationship both to academic painting and historicism, on the one
hand, and to Impressionism on the other hand. The "free" individ-

Nouveau

ual

been preceded by a

earlier

thus began to appear in Vienna. It

is

true that Mackintosh

had already begun to develop something similar in Glasgow in the

early nineties. But Gaudi, the greatest genius among Art Nouveau
architects, created on the other hand, between 190$ and 1910, the
most important examples of his undulating and sculptural architecture, the carved movements of which were inspired by living
forms; and, as late as 1914, Van de Velde, a master gifted with such

abandon the field to those that are "determined" or

"applied" or that must contribute toward a "synthesis." 4 Instead
of anecdote and of description of the visible world, instead of
comment and realistic reproduction, decorative and emblematic
forms now appear. We recognize the decorative and applied arts
as the basic concern of Art Nouveau, understood both in the
arts

broadest sense, extending from the industrial product, such as wall-

"great art," being represented as a definite school neither in easel-

paper and furniture, to the whole of an interior and,

High Art Nouveau, seven years after Picasso had created Cubist
painting and three years after the building of the Fagus Factory in
which Gropius had given definitive expression to the forms of
modern architecture. The chronological frontiers of Art Nouveau

sense,

of

a wider

even to "applied" or practical architecture or also to graphic

work, principally posters and book

and

in

illustrative or

illustrations,

whether symbolic

ornamental and almost abstract. The pulse of

Art Nouveau can thus be

felt to

beat at

its liveliest in

ornament.

This ornamental element determines the entire style, extending

to

its

"free" painting

Nouveau

and "free" sculpture

expresses itself genetically, first of

too. In principle,
all,

as

Art

an ornamental

surface-movement where the ornamental element remains dominant, even

if

applied to the representation of figures or of objects

situated in space.

Even

artists like

Gaudi, Tiffany, or Maillol,

have created extreme examples of three-dimensional form,

Nouveau

who

inter-

and foremost as a phenomenon of surface.

On the other hand, ornament now began to dominate figures and
objects set in space as an inner force too, imposing on them an
ornamental structure. Since, by its very nature, this ornament is
always flowing, its structure must reveal itself full of movement
too. Horta's fragile and elegant linear framework of architecture
pret Art

is

first

OTTO ECKMANN

from "Pan" (1896)

Vignette

ornamental, producing, so to speak, vibrating structures; Tif-

fany's

and Gall's

vases,

with or without further ornament on their

become geometrical and, in

Art Nouveau, the pulsation of life has come to a

the ornament has

phase of

this final
standstill,

furniture likewise adopt the appearance of ornaments.

chair, for

Seen as a whole, such useful Art Nouveau objects as pieces of

instance,

interpreted as

is

out stems and buds,

281), or as if

of

its

own

it

As a

expresses with elasticity

weights; in
will

were made of a substance that puts

as Blake

had already designed

force

this, it

it

how

ready

to fulfill

it is

its

do when, simply by turning

his head,

he brings into play an

is

(i897)

Nouveau

signs, closely

why

lettering

be a fruitful field of activity for Art Nouveau;

of Winter"

how

requires in order to resist tensions or to bear

with form, meaning, and symbols. This

Book

task or

exaggerates the effort, as a mannered athlete

not decorative or noncommittal; they are

Vignette from "The Evergreen: The

(plate

sort of parable of itself, such a chair

excessive apparatus of muscles. The ornaments of Art

ANNIE MACKIE

it

had become the abstract three-dimensional emblem

function.

much dynamic

if it

much

also,

are

connected

proved to

why

it

is

comparatively easy to force such a world of ornamental emblematic

forms to "speak" and deliver

its

message that

is

hidden behind the

pattern and even behind the consciously intended "content."

curved surfaces, are ornamental bodies

in

what appears

to be a

continuously flowing movement; the masses, swelling like sand

humped

dunes or

like a camel's back, that

provide the forms of

Gaudi's houses and cupolas, with their reptilious and iridescent

Human
tion:

it

is

form, as far as

it

appears

in

Art Nouveau,

is

is

when he

represented in art but also in

animated from within by an almost vital

morphology (plates 4, 13, and 14). In Perret's garage on the rue
Ponthieu, which illustrates the limit between late Art Nouveau
and modern architecture, the ornament still dominates (plate 317).

Not only
planned

in

the central rose

window

but also the whole faade are

terms of a tense ornamental disk, stressed in

itself.

Here

is

of a distinctly "musical"

man marked by an ornamental

nature, so

developed

space,

no excep-

animated ornaments of Art Nouveau are open to the fourth

dimension, to the flow of time that

surfaces of scale-like ceramics, are architectonic ornamental bodies

in

is

likewise relegated to realms of ornament. 5 Just as the

life

character, not only

and, above

all, in

the

dance, where living man, set in motion by music, becomes a figure

of art. "Then came the

first 'Girls,'

the Barrison Sisters, six or

seven of them; with their black-stockinged

legs,

they threw up their

long baby-dresses in rhythmical lines." With this

the "Girls," the effect of the parallel

row

phenomenon of

also appeared, with the

by her contemporaries, but

Nouveau

also in innumerable other things,

Art

expressed the Manneristic principle of the figura serpen-

tinata in a self-evident

way which

differed from that of the sixteenth

century but was nevertheless carried by a genuinely manneristic

Metamorphosis, the

undercurrent.

vital

force

of

self-transfor-

mation, plays an essential role in the world of forms, patterns, and

ideas of
ler

Art Nouveau. What we have

confirms

first

just

and foremost the way

in

quoted about

Lo'ie Ful-

which the human figure

was then subjected to an alienation that created something nonhuman, nonanthropomorphic, a self-impelling ornament which
reminds one

less

of a

human

glass.

One

have

so frequently inspired

being than of a jellyfish or of a Tiffany

should therefore not be surprised that

Lo'ie Fuller should

themes for design and for sculpture.

Lautrec (plate 172), Bradley (plate

3 5),

Chret, and Thomas Theodor

Heine have all made use of her figure in ever-renewed variations

and abstract ornaments. Bronze statuettes that represent her emphasize the whirling

and gliding element

169), stylizing the

human

in her

dance (plates 168 and

figure, in the literal sense of the

an asymmetrical "plastic ornament," an idea

those years.

LED

CANCER

nusj

SEPT2I

V1RC0

LIBRA

first

word,

conceived

as
in

Art Nouveau expressed moreover an unmistakable preference

for hybrid forms and figures of bastard origin, not only in the
numerous mermaids that decorate its buildings or in its many pieces
of furniture that are conceived as if they were plants, but also in
the disappearance of a clear boundary line between its different
fields of art,

when

it

created "plastic ornaments," for instance, or

fused the frame and the picture in an ornamental and undivided

HELEN HAY
Summer"

Calendar leaf from "The Evergreen: The Book of

(1895)

whole that is full of significance, as had been anticipated by Rossetti and Whistler and was then achieved fully by Toorop, Munch,
and Gauguin; that is why Art Nouveau also produced books and
bindings in which the typography, the illustrations, and the

ornament

fuse in a small but fully integrated

work of

ornament and the "infinite regression" of

pattern which remains valid from Blake and Rossetti to Hodler
and Minne. "Or Lo'ie Fuller who, whirling on her own axis like

ensembles such as the "illuminated" books of Blake,

repetition of identical

raphy of pages of poems

in the

German

art.

in the

In

typog-

art periodical, Pan, or in

a corkscrew or a spinning top, with countless yards of veil-like

the fine bindings by Charles Ricketts, there arises, out of originally

materials shining in colored light like an iridiscent Tiffany vase,

heterogeneous elements, a calligraphic synthesis of homogeneous

became, in her increasingly audacious serpentines, a gigantic ornament; the metamorphosis it underwent, as it flared up or sank

forms and signs that are

again, being swallowed

seems to us now, as

we

up by darkness or by

the fall of the curtain,

look back, to have been the very symbol of

all

subjected to the same rhythm. Similarly,

Art Nouveau also achieved a synthesis of the

lettering

and the

picture or the lettering and the ornament in a poster. During this

period the poster thus acquired for the

Jugendstil." 6

that insured

The very metaphors used in order to reproduce this impression

suggest facts which characterize the fundamental attitude of Art
Nouveau. Not only in "the serpentine dancer," as she was called

the concise personal character

its

first

time the kind of clarity

being visible from a distance and, at the same time,

and

style of a signature.

The metamorphosis Art Nouveau was capable of achieving and

its

indifference to the various genres of art not only facilitated the

10

by Van de Velde

"synthesis of art" (a term used

brought about the appearance of the

worked, a typical phenomenon,

fields, for

in a

in Pan), 6 but also

"universal

number of

artist"

media or

different

various purposes and in various areas. The most

sided of these "universal artists"

who

many-

was Van de Velde who, outdoing

William Morris, produced designs for everything imaginable. From

written on gold paper, were then attached to the frames; and the
titles

of Whistler's paintings, read in succession from a catalogue,

one after the other, sound

pressed itself

kind of abstract poetry, devoid of

like a

was not fortuitously that Art Nouveau exmainly and most completely in book design, where

subject matter.

So

it

poetry and decoration achieved their closest relationship.

Nouveau

painting he went, through applied art and design, to book deco-

the most important Art

and typography, then to the abstract poster also, and to

designs for packaging of industrial products; from the patterns for
wallpapers, upholstery and decorating materials or carpets, to
those for embroideries and fabrics for women's clothing; from
designs for windows, skylights, individual pieces of furniture and
ensembles, to architecture itself and even to the industrial designing

the theory and the practice of art.

of ocean liners, domestic utensils, crockery, silver flatware, candle-

ness

ration

lamps, jewelery, ceramics, and porcelain. In fact, there

sticks,

is

no

except sculpture in the round, in which Van de Velde did not

field,

own

express his

unmistakable sense of form. In the decoration of

rooms, he included murals by Maurice Denis and Ferdinand

his

Hodler, sculptures by Maillol or fountains by Minne; for the

work of

"total
its

art"

(Gesamtkunstwerk) was thus destined to find

field of expression

tic

beyond the

limits of

Wagner's highly

conception of opera, so that man's whole

ioned and transformed into art. This

life

possible only

if

one abolished distinctions between the various genres of art, which

Art Nouveau allowed since it viewed all things as sheer ornament,
considering them

all

of equal value. The picture as ornament, the

human

figure as ornament, the structure as ornament, and also the

ornaments of signification and of function, are brought to our
attention in every domain. In such a fundamental attitude and so

typically "decorative" a style, the tendency to overstep all boundaries

was

latent

from the very

inner affinity""

tween genres.

On

start.

"Reciprocal osmosis through

achieved not only between forms, but also be-

is

the other hand, thanks to the "closed form" of

Art Nouveau, a kind of "closed system"

is

achieved in intercon-

nected ensembles that range from the interior decoration of rooms

to the designing of books. This "reciprocal

affinity"

and

is

also brought about

literature.

number of

No

artists

osmosis through inner

between the graphic or

plastic arts

other period appears to have had a greater

endowed with dual

talents, such as painter-poets,

than can be found in the history and prehistory of Art Nouveau.

Blake and Rossetti, William Morris, and Aubrey Beardsley have
left us

poems of

painted pictures for poems and wrote poems on picSwinburne composed poems on paintings by Whistler which,

art. Rossetti

tures,

11

as great a value as their creations in the field of

of

have indeed also written on

From

Dresser and

Owen

Jones,

Morris and Walter Crane, to Obrist and Endell, Galle and Gui-

mard, Sullivan and Loos, they have

their artistic creation, thereby

all

added

literary

works to

adding clarity to their work and

giving information to others or acting as teachers. Here too

Velde remains a leader

in the sheer

Van de

quantity and overall effective-

of his work. The same back-and-forth

movement

is

also

achieved between the graphic and plastic arts and music, and

between literature and music. Beardsley started out

Antoni Gaudi and

his

patron,

Count

Giiell,

as a pianist;

were enthusiastic

drawing entitled Wagnerites,

and there exists a legend about the Palau Giiell in Barcelona which
says that Gaudi constructed it around the music room. 10 The French
Wagnerians; Beardsley has

left us a

Roman-

might be refash-

would become

artists

Many

CHARLES RICKETTS
Pomegranates"

(i

891)

Vignette from Oscar Wilde's

"A House

of

form and

the one art in which

its

object are always one

from

the object cannot be separated

its

technical expression, in fact

an art that achieves most completely the

stantly pursued

by

all

the other arts.

and where

which

artistic ideal

is

con-

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one

of the most sensitive minds of his age, noted briefly: "The time:
1892. Its spirit: the musical element." Whistler, moreover, as early
as the seventies, already

gave

titles to his

the nature of the colors of his

was formulated
tions, Scherzo,

JOSEF

HOFFMANN

Vignette from

"

Ver Sacrum" (1898)

Symbolistic Revue Wagnrienne was not intended for music

cism,

m's

its title

criti-

being merely metaphorical. Setting to music Mallar-

V Aprs-midi

d'un jaune and Maeterlinck's Pellas et Mli-

sande and blending aural and visual elements, Debussy created a

mixed type of
libretto for

ballet

and opera; Oscar Wilde's Salome became the

an opera composed by Richard Strauss; the young

Schonberg, a late Romantic

Nouveau, composed

his

who was by no means

a stranger to Art

Gurre-Lieder on poems by Jens Peter

Jacobsen, while typical Jugendstil poems of a minor sort constitute

the text of his Pierrot Lunaire.

From

the very beginning, Stra-

vinsky tended toward "applied music," that

synthesis of aural

and

visual elements.

His

is

to say ballet

titles,

and a

Oiseau de jeu,

Sacre du Printemps (a periodical was similarly entitled Ver Sac-

rum), are as intimately allied to Art

Nouveau

as Scriabin's

Pome

Thames landscapes and

but where terms taken from the field of music were

colors:

Harmony

Nocturne

very predilection for talking or writing about such problems,

creators
artists

and supporters of

of higher than

ical analysis

of Art

cissistic style.

this style

Nouveau might

were, without exception,

also

However,

prove that

poetry."

a psychologit

was a nar-

The leitmotiv of the sinuous curve already gives us

the impression that such a line

moreover

who

average intelligence.

in parallel

is

phenomena

in love

with

itself. It is

as well as in a

reflected

"complementary

attitude," that of the mutual compatibility of positive and negative

forms situated on either side of a common formal frontier. Un-

Nouveau was

influenced by no other mythical or

symbolical figure as strongly as by Narcissus.

12

all

point toward the reflecting and conscious attitude adopted by the

consciously Art

Toorop produced a drawing entitled Organ Tones; in his Cry,

Munch painted sound waves, and his paintings in general were once
described in Pan as "emotional hallucinations of music and

Blue and Green,

in Violet

methean fantasies" where the abstract totality of the work consists

in tones, colors, and moving lights. There even exist paintings by
the Lithuanian composer Ciurlionis representing "painted music" 11
land,

in

and Yellow. Whistler thus

anticipated color harmonies which were to become typical of Art
Nouveau: yellow, white, the combination of yellow and violet,
and of blue and green, all carefully avoided by most artists both
before and after this period.
Such marriages of visual and aural elements, as well as the dual
gift of the painter-poets and the quality of symbolism expressed in
ornament, all prove the great inclination that Art Nouveau felt
toward synthesis. Over and above all this, important theoretical
works on art written by many of the Art Nouveau artists, and their
White,

in

de jeu and Pome d'extase. Besides, Scriabin also composed "Pro-

which are almost abstract and very close to Art Nouveau. In Hol-

his portraits

in abstract and musical terms like Capriccio, Varia-

combined with names of

Symphony

pictures in which not only

One

of the master-

pieces of Jugendstil sculpture, Minne's fountain in the

Folkwang

Museum (plate 143), shows an adolescent looking at his reflected

image in the water. The figure is represented five times, so that the
poet Karel van de Woestijne has called the fountain "Narcissus in
fivefold reflection." Without being conscious of

Nouveau movement was indeed a disciple

pond in Oscar Wilde's famous parable:

"When

it,

the

whole Art

of Narcissus, like the

Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a

The extraordinary importance of music, and of an approximation of painting to music, in Gauguin's theory of art is widely
known. Oscar Wilde claimed, as Baudelaire had done earlier, that

cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came
weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool

music was the ideal type of

and give

art, the lodestar for all the

other arts,

it

comfort.

12

Isskustva.

As

some short-lived

for Paris,

among

Symbolists first appeared there;

was

literary reviews of the

these, the

Revue Blanche,

became closely connected with an Art

Nouveau movement in painting. But Symbolism and Art Nouveau
were not identical. Though all Symbolistic poetry is not necessarily
started in 1891,

later to

Art Nouveau poetry,

all

perceived by the eye

always Symbolistic. "Art

is

Nouveau

of the art of Art

that can be

at the

is

same time

both surface and symbol," Oscar Wilde had indeed affirmed.

The esoteric trend pursued by the Symbolists, among

whom

Mal-

larm had declared, as a guiding principle, that "to be clear

is

to

rob the reader of three-quarters of his pleasure which consists in

slow guessing," and the very restricted number of copies of the

Symbolistic reviews, which circulated only in limited

circles, her-

metically closed to profane elements,

all these characteristics

indeed

betray another inclination of Art

Nouveau toward an

intro-

version which

closely related to narcissism

is

opposed to exhibitionism. In

this context,

though

it

may seem

Walter Pater had said

that every heart guards, like a prisoner in solitary confinement,

own dream

of a world, indeed of a

Moreau managed

life

and

in fact to live,

such as the painter Gustave

Gray. The virtues of such a

Huysmans conand Wilde, too, for Do-

as the writer

ceived for his fictional hero Des Esseintes,

rian

its

life

were also celebrated by the

followers of Stefan George and are expressed in the

Hebrew name

Nabi (meaning "prophet") that designated a group of French Post-

who

Impressionist painters

n'a que soi (page 14), both decorated with blossoms. Again,

and a withdrawal from the world express

introversion, narcissism,

of a periodical Die Insel (The Island), a

themselves

in

given to

"with the proud intention of isolation," by

it

the

title

Heymel was

Walter Heymel. Later,

the

same name, and

mean something

like

in

midst of the

name

the creation of the

its

pour

humdrum

l'art.

new

some other style of Art Nouveau. As Wolfflin said, one sees only
what one wishes to see. But Cretan and Japanese art and to a
certain degree the English style of Art Nouveau all reveal distinctive symptoms of an "insular" character: instability, a tendency
toward asymmetrical arrangements, patterns, or ornaments, sug-

title

should be taken to

Indeed, a kind of island of art

sea of daily life.

Nouveau

applied

style;

as a geographical fact. Before

and Japan, another

arts, similarly

compared to Art Nouveau is that of the island of Crete in the

Minoan period (plate 280), especially the palaces at Knossos which
were first unearthed immediately after 1900, moreover by an
Englishman, Sir Arthur Evans, two facts that now seem suspiciously significant. Obviously, Cretan art could no longer in any
way influence Art Nouveau, but appeared on the contrary in the
absurd guise of a consequence of

island, had,

in

with

exerted the greatest influence

on English Art Nouveau. In art history the style which can best be

15

(1884)

founder,

any other country, England had indeed played the decisive role

and

Hobby Horse"

house by

an ivory tower, a refuge for the aesthetes and

curious significance for Art

art

The Century Guild

its

In addition to this symbolical meaning, an island also has a

its

"

to call his publishing

both instances the

a place of exile for l'art

in the

page from

in the art

the notion of isolation. It

On

Title

claimed to be Initiates or the Elect.

and literature of Art Nouveau one finds

makes itself felt in the poet Hofmannsthal's motto, "I'm nothing to anybody, but nobody is anything to
me," and in the titles of Fernand Khnoppf's bookplates, Mihi and

Everywhere

SELWYN IMAGE

it,

almost like the discovery of

gestions of the aquatic element in their patterns, with the squid or

the octopus painted on Cretan vases, submarine creatures such as

also

appear

in

Japanese art where, as

in the

wood-block prints of

Hokusai, water, waterfalls, and waves play an important part,

contrasting clearly with the more classical styles of Western

The case of Celtic

art,

all

art.

another element in the prehistory of Art

Nouveau, appears
results are difficult

to be similar. If

even

Review of 1898, that

if

one

sees

one studies
it

it,

however, exact

stated, in the Architectural

the Pre-Raphaelite painter

Edward Burne-

moreover, promoting the Scottish renaissance in

scripts. In this

was not only because he chose as themes Merlin and Vivien or other
figures from Celtic legends which, like Tristram and Isolde, King
Arthur, or goblins and fairies, all acquired a new life in the aura
of Art Nouveau. Above all, the Architectural Review refers here
to the style of Burne- Jones and to the type of beauty of his figures.

Nouveau

Art Nouveau as the

The

early Celtic reliefs (plate 185).

Irish poet

in

William Butler Yeats, the leader of the "Celtic

literature,

inaugurated his Celtic renaissance in

1889 with the publication of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other

Poems, and then published in 1893 a volume of lyric poetry, The

Not only was he much concerned with William

Blake, whose work was a determining factor in the genesis of Art
Nouveau, but Yeats also belonged to the group who declared,
Celtic Twilight.

though

it

can never be proved, that Blake had been of Irish and

consequently of Celtic origin. Oscar Wilde, in the

full

splendor of

and Ossianic name, Oscar Finghal O'Flaherty Wills

Wilde, was indeed Irish. The Scottish review, The Evergreen, was,
his Celtic

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Title

page from "Van

Nu

en Straks" (1893)

Celtic form;

poems such as Anima Celtica were published there with initial

letters and ornaments in the style of early Celtic illuminated manu-

Jones helped the Celtic element in art to gain a victory. 15 But this

movement"

its

lacing:

ornamental element, that also reveals purely Art

forms,

we

find the Celtic structural pattern of inter-

the irregular inter-turning of curved,

ribbon-like lines,

forms of details of the human body or of animals that grow out of

known

in

whip" could already be found

in

abstract ornaments (page 114). Finally, even the curve

Around

"flick of the

was launched in
London, that is to say for goblets and ornaments made after Celtic
models. In Germany, Pan even reprinted a "Celtic" poster. 16 Hol1900, a fashion for "Cymric silver"

brook Jackson devotes to the Celtic element a whole chapter

in his

book The Eighteen-Nineties, which is so instructive from the standpoint of the history of ideas and of culture. An article published in
1 89 1 in The Fortnightly Review gives us moreover the impression
that the Celtic influence was then dominant in every artistic activity of the day. 17 Even Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia, Gaudi's
region, was said to be the most "Celtic" Spanish province!
Gauguin, whose style of painting tended toward Art Nouveau,
was not closest to Jugendstil in the pictures that he painted earlier
in Paris or later in Tahiti, but in those that he created during his

stay in Pont-Aven, in Brittany, the most purely Celtic of

provinces.
first

One

thus has good reason to assert that Art

all

French

Nouveau

allowed, after a long eclipse, the Celtic element to reassert

European art. Whatever appears strange, bizzarre, or alien

in Art Nouveau, so different from the conventional European element, comes perhaps from this Celtic source.
But we must first examine in greater detail the essentially artistic
character of Art Nouveau, clarifying its form and its structure. If
Malraux, in reply to the question "What is art?" gives what he
believes to be the only correct answer, "That whidi creates a style
itself in

out of forms," 18

we may

say here, as

if in

can be recognized by what supports

contradiction, that a style

it,

by form and

its

inner

structure.

16

17

LOUIS COMFORT TIF]

\M

Glasjbowl (before 189e)

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

VICTOR HORTA

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY

EMILE GALLE

"Cromer

Bird," decorative fabric {circa 1884)

Inkstand {circa 1900)

Glass vases

and candlestick

Small glass goblets (circa 1900)

ADRIEN DALPAYRAT

Persian

Bowl

Vase (circa

900)

(thirteenth century)

LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the faade of the

& Co. Department Store, Chicago (1899-1904)

EMIL RUDOLF WEISS

KWANSHOSAI TOYO

Carson Pine Scott

Endpaper for "Gugeline" (1899)

Lid of a Japanese lacquer box (nineteenth

century)
10

CHARLES RICKETTS

Binding for

"

A House

of Pomegranates" (1891)

*v'v\
-

/
(

lj

HECTOR GUIMARD

12

VICTOR HORTA
room

23

Detail of a small table (circa 1908)

Detail of the main chandelier in the dining

of the Solvay residence, Brussels

(1

895-1 900)

H
i

t
ij

t*

'-r.

;;

si

/4'X

29
V.
i.,

<

W
-

_-J

Opposite:
13

ANTONI GAUDI

Cupola of the

porter's lodge,

Park

Giiell, Bar-

celona (before 1906)

'.4

VICTOR HORTA

15

VICTOR HORTA
residence, Brussels

Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)

Glass

dome above

the staircase of the

Aubecq

900)

15

Pages 26
16

27:

ANTON GAUDi
I

Giiell,

17

&

Balustrade of the terrace in the Park

Barcelona (before 1906)

ANTONI GAUD
Familia (area 1910)

Detail of the

Church of

the Sagrada

'

.6

26

27

i8

18

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Mirror for the

"Room

de

luxe" of Willow Tea-Rooms, Glasgow (1904)

19

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Wall-bracket lighting

fixture (1900-02)

28

FORM AND STRUCTURE OF ART NOUVEAU

By

its

very nature Art Nouveau remains an ornamental and de-

corative style, which at least offers a concept that

understand

and

variations

all its

veau expresses

possibilities.

itself in the surface,

though

may

Above

it is

allow us to

all,

Art Nou-

by no means always

a superficial style. But, almost without exception,

its

principles

find their full application only in the creation of bodily ap-

pearances and of spaces which, so to speak, must

pass through a

which limits them to two dimensions. In the beginning, there

filter
is

first

thus the surface, then movement, too, within this surface.

Scarcely any

work could be more

Marcus Behmer's drawing

typical of Art

Nouveau than

Aubrey Beardsley, pubmain feature of

unsteady curves from the burning

in the style of

lished 1903 (at left). Its absolute flatness reveals the

the swinging line that flows in

candle. This linear

flow that

it

movement

can change

its

is

so far extended in

its

uninterrupted

direction several times, filling consider-

able areas of the surface. In contrast, other areas, equally im-

MARCUS BEHMER

Drawing from Oscar Wilde's "Salome" (1903)

movement of

portant, remain intentionally empty. The undulating

curves

is

curiously

flat, its

two

lines as

forth within
soft curves.

narrow course
it

shifting slowly back

repeatedly changes

its

and

direction in

The whole remains, however, as well as every detail

Observation of nature is yet suggested, as if

too, quite asymmetric.

from a great
tation has lost

distance, though the figurative element of represenits

value, merely allowing a play with forms pursued

pure harmony of

as a

picture

lines.

somehow conveys an

Half ornament, half

still-life,

the

uncertain meaning, a hidden symbolic

content.

The limits of the strongly simplified and clear-cut forms are

planned so as to allow the adjacent background to be activated
too. The intended or positive forms of objects and the negative
forms of the empty spaces become interchangeable, as do the black
and white elements too, in a complementary relationship 19 that is
founded to a great extent on the disappearance of any perceptible
element of representation. Emil Rudolf Weiss developed all this
to

its

logical conclusion in a design for the

(plate 8)

endpapers of a book

where one can scarcely distinguish the pattern from the

background, or the positive from negative forms. Largely abstracted forms are

filled

with zoomorphic and plant-like shapes; they

can thus undergo a complete metamorphosis in one and the same

stroke. Everything

power of

is

shown

at close range, but the

whole

retains

from a distance. Limitation

to

the dimensions of the surface, at the cost of any illusion created

by

the

a poster that

is

seen

sculpture in the round or by space, thus becomes an absolute rule.

In the same rigorous

pure

29

line or clearly

way

the artist pursues his aims

by means of

circumscribed and uniform elements of surface.

of them homogeneous in themselves, which have been called

all

"surface-bodies."

20

As

means of representation

in terms of space,

of secondary importance. Being nonstructural and non-

color

is

static,

such forms elude the law of gravity so that there

difference between top and bottom.

and

is

is

often

little

Asymmetry remains dominant

even emphasized. But even symmetrical forms cannot con-

more wraithe-like than human. The rhythm expressed

of Art Nouveau in

its

full-blown period

in itself

is

in the

curves

unequal, varying,

"asymmetrical," a rhythm of extended, undulating, and gliding

curves which, before they end, rear themselves again very high
a closed spiral, like a musical beat that
as possible, articulations are

As

finally syncopated.

is

avoided and uninterrupted

in

far

lines are

born of a basically asymmetrical impulse;

generally the rule. In the endless flow of similar lines which are

composed of single asymmetrical elements, they seem to have

emerged from a reflected reduplication or from the radical torsion

transformed as they develop, movement and rhythm tend toward

ceal that they are in fact

a reaffirmation of infinite relationship.

of asymmetrical details of forms.

An

example of the alternation between positive and negative

shift from rigid symmetry to forms of
organic life is given by the star-like flower at the bottom of a
Tiffany bowl (plate i). The ebb and flow of the lines finds itself
repeated in the increase and decrease of their width, which varies
from that of a ribbon to that of a thread. Around the central
forms and of the subtle

flower-like pattern an area of carded texture

symmetry, changes

spite of all

is

and paths of design

Its characteristic is that

behavior of the so-called "Belgian

by not

really being a line but

path or a linear "surface-body,"

in

density ceaselessly, like the pat-

its

tern in a zebra skin. Individual radiating lines

illustrate here the typical

formed which,

it

becomes thicker

curves where the change of direction

is

most

more

However

in

Terms of Line and Volume

Nouveau, two basic attitudes nevertheless confront eadi other here: linear Art Nouveau
and the three-dimensional Art Nouveau, concepts that hold true
independently of real dimensions of surface, body, and space. These
diametrically opposed possibilities may, however, penetrate eadi
other and blend, but in works of high quality they are developed
great the similarities in Art

individually, in

all their

purity.

a sort of

he character of linear Art

narrow

in the

stressed,

line."

Art Nouveau

veau that occurs

and thinner

again in those curves that swing more widely.

In the marginal area of the Tiffany

ornament

is

bowl the structure of

revealed in the points of the flower-star wiu-, ^re

already been discussed:

line

must not be understood

broader context.

outward and inward. This structure of ornament

shows a tendency to reverse and repeat the curves in spirals so that
ultimately the two-dimensional pattern suggests an incursion into
the realm of three-dimensional space. Moreover, the two-dimensional ornament occurs on a curved surface, in the curvature of the
bowl, yet the flat and graphic elements, even as purely represented

in

of the so-called "Belgian"

whole design may

hand,

drawn

in the

course of blowing

it,

"meaning": an

and within the

something

like the pulsating

organism

its

interior

in the gelatinous

and

In creations such as this Tiffany bowl, the paper designed

E. R. Weiss, or the

much

omy

Behmer drawing, Art Nouveau appears very

seem to reveal to us the whole anatAs in High and late Art Nouveau, the propor-

simplified. Indeed, they

of their style.

tions are here elongated, stretdied.and

made narrow,

which

so as to

and reminds one of

lessly, so to

by

appear

surfaces,

on the other
in

terms of

elements of form the nature of

total

trans-

in

itself,

line.

Nou-

"surface-bodies," smoothly closed

becomes

parent wrapping that sheathes the body of a Medusa jellyfish.

Art

"Three-dimensional"

organic flower design has grown out of the inorganic glass, out of
the threads

are indeed

narrow strips of uneven

somewhat in the sense

width,

veau reveals

curvature of the bowl the flower-like design of

We

to that of

an element of space. Ambiguous as the form and

its

in

width from that of a hair

structure of the

also

its

dealing here with lines that can

vary

as here, include

is

surface

has

the geometrical sense, but in a

its

directed both

be, so

in the

Nou-

work

as

it

in

itself

homogeneous

develops, almost seam-

speak, into the next such element of form in a given

series. Besides, these

mentary.

intarsia

is

No

"surface-bodies" are nearly always comple-

form and, consequently, no "surface-body"

lies

on a

neutral ground, each "surface-body" being integrated within the

ground of the surface

in turn, a closely

itself.

The surrounding surface thus becomes,

connected "surface-body" too,

its

shape being

30

determined by the edge of the adjoining "surface-body" or surfaceAgain,

section.

we

find an unrivaled example of this in the blue

and green endpapers designed by Emil Rudolf Weiss (plate 8),

where the frontiers of the various areas are distinguishable from
both points of view. The light green forms as well as the darker blue
ones are punctuated by dark or light dots or drops and are so inter-

woven

that one can never be sure whether the small spirals, like

rounded meanders, are green and penetrate into the blue, or whether
the opposite

However,

true.

is

the pattern

is

not entirely abstract

but only represents strongly abstracted or, as the period called

"stylized," peacocks
light forms,

inasmuch

which are barely possible

as

it,

to recognize in the

which on the whole preceded

it

An example

chronologically.

isToulouse-Lauti-ec'sZ,oi'e/ //er('/ /), which

is

of this

and simplified

stylized

to the point of becoming an abstract pattern (plate 172). The ho-

mogeneous

smooth simplified
limits without which neither the complementary attitude nor the
"surface-bodies" would have been possible, all require a large and
simple form and do not lend themselves to figurative representation. Far more than curved or linear Art Nouveau, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau thus anticipates the abstract geometrical late
phase of Art Nouveau; and in terms of historical evolution, the
intermediary attitude adopted by it is only logical.
surface, the large closed form,

its

they are the "intended" ones and dominate

the darker connecting forms. But the principle of the desired alter-

native effect

is

not affected thereby. The "surface-bodies" here re-

frain from having separate linear contours. Yet the force of the line
makes its influence felt also in "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau,

whether

it

expresses itself as a surface or in space. The uninterrupted

jointless cohesion of the "surface-bodies"

indeed produces a kind

Body and Space

The

can also be found, appropriately modified,

bodies and of space. Linear Art

of "negative" line in the continuous margin between the lighter and

ducing, on

darker areas. This

architectonic structures.

is

a subtle device particularly characteristic of

those forms of "three-dimensional" Art

development either

Nouveau which

find their

as defined bodies or in purely spatial areas. In

both instances the completely closed form, whether as a unit or as a

detail,

with

its

that space has

on which

smoothly flowing margins

no hold at all assumes, in

it

would seem

turn, an indirectly linear

its

Nouveau

own, both sculptural and

is

as if

its

line

lines like

have an

But

in such cases, the

The peacocks in the paper

designed by Weiss seem to have no skeleton and no joints, and glide
like darting flames, magic fire, or whirling waves, whereas the stripes
in a wallpaper by Van de Velde, reproduced here as the endpapers
"elastic" character.

spirals,

and luminescent rays of

solid substance

stance,

if

had escaped from the confines of

assume "substance"; generally

as for instance in a Ricketts

ized
this

it

its

very nature, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau

whether
ornament or in figurative decoration always had a
strong tendency to become more abstract than linear Art Nouveau,
in

31

its

surface

is

As

1).

it

obliged to

lines are vital-

characteristics

and dimensions, can

be achieved in different ways. In the astonishing serpentine vase by

Camille Gauthier (plate 157), the space element

introduced within the linear structure, as

By

like

(plate 10). This transubstantiation,

ton-like constructions,

symbolic language of dynamics.

surface (plate

Nouveau

bookbinding where the

by an organic substance
developing of linear body

But these "surface-bodies," charged with energy and stretching

who, by abstracting or disciplining the passively gliding or the

vaguely organic element in Art Nouveau, transformed it into a

lines,

of

also did this in terms of surface,

they would not have suggested the steel-like vibrations of a spring.

like

in flowers

the flower design of his glass bowl, for in-

achieved by a kind of pleating

Van de Vclde

end

light (plate 12). Tiffany's vases reach up in whirling

of this book, are definitely articulated, like elbow joints, otherwise

ribbons or tracks, belong to the individual style of

by Horta takes off

had sprung into space

frozen fireworks; lines or sheaves of lines twist like

penetrates the third dimension, linear Art

articulations

and

(plate 130). Horta's lighting fixtures radiate in space with lumi-

nous

For surface, body, and space, "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau

manages practically without any articulations. On the other hand,

Art Nouveau cannot always avoid them, as for instance, due

conceptions of

A door handle designed

from the surface of the door

bodies in space, as

to reasons of construction, in architecture.

in its

indeed capable of pro-

spatial elements, bodies

function.

linear

Art Nouveau

qualities characterizing the surface designs of

in the glass.

membranes

mined the form had themselves

In

in

the lines

more open or

is

skele-

that were often of glass could be

if

the lines which deter-

infiltrated the surfaces that

had

thus been filled.

Art Nouveau architecture two different conceptions are

again confronted, those of line or of volume. As Art Nouveau
evolved from ornament and decoration, its architecture is often
concerned first and foremost with interior space. Art Nouveau
architecture thus grows from the inside to the outside, from the

Even

in

and from the relationship between the rooms and floors of

a building to its exterior structure, where the disposition of the
rooms and the intentionally conceived differences of their levels

(plate 14): glass partitions separate the

can be detected. Just as such a plan of the inner arrangement can be

labyrinthine character to the total disposition of the rooms.

interior

seen

from the outside of the building,

so also can

its

construction as

other and from the staircase that also has a glass roof. This use of
glass allows

one to see through a building

fusing opacity

is

parency of such a building,

clearly revealed (plates 131, 136), or, encased in stucco, are then

intentions of Art

moment

radiating great

Van de Velde's dynamic symbolism.

Horta was truly a master in knowing how to achieve the possibilities of linear Art Nouveau. His buildings
linear structures,

energy, as in

forms, or rooms

develop

like

flower stems, spider webs, or the

15, 135). The iron framework, borrowed from hothouse construction, provided the technical basis for

wings of dragonflies (plates

the glass-roofed railroad station, the covered municipal market, the

exhibition hall, and

was even applied

to the private

home. The

functional element, however, transcended all material necessity

and was transformed into a decorative symbol. The linear rooms,
bodies,

and

structures of

impression of flexibility

Art Nouveau not only tend to give an

or impermanence, but also one of trans-

parency. The whole faade of the Maison du Peuple

to a linear

framework

filled

is

thus reduced

with glass surfaces (plate 137). In the

Solvay residence, the main floor

is

literally constructed

of glass

in vistas

which give a

con-

thus achieved which, in spite of the actual trans-

such become visible. The structural parts are, as with Horta, either
interpreted as an abstract and ornamental

drawing rooms from each

is

again characteristic of the ambiguous

Nouveau.
The polarity between linear and "three-dimensional" Art Nouveau appears perhaps in its most extreme form in architecture,
which is concerned with volumes and where the whole building,
each room and every detail, must be conceived almost as a sculpture, as

something modeled out of the mass. The most important

representative of this tendency

massive sculptural bodies in

Antoni Gaudi. His buildings are

which the rooms, like caverns, repreis

sent, so to speak, negative sculptural bodies.

and domes are

which can be molded

Because walls, sup-

formed of a soft substance

at will, such a style can produce grandiose
swinging effects both in the ground plan and in the vertical or
horizontal planes. The architecture of linear Art Nouveau could
metaphorically be likened to flower stems or to the extended wings

ports,

all

treated as

if

of a dragonfly, but the plastic quality of Gaudi's buildings makes

us think of caverns or dunes, of organic substances,

the

wind

and forms that

creates in sand or that the water erodes in rocks.

KOLOMAN MOSER

Vignette from "Ver

Sacrum" (1899)

32

HISTORICISM

AND STUDIO-STYLE

Art Nouveau was an intentionally created

claimed

style that

very seriously to be a "new art" (Art Nouveau) and a "modern

was indeed a protest against the repetition of old styles

and the taking over of form details that originated in organisms
closed in themselves and now preserved, even if no longer vital in
the history of art. Art Nouveau, on the contrary, strove to create a
new "style" in which forms appear as the organic result of a process
of growth which is accomplished, so to speak, before the very eyes
of the spectator. However, this wish to create a personal style presupposes a way of thinking in "styles" and certainly carries hisstyle." It

toricism's older

the past

way

had had

toricism itself

its

of thinking one step forward: as every age of

own

style

the present

excepting,

it

seems, the age of his-

had to develop a

also

style of

its

own.

The characteristics of the new style become particularly clear

when compared with those of the preceding one that had aroused
its outspoken hostility. One thus discovers that Art Nouveau and
historicism are, in matters of form, opposed to each other in almost

everything. For historicism,

great

not only a matter of imitating a

it is

number of extremely varied

styles of the past.

The historicism

of the nineteenth century reveals a specific attitude to style.

Its

imitations of styles of the past, for instance, are rarely archeolo-

would thus be extrapolated

from one unit and inserted in another unit as a sort of form quotation. Owing to different ways of using and even of technologically
producing these form details, such forms adopted from the past
assumed a new character. Over and above this, the middle decades
especially the latter half
of the nineteenth century had ideals
of form which remain independent of those of other ages and, in

gically faithful copies. Certain details

this respect, peculiar to itself as a

period (plates 20-23, 86-88, 296).

In general, the age of historicism

was dominated by a preference

for powerfully sculptural forms developed in terms of space, for

the "open" form, for complicated outlines and, on the whole, for

deep

reliefs

favoring contrasts of light and shadow. This

is

true of

actual three-dimensional creations as well as of surface creations

where these

qualities are attained

by deceptive means that some-

times go as far as using trompe-l'oeil effects. Art Nouveau, on the

contrary, tends to produce closed forms which in

Art

all cases lie

within

Nouveau's true dimensions and favors a flat

and delicate relief. Historicism, and the syncretistic studio-style

the surfaces

that

was

its

continuation, had a special liking for combined forms

with hard and crustlike surfaces which, throughout an interior for

instance, tend to conflict, while

JEAN MIDOLLE
(1834-35)

33

Initials

from "Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre'

Art Nouveau

desires things to re-

spond, to be consonant, and to complete each other. The forms of

the period which

had preceded

it

had generally been heavy, hard,

and
of

thick; those of

little

warm,
were

Art Nouveau, on the contrary, are slender and

weight. The colors of the preceding style had been dark,

dimmed, and "toned"; those of Art Nouveau

unpainterly, clear, and set in juxtaposition or hard

artistically

light, cool,

contrast.

Horror vacui

opposed to amor vacui, accumulation

as

opposed to synthesis, multiplicity as opposed to unity,

as

statics as

opposed to dynamics; structures hidden by surface ornaments as

opposed to structures freely displayed and ornamental in themwith a historical or naturalistic character

selves; traditional forms,

but emptied of

life,

as

opposed to biomorphic forms;

rigid

and

hardened forms as opposed to flowing, gliding, supple, or springing

forms.

Historicism
it

is

a far richer and

more

diversified

has appeared to us to be until now.

Still, if

phenomenon than

we oppose

it

to

Art

Nouveau, we may consider the various phases of historicism that

relieve each other in terms of their unity.

But only

in the eighties

did the studio-style undergo changes that already imply suggestions

of Art Nouveau, though

"composition"

less clearly in

the separate form than in

The studio-style then tended to create

rooms that were, however, not yet homogeneously

in general.

unified effects in

arranged according to these suggested effects; at the same time,

also

it

began to suggest the strange atmosphere of cavern-like rooms

that can likewise be found in Art

Nouveau.

taste for

asymmetry

can then be clearly detected in the studio-style too, at least in the

whole system of an arrangement, if not in the

form and in the individual figures. The tendency to-

relationship of the
detail of its

ward

GOTTLIEB LEBERECHT CRUSIUS

Capriccio {circa 1760)

toward the festive and the intoxicated, reminding one more of Dionysus than of Apollo, is thus common to
both the studio-style and to Art Nouveau, even if the studio-style
proceeds by summarizing or accumulating, by "arrangements" and
the exceptional,

"picturesque" lighting, whereas in Art

"form" from the

interior

and appears

But, in the relationship of Art

Nouveau

in

this

Nouveau

to historicism

studio-style, the sharply formulated reaction of

what appears most dominant.

On

tendency takes

every single object.

and

to the

Art Nouveau

the Continent, Art

is

Nouveau does

not develop logically out of the preceding style, by gradual transformation, as Rococo did out of Baroque.

Of two

entirely

opposed

art, one abruptly replaced the other. Direct relations

between the two existed only in England, where Art Nouveau had
long been prepared beneath the visible surface and where its roots

conceptions of

reach surprisingly far back in time.

34

THE ORIGINS OF ART NOUVEAU

William Blake
Our

search for the origins of Art

Nouveau

leads us back to the

turn of the eighteenth century, to the visionary painter-poet Wil-

liam Blake (1757-1827), 21

who

anticipated the leitmotiv of Art

Nouveau completely. An extended flowing movement,

singularly

asymmetry and a closed graphic form,

in his drawings or illustrations, where
a biomorphic figurative substance has recently been observed. The
laws of gravity and of perspective seem abolished, bodies are scarcely rounded, light casts almost no shadow. Blake's imaginary world
gliding rhythms, as well as
all

these appear

everywhere

remains two-dimensional as far as this

and

is

possible for figurative art

become
Art Nouveau.

a pure outline or a surface

as long as the latter does not

silhouette as

Many

it

did in

elements fuse in the art of Blake, which yet remains origi-

nal to such a degree that only recently has one begun to detect the

WILLIAM BLAKE
(>789)

'

The Divine Image" from "Songs of Innocence"

presence there of certain influences. 22 All that

especially in his form. There

is

is

essential

is

genuine,

not a single feature in his work that

does not bear the sign of exaggeration

"exuberance

is

beauty"

and only seldom is a disconcertingly amateurish trait missing. Art,

for him, was "a means of conversing with paradise"; in his pictures
one breathes the atmosphere of an undiscovered planet. Like
poems, they are visions and, as an

art,

his

imaginative to the highest

from within and nourished on the elements of

another world. But Blake's fairy-like, ecstatic world of images is at
the same time ruled by a strange elegance and an instinct that delights in ornament and decoration. The art of Blake is at once
ingenuous and sentimental, weak and strong, simple and sophisticated. It is eminently romantic: on the one hand it is filled with
sweetness and an exalted child-like faith in fairy tales
an art "for
angels" 23
on the other hand it expresses all the violence and discord of the German Sturm unci Drang of Blake's own age.
degree, springing

Blake's pictorial art

is

extremely literary and always refers to a

text or to lettering, his images being frequently

characters.

Many

erably from the

Besides, a great

of his subjects were chosen from the Bible

pref-

Old Testament from Milton, or from Dante.

number of his graphic works illustrate his own

lyrical or prophetic

poems.

It is

a religious art, but of a rebellious

kind, individualistic and heretical: "I

anity and

combined with

know

of no other Christi-

of no other gospel than the liberty both of

body and mind

and

to exercise the divine arts of Imagination: Imagination, the real

world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow." Behind the forms of nature Blake perceived the sources of
eternal

life;

35

beyond the established forms of material appearances, he

rec-

ognized the ever-renewed spiritual drives whereby everything

is

constantly being metamorphosed.

The

so that even linear intersections scarcely ever occur, and, as in

of Blake's illuminated pages, text

Blake's earliest

charm of the small book-page, Infant Joy (plate 27),

world of children's songs which characterized
period. The illustration that surrounds the poem is

poems

poem

graphical methods. 24

and the idea of the illustration displays

the same kind of benevolent fantasy as the form which expresses
and sustains it.
as lyrical as the

itself,

most

subservient to design.

This page comes from the Songs of Innocence, one of Blake's most

fairy-tale

leads us back to the

is

beautiful "illuminated books." Blake not only illustrated his

them himself according

here, but printed

He was

to his

own

own

typo-

conscious of having invented a device

The idea of the fire-flower is one of Blake's own creations. The

heavy flower is carried here by a frail stem that is curved in the
form of a C and grows out of a lawn which slopes down on one
side. The balance of the composition seems uncertain. The mass of

and the illustration from the

same
more "ornamental" and "uniform" than had
ever been used before. In addition to rendering the text and the
illustration uniform and equal in value, Blake made the content of
the page appear clear and complete. It is not the text alone, but the
uniformity of text and illustration that conveys the whole meaning

open and thereby translated into movement, so

compact forms harmonize with the delicate cha-

poetic inspiration occurred very often simultaneously with visual

the flower
that

its

is

split

relatively

racter of the other elements of the picture.

their jagged

page

and feathery edges, not only

in the sense of a

The small

fill

leaves,

with

intervene between the

movement

itself.

and the geometrical

and bodies, the
outline of the arabesque forms a square which, although open on all
sides and not definitely framed, can yet be recognized as a square
and, across an empty space, maintains its distance from the limits
of the page. This device was later developed into a distinctive style
by Art Nouveau, but remained totally unknown in the more selfconscious style of eighteenth-century Rocaille (plate 29) and was
first

in the figure

With

its

curved

lines

used by Blake.

The

sensitiveness of the organism both to neighboring forms

and

complementary form that

Nouveau. In the jagged lines of white background that interlock with the canopy of flowers above the woman's figure, in the pointed negative forms between the leaping petal-flames, above and on the right-hand side, in the lancet-shaped
empty spaces that introduce themselves above the horizontal chalices from the opposite direction in reversed but identical form,
everywhere, more or less clearly, the outline forms two figures,
delineating them both with equal ambiguity. The intervals, at least
where they approach the positive forms, acquire the nature of
empty reflected forms. This is brought about by a bold, simplifying,
and ornamental outline, as the "realistic" contour of the little group
attests. Here, the empty space outside the contour of the group is
not recognizable as an opposed form; all that remains is a kind of
"form scrap" of passive background. But, apart from the figurative
scene, everything is conceived as if there were neither space nor
so typical of Art

light,

juxtaposed or superimposed

to us, both having been conceived at the

same

time.

With Blake,

inspiration. 25

The meaning of Infant Joy may be understood on several

levels:

represented

as the

the scene taking place in the flower

firstly,

which the dialogue between the two stanzas occurs

and the flower itself as a decorative, fairy-like figure, can both be
understood as the very atmosphere of the lyrical poem. But from
Blake's system of symbols, we may also deduce a more precise
meaning for this content, as an "annunciation" that occurs in the
"flower of love." In a deeper sense too, the flamboyant flower
signifies the "chalice of the womb" itself, into which the angel with
situation in

the "butterfly-wings of Resurrection" has penetrated as "life-agent

of the father" in order to participate there in the holy act of pro-

to the limits of the page gives birth to the

is

plate, in a style

the lower half of the

compelling need for decoration, but also

rectangle of the page

for simultaneous printing of the text

in a

pattern in terms of surface,

by arousing to life, through a question which must be answered, the unborn child in the womb of the mother, who is both
Mater and Matter. 26
The burning flower as the "chalice of the womb" is not merely
creation

a poetical metaphor;

though

less

it

also suggests that all preceding

differentiated

and of

lesser value,

is still

life,

even

present within

the most highly developed species. One thus feels inclined to break
open the hard, closed form of existence in order to attain the stream
of life and penetrate the mystery of ever-renewed conception of
growth. With Blake, a plant or one of the elements can symbolize
the organic principle of something pre-human or within man himself. The meaning conveyed here relates not only physical substance
and movement, but also the same substance and movement of the
spirit, the still unreflected unity of substance and idea, analogous
to the aesthetic and more evident unity of text and image. St. Francis

of Assisi had already preached to the birds; but Blake included

the
tian

amoeba and even primordial protoplasm

in his vision

of Chris-

life.

36

a*

20

37

LOUIS JACQUES

ilM

MAND DAGUKRRF.

St,ll Life

(1839)

21

22

2i

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY

York

22

Hamilton Fish

residence,

New

(circa 1880)

Anonymous photographer Before

the Ball (between 1854

and 1864)

Opposite:
23

CHARLES GARNIER
(1861-75)

Grand

staircase of the Paris

Opra

38

26

>r^-3v

|W

j"-^^rx

&

--'*

HflWAulSo:

ii-uilerWBUU

27
SLJnfa.7:-!

25

28

T>

Mrr>

V**f tri

y<*j

crwljjr B-.M* Mull.".

Foi iM./Jy

Carpet design

24

French

25

WILLIAM BLAKE

The Divine Image (17$'))

z6

WILLIAM BLAKE

7/f/e

27

WILLIAM BLAKE

Infant Joy (1789)

-.rvji. fc>

(*i

at

Ctrl

rjt

U.LIAM BLAKE
Experience" (1794)

<ir*i>

{circa 1750)
-

page /or "Sog5 0/ Innocence"

77t/e

789)

page /or "5ogs 0/ Innocence and

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EXPERT EN:

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nar nice
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41

MATTHIAS LOCK

Rocaille (.764)

wV\!s

LON BAKST

Vaslav Nijinsky in "L'Aprs-midi d'un

jaune" (191 2)
31

NICCOLO DELL'ABBATE

The Frogman (third

quarter of sixteenth century)

32

WILLIAM BLAKE

The Mission of Virgil (1824-27)

Opposite:
I

LLI AM BLA K E The Great Red Dragon and the

m Clothed with the Sun (between 1805 and 18 10?)

-,

^J^X

42
.*>

34
34

WILLIAM BLAKL
Lovers in

Tioe

Paolo and Franccsca in

35

WILLIAM
H. BRADLEY
Tlie

Serpentine Dancer

(1894-95)

36

LOUIS

COMFORT

TIFFANY
Vase (before 1900)

37

WILLIAM BLAKE
Lot and

his

Daughters

(detail) {circa

820)

Whirlwind

of

Circle of the Lustful (1824-27)

36

35

the

17

Sometimes, but only rarely, Blake considers nature only from the

and represents
undertakes to do so, as

exterior

it,

for instance, in a landscape. If ever he

and bucolic woodcuts of his

rhythm is quite asymbe of a soft and animated basic

in the lyrical

was obviously the

be created, provides a decisive indication

first to

(plate 26): here, for the first time, there appears one of Blake's

flame-arabesques, though

it still

reveals itself frankly as a derivative

small Virgilian landscapes (plate 38), their

element, borrowed from Rocaille style.

and nearly all seem to

substance where objective forms are only

the lettering and both of

metrical

half-differentiated, scarce-

ly yet crystallized in their variegated consistence. In these noc-

Rocaille form adheres to

them are thereby transformed.

What had Blake discovered? The Rocaille style (plate 29) is an

animated and dynamically tense ornamentation where asymmetry

turnal scenes the topographical facts also seem to bathe in a general

is

element of nature into which

can penetrate. The art of repre-

which, in fact, as they follow their courses, join in S-shaped curves

one of space, the painting of landscapes pre-

but remain, as individual curves, exactly demarcated. At the same

senting landscape

is

life

supposing a primary interest in what occurs in space and in

its

unyielding structure, as well as in the appearances of a given reality.

Nouveau

Neither Blake nor Art

to reproduce nature in

The poetry of Blake,

an artist, reveals to us

wrote about

his

felt this interest;

they both prefer

more symbolical forms.

in addition to the

how

prophetic

testimony of his work as

he evaluated nature and her forces.

poem Europe: "The whole poem

is

He
an

Nature during the eighteen hundred years

and the awaking of forgotten joy, when
'nature felt through all her pores the enormous revelry.'" 27 In Jerusalem, Blake says: "No individual can conform to rules, for they
mean death to every energy of man and seal the sources of life";
and, in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "Jesus was all virtue and
acted from impulse, not from rules" and, again, "Energy is eternal
.

delight."

Blake and Rocaille

The fire-flower, the "watery flames," the almost nonobjective

still expressive tangle of lines, and the whirlwind, all these are
patterns that developed quite logically out of Blake's own handbut

writing as an

artist.

beginning of his

Chronologically too, they stand at the very

own

art, that

is

to say of his mystic style. In

Blake's earliest works, however, these features are missing

close affinity

with Art Nouveau

is

and

his

not yet apparent. These earlier

works are figurative compositions where the tame classicism of the

is aped again in an amateurish and half-skilled way. What
was it that suddenly unsealed the secret sources of Blake's inspira-

period

tion

and then allowed

The time of

own

this

his

own

change

style to

in his style

flow and develop freely?

is

well established. Blake's

style is first revealed in the pages of his collection of poems,

Songs of Innocence (plates 25-27), produced in 1789, the first
year of the French Revolution. The title page of this volume, which

45

time, there

is

mainly of C-shaped curves

rhythmic play of constant starting and

in Rocaille a

stopping, of seeking and avoiding, of curves which are alternately

concave or convex, narrow or broad. Entirely closed on one

side,

open up like fans on

ends curl backward and roll upward in

these curves frequently bifurcate, radiate or

allegory of the sleep of

of the Christian era

stressed to the utmost. It consists

the other side, while their

the

manner of

and function, may develop

or

less

owing to its nature

most variegated forms of more

volutes. This abstract basic figure,

figurative patterns.

into the

On

the whole, the characteristic element

consists in the complicated interruptions of the design

and the

composed of many smaller parts.

Rocaille conceives of ornament in plastic terms. Whether carved
in the wood of wall panels, cast in ormolu, or modeled in stucco, it
remains a body of ornament, developing in three-dimensional
space. Even if applied to the surface of a panel, it appears in relief,
with strong contrasts of light and shadow. Owing to its richly differentiated, sharp-cornered, and streamlined profile, it appears, even
if more subtle and jewel-like, as a variety of the "mass in movement" of the Baroque style. Its sculptural substance is broken up in
narrow, curved ridges and ruts that, almost blending into each
extremely open form which

is

other, are often juxtaposed in a parallel arrangement of sheaves.

The delicacy of

filigree

work here seems

to unite with a

more

slug-

though there were something shapeless and doughy

underneath the hard surface of the metal. Only on the surface, not
gish quality, as

within the mass

itself, is

the substance supporting the outer surface

differentiated; beneath the accurate diiseled modeling of the outer

relief the

bulk of the inner mass remains amorphous.

Blake was unable to achieve so complicated and ingenious an

idiom. Wishing to give his
illustrative scene,

of fashion.

What

title

page an ornament

in

addition to the

he had reverted to Rocaille, which had been out

he finally

made

of

it

seems at

first to

be nothing

but an incredible vulgarization or simplification of Rocaille; but

something

What
now

are

is

else

had

also occurred.

different

and absolutely new here

is

that Rocaille forms

united with lettering. Pure Rocaille could never be com-

bined with lettering because the latter had always consisted of

linear signs set

on a one-dimensional surface whereas,

in

engravings

or other prints, Rocaille had always been represented as relief in

an

three-dimensional style.

illusionistic

ornament

in relief,

As Blake did not conceive

but had transformed Rocaille into a broadly

superficial idiom of form, the basic condition for blending

lettering or calligraphy

However

it is

was brought

it

with

to fulfillment.

impossible to translate the effects of three-dimen-

The transformation achieved by

to Blake (and to

an event

and polyphonic form of Rocaille, all that matters

Art Nouveau) is the clear legibility of the form as

in itself.

The transformation that began in the title page of Songs of Innocence (plate 26) continued throughout the other pages of the
book. Without the key provided by the title page, one would
scarcely be able to detect a relationship to Rocaille in the pages de-

sional relief as such into the effects of a two-dimensional plane

surface.

fused, painterly,

this leveling also brings

about other transformations, and Blake thereby rendered Rocaille

signed only a short while later. In Cradle Song (plate 114), there
a

still

is

greater dispersion of forms appearing in the chaos of creation,

whereas on the page entitled The Divine Image (plate 25) a great
flaming tree surges with magnificent clarity. These forms, liberated

for

from anything that might shroud or hide them, soar upward like
the pure vital spark, or the impulse of life itself. But Rocaille, especially late and naturalistically interpreted Rocaille like the hollow
tree stump (page 34) from a series of copperplate engravings by
Crusius, suggests something that has been left over and cast off; in
fact it is like the negative of a form wherein the substance which
had once lived has literally rotted like old wood. Even in its heyday, Rocaille had something indeed autumnal about it, like rustling
leaves, whereas in Blake's work (plate 281) the vigorous and vernal

instance, his transformation of the acanthus capitals of slim pillars

branches, or the luscious acanthus volutes in the back of an armchair,

less

active

by softening

its

outer and inner contours. The delicately

chiseled relief melted, thereby reducing the internal pressure of the

surface tension that had been maintained within the form of swel-

With the disintegration of the rigid relief, the slughad been imprisoned within its rounded surfaces was
set free. As it escaped it flowed beyond the confines which before
had been so stringent and exacting, and this caused the curled-in
ling substance.

gish

mass that

terminals to unfold. In general, Blake liked to ease the tension of

rounded patterns by devising

into the tops of living

palm

his

forms in

flat

bands, such

as,

remind one of

trees.

In a French design for a carpet, dating from around 1750 (plate

24), we may observe
made it less sharp as

examples that

is

same type of softening of Rocaille that

the design unfolded. This is one of the rare

this

not by Blake, and

it

clarifies

how

far these trans-

formations result automatically, so to speak, from this transposition

in

terms of surface. In this carpet design

we may

see the relief-like

nature of Rocaille not so much illustrated literally as expressed, to

his

beloved "source of

life."

Five years after the creation of Blake's

new one

first significant title

page,

now combined

Songs of Innocence and of Experience (plate 28) shows that no longer can the trace of Rocaille
the

for the

be detected. Here

it is

clear that the process of transformation has

been completed. In abolishing Rocaille, Blake found his

own

guage of form. Thus, from a historical point of view,

his

illustrates the transition

lan-

work

between Rocaille and Art Nouveau.

a certain degree, within a two-dimensional plane. In this carpet

design one also finds, besides the rudiments of a hard surface, the

curves of the soft substance of Rocaille overflow their more rigid

and broken edges. The tenseness of the relief relaxes and form and
rhythm begin to enjoy more freedom. Obviously, such a design is
already very closely related to Art Nouveau.

Blake and Mannerism

In this alchemy of structure,

still

another factor appears: the

lationships of positive

and forma serpentinata of Mannerism, contained in Rocaille,

are liberated. Both the art of Blake and Art Nouveau are supported
by this fundamental current that was latent in anti-Classicism and in

with partiality.

anti-Baroque

In Rocaille there were already hints of the complementary re-

his later

in the

and negative forms. Blake exaggerates these

In the flames and flame-shaped intervals of one of

works, such a reciprocal relationship

way Blake

liked. In the catalogue for

is

clearly developed

an exhibition of

his

and precision have been the chief obunmudded by oil, and

firm and determined lineaments unbroken by shadows which ought
to display and not to hide form." As against the voluntarily con-

pictures, he says: "Clearness

jects in

painting these pictures. Clear colors

linea

art.

Around

1800, Blake's curves which, as

we

see in

had at first been somewhat more closely allied

and consisted of small elements, now became, under the
influence of high Classicism, more continuous and with a closed
outline. Blake even says: "The more distinct, sharp and wiry the
bounding line, the more perfect the work of art." Becoming increasingly simple, Blake's figures show with ever increasing clarity
the flaming flowers,
to Rocaille

46

and creatures of hybrid origin employed

the Manneristic instability of their structure, their Manneristic lack

able mermaids, Undines,

of space, and their Manneristic reliance on torsion too. Great surging

by Art Nouveau and includingToorop's women "with

ectoplasmic hair" 30 (plates 116 and 117).

tracks twist,

more are we

now

No

forming lasso-like curves (plates 34 and no).

what is superimposed or underlying, and

sure of

it is

forms could be twisted in any direction, which suggests

same feeling we also experience with many sixteenthcentury paintings. The figures that are either plunging downward
or hanging as if weightless in the void (plates 33, 34, no, and
301), the parallelograms of limbs and their distribution in space
as if the

to us the

which

we cannot comprehend

rationally, all these are, with Blake,

from Mannerism. The setting of Blake's pictures

is indeed so narrow and so flat, though conceived in terms of
trompe-l'oeil in those compositions where there are figures, that
these serpentine-shaped figures can scarcely turn around and seem
features inherited

flattened

out.

movement

In

Blake tends to transpose a surging

general,

in space into a

two-dimensional surface movement and

to treat the subject matter of a picture as if

preparation pressed between two glass

it

were a microscope

slides.

The substance with which or out of whidi Blake created his forms
can also be suspected of having a close relationship to those "ectoplasm-like convolutions" which
figures created

Andr Malraux recognized

in the

by Primaticcio, Rosso Fiorentino, or Niccolo delP-

Abbate. 28 They also remind us of qualities that Aldous Huxley saw

in the figures of El

Greco:

of El Greco's universe
filled

it.

is

Everything here

"No

less

disquieting than the narrowness

the quality of the forms with which he

is

organic, but organic

organic at a point well below the limit of

we

life's

on a low

perfection ... In

little

when

uncanny when thought of

in the

context of real

but not

life.

El Greco clothes his boneless creatures, their draperies

And

become

pure abstractions, having the form of something indeterminately

physiological." 29

Blake's creatures seem to be

made

because of this material nature that Blake's figures could so

easily be melted to

form many-figured ornaments. His supple,

elasticity that bodies with bones and

draped figures move with an

why, in spite of the

ornaments
made of narrow
heraldic rigidity of its symmetry, his
stripes seem to find themselves in constant flux, like sprays of water

joints could never achieve. This also explains

where the form remains unchanged while their mass flows conHowever, as Blake wished to represent bodies like those of
Michelangelo, the overdistinctly modeled muscles and tendons

stantly.

were freely exposed, through the close-fitting

garment that reveals rather than conceals the anatomy, in accordance with the forms of Mannerism.
project, as if they

In

its

appearance and substance, the

by Blake

is

human

figure as conceived

related to the anti-Classical figure of

Mannerism.

of a similar matter and,

and more space

(plate 33). Turning

away from

the "normal," such a

trend leads to the kind of eccentricity, perversity, or lasciviousness

that

Mannerism and Art Nouveau knew how

to suggest with the

wiles of a Satanic seducer.

in

Blake and Art Nouveau

The substance of Blake's forms also explains how the symbiosis

of lettering, ornament, and illustration that he achieved had been

The fusion of lettering and Rocaille created in 1789

page of Songs of Innocence produced also a transformation (plate 26) in the style of lettering when Blake forced the
at all possible.
in the title

anonymous and perfect calligraphy of the eighteenth century to become an individual handwriting and made the sharp engraved lines
of etching much more similar to the thicker strokes of a woodcut
engraving. His characters appear to us to contain likewise the

movement, and

organisms like the "sea anemone tree" in one of his watercolor

pulsation of biomorphic substance and

illustrations for Dante's Purgatorio, the character of his

page of 1794 (plate

Clearly, the same kind of stroke delineates both lettering and

reveals itself clearly as being related to the substance that

matter

lies

under

the reptilian surface of Rocaille,

and renders possible the hybrid

forms created both by Blake and by Art Nouveau: the flameflowers and the water-flames, and, on the other hand, the innumer-

47

cold-blooded amphibian ideal was opposed to the heavily corporeal humanistic figure as represented by Raphael, or to the warmblooded fleshy types painted by Rubens, whom Blake hated. In
contrast to the normal human figure, hybrid forms occupy more

life

by protoplasm in the raw or by individual

organs separated from the organism as a whole. But it is with forms
suggestive of precisely such objects that El Greco fills his pictures.
Under his brush the human body, when naked, loses its bony framework and even its musculature, and becomes a thing of ectoplasm
in its strange pictorial context,

is

level,

are not attracted

beautifully appropriate

It

their writhing

morphosis

is

also

completed

in his title

this

meta28).
fig-

urative representation, both of which twist and turn with the

same movement and appear to send out the same kind of shoots.
Just as Art Nouveau ornament was born in Blake's work, so can

CMfflR<D<EVE&SS

*<&m o<rn<em<entt: m<&

layout, of proportions

and of

their relationships to the intervals,

have been solved here according to a theoretical principle.

On

Song seems to be filled with

immoderate extravagance of genius. The whole page
flickers as if with flames; all is one, just as the child in the poem is
still one with the universal spirit. A message is slumbering in the
germs of the ornament, and the words seem to have only just condensed as an articulate communication. If, in Art Nouveau, on the
all

the other hand, Blake's Cradle

the

one hand, the form

is

elevated to the level of rational clarity and

of the transparency conferred by technical perfection, Blake, on

the other hand, renders transparent the primitive

germ and the

more rigorous development of
the principle of form thus consists of a certain emptiness; as Voysey
had stated in The Studio as early as 1893: "We have a language of

ornament and yet nothing to say."

process of creation. The price of the

THO VAN RYSSELBERGHE

page for "Almanack: Cahier de

Title

Vers d'Emile Verhaeren" (1895)

But Blake did not anticipate Art Nouveau only in ornament,

illustration, and lettering, nor indeed in the ensembles of books and
structures, in rhythm, conception, and signification. He indeed
anticipated, or at least forestalled, most of

we

also detect .there the birth of

Art Nouveau

lettering.

The

latter

indeed developed out of the same creative association of a

substance and a

new rhythm,

new

achieving thereby the transformation

of the dissimilar into the similar and the fusion of lettering, orna-

ment, and illustration into a single homogeneous ensemble.

erating the distinctions between text and picture,
is

intellectual

any of the

with what

artists

who

is

visual,

By

oblit-

by fusing what

Blake went even further than

followed him chronologically. If one com-

pares individual works of Blake and of Art

offer significant similarities, Blake's style

Nouveau

now

artists

which

seems more purely

Art Nouveau than Art Nouveau

In a

title

itself (plate 114 and page 48).

page that Van Rysselberghe designed for an Almanach

features too.

Were one

other characteristic

its

to think of him, in the terms used

by William

who was not only poet, painter, book

his own works, but who might also have

Morris, as a universal artist

illustrator,

and printer of

designed furniture and everything else for the home, one would be
able to visualize

all

these various objects only as

most imaginative forms of Art Nouveau. In

seldom depicted an interior and furnished

it

borrowing the

his pictures,

Blake

even then but sum-

marily, with Biblical parsimony. But in these rare cases

we

find

"combined pieces of furniture" of a surprisingly independent and

inventive style, and objects too, such as the vase-like pitcher on
Lot's table, which Galle or Tiffany might have

36 and

37).

Twisted and serpentine

dreamed of

in themselves,

(plates

with uninter-

of 1895, a bunch of long-stemmed morning glories grows out of the

ruptedly flowing outlines and obliquely revolving whirls of opal-

L in

escent materials, bulging or extremely extended or, in another

the

title,

enclosing on the one side the asymmetrically displaced

blocks of the lettering in

and surface-bodies

its

embrace. Ornaments and lettering,

lines

are, to a great extent, all assimilated. In the

four flowers in the middle of the page, the reckoning of form and

counterform causes the inversion that assigns an active role among

the dark forms to the interior design formed by the star-shaped

blanks of the white background. Blake had also tried his hand at
such inverting of positive and negative forms, but never went as far
in their exploitation.
all

Notwithstanding their mutual assimilation,

the forms in this Art

and

isolated one

curves, each line

Nouveau

design are perfectly developed

from the other and,

is

sharply defined.

in spite of the softness of the

One

feels that the

problems of

place, ending in a sharp point, these objects

still

retain the forms of

blown glass, with the same kind of organically dynamic growth.

They thus belong, like distant relatives who yet know nothing of
one another, to one and the same general family of forms.
The flower-shaped stools in Blake's Garden of Paradise (plate
281) are also creations that belong to a world where nothing inanimate exists and to which Baudelaire's often-quoted fantasy might
apply: "The furniture seems to be dreaming ... as if endowed with
the somnambulistic life of plants." Indeed, such objects have a constructive logic of their own and seem not so much to have been
constructed as to have grown like plants, exactly like some of the

48

38

WILLIAM BLAKE

Illustration for

"JIjc Pastorals of Virgil" (1821)

39

EDWARD CALVLRT O God! Thy

Bride Seeketb Thee (1828)

40

49

SAMUEL PALMER Tl)c

Thick with Com (1825)

Valley

*&

;*^%V^
-

-,

MS?.

vr,

m*;-*^^^

,*fcE

nM:

vi

.:*

~
:

4*
43

42
43

JOHN PALMER

Lansdown

CHARLES DOUDELET

Crescent, Bath (1794)

Illustration for the

poem, "Trois soeurs

aveugles" (detail) (1896)

Opposite:
41

THOMAS JEFFERSON
Virginia (1823)

Wall on the campus of the University of

46

44

44

RICHARD OVEY

45

English

Pitcher (circa 1820)

46

English

Jug

The Scarlet

(circa 1820)

Ground White

Passion Flower Chintz

802)

and the buildings of 1900 in which this fundamental idea

of Art Nouveau was most perfectly developed. The Gothic way of
conceiving construction as a system of living and forceful lines was
certainly adopted by Blake as his starting point, and finally also by
Art Nouveau. Blake even states, in his characteristically emphatic
manner: "Grecian is Mathematic Form; Gothic is Living Form."
furniture

domain of Classicism but already blending the elements

of the Antique and the Gothic
between the end of Rococo and
the beginning of the more complex style of historicism, we find
the exact spot where Blake's art is to be situated in terms of art
history. It is here that, carried by a wave of timeless Mannerism,
In the

an anticipation of Art

Nouveau

justified the notion of a "proto-

Art Nouveau" 31 which already contained

of Art

Nouveau

all

the latent possibilities

itself.

tures which are filled with the repressed tenderness of Pan-like eroti-

cism, the idyllic earthly paradise at time's beginning being his subject matter.

His lettering also goes back to the origins of writing:

Calvert was the only

artist of his

period to use a kind of runic

script.

Samuel Palmer's landscapes are as lyrical and as soft, but of a

more closed, less manneristic or elegant form (plate 40). Palmer
surrounds his hills, fields, and haystacks with simplifying black
contours.

He

integrates similarly filled areas in his compositions,

such as bushes, with the

same

foliage; or fields with the

a single unit which, as a picture,

all in

is

same crops,

organized in flat sections

looking like those of a stained glass window. Yet Palmer and Cal-

more pictorial sense than Blake. Their tones are shaded

and they sense space-values, though, like Blake, they both express
space more or less in terms of a two-dimensional plane, juxtaposing
or superimposing things upon it instead of showing them succesvert have

sively in perspective.

Blake's successors were forgotten as he too

Proto-Art Nouveau About 1800

Blake's proto-Art

Nouveau was not unique

in his time. In the

Nouveau appeared
independently in England, Italy, France, and Germany, all emphasizing the super-personal character of this new conception of style.
True, some other works with a close relationship to Art Nouveau
decades before 1800, various features of Art

were also born under the immediate influence of Blake. During the
last years of his life, Blake was indeed surrounded by a whole group
of very sensitive, Romantic-minded artists
his disciples

and whose exquisite

at first forgotten.

any
influence on the early phases of Art Nouveau. In the realm of High
Art Nouveau, they were only rediscovered as a consequence of the

art sprang

who admired him

mainly from

his

as

own.

rediscovery of Blake, their ideas being then further developed in

the works, for instance, of Charles Ricketts and

But the work of Philipp Otto Runge (1777-18 10) had no influence at all on Art Nouveau or, more specifically, on German /gendstil. 33

Runge,

However

in a curious

great the difference between the

way,

is

artists,

same

no

is

knew anything about

other. Independently of each other, they

artistic intentions.

two

closely related to Blake; but there

reason to believe that either of them

Edward Calvert (1799-1883) and of Samuel Palmer

(1805-81), the two most important artists of this group. 32 Their
of

Thomas Sturge

Moore.

Blake's Virgil landscapes (plate 38) were thus the source of the
art

was

But, unlike Blake, they were not destined, even later, to exert

the

were both guided by the

For Runge, the symbol of law and order

the seemingly tangled life of nature

is

in

the arabesque, which he

work was mostly graphic in character and they both, though perhaps more or less unconsciously, exalted likewise the instinctive

Runge, leaves and flowers whidi are true to nature also lead back

fecundity of nature.

to the basic patterns of their

In Calvert's fine pictures (plate 39), the Manneristic element

even more obvious than

in Blake's.

The lawns of

is

his landscapes are

illustrates in the

exemplary forms of plant

all his

(page 98). But, with

growth and development and,

same time, reveal the geometry that

nature. In spite of

life

is

at the

concealed within the laws of

stylization in order to achieve ornamental

covered with strange mushroom-like flowers that have no stems.

elements, the abstract and ideal image of the plant appears in every

Vine branches with grapes hanging from them, some so

heavy that they drip with

trunks.

juice, are

and

one of

entwined around mossy

tree

baroque plurality of "foliage" into the forms of

The thatched roofs of hidden cottages somehow adapt

themselves to the soft outline of the

gardens or wooden beams

in

hills

and the treetops; fences of

an interior make us vaguely think of

biomorphic forms. Milk and honey seem to flow

53

Runge

full

in Calvert's pic-

his concrete forms. Like Blake,

also breaks

up the

single, isolated

where design and draftsmanship dominate the summary

way of visualizing things from the optic and painterly point of
view which diaracterizes the eighteenth century, from Watteau to
leaves

Gainsborough, and also the nineteenth, from Constable to Renoir.

This

new

style of design asserted itself,

however, not only

in

paintings or in the depicting of pieces of furniture or of other objects

we

might, for instance, mention, in addition to Blake's

works, the plant-like and budding supports for a table top

of

Henry

Fuseli's pictures

but

one

in

also in objects created in the field

of the applied arts and even in the architecture of around 1800.

An

English chintz of 1802 (plate 44) is printed with a pattern of

long, flowing stems and soft leaves and star-like flowers, the simpli-

JOHN FLAXMAN

Illustration

from the

series illustrating the Tragedies

fied

and closed forms of which are disposed on a two-dimensional

plane. Firmly outlined, they even seem to present a double outline,

of Aeschylus (1795)

the full spaces of the intervals being set apart from the figurative

From

the grotesque designs of the Louis

turn stem from those of Mannerism,

ornaments that are

all alien to

XVI

period, which in

Runge develops symmetrical

nature out of

human

figures which,

however, are not reduced to a figurative ornament as

is

forms of the design by white edging. Here we find a very early

example of the complementary relationship which is so typical of

Art Nouveau.
Proto-Art Nouveau even adopts the appearance of abstraction

the case

with Blake. Runge then arranges them on a plane in the foreground

two English

of his picture, set against a background of a landscape of great

about 1820 (plates 45, 46) which

regress to the basic forms of the jug and the bottle. The craftsman

depth (plate 282). Children emerge from flowers or are integrated

who made them may

into subterranean roots. In his symbiosis of plants

Runge

also refers to the

mystery residing

and

in the identity of

man and

acter that reminds one of Art

entirely independent char-

soft

and gliding rhythm

contours as well as in the flowing and undu-

which produce the pattern. The ornament, developed

from the inorganic material and the technique of its production,

lating stripes

favorite themes of Jugendstil, can already be found in

are disposed in a preordained relationship to each other are deter-

Runge's work.

He

a design for a

unity with the frame, to-

scale, a total

work of

grown

together, the

art. Lilies,

two

conceived a fantastic floral type of architecture

monument

that might well have been invented

around 1900. A simple shoot, a plant in its natural relationship, is

transformed by him in his sketches into ornaments that one might
well imagine having seen in

Even

itself felt in the

glass-

poppies, and

form, on a small

in

makes

have an
Nouveau.

still

Roman

At the same
already find an anticipation of the strong dynamic lines
of High Art Nouveau: parallel and complementary stripes which

its

gether from the point of view of content;

all

indeed have thought of antique

ware, but these two pieces

life.

for the first time painting achieves

swans,

glass vessels of

children,

The grotesque element reappears here in the allegorical, symbolical, hermetic, and decorative
character of the frames with whidi he surrounds his pictures. Here
nature, in the unity of all organic

in

Ossian's

Pan or

in

(1780-1867) 34 belongs to

this

time,

life.

we

mined by the material itself, being genuine "surface-bodies." Decisive features of Art Nouveau thus appear in these pieces of glassware without adiieving the typical mood of Art Nouveau in the
sense of the

work of Tiffany or of

Galle.

In pieces of furniture designed by Schinkel, and in an upright

Die Jugend.

Dream by Jean Auguste Dominique

approximates the delicate irregularities of organic

Ingres

domain. The cloud of figures with

parallels, its melting outlines, its ectoplasmic substance, and its

whole bizarre and fabulous atmosphere, despite all individual dissimilarities, also stands halfway between Mannerism and Art
Nouveau, like Blake's and Calvert's works. But the figures of
Ingres and of Runge are more corporeal, more modeled and
compact (even if they are floating), and more static, more closely
its

connected with the solid structure of the picture as a whole.

piano of 1830 (plate 284), we again find forms which approach

those of Art Nouveau. In the balustrade of a staircase in Canova's

Tempio Canoviano (18 19), there are metal

relaxed curves. The

"stripes" hanging in

row of houses of Lansdown Crescent

in

Bath

(1794) cuts through the landscape like a whiplash (plate 42). Sugby the English crescents of the eighteenth century, with their

gested

houses built in a semicircle facing an open square, this street

adapts

itself to the

of an English park.

in

Bath

topographical situation like the winding paths

It is

an undulating wall, softened

in itself, like

national constant, the English inclination for weightless, almost

the one that the illustrator Doudelet invented a hundred years later

unsubstantial and unstatic figures, finds

one of Maeterlinck's poems (plate 43); after 1900,

Gaudi also achieved this effect in the terrace of the Giiell Park

in the

very

flat

its

most extreme expression

and unstable creations of Blake.

35

to illustrate

54

Casa Mil (plate 218). The

and the denuded forms that one finds so often in
Art Nouveau appear moreover in an almost grotesque manner in
the Exerzierbaus in Berlin, built in 1800 by David Gilly. The body
of the building looks like a form that has been carved, as if the
building had been produced by slicing it from a mass of dough.
(plate

6) as well as in the faade of the

flexible substance

Nouveau has a closed, simplified, and fluid

form, approaching more or less closely the characteristic rhythm
and the curves of High Art Nouveau. Figures disposed in a plane
In general, proto-Art

ricism shifted in various forms

from the Gothic

we

naissance, then to Baroque; in interiors,

Rococo and,

in the eighties

extent with Art

Nouveau

and

style

Re-

to

often see a return to

nineties, concurrently to

some

or Jugendstil. The nineteenth century

culminated in the syncretism of the studio-style, where the entire

masquerade

historicizing

is

away

carried

in a whirling confusion

of various periods.

are treated in surface, the single forms appearing as "surface-

any contours,
manner of forms that have been cut out and mounted. As

bodies," either with firm outlines or without

in the

to the

Nouveau

significance of such a picture's content, proto-Art

tends

power of instincts and of growth inherent in

communicate to us a sense of the relationships existing

to emphasize the

nature and to

in all organic life. In this,

proto-Art Nouveau

is

closely allied to

Romantic attitude toward nature; in spite of a preference for

pure, clear, simple, closed, and graphic forms, proto-Art Nouveau
form thus generally remained within the limits imposed both by
Classicism and by the contemporary neo-Gothic style. In his watercolor, Angels Hovering over the Body of Christ (plate 301), William
Blake even makes a Gothic broken-vault ornament out of the
the

bodies of the angels. To a certain extent, proto-Art

Nouveau

During the long interval between the proto-Art Nouveau of

around 1800 and real Art Nouveau of the end of the century or
early English Art Nouveau that first appeared in 1849, various
symptoms can be detected, between 1830 and 1890, which prove
that Art Nouveau continued to subsist as a kind of underground
current. The applied and graphic arts appear to be more receptive
to
in

its

often

new

style of architecture in the

works of Ledoux,

Gilly,

it

often

its

comparative "pureness"

reveals

now

itself

an

in

"impure" form, adulterated by historicism or naturalism. Ob-

elements.

appears, on the other hand, an equally extreme but utterly geo-

Nouveau,

vious features of Art

by

Simultaneously with the extreme swing of Blake's curves, there

influences. But, in opposition to

proto-Art

seems literally to be founded on a fusion of Classicistic and Gothic

metrical

Nouveau

Latent Art

entirely different

anonymous

Nouveau then mix with elements suggested

criteria. Nearly always of more modest ano

origin, such

Art Nouveau only

works can express otherwise latent

dominated by the historicism

in areas that are

of the period.

The

glass vase,

taken from Felix Summerly's Art Manufactures 38

lindrical

of about 1847, was designed by Redgrave (plate 47) and can be

distinguished from an example of High Art Nouveau only by a

staircase balustrade.

touch of early Victorian

and Canova. The Tempio Canoviano reveals both

styles: the

cy-

body of the building and the sweeping curves of the

Around 1800, two possibilities are thus presented which were later destined to represent the limits and alternatives imposed or offered to Art Nouveau. In English early Art
Nouveau, the curved and the geometrical lines are indeed developed

side

by

side; later,

they relieve each other in the linear curves

High Art Nouveau, which

of

is

primarily decorative, and

metrical and rectangular late Art

by

Nouveau,

in

geo-

so strongly influenced

architecture.

The new

style of

concentrated form

proto-Art Nouveau
in

is

to be

found

in its

most

Blake, but appears also in some independent

The closed flowing outline, the extremely prolonged neck and the curved mouth leave nothing to
style.

from the standpoint of Art Nouveau, which makes its presence felt in the long, stylized, and streaming leaves and in the
wreath of flowers. Only the gilded rim of the mouth a^d the

desire

pattern of the base reveal that the vase

is

in early Victorian style.

In a silver christening mug, also designed by Redgrave for

Summerly's Art Manufactures, another resemblance to Art Nouveau appears, in spite of something early Victorian in its predilection for the Gothic (plate 49).

Almost

in the spirit

row of

of Blake

works, though without noticeably affecting our general conception

(plate 112), although in high relief, a

of the period around 1800. After 1830, however, these features

an ornamental manner. Their gliding and relatively closed forms,

became submerged in historicism. Without any clear separations,

and with much overlapping of periods and many transitions, histo-

the bulbous

55

angels

and swinging curves between the

is

presented in

angels, the praying

children, kneeling over flowers in the style of

Runge (and

thus

RICHARD REDGRAVE

47

Water decanter

(circa 1847)

expressing the symbolic "language" of the vase), and above

handle, twisted like a snake and divided into

two

skeins in

all

the

lower

its

remind us of Art Nouveau. Features of Art Nouveau

part, all

expressed in the neo-Gothic style are also to be seen on the faade

of the Sayn foundry in the Rhineland, where the framework

only openly displayed in

ornamental effects and

as

its

different parts, but

is

not

also used for

an expression of symbolical energy.

London Universal Exhibition of

In the

is

85

1,

a style entirely

opposed to any form of Art Nouveau seemed to dominate (plates

87, 88),

though

full

of the latent

symptoms

that

anticipated

The difference between some ceramic pitchers produced

at that time by Grainger & Co. (plate 50), and similar vessels

this style.

manufactured around 1900 is indeed difficult to define: a closed

form, a curved outline, the syncopated rhythm of the whiplash
suggested in some handles, a seemingly fluid and organic substance,

and the

floral decorations.

At most,

fortable,

and early Victorian

note, or the literal imitation of forms

somewhat candid, com-

existing in nature, distinguish these objects

from those of Art

Nouveau.
The same

is

true of an easy chair of papier-mch called

romantic name of "day dreamer" (at

at the top of the back,

other hand,
all

its

left). Its outline,

by the

especially

reminds one vividly of Art Nouveau; on the

unwieldy and clumsy form places

it

very far from

the stylistic experiments of the end of the century, while the

symbolism of children and angels sleeping among flowers curiously

recalls

Runge's famous allegories on the times of day. The co-

existence of such complete independence

and of so strikingly Baroque a

closed forms of Art

H. FITZ

COOK

Easy

chair,

"The

Day Dreamer"

{circa 1850)

Nouveau

is

from

all historical

examples

basic attitude transposed into the

particularly remarkable here.

Just as, around 1900, the neo-Baroque style later invaded Art

Nouveau, when

and small three-dimensional

had been
usual in the Baroque (plates 168, 183), so did latent Art Nouveau manifest its presence with particular ease in neo-Baroque
objects. A glass bowl from the eighties in the Victoria and Albert
Museum bears a striking resemblance to Art Nouveau, most of all
especially containers

objects of art revealed a treatment of the mass which

in its

undefinably organic and flesh-like substance. With

its

spiral

and ruffled rim of the mouth, the different kinds

of glass used for the feet out of which grow tree stems and flowers,
this bowl (plate 53) might almost have been made by Galle himself
(plate 266). Its Far Eastern allusions are moreover halfway between the chinoiseries of the eighteenth century and the Japanese
note in Early, and also in High, Art Nouveau. Taking this into
account, this bowl of the eighties has smaller details and is more
twist, the jagged

56

LS^?

>"

<?

<

.-

49

48

Molding from a doorframe

grave

Room

at

in the

Walde-

Strawberry Hill (before

.762)

49

RICHARD REDGRAVE
Cup

50

Christening

(1848)

GRAINGER

Pitchers {circa 1850)

s;

PETER COOPER
WII

AM

1U R(

Rocking chair (circa

I

Melbury Road, London

Frieze
(circa

860)

from a mantlepiece

in a

house in

1875-80)

$2

aV
\

*42\
^

53

English

Bowl

(circa i860)

60

open,

less

balanced, but also heavier, and

Nouveau

contours of Art

are

still

more compact. The even

missing.

The velvet lining of an American case for a photograph or

tintype (plate 285) has a strongly stylized flower imprinted on

it;

and leaves flow into each other and the floral element is
no longer shown in a natural aspect but in unnatural abbreviation,
thus producing a pure and mobile surface. On the binding of a
the stem

catalogue

move

made

for the

in the curves of

London Exhibition of

185

1,

small leaves

Art Nouveau, and forms even more closely

related to the latter appear in the carved decorations of the

door

for Strawberry Hill (plate 48). 37 Thonet

frames

made around 1760

chairs,

with their entirely transparent and linear structure and

and streamlined form, also bear, but not yet

fully, the mark of Art Nouveau, though without the increase or the
decrease of Art Nouveau's curves.
their already closed

Actually, Art
possibilities

Nouveau

for design

artists

made no

significant use of the

and construction offered by

artificially

curved or bent woods, as in the traditional nineteenth-century

American rocking chair. But the architectural uses of cast iron

toward the middle of the nineteenth century in many intricate details already anticipated the structural ideas of Art Nouveau, even
in the heyday of historicism.
The best-known examples of

this are to

be found in Viollet-le-

Duc's designs for iron supports, published in

tendency expresses

Nouveau was

872 (at right). This

with the greatest elegance in the iron

itself

skeleton of the Eiffel

Tower

(plate 302), built at a time

when Art

beginning to assert itself. The first architects in

works Art Nouveau appears and then develops
as opposed to the incoherent, single works of latent Art Nouveau we have mentioned so as finally to blossom as High Art
Nouveau, are Gaudi in Barcelona and Furness in Philadelphia.
They both first reveal this in ornaments: Furness, after 1872, in

whose

just

large-scale

ornaments cut

in stone (plate 231),

the end of the seventies, in

and Gaudi, beginning toward

wrought iron or

in

wood

carving (plates

23J and 330).

EUGNE-EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC
"Entretiens sur l'architecture" (1872)

61

Illustration

from

EARLY ART NOUVEAU

Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle

"Not

drop of her blood was human

But she was made

woman."
Lady Lilith

like a soft sweet

Dante Gabriel

Rossetti,

In 1849, the young poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) 38

painted his

and 288).

The Girlhood of

first picture,

It started

movement

in

Mary

London

Virgin (plates 54
which leads uninter-

ruptedly and logically through half a century to Art Nouveau,

thus marking a turning point in art history. For the
latent tendencies that
their existence

were to be realized

known and emerged from

in

first time, the

Art Nouveau made

prehistory into a histori-

cally comprehensible phase which deserves to be called "Early

Art

Nouveau."

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

We
Title

page for Christina

see here for the first time fancifully invented accessory ob-

Rossetti's

forms, and ornaments that could easily be imagined in an in-

jects,

"Goblin Market and Other Poems" (1862)

about 1900, decorated in the Art Nouveau style of

England, Holland, or Vienna. The ceramic vase on the pile of
terior of

books, the glass vase on the balustrade, and the

represent an early Art

forms

GOBLIN MARKET

in

Nouveau

style,

oil

lamp beside

it

with a return to simple basic

which nothing refers to historical examples; their closed

and gliding

outlines

and

their elongated proportions reveal their

absolute opposition to the Victorian or Continental style which

and other poems

characterizes the applied arts of the middle of the nineteenth cen-

ty CtriftmaRofletti

tury.

The abstract ornaments of the handled

vase, with their linear

ramifications as well as the geometrical ornaments at the upper

border of the balustrade, come very close to the style of Scottish

or Viennese High Art

Nouveau and already tend toward

the

complementary attitude that was to become such a special feature of

Art Nouveau.
In addition, the openwork of the balustrade's lower part has
Gothic patterns; an individually interpreted Gothic style, simplified, it is true, to the point of almost resembling the Gothic of concrete castings of the

end of the century such as Anatole de Baudot

actually used in the nineties in his Church of Saint Jean, on the

Place des Abbesses in Montmartre. In Rossetti's painting, the objects

Cotderj

head by

qol.cr)

pe,a.3J2.

thing had to be represented in

as the painters before

London and Cambridge

/^cmiilan and Co. 1862

he represents and the style he adopts are entirely new. Ac-

cording to the aims pursued by the Pre-Raphaelite school, everyits

WJL

is

with the utmost realism,

Raphael had done; but what materializes

a result of this realism of details

The scene that

details

is

as

a purely imaginative creation.

represented, the objects,

and the new type of

beauty in the faces of the figures are a personal invention of Ros-

62

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

and the whole

setti's

character of

and

clear

its

own

picture, in

its

formal construction too, has a

that cannot be overlooked. Closed, simplified,

forms dominate the plane surface. Single forms, with the

here for the

complexes of closed forms; the balustrade, the curtain, the books,

Once

the embroidery frame,

file,

and even the figure of the

moreover, everything that might appear

is

girl seen in

pro-

are not only arranged parallel to the plane of the picture but,

reduced as far as possible to the flat

in

three-dimensional relief

and two-dimensional plane.

Despite the realistic alternation of light and shadow, one can detect

an endeavor to create homogeneous complexes closed

by

linear contours

and

set against

themselves

in

each other in stark contrast.

These structures are not yet "surface-bodies," flat forms

geneous in themselves, but tend

in this direction;

homo-

one might even

say that the real surface-bodies of the ornaments offer us the key
for the interpretation of all the forms.

forms an ornament; the picture

itself

and horizontal

dicular

Even
is

the composition in

constructed in perpen-

lines as well as right angles, so that the

symbol of the Christian Cross, instead of being baldly represented,

is

manner of

integrated within the structure. The dry, unpainterly

applying the color as in a poster, and the

artist's

narrow, long, linear forms, differs from what

the period

and

is

is

predilection for

usual in the art of

already essentially related to Art Nouveau.

mini, which Rossetti painted in 1850 (plate 57). Rossetti gave

that, like the

ornaments

in his first

work, matches the

of the painting; in the shape of a substantial

it

style

wooden frame,

the

painted objects of applied art emerge from the imagined space of

Not only

the picture into the three-dimensional space of reality.

unframed window, strangely recalling forms in

and the lamp in Art Nouveau style, attract our attention,
the forms (in reality consisting of fabrics but looking like

background

boards) behind the bed and in the folded embroidery in front, which

The bed's perspective, receding into space while

at the

time functioning as the line which separates the figures,

gerated that
girl's

it

practically

makes space turn

head, painted realistically in the same

into a plane.

way

is

maintained

in

right

same

so exag-

Even

the

as the angel in the

Girlhood of Mary Virgin and a portrait of the painter's

poet Christina Rossetti,

is

sister,

the

two-dimensionality by the

disk of the halo, arranged as a parallel in the picture. The tendency

to

asymmetry, to parallels and to narrow, ribbon-like figures and

forms

is

stronger here than in the Girlhood of

feature characteristic of the

63

Mary

874)

droop of the head. In England,

girl then remained constant
that leads up to High Art Nouveau.

art

Domini

as that of Antiquity, the costumes

and

subsequent paintings assume a late medi-

in Rossetti's

Forms and

structures,

however,

remain untouched by

this; on the contrary, the parallelism of the

narrow forms, the transversal axis, and the closed single forms can
nowhere be more clearly observed than in Rossetti's watercolor,
Dante Drawing an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death
(plate 55). The decorations and objects already so close to Art Nouveau continue to appear: for instance, the frieze of angels' heads
reminding one of Blake, the swinging curve of the lamp on the ex-

treme

right, the pieces of furniture constructed like chests or cassoni,

the freely invented shape of the

window, and the mazelike

distribu-

tion of space in the left-hand corner.

Suggestions from Rossetti's earlier period were followed by John

Everett Millais (1829-96) 39

ly.

The sketch for

who

then developed them independent-

his large painting Christ in the

House of His

Parents (plate 287) shows the characteristic features of Rossetti's

style in a harder

and more

reticent

manner. Hidden behind the

to discern in the final painting itself; but, in the sketch,

with

ornamental and geometric

work

Virgin.

whole Pre-Raphaelite school appears

qualities, the structure

of the

its
is

The strangely unnatural expressive gestures favored by

the Pre-Raphaelites become evident here, for example, in the rectangularly geometrical and very alien figure of the carpenter on
laid bare.

the

left;

quite significantly, this figure

formation

angle.

type of young

eval or Pre-Raphaelitic character.

produced from

form of a

the attitude of timeless simplicity in Ecce Ancilla

the curve of the

are set in relationship to each other in the strict

this

presumably understood

concrete,

but also

signature

exaggerated realism of the details, these features are more difficult

Do-

These qualities stand out even more clearly in Ecce Ancilla

frame

is

artist's

time: the singular

whole tradition of

in a

exception of the small leaves in the bower, are assembled in larger

first

on the Continent,

as

The

in the

more

underwent the greatest trans-

naturalistic painting that Millais finally

The ghost-like flute player on the right

was not included in the painting, but might well have been designed
by Toorop, just as, in general, the sketch as a whole seems to bear
the mark of this Dutch painter's style (plate 147). But after this
painting Millais soon deviated toward a dull and meretricious style;
this sketch.

in his beginnings,

been a

member

when he was

fascinated by Rossetti, he had

of the group of creative artists to

early English style of Art

whom we owe

still

the

Nouveau.

The painted wardrobe (plate 286) that Edward Burne-Jones

(1833-98)' painted five years after Rossetti's Dante Drawing an
Angel reveals how closely another admiring disciple of Rossetti still
clung to the master's
setti

style.

The immediate connection between Ros-

or Burne-Jones and Bcardsley, on the one hand, and

intosh

and the Macdonald

sisters,

Mack-

on the other, becomes very

clear.

54

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

The Girlhood of

Mary

Virgin

(detail) (1849)

its

CHARLES RICKETTS

source in Rossetti,

Only
Vignette from Oscar Wilde's

"A House

of

this

was a variant of the Pre-Raphaelite

style.

branch of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, setting

41

itself

entirely new aims, was still considered Pre-Raphaelitic on the

European Continent around 1 900. When we now find, even on the

Pomegranates" (1891)

cover designs of French magazines, the cool, chaste princesses of the

English Pre-Raphaelites (instead of the usual erotic petite femme),

But the

illustrator,

Charles Ricketts, and the Belgian painter, Fer-

nand Khnopff (plates 64 and 66), also hark back to Rossetti and
Burne-Jones and continue this tradition into the decade around
1900. Walter Crane, however, with his simpler and unpretentious
means, was most successful in later popularizing the style of Rossetti and Burne-Jones.
Burne-Jones and his lifelong friend and

Morris originally met

in 1855,

artistic

partner William

when they were both studying

these are intended to suggest to us the

Burne-Jones.

women

of Rossetti and

42

CHARLES RICKETTS

Illustration

from Oscar Wilde's "A House of

Pomegranates" (1891)

the-

ology at Oxford. Lectures held by Ruskin attracted their attention

to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

One

of Rossetti's illustrations

Maids of Elfinmere enchanted Burne-Jones to

such an extent that he and Morris decided to devote themselves
entirely to painting. In 1856, they called on Rossetti in London.
The master then lavished on them so much generous kindness and
encouragement that they moved to London and began to paint
under his stimulating guidance. The picture on the wardrobe designed by Philip Webb (plate 286) is also one of the earliest examples of the art of Burne-Jones and likewise a memorial to the
union between Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Morris which was destined to become so important for the development of Art Nouveau.
for Allingham's The

Whereas Burne-Jones remained faithful to the narrow, ascetic,

but somewhat languid figures and forms of the period of his early
relationship with Rossetti (plates 63 and 107), Rossetti himself,
beginning in the sixties, began to enter a new phase of more opulently swelling forms. These later works differ from his early paintings in the outline, in the richer pictorial technique and in the types
of his human models. Much in this world of luxuriant forms already tends toward the ecstatic movement of High Art Nouveau.
Typically enough, Rossetti invented a vase in 1863, in his painting
Fazio's Mistress (plate 61), that one can consider as one of the
earliest

Philip

examples of High Art Nouveau. The

Webb

(the architect

Green Dining

London

Room

who

in the

built

Red House

for Morris) for the

former South Kensington

are inspired, in their style,

by

ceilings designed

from the same

Museum
sources.

in

The

room had been entrusted to the firm of Morris

and Company and was the fruit of the collaboration of Morris,
Webb, and Burne-Jones. What has now survived of this complete
ensemble reveals that the ornamental-decorative style, which has
decoration of this

64

^^

s?

mu

n
1

I
r*

'M

Pif'm
fir

*.
m

m
".

V^M

55

55

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Dante Drawing

an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death

(i853)

DWARD BURNE- JONES

Painted cabinet (i860)

57

DANTE GABRIEL
ROSSETTI

Ecce Ancilla

Domini

Anmtnci.it ion)

ho)

67

(71)e

59

PHILIP WEBB Red House,

PHILIP WEBB

Staircase

Bexley Heath (1859)

Bexley Hcatb(iS S9 )

and landing

in

Red House,

68

60

EDWARD BURNE-JONES

61

DAXTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Drawing

(after 1884)

Aurelia

Fazio's Mistress (detail)

(1863 and 1873)

62

PHILIP WEBB Stenciled ceiling frieze from

Room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

the

Green Dining

(1866-67)
61

62

f -

r>

c^Tp^ $m

63

6-,

64
65

DWARIMU RM JON1S
I

RNAND KHNOPFF

Lock

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Lilia (detail)

66

lh\ru-iu}< (after 18S4)

My Door Upon

Myself (1891)

The Blessed DamozelSancta

(1874)

FERNAND KHNOPFE

Tenderness (189$)

65

66

6?
68

6y

Anonymous photographer Mrs. William Morris

(circa i860)

68

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

(1866)

Monna Vanna

The Japanese

Style

"In the citron wing of the pale butterfly,

with

its

dainty spots of orange

."
.

James McNeill Whistler, Lecture at Ten O'Clock

"We must
art

first

gratefully

in the

Evening

remember Japan, a land whose wonderful

pointed out to us the right path. But," Otto Eckmann's

preface 43 to a series of Jugendstil designs then adds, "only England

knew how

new

ideas

and

them to its innate national character, thus deriving

."
from the Japanese style

real

to assimilate

and transform

this

wealth of

to adapt

profit

How this came about has been told many times: how the engraver
Bracquemond discovered some Japanese colored woodcuts in 1856
which had been used as wrapping paper; how he communicated his
enthusiasm to Baudelaire, Manet, the Goncourt brothers, and Degas; how Whistler who, until 1859, had studied in Paris, then
brought to London his love for Japanese art and, around 1863,
painted the Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine, a major work among
his japonneries. In 1862, Manet had painted Zola against a background of Japanese decorations and colored woodcuts which later
appeared also in paintings by Degas, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. In
1862, shops dealing in Japanese and Chinese objects were first
opened: La Porte Chinoise in Paris, and Farmer and Rogers' Oriental Warehouse in London. Farmer and Rogers had taken over the
stocks that Japan had sent to London for the International Exhibition of 1862
the first Western exhibition where the Japanese
Empire was represented.

On the advice of his friend William Morris, the manager of

Farmer and Rogers, Arthur Lasenby Liberty, then founded his own
firm in 1875. Th e new ^ irm was successful, mainly on account of its
Oriental and Oriental-inspired fabrics with their light colors and
flat, stylized

patterns. Its success

was

so great that in

Germany,

"national lamentations were to be heard concerning the mass im-

portation of English materials for decoration." 44

And

in

Italy,

where Art Nouveau was never really able to gain a footing and
remained an imported style, the term "Stile Liberty" was invented. 45
whole

whose shop in Paris, L'Art Nouveau, gave its name to the

style, had likewise begun as an importer of Japanese arts and

crafts.

He

S.

Bing,

also

was the owner of one of the most important private

collections of japonnerie, and, after 1888, published the series of his

Japanischer Formenschatz in German, French, and English. To rhose

"who

feel

an interest

in the future of

doing creative work"

73

in this field,

our applied arts" or

Bing promised,

who

"are

in the preface,

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

Caricature of James McNeill Whistler (1893)

that

"among

worthy

these forms, they will find examples

respect of being followed."

in

every

46

The Japanese element became so inherent to the mature style of

Art Nouveau that only in rare cases can one distinguish or separate

movement. In 1888, Louis Gonse wrote on Japanese art: "A drop of their blood has mixed with our blood and no
power on earth can eliminate it." 47 Even where Art Nouveau
refers directly back to Japanese art, it is at the same time founded
on works of an intermediate phase in which, during the process of
it

from the

entire

long years, a synthesis of the Japanese and the European elements

had been achieved and remained decisive

every respect.

in

James McNeill Whistler

The composition and

Peacock

Skirt,

an

drawing (opposite) The

Salome of 1894, can cer-

style of Beardsley's

illustration for Wilde's

tainly be interpreted only as having sprung

from a knowledge of

woodcuts by Utamaro and other Japanese artists of the eighteenth

and early nineteenth centuries. This type of asymmetrical distribution of masses, these curving lines, this absence of compactness,

space, or light

and shadow

in the picture, all

indeed come from

Japan. Here, however, a direct influence blends with an indirect

one: Beardsley's work is already founded on the Japanese style of
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). 48 In 1891, Beardsley had seen
Whistler's famous Peacock Room, created in 1876 to 1877 (plate
49
The pattern of the peacock feathers in the tail and the scale70).
like pattern in the
tler's

Peacock

plumage occur

Room

in

numberless variations in Whis-

as well as in Beardsley's

Peacock

and background,
the works of both these

Skirt.

deliberate ambiguity of design

so typical of

Nouveau,

artists.

The
Art

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

"

The Peacock Skirt" from Oscar Wilde's

"Salome" (1894)

William H. Bradley borrowed

it

from him (page 229). With acro-

batic virtuosity, Beardsley developed the asymmetrical distribution

of the areas of white and the contrast of black spaces by using small

in colors frequently

Even Beardsley's characteristic stippled or

dotted manner (often compared to that of Celtic and Irish manuscripts) had been anticipated by Whistler: similar concentric circular arcs and scales designed in dotted lines, so as to form the spread
tail of the peacock on the back of Salome's cape, are to be found in
the woodwork of the bookshelves and wall panels of the Peacock
Room. On the other hand, the "arrowheads" at the terminals of

leave spaces forming decorative fabric patterns that also reappear

long flowing quills of Salome's headdress are taken from Whistler's

ley's

also appears in

Salome, designed with clear-cut

ambiguity

is

lines in

In Beards-

black and white, this

achieved in the train of the cape; on Whistler's painted

walls and shutters, the golden design on a blue ground alternates

with a blue design on a gold ground. In the same manner, Japanese

colored woodcuts with black outlines enclosing interior surfaces
that are printed homogeneously in white

as positive designs in

and

white against a colored ground.

where peacocks
un-Occidental manner, and in

Whistler's sketch (opposite page, bottom

are distributed in space in an entirely

left),

sizes quite as unusual, there appears, as a novelty, the

filling

up

device of

certain areas of pure linear design with solid black.

Beardsley carried this method further, and the American painter

over-rich ornaments.

provocative book of 1890, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, in

which one sees butterflies (page j6) armed with a whiplash "sting."
Whistler's admiration for Japanese art

ready reflected

in the pictures

and applied

he painted during the

arts

sixties:

is

al-

Prin-

du Pays de la Porcelaine (1863-64), Lady of the Lange Lijsen

(1864), The Golden Screen (1 865), and others which are all filled

cesse

74

with complete

still-life

who

arrangements of Japanese objets

among

d'art.

Be-

and vases are

always clad in gorgeous kimonos. These exotic accessories are no
doubt included in the picture for their own value and are depicted
sides, the girls

dwell

these screens, fans,

means; but, even in these early works,

had already been clearly grasped. Soon
Whistler refrained more and more from representing Japanese obwith an Occidental

artist's

the spirit of an alien art

jects,

to

penetrating instead into the substance of Japanese art in order

make

its

In his

Old

essence his

own.

Battersea Bridge: Nocturne in Blue

and Gold, painted

about 1865 (plate 69), a theme taken from everyday life in London
is filled with poetic enchantment and seen entirely as if through the
eyes of a Japanese artist.
inspired

it,

its

doubt Hiroshige's paintings of bridges

but the whole picture's generally Japanese character

more important:
forms,

No

its

lack of depth, the whole absence of

is

modeled

asymmetrical balance, the significance of the ornaments

and the peculiarly graceful

silhouette, its decorative conception

from an intensive study

of Japanese art and then generated their effects right up to Art
Nouveau. Whistler did what Oscar Wilde (who borrowed the idea
from him) later expressed in words: "And so, if you desire to see a
Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go to Tokyo.
and rigorous

selectivity

all

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

"The Peacock

Room"

these result

Preliminary sketch for a decoration for

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

'The Toilet of Salome" from Oscar Wilde's

"Salome" (1894)

(1876)

On

the contrary, you will stay at

work

home and steep yourself in the

when you have absorbed

of certain Japanese artists, and then,

and caught their imaginative manner of

some afternoon and sit in the Park or stroll
down Picadilly, and if you cannot see an absolutely Japanese effect
there, you will not see it anywhere." 50 However it becomes apparent, both from the impressionistic attitude and from the fact
that "all lies so far behind the window of the frame and is so bathed
in air," 51 that, much as Whistler's pictures may be related to Art
Nouveau, there is still much that distinguishes them from it.
the spirit of their style,
vision,

'

>

you

will go

But, even as an Impressionist, Whistler painted differently

closer to the Japanese

and

contemporaries

An

in Paris.

to the

Art Nouveau style

than

his

Impressionist of the night, of dusk and

of mist rather than of daylight, he removed his landscapes and his

portraits to a distant

ing

them

and poetical

unreality, at the

to be used as elegant decorations:

same time allow-

"And when

the evening

mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor

75

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

from

Butterflies

The Gentle Art of

Making Enemies" (1890)

y?
chimneys

Whistler began to design simple, rectilinear frames with parallel

become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and
."
the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us
So runs the most celebrated passage of Whistler's Lecture at Ten
O'Clock in the Evening that he gave in London, Oxford, and Cambridge in 1885 and had the honor of later seeing adapted into
French by Mallarm. Instead of dissolving in a flurry of brushstrokes, Whistler's painting now consisted of large and homogeneous blots grouped around a skeleton of tracks and ridges. Especially
in his Thames Nocturnes (being fully conscious of their attractiveness) he worked around empty and almost monochrome areas. At
the same time, he carried the decorative and impressionistic element

moldings, sometimes even repeating on them a corresponding pat-

dun

buildings lose themselves in the

sky,

and the

tall

where he anticipated Kandinsky's "absolute painting"

by more than three decades. About 1874, Whistler created what,
visually speaking, might well be called the first abstract painting:
The Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black and Gold (plate 289). In the
Grosvenor Gallery, which was above all a rostrum for Whistler
and Burne- Jones and where the ladies of the Aesthetic Movement
wore Pre-Raphaelitic gowns since, after all, they could not dress
this painting aroused Ruskin's fury, causing him to
as a Nocturne

to a point

declare that
face." 52

Ruskin

it

was

like "flinging a

The outcome of

this

was

pot of paint in the public's

a lawsuit in

which Whistler sued

in the first recorded legal proceedings concerning the value

pattern in dark turquoise-blue on gold (plate 69). In the Peacock

Room, 54 Whistler went

an enlarged frame for

whole room (plate 70)

Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine and

so far as to treat a

his

adapt the form and color of the room to

as

to

even though

this painting,

the old and valuable Spanish leather on the walls had to be painted
over,

and the border of

had

a Persian rug

away

to be cut

colors were unsuitable. Before Whistler, Rossetti

already put forward the idea of co-ordinating a picture,

and the

artistic effect

as the

and Morris had

its

frame,

of a whole room in a single unit, although

their conception of the latter

was

less fully

integrated.

The example

room reinforced
and Art Nouveau then adopted it as a basic principle.

of the entirely co-ordinated unity of a Japanese

this conception,

Whistler, the most consistent advocate of l'art pour

off "blue-and-white china" and launched

topher Dresser and

many

others,

Wilde

his collection of "blue-and-white."

it

dined

as a fashion; like Chris-

also,

With

l'art,

of course, had to have

his

yellow table napkins,

Whistler likewise introduced the yellow tint of the brimstone (or

Cloudless Sulphur) butterfly which

low Book, was

to give the

name

later,

through Beardsley's Yel-

of "Yellow Nineties" to the whole

Beardsley epoch. Whistler's yellow napkins were embroidered with

the same butterflies in the Japanese style as those that he also used

work of

art;

as a signature

artist.

In Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black

and Gold

it is

decorative, ornamental,

formed into a

and musical. The picture

is
is

it

suggests a

tude" through light and dark forms.

Owing

is

proportions (above and below). The floors of his rooms were covered

trans-

"complementary
to the unique

fluttered asymmetrically over the borders

made

sort of rhythmically formless ornament. In spite of

entirely pictorial treatment,

and that

of the book pages designed by him according to Japanese notions of

(the title also

almost abstract), Whistler's fundamental attitude to his art

its

thus framed with a Japanese scale

and although Whistler won

temporary ruin of the

clear:

is

he was awarded damages of one farthing which led to the

(or the worthlessness) of a

this suit,

tern in the main color harmonies of the picture. Old Battersea Bridge,

seen with almost Japanese eyes,

atti-

way

in

which "impressionistic" and ornamental or graphic qualities unite

in the art of the Far East, 53 the latter could inspire both the Impressionists and the pioneers of Art Nouveau. Both of these components
become equally effective in Whistler's art. However, most nine-

with Japanese tatami mats, the walls of the winding staircase

White House, which Godwin had

built for

him

(plate 71),

in the

were

covered, according to Japanese taste, with gold paper and, except

when meals were served, a single lily or a Chinese bowl with

goldfish swimming in it was always on the dining-room table.

We

see in Whistler's later pictures that in addition to accessories,

enclosing their works; the Impressionists, and even the Cubists,

and established forms, his decorations also adopted the

conception from which they had sprung. The most revolutionary
doctrine imported from Japan was an emphasis on simplicity, lightness, clarity. "A few movable screens ... a few vases for flowers

continued to use Baroque or Rococo frames for their paintings. In

and a few small

Art Nouveau, however, the frame became of primary importance

too, and was designed in harmony with the picture and understood

Japanese

teenth-century painters were not at

as a "field of

all

concerned with the frame

approach" to the picture, or even

as a

kind of orna-

mental border for a printed page (compare plates 147, 205, and
276.) Following the example that Rossetti had set as early as 1849,

patterns,

objects of daily use

are the decoration that a

room
He does not
know of the multitude of unnecessary things that crowd our houses
accumulation is alien to his feelings and he likes air, light and
.

man

of taste deems sufficient for his

unencumbered space." Whistler himself lived

in

rooms that con-

trasted very sharply with the taste for the overloaded splendor of

76

77

69

JAMKS McNEILL WHISTLER Old

Battersea Bridge: Nocturne in Blue

and Gold

{circa 1865)

'

H
#

1
!

fKl
!

frt

-,

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

Decoration for the Peacock

Room

of the Leyland residence, London (1876-77) (Now in the Freer

Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)
71
7i

EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN

EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN
(1874)

72

White House, London (1877)

Chair (circa i%itf and small table

7i

EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN

Sideboard (circa 1877)

Opposite:
74

EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN

75

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

Designs for furniture {area 1876)

Teapot (circa 1880)

80

<8

p
74

75

81

fi

rvy/n

11

jr

? Vi?

80

81

^^"^pw
76

Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen

77

Japanese

78

Chinese

Boivl (eighteenth century)

79

Russian

BovjI (end of nineteenth century)

80

Japanese

Covered Vase

{circa

1900)

Silk brocade (eighteenth century)

Silk brocade for the costume of an actor in a

Noh

play

(eighteenth century)
Si

82

ALFXANDRF DF RIQUFR
DANTF GABRIFL ROSSETT1
(1865)

Binding for "Crisantcmes" (1899)

Binding for " Atalanta in Calydon"
S:

83

OGATA KORIN

84

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

Screen (circa lyoo)

Binding for "Verses" (1896)

84

his age; but, in spite of this, a certain

Room

structured Peacock

sumptuousness

in the finely

cannot be overlooked. Following the

rooms were almost bare; on their white

or egg-yellow wa'Is, only a few pictures or drawings were framed
with very wide mats in the narrowest of black frames. A few simple

Japanese

style, Whistler's

pieces of antique furniture

out the

many

room and

were asymmetrically distributed through-

shifted from time to time. The backgrounds of

show

method of decoration, so
fundamentally different from the chocolate-brown and dark red,
the heavy acanthus patterns of the wallpapers, and the somber
splendor of late Victorian interiors. Whistler anticipated the amor
vacui, the refined sparseness, the white and the light colors that
were introduced around 1900 by Mackintosh and Voysey together
with a new style of ornament and in fascinating contrast to Whisof Whistler's portraits

own

tler's

his

conceptions.

The Japanese Style from Rossetti

to all English creations in the Japanese style

the

more cosmopolitan or metropolitan

the binding that Rossetti designed in 1881 for the first edition of
his

own

Ballads and Sonnets (plate 292), he developed even further

the decorative principles set forth in the binding for Swinburne's

poems, except that rectangular patterns formed of small

was certainly conscious of a desire

to pater le bourgeois. He is thus remembered as the first and most
brilliant promoter of the Japanese style in London. Rossetti's interJapanese

tion. Yet, in

art,

not being quite so one-sided, attracted

1865, Rossetti also dressed one

feminine figures, The Beloved, in a rich

less

atten-

voluptuous

of his

gown embroidered with

Japanese bamboo leaves; moreover,

this fair and utterly English

Song of Songs wears in her hair a fantastic
Chinese ornament made of gold and red enamel. Stimulated by Whis-

bride illustrating the

tler, Rossetti, in

the sixties, also began to collect Chinese porcelain

and Japanese woodcuts. Long before Whistler and Morris thought

of illustrating books, Rossetti thus designed in 1865 the binding for

Swinburne's drama, Atalanta in Calydon (plate 82), in Japanese

style, so that

by virtue of

its

striking binding alone the

attract the attention so greatly needed

The balance of

by the

still

book would

unknown

poet. 55

this design, its effective use of space, the circular

ornaments arranged near

its

edges, the

theme of the two disks partly

covering each other, and of the peacock feathers with their contrasted curves, are

Did

this

all

inspired by Japanese lacquerware.

bookbinding have an immediate influence?

Whistler's paintings (plate 69). These small circling spirals and their

rows stem from the decorations on blue-and-white

Nanking porcelain, as Whistler reproduced them for a collector's
arrangement

in

catalogue in an inimitable manner (plate 290).

its period, though not to Rossetti's art. With the

frame for Ecce Ancilla Domini, Rossetti had indeed come surprising-

ly close to the Japanese style

was

still

own, even though the specific

lacking. But this binding design has

on

his

such a flavor, as well as the delicately worldly elegance that belongs

85

On

the other hand,

on the title page

that Rossetti drew in 1862 for Goblin Market, a volume of poems
by his sister Christina (page 62). For the type he used lettering
whose spontaneity reveals that the characters had been hand drawn,
thus following the example set by Blake. Burne- Jones likewise combined Pre-Raphaelitism and the Japanese style and, here and there,
a similarly dancing flower pattern already appears

timid early form of Art

Nouveau can even

be detected in his Oxford pencil drawing of 1875 (plate 109), or in

a sketched-out pattern for an embroidery design

where the related

pattern of the decorative design emphasizes the intervals between

empty spaces. But, at the same time, the artist seems

to be somewhat at a loss, accustomed as he still was to think in
terms of more figurative designs.
Even Greek elements can blend with Japanese ones: to the Japanese style of his binding for Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon
(plate 82), Rossetti not only added a Celtic ornament in the shape
of a circular form at the top right, but Greek patterns too. The
palmette inscribed in the disk at the bottom right is borrowed from
Attic vases of the fifth century b.c. The example of this unexpected
combination was followed in subsequent English design, where it
the peacocks as

Art Nouveau. In many of Whistler's pictures,

above all in his Symphony in White, No. IV: The Tlnce Girls (187679) (plate 293), we find young girls with a distinctly Greek type of
beauty, their hair arranged in Attic fashion, wearing draped chitons
and posing in Greek attitudes. But the chitons are narrow and simfinally leads into

and the maidens, holding parasols, are standing on Japanese

mats with cherry-tree branches blossoming near them. The Ten
O'Clock Lecture of 1885, a confession in which every word had
been carefully weighed by Whistler, winds up with the words: "The

plified
It strikes

one as too alien to

flavor of the latter

now

seems to have imposed a Japanese rhythm on his flamboyant Gothic

to Beardsley

deliberate dandy, Whistler

est in

circles

take the place of disks, as also in the patterns of the frames of

flowers and shrubs.

which later influenced

Art Nouveau. In

style of

story of the beautiful

is

already complete

hewn

the Parthenon
and broidered, with the
Hokusai at the foot of the Fusi-Yama

in the

marbles of

birds,

upon the fan of

(sic)."

Edward William

more profound

justification

to be

is

found

"pleasant estrangement" 58 on which Art

in the principle

Nouveau

to a great extent. Similar features can be seen in the

Ricketts, for instance in the illustrations

that he designed for Oscar Wilde's

at left).

CHARLES RICKETTS

"

architect of Whistler's

White House, who

also

of the

founded

work of Charles

and the binding of the book

poem The Sphinx

1894 (seen
The representation of the room in which Chloe is pining
in

Daphnis (see below), with its refined bareness and its distribution and proportions that remind one of Le Corbusier, could
scarcely have been conceived without some Japanese influence.
for

The Moon-Horned Io" from Oscar Wilde's

"The Sphinx" (1894)

Godwin, the

is

also dec-

orated the interior of Oscar Wilde's house, not only staged Greek

dramas, but

had designed "AngloJapanese" furniture (plates 73 and 74) and "Greek chairs" which
look more Japanese than Greek. 56 As early as 1862, he hung Japanese woodcuts on the walls of his own very un-Victorian, simple,
bare rooms, and dressed his wife and daughter in Japanese kimonos;
also,

ever since the

sixties,

but, in the midst of all this, he also

added a copy of the Venus de

Milo.

Walter Crane tells us how much he learned from the Japanese,

from 1865 on, for the illustrations of his children's books. 57 In The
Beauty and the Beast and Baby's Own Aesop, he included Greek
elements, in the representation of objects as well as in the treatment

of his form, in his illustrations and ornaments. For an endpaper of

1887, Walter Crane took ivy shoots from Attic vases of the fifth

and sixth

centuries,

shown there

as alternating

waves of

leaves;

spreading them out as a surface-pattern, Crane then arranged them

CHARLES RICKETTS

and suggested the outline with dots, in Japanese

style. The design was thus adapted to an alternating rhythm of
forms and counterforms and placed behind the delicate trellis of a
bower that reminds one of something Far Eastern. The secret rela-

Edward William Godwin

"Chloe" from "Daphnis and Chloe" (1896)

objectively in rows

tionships between heterogeneous areas of art are thereby stressed so

as to create something

new which enchants

us

by

its

freshness

and

whose

graceful simplicity.

We know

Chloe's

room might have

architect,

existed in Whistler's

Edward William Godwin

Japanese qualities with English

responding to the Greek technique of linear silhouettes, to the sharp,

lack of architectonic structure, lightness,

and streamlined contour of the shadowless and spaceless

Greek vases. In his illustrations to Lysistrata,
Beardsley enriched erotic themes borrowed from Attic vases with
similar ones borrowed from Utamaro; he thus "perverted" a Greek
subject by treating it in the Japanese style. This "perversion" must

ment.

precise,

pictures that decorated

not be understood only in the sense of fin de sicle decadence;

its

(1833-86), 59 was, with

Whistler, the first of the English artists to learn from Japan and to

combined Japanese elements with stylistic and ornamental features which he found in pictures painted
on vases by the Attic vase painter, Douris. Beardsley could not avoid
that Beardsley

White House,

employ

significantly

what he

learned.

He knew how

to

combine

of flat surfaces and a

narrow proportions, and
long, linear, straight forms. English and Japanese art also have in
common a propensity for a cool atmosphere and for understatetaste, a sense

In Godwin's White House, built in 1877 for his friend Whistler

Chelsea (plate 71), the Japanese note did not immediately meet the eye, but expressed itself rather as purism or as
in Tite Street in

86

understatement. Without the cornices that had to be added later,

Chelsea, almost opposite the White House}'

as a result of a regulation of the building authorities, the outside

color schemes for the rooms and supervised the painters while they

of the house appeared at

first as a

cubic block of closed form: a

kind of box with delicate surfaces and reticent articulations, as

it

if

had renounced any traditional Occidental notion of tectonic ar-

rangement. The supine rectangle of the faade

the surface of wall,

by

subdivided, like

is

a perpendicular ridge emphasized according

mixed the colors and applied them

yellow was used:

the

main floor and the top floor and the rounded ledge of the

slightly

protruding top floor (neither of which

fiable) reveal that this

is

a matter of

is

functionally justi-

form for the sake of form,

in

in

course, pale

one of the bed-

this

if

and

Of

from that of any Victorian home, and indeed became so.

With the exception of some antiques Wilde used for instance the
table at which Carlyle had worked, and also had a collection of

they are built at various levels. But the horizontal strip between

seems as

in thin coats.

in the hall, the staircase,

different

paper appeared

it

Whistler suggested the

rooms. The furnishing was intended to be quite out of the ordinary,

two small houses had

been built together. A predilection for asymmetry and a pretended
fortuitousness determine the sensitive rhythm in the disposition of
the strongly simplified doors and windows; one has the impression
that the distribution of the various rooms is thus indicated, and that
to the English tradition, so that

"blue-and-white"

Godwin designed everything for the house. In

a letter to him, Wilde praises the exquisite quality of a recently delivered "Japanese couch"; large quantities of Japanese gold-leaf
in the bills.

Even

the

bathroom was decorated with

gold paper.

The spacious drawing room occupied a whole floor and could be

partitioned off with Japanese folding doors. It had white lacquered
dadoes: above them the walls were flesh-pink, with a frieze of

reinforced concrete architecture and already suggests the restricted

lemon-colored gold, hung with drawings by Burne-Jones and

another Pre-Raphaelite, Simeon Solomon, and etchings by Whistler;

forms which the Viennese architect Adolf Loos was to introduce a

Japanese leather decorated the borders of the

quarter of a century later (plates 260, 263).

ing room, above

fact

new

an entirely

One

decorative detail that comes close to modern

can well understand that this house must have seemed

ghost-like in

its

time: strange, without being really Japanese, since

Japanese houses were known to be quite different. But here lies

Godwin's true achievement: he did not borrow prefigured forms as

even historicism finally did from the Japanese style too;

it is

more

Far Eastern element had sent out some radiation so as to

the very essence of the structure. Yet the building also fol-

walls above were a dull chalk-white, while the furniture was

ivory-white. The furniture

remained empty. However,

alter

this luxurious

by

with

its

flat front finished off hori-

pediment and enlivened only by its proporwindows, and the carefully weighed relationships between the apertures and the walls. The use of white paint
on such faades even dates from the period when Nash built his
zontally

its

tions, the size

attic

of

its

houses in late neo-Classical style.

Only England has known how

to

and blend it with its own innate

White House has nothing in common
with the fluctuating line of Art Nouveau, but it already reveals
definite symptoms of late Art Nouveau. Its cubic construction, its
great economy in decoration and molding and, last but not least,
its labyrinthine asymmetry and interlacing were adapted by others
decades later, but most specifically by Mackintosh, who knew how
to employ these features to their greatest advantage.
"assimilate the Japanese element

national individuality." 60 The

Whistler and

Godwin were

again associated

home (1884-85) of Oscar and Constance Wilde

87

in

decorating the

in Tite Street in

was mainly

built-in,

according to Japa-

nese fashion, so as to appear integrated with the walls (plate 294),

while the middle of the room, contrary to the tradition of Victorian
interiors,

since the eighteenth century,

But the din-

all, being entirely white, made visitors think the

house bizarre. The panels were lacquered with white enamel, the

as if the

lows the tradition of the English town house, refined and simplified

ceiling.

this

pretended simplicity and

understatement were expensive enough and, when

lived in, all this white

Wilde then wrote

proved too

in a letter to

delicate. With friendly irony,

Godwin: "Of course we miss you,

but the white furniture reminds us of you, and

leaf can be laid

a white one can.

In the

sixties,

we

find that a rose

on the ivory table without scratching

it

at

least

"'''-'

before creating these works of architecture,

win made designs

God-

for "Anglo-Japanese furniture," as he repeatedly

it in a kind of illustrated catalogue of 1877 (plates

73, 74).
Being comparable to Pre-Raphaelite furniture in this respect (plate

calls

56),

Godwin's works are

flat surfaces, their

Godwin

also conceived in straight lines.

They have

forms being those of rectangular boxes. But

form of all conventional aspect

and reduces a piece of furniture to the basic rule of its construction.
Like the White House, these pieces of furniture are not disguised
in

is

radical in liberating the

order to appear Japanese, which happens occasionally as

accident however; but the Japanese influence has

formation

in their

worked

if

by

a trans-

very construction. Furniture becomes elongated,

linear, concise,

and

and tense

surfaces,

in itself.

With

light;

it

reduced to a system of active

is

and the whole

this, essential

is

stylized to

lines

become an ornament

Nouveau

elements of Art

are first

introduced, even though the results are not yet characteristic of

Art Nouveau.

Not only
stressed

and

tables

chairs,

but cabinets too are

and loosely subdivided

struction thus appears in

its

in their different parts.

On

cage-like purity.

framework and the

the contrast between the

now

emphasized; on the other hand,

it

may

full

elastically

The con-

the one hand,

planes

may

be

paradoxically be under-

The parallelism between the rectangular structure and the

stated.

and surfaces of the cabinet unite

a whole. In Godwin's big sideboard

concise relationships of structure

its

heterogeneous elements in

(plate 73), even the silver-plated hinges

the black

wood, looking

like

lie

flush to the surface of

an ornamental incrustation; like the

delicate handle rings, they are a pure

and functional ornament.

Seen next to one of Godwin's box-like forms in straight

lines,

Ber-

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

can be folded, are stored

Decorative fabric (1883)

cupboards after their tempoThese cupboards which have fusumas (sliding doors) con-

rary use.

in built-in

stitute part of the architecture itself.

Objects that remind one of

European furniture are to be found only in affluent households,

where they are not movable. Built-in bookcases, small cabinets, and
writing desks are then combined and introduced asymmetrically

Out

into the arrangement of the room.

Godwin, who had

nations

of these structural combi-

also designed wallpapers in the Japanese

style for industrial purposes,

developed a world of

In 1859, books began to appear in England dealing with every

aspect of Japanese

on Household

life

art. 64

and Japanese

As

early as 1869, Hints

Taste, Charles Eastlake's influential

rules for arranging flowers, unfamiliar until then in

constantly discussed in periodicals, so that the

unmistakably

furniture designer of a slightly older generation,

and by Van de Velde can likewise be anticipated

we

Godwin's work
in one of

Godwin's mantelpieces (plate 295), or the entire linear system of

one of his pieces of furniture (plate 74), already anticipate the
verve of the later phase of Art Nouveau.
After the elimination of
cism, a

new kind

all

the European accessories of histori-

of intricacy could at last be developed on the

newly recovered foundations. The proportions are then

so well cal-

culated, in every case, that the forms appear weightless, as if they

indeed consisted of

lines.

Beardsley understood this when, like

Godwin, he exaggerated the lines of the furniture in his pictures,

without however making it appear improbable (page 75). For all
their playfulness, grace, and apparent fragility, Godwin's pieces
of furniture are strict, serious, and carefully considered. They can
even be understood as an engineer's constructions in wood.
The synthesis of Japanese and European elements was particularly

fruitful,

the

temptation of counterfeiting

small, since a Japanese

in

Europe.

great

home

it

ignores furniture such as

number of Godwin's

particularly

it is

conceived

sketches refer to Chinese

prototypes, just as the total Japanese style throughout the West

was strongly influenced by China. Neither chairs nor beds as we

know them exist in Japan, to say nothing of dressers and other such
pieces; in empty rooms, one squats on mats spread on the floor.
Small movable objects such as screens, stands, or small tables which

England, were

work of

the most

important "artist-designers" was inspired by Japanese examples,

of a century apart. But the furniture designed by Serrurier-Bovy

in

book on English

interior decoration, called attention to Japanese models. Japanese

as can be quite

curved wooden bands

and grace-

ful forms.

lage's writing table in Dutch Jugendstil (plate 152) looks like its
younger brother; one could scarcely guess that they are a quarter

as future possibilities. Certain

virile

(plate 100). In the

felt in

works of Bruce

J.

Mackmurdo

the creations of
Talbert, the

most celebrated

who

died in 1881,

already find suggestions of the Japanese style; he designed

wallpapers, silk damasks, and fine chintzes, decorated with flowers

arranged
taste

is

in

flat surface-designs in the

Japanese

Japanese

style.

indeed opposed to naturalistic trompe-Voeil patterns, to

modeling bodies

in space, to

heaviness and overloading of the

form, to an exaggerated number of details, and to dull, dark, or

painterly colors, in fact to

of Victorian

all

that

was most

favor in the heyday

in

taste.

In 1876 Christopher Dresser went to Japan as an official representative of the British government.

the most important

public

among

more familiar with

He

then published,

the books that were

meant

to

in

1882,

make

the

the East: Japan, Its Architecture, Art,

and Art Manufactures. Dresser designed

wallpapers of comparatively

furniture, fabrics,

lesser interest;

and

but he achieved re-

and other vessels (plates 90, 92). Between 1879 and 1882 there appeared the first
undecorated Art Nouveau vases and vessels which, although ornaments in themselves, were at the same time conceived in terms of
their function. They were the first real Art Nouveau objects,
though Rossetti had already prefigured some in paintings as early
as 1849 (plates 54, 61). Again, and as is always the case in its early
markable

results in the designing of pitchers, vases,

English phases and antecedents, Art

Nouveau

occurs both in the

curving or organic, and in the geometrical form, of which the for-

mer

leads to

High Art Nouveau and

the latter to late Art

Nouveau.

88

S6

JOSEPH ANGELL

Sy

English

Carpet design

(circa 1850)

88

English

Carpet design

(circa 1850)

Pitcher (1854-55)

87

88

90

89

OWEN JONES

90

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

91

Damask

(circa 1870)

Pitcher (1S79)

91

WtLLIAM BUTTERFIELD

92

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

93

GEORGE WALTON

94

KATE GREENAWAY

95

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Dressing table and mirror (circa 18 55)

Vase (1892-96)

Vase(i8 9 6)

Design for a

tile

864)

Glass skylight in

Folkwang Museum,

Hagen (1901)
96

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

9i

92

93

Writing desk (1886)

96

93

97

OWEN JONES
of

"Horse Chestnut Leaves," from "The Grammar

Ornament" (1856)

9S

CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY

}$

WILLIAM MORRIS

100

" Pimpernel"

"Tokyo" wallpaper (1893)

wallpaper {1876)

ARTHUR HEYGATEMACKMURDO

Screen (1884)

97

98

99

94

loi

95

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

"Plans and Elevations of Flowers'

from "The Grammar of Ornament" (1856)

loi

CHARLES^ANNl

103

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

104

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER

SI

VOYSEY

"Cereus" wallpaper (1886)

Force and Energy (1870)

Design for a stained-glass

window

(-8/3)

102

103

104

96

Japanese conceptions of form which

made

form, were not, however, the main or decisive element. The technique of the old Japanese handicrafts which,

compared

to those of

Europe, had developed to an "unbelievable, mysterious degree of

and

technical

65

also imposed some renewed

Under Japanese guidance the tech-

aesthetic perfection,"

consideration or re-evaluation.

England not only preceded other countries by several decades

the closed, clearly

recognizable form triumph over the open, indistinct, or multiple

accepting the example offered by Japan, but also underwent

influence over a

much longer

Japanese

art. Rossetti

a while, Whistler too,

ing with the accepted notions of their times, took an interest

in objects of daily use

aspects of

England was leading in the art of surface-decoration and furniture designing, the European continent and North America achieved remarkable results in the field of ceramics, thanks to their
acquaintance with Japanese forms and Japanese methods of pro-

of Art Nouveau,

glass objects
artists,

York and Galle

in

Nancy both produced

which became prototypes of Art Nouveau. Both these

moreover, went through periods when they were influenced

by Japanese

owed

New

its

The Royal Porcelain Factory

styles.

revival

and

success to the influence of

in

Copenhagen

Japan (plate

j6).

06

High Art Nouveau had spread as a general

style, the Danish factory's china belonged to the few things of the
time that could be admired by the aesthetes, who "quivered with
enthusiasm down to their innermost being" as Van de Velde reSince 1888, long before

marked.

87

The most important Northern European manufacturers,

Bing and GrondahPs porcelain factory in Denmark, Rorstrand in

Sweden, and the Rozenburger factory

Japanese example

set

in The Hague, followed the

by Copenhagen. As early as 1890, the Royal

came close to Jugendstil with its Chinese and Japanese forms and glazes. The Rockwood Pottery Company of Cincinnati owed its success to the collaboration of Japanese-born specialists, and the masters of French ceramics in Art
Nouveau style, Jean Carries and Auguste Delaherche, were among

possible because a

and his friends Burne-Jones, Morris, and, for

were among the first painters who, disagree-

of the object became sources of inspiration or invention.

duction. Tiffany in

was

decorative universalism existed in England before the discovery of

nique of production, the materials, and even the ultimate function

If

period. This

in
its

life.

and

set

out to confer harmony on

This attitude later became typical of

many

of

all

all

the artists

whom

then gave up painting entirely.

had originally been painters who

The former Post-Impressionist Van

de Velde designed embroidery patterns for the Pre-Raphaelitic

kimono-like gowns of his ladies and
in

making us feel
Godwin's or Whistler's house thirty years earlier

nese stencil prints

on

his walls (plate 142)

we were

as if

hung Japa-

which demonstrate one of

the sources of his "Belgian" line. Such prints were reproduced in

Bing's Japanischer

F ormenschatz ;

periodical, devoted a
first issue in

imported Japanese
lines,

whole

1895, Pan,

in 1899,

issue to

in Berlin,

tissue

Ver Sacrum,

Viennese

a.

them and, beginning with

protected

its

papers decorated with patterns of

rhythmically distributed dots, and rosettes:

its

color prints with

wavy

wavy

lines in the

High Art Nouveau and stylized concentric flower-rosettes

in the taste of late Art Nouveau. Once again, the close relationship
and the joint origin of the organically animated High Art Nouveau
and the geometrical late Art Nouveau are clearly demonstrated.
taste of

Porcelain Factory in Berlin

the first to "seek to revive stoneware under the influence of Chinese

and Japanese examples." 68 A strongly Japanese-influenced style of
Art Nouveau is also to be found even in those places where there
had been no local antecedents for this development, and where Art

Nouveau had

actually been adopted as a kind of "store-bought"

is particularly true of the workshops that produced wares for the Russian Imperial Court in St. Petersburg (plate
79) and those in Constantinople, and especially in the work of

importation. This

Carl Faberg, a great virtuosic craftsman working in Russia, who,

at

one time, also adopted the Art Nouveau style for his jewelry and

objets d'art

made

of precious metals, precious or semiprecious

enamelwork. However, the majority of Faberg's pieces

for the Court itself were in a historistic Slavic style.

stones, or

97

The Masters

of Industrial Design

Independently of the Pre-Raphaelites and of the adepts of the

Japanese influence,

who

both wished to surround

life

with an

England became, toward the middle of the nineteenth century, a battleground for those who set out to educate and
transform the public's taste and to liberate the form and the decoration of useful objects from their traditional designs
in other
artistic setting,

words, to help a

On

new

style to establish itself.

World Exhibition of 1851 and its utter

pandemonium of conflicting styles (plates 87, 88), Henry Cole
wrote: "The absence of any fixed principles in ornamental design is
." 69 The young William Morris
apparent
(1834-96) turned away
in horror from products that were machine-made but were inspired in their design by the richest and most decadent styles of
the occasion of the

the best of inevitable compromises. In order to react effectively

against the chaos of forms which appeared in such profusion in

London's Great Exhibition of 185 1, Henry Cole founded the South

Museum (from which Morris derived many ideas) as a

Kensington

kind of instructive exhibit of the most remarkable products of the

applied arts of

times and peoples. For, as

all

it

was

said in 1901,

"one had begun to realize in London that what one had retained of

OTTO RUNGE

PHILIPP

Geometric drawing of the cornflower (1808)

the techniques of the crafts of previous centuries

less

than

all

had forgotten."

that one

museum were not meant

He came

the past.

to the conclusion that

machine work had to be

entirely avoided. Like Ruskin, he considered the

from an

ethical point of view; he then put Ruskin's theories into

becoming an artisan or craftsman

practice,

the later

problem of form

in the sense of those of

Middle Ages.

gether logical, since machines were not responsible for the choice of

form and design. Still, the Art Nouveau artists directly or indirectly
followed the example of Morris, even though around 1900 his
theories were scarcely applied any longer. With the exception of
textiles,

wallpapers, and book illustrations, practically

all

works of

was indeed

far

The collections in Cole's

styles that were to be

models of

ways and means

They were also built up in the hope of
of the public and of artists by exhibiting objects

imitated; they were to offer didactic examples of

of achieving one's

own

educating the taste

ideas.

of the highest quality in the field of the applied arts so as to

establish

The conclusion that Morris drew from the aesthetically doubtful

and often technically bad quality of contemporary industrial arts
and crafts (namely, to renounce the use of machines) was not alto-

to suggest

70

more ambitious

criteria.

In order to give a systematic schooling to those

work

for industry,

Henry Cole

who would

later

created the "Schools of Design"

which were attached to the South Kensington Museum in 1857.

George Moore wrote, not without irony: "The schools were primarily intended as schools of design where the sons and the daughters
of the people would be taught how to design wallpapers." 71 But
these schools soon enjoyed extraordinary success:

the

number of French

designers

employed

Art Nouveau were made by hand, frequently by the designer

himself. Every vase and every piece of furniture by Galle was
called an tude and signed by the artist himself. Every piece of glass
by Tiffany was an individual, unique work of art. Tiffany even

been reduced by a half; a few years

introduced the term favrile glass, derived from the Latin faber

of design. 73

later,

in

"As early

as i860,

English industry had

France had been entirely

driven out of this field." 72 This newly gained independence from

the historical conception of French designers
in

who

mostly thought

terms of "Louis styles" was attributed exclusively to the schools

arts.

Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), 74 who later became so famous

for her children's books, offers us an example of the style taught in
these schools. For an examination in 1864, she had to submit designs
for glazed tiles and won a prize for one of them (plate 94). In a
symmetrical circular ornament, flowers, tendrils, and leaves are

a high standard of craftsmanship a technical require-

reduced fully to a surface-design and, rigorously abstract, repre-

ment in Art Nouveau, but also one of the very sources of its forms
and its style, which explains the deterioration of its quality wherever Art Nouveau was produced industrially and in large quantities.

sented in lines and two-dimensional bodies with an obvious sense

(artisan).

Gaudi's ironwork, Obrist's embroideries, Horta's or Gui-

mard's furniture were not conceived for industrial mass-production.

daily

Art Nouveau adherents wanted to transform every object of

life

into a

work of

art.

Its

very style was based on the

conception of the decorative arts as the equals of the "free"

Not only was

for the

complementary relationships of forms and intervals. This

moreover what George Moore, who kept on the

sketch illustrates

side of the Impressionists, said ironically about the schooling during

more the drawing

looked like a problem in a book of Euclid, the more the examiner
was pleased." 75 Indeed, the painterly element is as absent from
this work as all representative or narrative realism. Without great
expenditure of imagination, the young Kate Greenaway produced
a pattern which is typical of the style of the schools and indicates
the sixties: "The harder

Henry Cole and

the "Schools of Design"

more aristocratic path that Morris chose, there

existed other trends which aimed rather at a broad and more anonymous diffusion of their tastes and ideas and even tried to make
In addition to the

and

finer the outline, the

98

that an early English Art

sixties

Nouveau began

outside of Rossetti's domain.

also to develop in the

comparison with a work by

Van de Velde (plate 95) shows what the two artists have in common
and what separates them: seen beside Kate Greenaway's ornamental design of 1 864, so obedient to the rules and so void of expression, Van de Velde's kaleidoscope-like window unfolds with both

Whatever its rational motivation, a new and absolutely different

style was trying to impose itself. It was therefore natural that, in
The Grammar of Ornament, the most important work on decoration published in the middle of the century (in 1910 it had gone
through nine editions), the flat ornament in the Oriental style
should play a preponderant

role. Flat

Moorish origin are represented

Egyptian decorations are cited

and delicacy. Forms which remind us of both butterfly wings and flower-like shapes seem to pass through metamorphoses that lead them from the crystalline ornament to animated organic life. The transformable structure has found an ideal
medium in the stained glass through which the light filters; it is

ornamentation of Greek vases

entirely conceived in terms of glass, while the technically indispen-

in

infinite force

comtwo
disparity between High and early Art Nouveau:

sable leadings provide the outlines required

by the

style.

This

parison not only reveals the difference in the quality of the

works, but also the

surging

but flowering according to the laws of nature, in

life,

richly differentiated

rhythms, as opposed to the systematic rigor of

a mere pattern. Yet, in the realm of Victorian taste,

away's design

is

extremely progressive:

it

is

Kate Green-

flat, linear,

simple,

easy to understand, and free from any attempt to imitate reality.

Owen

Jones and the

Grammar of Ornament

dian, Persian, or

dozens of plates.

ornaments of Chinese, In-

is

and the

linear

more

An

too,

opinion

is

always given

non-value of the ornament, and

favor of a sign or symbol which

in

distinctly preferred to the

three-dimensional style of the Romans.

as to the value or the

Grammar

in the

is

always

it is

developed on the plane of the

surface without any attempt at depth. Prehistoric decorative forms

are

shown

as well as

many examples

of Celtic book ornaments,

from the Gothic to the

"The world has become weary of the eternal repetition of the same conventional
while the traditional Western

Baroque, take up comparatively

styles,
little

space.

forms which have been borrowed from

away."

It

was not

in 1896,

but in 1856

styles

which have passed

when

that statement

was

made,

as well as the following: "The principles discoverable in the

works of the past belong to us; not so the results." 78 In the
domain of High Art Nouveau, Samuel Bing makes the same claim:
"We must seek the spark of new life beneath the ashes of older

systems." 79

Kate Greenaway's ornament corresponded to such theoretical

demands as Owen Jones (1809-74) had formulated in his Grammar of Ornament. "All ornament should be based on geometrical
.": this was aimed as a blow to illusionistic naturalconstruction
.

ism. "All junctions of curved lines with

lines

with straight

(lines),

curved

(lines),

or of curved

should be tangential with each other

.":

blow at intersections in perspective. "Colour is used to assist in

the development of form, and to distinguish objects or parts of
objects one from another...": a blow at painterly or confused

tonalities. 76

Jones'

Grammar and

mous influence on

its

theses

which exercised an enor-

the taste of his times were

teachings of the South Kensington schools.

of advocating flatness in decoration. It

Owen

among

the basic

Jones never tired

was a world of faded

re-

which heavy flowers bloomed on wallpapers and carpets,

and where most of the floor coverings resembled a jungle of forms
liefs, in

in

which one's

of

woven

feet

foliage.

seemed

to sink as

However,

as early as

following began to be expressed:

floor,

is

also the

one waded through the thickets

"A

ground from which

1856, opinions like the

carpet, whilst
all

should therefore be treated as a flat surface." 77

99

it

covers the

furniture [arises] ...

it

Owen
as

an

Jones, an industrial designer

architect,

conducted

and

interior decorator as well

his fight against three-dimensional

orna-

ment in decoration of the flat surface with two weapons, one of

which was the complement of the other. In addition to his theoretical demands and their illustration in instructive examples, he
introduced sketches for actual use. True, the

silk

fabrics of the

period around 1870 (monochrome blue on blue, in a damask weave,

plate 89) clearly reached back to the Gothic style, but, as an inde-

from historicism, as understood in the

fullest sense of the word, and point distinctly in the direction of Art
Nouveau. In the forms of plants, Jones senses forces of vegetative
growth and movements that seem to create the pattern out of thempendent development,

selves as in

shift

an almost abstract manifestation of energies. Stylized

and gliding movement, without relief or

inner design, but sharply confined and maintained in the flatness of
the plane except for unimportant intersections, forms and complementary counter-forms of almost equal size are densely and coninto flat bodies in a soft

cisely united. Despite the smallness of the forms' details

change from blunt to smooth and from dark to

though uninterrupted, breaks, precisely for

and the

light which, al-

this reason, the

con-

movement and the large, lively curves the leitmotiv

give an impression of almost static calm.
of Art Nouveau
tinuity of the

On

the subject of forms

Ornament

insists

borrowed from nature, The Grammar of

on demonstrating that "in the best periods of art

ornament was rather based upon an observation of the principles

which regulate the arrangement of form in nature than on an attempt to imitate the absolute forms of these works." 80 Jones atall

taches great importance to the relationship

structure

and

between forms, to their

development, and refuses to pursue the

their natural

He

demonstrates

this principle in a design of chestnut leaves (plate 97)

which are not

imitative representation of existing examples.

an ornament

in

themselves but can be used as the starting point for

an ornamental pattern: spread out

rhythm. Here we

stressed

flat,

with precise outlines and

development at

see the beginnings of a

the culmination of which we find Van de Velde's stained glass

window, Voysey's wallpapers, or other works of Art Nouveau. At
the same time, there is an anticipation of the Japanese style of the
nineties in Jones' design of chestnut leaves which shows how early
this type of Eastern style had taken root in English design, thereby

preparing the

Nor

way

for

its full

way

Grammar

did Morris (who frequently consulted The

nament) copy anything

fabrics

flowering almost four decades

and

his

existing,

even though at

wallpapers look surprisingly

(plate 99).

He

rich, in

likewise derived his forms

essence of the figure than

from

its

first

in Morris' designs

style out of
it

its

and

lines.

of Or-

sight his

the Victorian

more from

the

appearance. Plant patterns,

Art Nouveau was already contained

that his disciples had to do was to lift his

weave of small parts in order to transpose

all

intricate

from a polyphonic orchestration into a tune for a

and colorplate VII).

single voice

(plates 85, 98,

In a series of watercolors that he began soon after the publication of The

Grammar

curtains, furniture,

of Ornament, Rossetti has covered gowns,

and sometimes even the background with a

repeated pattern of

little

flowers, circles or hearts, geometrical

forms (above right) as they appear on the one hand

tions of The

Grammar

furniture, the rooms,

in

illustra-

and, on the other hand, around 1900, in the

and the

textiles of Baillie Scott. In Rossetti's

ornament, the pattern and poetry of the essentially

combine

flower

artistic

Carpet design (1861)

Christopher Dresser

later.

arranged in front view or in profile, are transformed into orna-

ments by clearly curving

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

element

Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), 81 like Henry Cole and Owen

Jones, was primarily concerned with exerting an educational influence. Since 1859, he

had been on the

staff of teachers at the

Schools of Design attached to the South Kensington Museum. At

first

he gave lectures and wrote works on botanical subjects;

from 1862 (when

later,

book The Art of Decorative Design was

number of works on
the principles of decorative and ornamental design. But in opposition to Cole and Jones, Dresser devoted himself mainly to practical work. His designs for furniture, ceramics, glass, metalware,
wallpapers, and fabrics range from the strictly functional to the
somewhat eccentric. Now and then, we find him bound by close
ties to historicism; elsewhere, he achieves pure Art Nouveau.
The colorplate with "Plans and Elevations of Flowers" (plate
1 01) that Dresser designed for Jones' Grammar of Ornament was
his

published) until the eighties, he wrote a great

intended to demonstrate that "the basis of

all

form

is

geometry." 82

In contrast to the painterly and soft forms of Victorian surfacedecorations, with their illusionistic renderings of bodies and space,

here a closed and clearly discernible form

is

predicted, by reducing

harmony. Together with the form-structure, the diarm

the forms of nature to a structure-system. The elements of an orna-

of fairy tales and romance which had been lacking in the more prac-

ment like an emblem or signature are already contained and developed in this system. Dresser's basic principle was this: "Flowers
and other natural objects should not be used as ornaments, but

tical

in

work of

the "artist-designers" thus

came

to life again

1900, not only in Baillie Scott's work, but in almost

Nouveau.

all

around
of Art

conventional representations founded on them." 83 The natural

100

form therefore had

art.

Much

as

to be transposed into

Runge had already done

in a

an ornamental form of

style, Dresser's design, instead

flower sketch (page 9$}.

moniously balanced,

Dresser's page of flower patterns established a geometrical

for the structure of the design.

Compared

to Dresser's later a

truly artistic designs, this page, lacking sensuousness

it

and emotion

offers a kind of hygienic instruction in design rather than anythii

artistic

or ornamental.

In the

work of Christopher

the University of Jena, one

Dresser,

may

studied botany ar

perhaps detect the starting point

Nouveau

of the preference that Art

who had

revealed for floral patterns.

In 1859, Dresser published Unity in Variety, the fundamental idea

of which

mon,

is

to lay bare the one element that all plants

in their habitats, in the

way

have

in

com-

they grow, and in the principles

:s

of

life,"

of creating a pattern that

his illustrations are true precursors

of the symbolic and sign-like

symbols of organic

ser himself, in his

refers constantly

As early

as

in fact,

life.

Dres-

decorative designs that soon followed this book,

back to the book's patterns of botanical structure.

862, he then recognized the "line of life" in the energy-

laden curves and the linear rhythm of nature and, in 1859, in the

preliminary remarks of one of his publications, he stated that

endowed with the power of

growth. 84 This view both anticipates and establishes the dynamic
plants are organized living creatures,

views and symbolism of Art Nouveau. To give preference to the

general pattern rather than to the particular visual appearance of
the different kinds of plants or indeed of "individual" flowers

much more

typical of Art

Nouveau than

the

more

is

superficial use

of certain forms of flowers and their representation, however sty-

even

may

have determined the more floral

character of Art Nouveau. Eugne Grasset's famous work La Plante
lized,

if this

et ses applications

at times

ornementales began to appear only in 1896 and

in no way one of the sources of the more plant-loving forms of

Art Nouveau, being rather founded on their already accomplished
is

and publications began to appear nearly

half a century earlier and thus created a real tradition and continuity which reached right up to the Art Nouveau of around 1900.
style. Dresser's designs

In 1870, an unusual ornamental design

was published under the

perhaps even more unusual name of Force and Energy (plate 103),
a title that reminds us of Van de Velde; Dresser attempted here,

above
ity. 85

all,

to

embody

the idea of force, energy, power,

This conception could not have been surpassed by

and vitalHigh Art

Nouveau, though the design itself bears the still incomplete character of early Art Nouveau. Conceived in about the same period as
Owen Jones' fabric (plate 89) and likewise based on the Gothic

101

har-

or motive powers of organic growth. The subject

itself

some
Frank Furness (plate 233),
s Sullivan (plate 236), Gaudi (plate 217), and Viollet-le-Duc
e
U n 61) also developed their dynamic botanical Art Nouveau
forms from the plant-like vigor of the Gothic style; Furness and
Sullivan were almost certainly influenced by Dresser, presumably
the preference of the times for historicism determined to

at this regression to the Gothic style.

rv

Gau

Fi

simul

oo.
'8

folio vo!u

.)

1876, Dresser's Studies in Design were published

in

London,

Paris,

and

New

ith fine color lithographs, in a

York,

way

as a sene.

the continut

of their structure. The patterns, ideal figures, and essential forms of

ornaments of Art Nouveau;

is

strives rather to elucidate the rays of energy,

CHRISTOPHER DRESSER
Botany" (1859)

Illustration for " The

Rudiments of

of Jones'

Grammar

of Ornament. In addition to the great

number

of 18 j

(plate 86).

Toward

the end of the seventies

of patterns of Arabic, Moorish, Indian, and Chinese origin and

ning of the eighties, High Art

some

pletely

plates of "pure Celtic" or "purest ancient Persian" style,

it

also included definitions such as "medieval in conception," "in the

of certain Gothic ornaments," or "Greek, but used with some

spirit

freedom." Although, without exception, the forms are

posed into the

flat surface

inasmuch

trans-

all

examples of

as historical

two-dimensional forms have not been altogether preferred

and

although Dresser stresses

it

in the text the fact that in all cases

a matter of expressing his individual feelings,

faithful, in a

88

he

still

"two

circular compositions in the

ments

in the

remains

broader sense, to historicism. But, here and there,

already find a few plates defined as "a frieze in the

new

Kate Greenaway's

style,"

though

new

style," or

this style

was

new

we

style,"

"marginal orna-

remains very close to

ornament (plate 94). Art Nouveau indeed

the same irresolute and feeble manner, with all

tile

reveals itself here in

and repeated
patterns that refer back to frost flowers on iced windowpanes,
Dresser writes about the origins of this "new style": "For some
the shyness of an early phase. Dealing with ornaments

eighteen years
frost as

it

had been

in the habit of sketching designs of the

generally appears in winter on the

rooms. But only eight years later [that

that

new

was now elaborated

windows of our

to say ten years before

would mean 1864] did I recogornament." 87 This was the style

the publication of his book, which

nize in these sketches a

is

style of

in the designs of

1874 (plate 104).

These ornaments do not reveal a return to any historical

style,

but proceed from forms that exist in nature and are subsequently

developed into forms of

art.

They

still

lack,

however, the true

ments of Art Nouveau, for instance that graceful flow from

line,

though Dresser had postulated

it

as early as 1862.

rounded curves and forms that are otherwise so

in the surface-patterns of early English

ele-

line to

The softly

easily to be

found

Art Nouveau, especially

in

works of Morris and Jones, nevertheless are achieved by Dresser

in three-dimensional bodies rather than in the surface-plane. His
glassware and ceramics and his glass pitcher in its metal setting
the

(plates 90, 92) are (setting aside those already painted

setti)

the first real Art

Nouveau three-dimensional

by Ros-

and completely closed forms have curved and unbroken

ideal and smoothly flowing forms are not only dominant

molded or blown glass, but also in objects made of metal

and ceramics. With their extraordinary simplicity and their
smooth, undecorated surfaces, where the ornaments are only due to
the structure and spring from the technique of fabrication, these
vessels stood in absolute contrast to those shown in the Exhibition
here in

in its full purity,

and

for the first time, also in high relief.

Almost without exception, the three-dimensional works of the

had prepared the way for the rectangular or
geometrical late phase of Art Nouveau. The first examples of the
latter are to be found in the box-shaped pieces of furniture and
other objects of interior decoration that were depicted by Rossetti
in his paintings and carried out in three-dimensional reality by his
friends Morris, Burne-Jones, and Webb. But we discover yet
another and very curious parallel: the architect William Butterearly English phase

who

and decorated some of the most

satisfying neo-Gothic churches in his own austere and personal
taste, has left us a small number of pieces of furniture designed
around 1855 (plate 91). Without any contact with the Pre-Raphaelites, these works were developed from the same sources of English
field

(1814-1900),

built

neo-Gothic style and certainly Butterfield's big mirror might

have existed
tation,

with

in
its

one of Rossetti's early pictures: the inlaid ornamengeometrical, two-dimensional design,

54).

style

its

is

closely relat-

Girlhood of Mary Virgin (plate

Such furniture does not refer directly to any style of the past;

ed to that of the balustrade

might

in the

at best be defined as early Victorian interpreted after

manner of the Pre-Raphaelites, but surprises one by the simplicand lightness of its construction. It appears modest and serviceable, and though its forms are in the grand manner the economical decoration stresses only the points of articulation and is
integrated with refinement and taste. Comparing it to the manneristic
Baroque sideboard at the Exhibition of 18 ji, with its deep shadows
the

ity

caused by a disrupted high

relief

concealing

its

structure (plate

how much "younger" Butterfield's pieces of

how much more distinctly they point toward Art

296), one sees clearly

furniture are,

Nouveau. Butterfield anticipated by decades the

and Webb and even those of Godwin.

ideas of Morris

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo

objects. Their

simplified
outlines;

and

and the beginitself com-

Nouveau manifested

In the early eighties, Arthur Heygate

88

Mackmurdo (1851-1942)

Among

the pieces of his furwent even further in this direction.

niture that have survived, the small writing desk (plate 96) in the
Morris Gallery is probably his most original work. Utterly simple
and lacking any outward adornment, owing to its clearly displayed
structure and unusual proportions, it is as though this desk was an
ornament in itself. The exaggeratedly long legs are intended to raise

102

and feature the top portion of the desk. This theme of concentrating
the mass of the writing surface (which ends in a protruding ledge)
is repeated again in the construction of the drawers and pigeonholes.

The supports extend upward throughout the unit at the rear

about an even closer integration of the upper part and the

to bring

writing surface

itself;

projecting square plates cover the terminals

of the supports like the capitals of columns. In 1886 this theme

is

taken up again by Mackintosh in the celebrated pavilion he built

for the exhibition in Liverpool, which

was praised

in the British

Ar-

and welcomed as a protest against Renaissance historicism. 89

Later, it was Mackmurdo's disciple, Voysey, who especially took
over the peculiar pattern of the supports rising above the body of
chitect

and covered them with a panel (plate 319). This

Mackmurdo's then reappears in works of Mackintosh (plate
244) and, more or less modified, in the Continental High Art Nouveau, as Mackmurdo's influence can, in general, certainly be traced
in works of Serrurier-Bovy and Horta.
a piece of furniture
idea of

metrical climbing plant swings boldly upward,

like a fan

and sending out almost

is crossed several times by a second sheaf of shoots

from the same stem and swinging over the whole surface
in an S-shaped movement which rises to the top of the chair back
with blossoms or darting leaf ends and then turns downward again.
This whole formal development occurs exclusively within the sur-

face.

The separate shoots show the

ment

only in the diminishing line of the legs and the abrupt flaring out
of the knobs at

its feet.

Most of Mackmurdo's

pieces of furniture

are of the rectangular, straight-lined kind that anticipates late Art

Nouveau. However,
suggestions of

in the feet of the writing

High Art Nouveau

in

some of

desk there exist slight

his other creations: in

vitality of organic life: the

and dodging movement whereby we can so easily

recognize High Art Nouveau. An exemplary feature is that form
and counterform complete each other, that they are developed
from dark areas and intervals entirely in a graphic sense in the
same way as, two years later, Mackmurdo designed with graphic
means the title page of his book Wren's City Churches (page m).
Mackmurdo achieved what Owen Jones had demanded in theory
in 1856: "Beauty of form is produced by lines growing out one
." Owen Jones also defrom the other in gradual undulations
sluggish gliding

branch and root."

Art Nouveau curves or rhythms appear

wave-

like shoots

of the extended supports with the flat surfaces that serve as limits
to the cabinetwork. Typical

stems unfolding

originating

With the exception of the circular drawer-pulls, right angles

Mackmurdo's writing desk, together with the
shifts from the horizontal to the vertical of the sharp-edged shafts

prevail throughout

its

parallel shoots. This fan of

clared: "In surface decoration all line should flow out of a parent

stem. Every ornament,

is

90

however

distant, should be traced to

its

The abstract character of the chair back ornais only one small step missing

indeed so obvious that there

ornament of Art Nouveau and the abstract "Belgian" line. If Art Nouveau expresses itself simply, powerfully, and
with an almost ascetic note in the works of Dresser, Mackmurdo
handles it luxuriantly, with a more powerful imagination and with
the hedonism of the later Continental Art Nouveau.
between

this floral

Mackmurdo came

of a Scottish family.

As

in Morris' case, fifteen

the outline of a chest of drawers, for instance, or in the curve of the

years earlier, Ruskin's prominent personality gained a decisive in-

canopy and

Mackmurdo during the years of his studies in Oxford.

In 1873, Mackmurdo joined the staff of an architect's studio in
London and made friends with Philip Webb and Norman Shaw,
the latter being the leading architect working in the Queen Anne

cabinet, or,

in the sculpturally

conceived capitals of a large music

more pronouncedly and determining the whole form,

in

a small vertical cabinet of 1887. The shafts at the four corners of

this

narrow

cabinet are placed diagonally after the fashion of

little

fluence over

Borromini and curve gently outward, becoming thicker above the

style.

cabinet itself and then curving strongly inward so as to support a

whole group of

shelf or tray at their

appears

works
in his

it

in the third

reveals

its

narrowest point. Here, High Art Nouveau

finest

famous chair (plate

reproduction

in the

the style, though

Mackmurdo's other
development in surface-structures. Even
297) of 1881 (known to us only from its

dimension, whereas in

1899

issue of

all

The Studio) the characteristics of

High Art Nouveau,

openwork ornamentation of the back of the
chair. Apart from this, its form is simple and conventional, corresponding perhaps to the Queen Anne style that was still the ideal
of the time. From a base that suggests the design of waves, an asymit

are limited to the

103

heralds the beginning of

Mackmurdo's house soon became

the meeting place for a

The poets Laurence Binyon and William

Butler Yeats, both of whom wrote definitive works on the art of
William Blake, were regular visitors; Mackmurdo discovered and
encouraged the painter Frank Brangwyn and offered him a studio.
artists.

Charles Annesley Voysey, in the early eighties, worked under Mack-

murdo's direction. Madtmurdo knew Whistler and Oscar Wilde,

and was even so deeply impressed by Whistler's ideas concerning
decoration and colors that his stand at the Liverpool Exhibition
of 1886 was painted in bright yellow, Whistler's favorite color.

The different currents of early Art Nouveau and of the initial

phase of High Art Nouveau were everywhere connected in Eng-

HEYWOOD SUMNER
la

Vignette from Friedrich de

Motte-Fouqu's "Undine" (1888)

and Rossetti, there also existed a

relationship between Mackmurdo and Whistler and the Japanese
style, and another one between Mackmurdo and Morris and the
land. Just as between Whistler

Mackmurdo was

Pre-Raphaelites. Like Dresser,

studies of nature; for his rare architectural

had been greatly helped by

animals, and the

human

all

works he even wrote he

his studies of organic structure in plants,

figure. 91 In 1882,

Century Guild, a workshop

render

stimulated by his

Mackmurdo founded

the

for interior decoration, in order "... to

branches of art the sphere no longer of the tradesman

but of the

artist.

It

would

restore building,

decoration, glass-

painting, pottery, woodcarving

and metal to their right place beside

92
painting and sculpture."
Here again is an endeaver to place the
applied arts or crafts on the same level as the "free" arts of painting
and sculpture. In friendly competition with the Morris Company,
the Century Guild pursued similar aims, though its forms owed
much less to the Gothic Style. Herbert Home, Selwyn Image, Frederick Shields, and Clement Heaton, an artist who worked in metal
and enamel, were among the founders; the potter William de Morgan and the many-sided Heywood Sumner were also associated
with the Guild.

attention

its

somewhat on

the

narrow

field of artisan virtues as

Ruskin had understood them, simplicity, usefulness, and functionality. The Arts and Crafts thus already carried in themselves the

toward a modern objectivity, which

finally transcended High Art Nouveau. The shelf and cabinet style
of Arts and Crafts was in turn influenced by the atmosphere of
cultivated simplicity which surrounded Morris and Webb, and
doubtless also by Godwin's elegant Anglo-Japanese furniture with
seeds of certain tendencies

its

transparent structures; in the seventies, the Queen

Anne

style

had its effect on Arts and Crafts too. This return to the
and comfort of the English house of the beginning of the
eighteenth century, long before the styles of Chippendale and Rococo, was initiated in architecture with Richard Norman Shaw
(1831-1912) as its most important advocate. 94 His style is purest in
the Old Swan House, which he built in Chelsea in 1876 (plate 298)
and which, with Webb's Red House, built for Morris (plate 58),
certainly

simplicity

and Godwin's White House, built for Whistler (plate 71), is one of
the most original works that English architecture produced during
the second half of the century. Shaw, like the other two abovementioned architects, in no way turned his back entirely on tradition, but likewise referred back to the English town house of the
early eighteenth century, though avoiding exterior imitations of

Arts and Crafts

style

that

During the whole second half of the nineteenth century, not only
Morris but a number of other "artist-designers" were thus at work;
they were not industrial designers, but independent artists with
manifold capacities and

interests, 93

men who were

all

As

opposed to

went
by, they became increasingly conscious of the force that drove them
to create a new style. The last quarter of the century was then
dominated by these artist-designers, who brought about a noticeable change in industrially produced wares for daily use; the style
they had invented subsequently gained influence until it dominated
industrial production

all

and to

historical imitations.

the years

Though the Old Swan House never suggests any of the swinging
curves of High Art Nouveau, it yet reveals influences of a trend
that ran parallel to it in England and was represented by the architects Mackmurdo, Voysey, Ashbee, Baillie Scott, Lethaby, and, last
but not least, by Mackintosh and late Art Nouveau. Several brick
wall surfaces that have been left bare of any revetment are superimposed or protrude so
they

all

structure of
gest

as to suggest terrace effects in the faade;

seem to consist of thinly stretched membranes, revealing a

new and

slightly exaggerated proportions

Art Nouveau only

in a

narrow windows on the main

of Europe.

The individual currents, in many ways already connected with

each other, and the activity of more or less independent masters like
Dresser, finally fused in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,
founded in 1883. Its very successful exhibitions greatly reinforced
these attempts. It was indeed the Arts and Crafts that later became
so popular on the Continent, bearing fruit, above all, in Belgium.
But, during the nineties, the same Arts and Crafts rather discouraged High Art Nouveau
the solution of aesthetic

and deriving from the valid principles of the past a quality

was peculiar to himself and belonged to his own time.

in

England, being

less

concerned with

and formal problems and concentrating

which sug-

broader sense. The unusually

floor, the

tall

and

broad wall surfaces between

them, the shaft-like, angular bay windows that protrude over delicate corbels like shelves in a piece of cabinetwork, the

laid out in a horizontal

band of windows, and,

upper story

finally, the sharply

protruding and cubic dormer windows reaching round the corner,

all

these are very characteristic features.

window

pattern, like

that leading round the corner of the dormer windows,

is

repeated

and developed in 1907 in Olbrich's Hochzeitsturm in Darmstadt

(plate 258), and is also typical of many buildings of the twentieth
century. From the point of view of style, the Old Swan House

104

105

io6

105

ROBERT BLAKE

106

FREDERICK SHIELDS
H Like" (1880)

The King and the Queen 0) the Fairies (1787)

Binding for "Life and Works of William

107

io8

107

EDWARD BURNE-JONES Ue Golden Stairs

108

WILLIAM BLAKE

The

Dream

(1880)

of Jaeob (1808)

Opposite:
109
1

10

EDWARD BURNE-JONLS
WILLIAM BLAKE

Orpheus (1875)

Then the Lord answered Job out of the Whirl-

wind (1825)
.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI How

Sir Percival iverc

Died by
112

the

Way

Fed with

Sir

Galahad, Sir Bars and

the Sancgreal; But Sir Percival's Sister

(1S64)

WILLIAM BLAKE

The Chorus of the Skies (1796)

106

109

12

^ 'J
O

.- -

T* fa

'

107

-j

On

rf

4M fc-

tM

11

To

TV

*v-

I,

'

GOD H
,

i>_^

"^

fal 0-, <

,!,. J

'

"/

hi*.

Mft r . 4mMI
AmW> un
fc J
W Ta>
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,.*-. ^-fc-**.*.
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r^fa*.-rfiw*
I

.fa

Cawi (* 4^

NaldCfd Gob,

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11

Jfa

fa.

^,

j.

'

|/
'

>*V

7z4-~-<^k&s

^^wrtJreanv* form a
|

Oer mp

ami

.'>>>)

VoVA

lovely infanta hftaa

CINDERELL

^j^

/>weer dram<

of pleejigurt <t?et

try niptnr filent

nvoonv

beams

*U.sl^-r

'

FAIRY

wett sleep witk ioft dcvnT'.^

cave tU brows an Want crown
wert aicep Arg<J milj/^
lover ocr
cr my'hipljy
mv
ckilo

OPERA

FOVR

IN

;/*ni(yj irtttvc ratfht

awer over

Sweet
I

tl\

my dUlitf K_^f

jftmlej

Mothera ^reii_

livd tmg MgVit betfuikt;

eft ffiowJE.

C<M*e rot

..eliitt

akicnbe-r from^

res.

means .sweater
aoelitoe
brrfullc
dike moanx betfui

>

he

'leep xl<*.j>naj>py ct
_] creation siepVaita! a
smile!
Sleep aleeo. Viy /flee
S5^iy*'\ulr o'er thee tfiy motnef wee
y^i

"3

^.tct babe

i*

loly

mu*

Borate,

can

b-aee.~

"5

114

n6
113

HEYWOOD SUMNER

Binding for "Undine"

(1888)
114

WILLIAM BLAKE A

115

HEYWOOD SUMNER

Cradle Song (1799)

Binding for "Cinderella"

(1882)
116

WILLIAM BLAKE

Christ Ministered to by Angels

(1807 or 1808)
1
1

JAN TOOROP

Sketch for

"

77?e

7W

Brides"

(.892)

'

'.

'

*'l

offers a close parallel to

Mackmurdo's

which had been designed ten years

The revolutionary character of

tecture
if

and

we compare

it

to a

this

William Blake was forgotten for more

contemporaneous building that represents the

was considered mad. His anticipation of Art Nouveau remained,

for the time being, without any consequence. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the first to rediscover Blake's genius, perhaps because
Rossetti himself possessed what Laurence Binyon expressed in the

effects,

and the forms of the

in

which deter-

details, as well as of the

whole, remain closed; one's general impression

is

thus of coolness,

objectivity, sobriety, with something slightly bizarre,

however, in-

herent in the proportions, which seem to suggest that the house was

phantoms represented

and Burne- Jones'

rooms of Shaw's
building were originally full of paintings by these two masters and
decorated with wallpapers, carpets, and other elements designed by
pictures rather than for

human

in Rossetti's

beings. Indeed, the

A splendid, pompous example of historicism, the Paris

Company.
Opra stands

Loud, booming, even thundering

in its sugges-

Morris, as well as with furniture created by the Morris

at the opposite pole.

in 1827,

than twenty years. His visionary art seemed episodic; he himself

Paris (plate 23). The pure forms of simple geometry

built for the

Influence of William Blake

After his death

otherwise unobtrusive archi-

dominant trend of the times: Charles Garnier's Grand Opra

mined Shaw's

The

earlier.

Nouveau become doubly evident

relationship to Art

its

writing desk (plate 96),

little

whole building

tions of violent motion, the

as well as the

number-

"A

following words:

which has

in

to judge of

it

it

the

subtle fluid streams through Blake's

germ of intoxication; hence people find

its

hard

without a certain extravagance, either of admiration

or repulsion. Possibly indeed a 'sane' estimation of

thing of

work,
it

it

misses some-

essence." 95

At the age of eighteen, Rossetti admired the Songs of Innocence

and was looking for originals by Blake when, in 1873, the Notebook (later called the Rossetti Manuscript) was offered to him for
purchase a paper-covered book filled with a great many poems,
notes, watercolors, and sketches. At first, Rossetti felt it con-

firmed his

own

convictions, seeing Blake's violent rejection of

relief.

Baroque painting and his fierce attacks against Rubens, Rembrandt,

and Reynolds, all of them "balsam to Rossetti's soul and grist to his

fusing

mill," 96

less

individual forms are

all

conceived in the deepest possible

The general effect of the massive building is deliberately conand bewildering, that of an assemblage of the very heterogeneous forms, but with Baroque principles which are developed
with imagination and quality.

At

and

it is

well to note that Rossetti bought Blake's

two years before he painted

his

own

first pictures.

the notes, the sketches in the manuscript

form

comparison might seem unjust; not only does it

oppose a middle-class town house to a public, imperial, and repre-

to

sentative building, but also the outside of a building to a room, even

as a strong influence of Blake's poetry

though the room corresponds exactly to the exterior of the house.

But the objection is not justified insofar as every style has its spe-

poem The

first sight this

cific task, its

favorite themes. In the staircase of the Paris Opra,

found its ultimate and triumphant realization. Here,

employ a certain style has expressed itself most com-

its

his conceptions of a style entirely

forms developing upon a

Blessed

flat surface

Damozel of

1847,

reveal analogies to Blake's style

played a preponderant role

was

97

may have

Notebook

In addition to

helped Rossetti

opposed to Baroque, with

and merely outlined. Just

is

to be felt in Rossetti's

so also

do

his early paintings

and subjects. Blake's example thus

development of Rossetti's own

in the

to influence an entire school. William

historicism has

style just as the latter

the wish to

Michael Rossetti was thus justified when he wrote of the Notebook:

pletely

and with the greatest perfection, whilst the diametrically

opposed conception of the English avant-garde revealed itself most

Dante Gabriel's "ownership of

raphaelite (sic) movement." 98

purely in a simple town house. Since the nineties the tradition of the

The Rossetti brothers came into contact with Blake's biographer

Alexander Gilchrist and also became acquainted with the few col-

English house was

felt to

tinent too, especially

(with

its

be an example to be followed on the Con-

when

the influence of

curves) began to decline.

High Art Nouveau

fine testimony to this appre-

was given by Hermann Muthesius in English Contemporary

Architecture (1902) and his three illustrated volumes of The English House (1904-05).
ciation

this

volume conduced

to the Pre-

which in those days still preserved the relatively undispersed works of Blake. William Michael even prepared a descriptive
catalogue of them for Gilchrist, in most cases after having perlections

sonally seen and studied the individual works. After Gilchrist's

death, the Rossettis completed his

work and published

with pictor ignotus as

This volume comprises a great

its subtitle.

it

in

1864

number of reproductions and many vignettes are scattered over

title pages and sometimes in the text: flames, clouds, and floating

109

sylphs, figures in

which Blake came very

close to those of

Art

over the Body of Jesus or Christ Ministered to by Angels (plates

Nouveau.

301, 116). Millais' sketch reminds us of Blake's symmetrical ara-

During the fifties and sixties, this kind of rapport between Rosand Blake's ideas and art continued uninterrupted, if only in
the themes and details borrowed by Rossetti from Blake. The angel
inserted by Blake in a corner of a cloud is repeated in one of Rossetti's works in almost every detail, though Rossetti's figure is more

besques of floating and loosely connected figures, of his unbroken

setti

three-dimensional. Blake's phantoms here assume flesh and color

and, to a certain degree, acquire physical weight. But the general

theme remains the same

in

both Blake and Rossetti: the gesture of

Art Nouveau rhythms, and of the synthesis he achieved out of the

neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. Millais' design had been conceived for a real stone window, but Blake, too, had written that he

wanted some of
fresco, as

drawings to be carried out on a large

murals to decorate the altar of a church.

Edward
and

his

Burne-Jones, the most highly paid painter of the sixties

seventies, shared Rossetti's admiration for Blake.

the angel's arms, the turning of the head, the level profile, and the

panied Rossetti on

enclosing wings, with their tips crossed in front of the body.

had passages from Blake's works read

Not only was

Rossetti receptive to the entranced atmophere, the

disposition of the forms in the flat surface,

and the narrow scene

of action of Blake's picture, but he also understood Blake's idea of

conceiving the

human

figure as an

grated these conceptions into his

ornament

in itself. Rossetti inte-

own work which was more

ob-

and more realistic in its details; long after him,

Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters, increasingly

jectively presented

up

in fact

to

abstracted

human

portant

Art Nouveau. In several variations, Rossetti created

in

ornamental

figure-ornaments became more and more im-

uniform figures arranged on a level with the

picture's surface, something that since the age of Mannerism had
friezes of

ceased to occur.

He was

altogether fascinated

by Blake's love of

and 112): the parallel character of limbs,

of outlines which made the form appear as a narrow, ribbon-like,
two-dimensional body, and the parallelisms too between the movements of different figures. The unbroken and flexible axis and long
flowing garments made the human figure particularly fit for the
parallelisms (plates

expression of ornamental gestures. Blake's

profile

way

of disposing the

and the axis of an inclined head horizontally became typical

of Rossetti's art too (plate 57). This bend of the head in a strange
and almost gliding movement (plates 109, 126) was then considered

was also generally adopted by

Art Nouveau artists on the European continent."
Rossetti introduced the members and friends of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to Blake's work. Their age thus became haunted
by Blake, merely because Rossetti had rediscovered him. 100 More-

essentially Pre-Raphaelitic, until

it

over, Blake produced this effect in a dual manner: on the one hand,

by being

felt in Rossetti's

very influential work, on the other hand,

own work which also had been made known by Rossetti.

The Design for a Gothic Window (plate 300), which John Everett

through
Millais
style,

his

drew

in

1853,

when he most

closely emulated Rossetti's

reminds one of Blake's watercolors such as Angels Hovering

scale in

101

visits to Gilchrist,

He accom-

Blake's biographer, and later

him aloud while he was

working.
In many elements that he borrowed from the great
visionary, one can feel their close affinity at both the formal and
the intellectual level. In the whirl of delicate lines which the lamenting Orpheus traverses, and in the liquid loops and spirals
which flow around him (plate 109), Burne-Jones embodied (artistically smoothed out and less violent) a motif suggesting the
storm out of which the Lord speaks to Job (plate no). In 1875,
Burne-Jones' Orpheus series already reveals features of early English
Art Nouveau. In one of his most famous paintings, The Golden
Stairs (plate 107), a picture filled with mysticism, symbolism, and
to

102

a strangely asceticized sensualism, the spiral construction could

scarcely be imagined without

The

Dream

some influence of Blake's watercolor,

of Jacob (plate 108), with

and of the small

figures descending

its

spiral of Jacob's ladder

and ascending,

all

clad in long,

flowing robes.
In 1868, after long preparatory studies, Algernon Charles Swin-

burne completed

his

which he speaks
Blake's work. Swin-

important essay on Blake

of the "flame-like impulse of the idea" in

burne had the binding and the

title

in

page of the essay decorated

with fascicles of flames and small figures borrowed from the margins of Blake's Jerusalem. Again, the initiative for this essay

from

Rossetti, without

whom

came

Swinburne, as founder and promoter

of English literary Symbolism, would never have written his bril-

on Blake, without which Blake would never have become

an ideal for a whole school of poets and writers. 103 Since then,
studies on Blake have become increasingly important 104 so that his
paintings now arouse as much interest as his poetry and prose.
liant essay

In 1874, a series of 537 large Blake watercolors illustrating Edward Young's Night Thoughts came into the hands of a London
bookseller. Until then, this series
collection.

had been

For the next twenty years

in

an inaccessible private

this bookseller exhibited these

strong works in his shop in the Haymarket.

He

did not wish to

sell

110

them "because they served as a centre of attraction for many customers who might otherwise have gone elsewhere to buy their
books." 105 A knowledge of many important works of Blake can
therefore be assumed to have been widespread among the artists
who interest us here, 106 and Blake's own increasing popularity allows us to draw certain conclusions concerning his influence on a
change

in the Victorian ideal of

In 1880, a

new

Blake became

form.

edition of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William

who

necessary. Frederick Shields,

also

wrote on

Blake and later worked with Mackmurdo, designed the binding

(plate 106). English

Art Nouveau began thereby to acquire a cer-

tain continuity as a result of its individual

various problems.

On

mature solutions to

the one hand, this binding clearly imitates

Blake (plate 105); 107 on the other hand, it satisfies the demands of
Art Nouveau even in the ambiguous relationship of the gold design
to

its

purple ground, or of the purple design to

Yet one

still

tive design

golden ground.

and decorajuxtaposition, and the play

detects here a certain hesitation: lettering

remain separate

in their

between form and counterform

plicity

its

is

uncertain.

We

still

miss the sim-

and concision of the emblematic designs that distinguish the

High Art Nouveau.

masterpieces of

All the qualities that were

still

lacking in this binding appeared

works of Mackmurdo, for example in

his chair of 1881 (plate 297), in the back of which there flicker the
same flaming flowers as in the binding of Wren's City Churches of
1883 (at right). A style of curved and linear High Art Nouveau
had thus attained full maturity in England twelve years before
Victor Horta built the Maison Tassel in Brussels. But Mackmurdo's
flaming flower is borrowed from Blake, as well as the soft coils of
the lettering which is integrated with the ornament (plate 27). In
in their full perfection in the

other respects too, this historical fact

is

Blake's influence which, until then,

had made

decisive: for the first time,

itself felt

only in

book illustrations, now

ornamental design and patterns and counter-patterns. Mackmurdo
paintings and in

began to extend also to

used variations of Blake's flaming flower in printed fabrics, in the

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

piece of the first issue consisted in a

ical illustration

rowed from Blake that

of an exhibition,

Hobby

it

has significance in view of the contents of the work: after the

fashion of the phoenix,

new

life rises

churches that had been built by

Mackmurdo's

periodical, The

he began to publish
bert

111

Home,

in

Wren

out of the ashes, like the

after the great

London

fire.

Century Guild Hobby Horse, which

1884 together with Selwyn Image and Her-

clearly stresses their affinity with Blake.

The

frontis-

so patently a jumble of elements bor-

the critic of The Studio, discussing

it

it

and

"

as "Blake-like". 108

On

it

retro-

the occasion

in the first issue of the

will our readers believe it?

name

neither

in this exhibition." 109

To this
issue Frederick Shields contributed a drawing of the room in which
Blake had worked and died, and the pages of text of this very care-

Blake nor Rossetti has place or

and to thrive

page of Wren's City Churches,

is

somewhat amateurish symbol-

Mackmurdo complained,

were missing from

tions destined to

title

page for "Wren's City

Horse, that "the weightiest works of the English school"

with

theme; developed in the

which

spectively in 1898, refered to

embroidered panels of a screen (plate 100), and also in woodwork

or metal. For several years, he seems to have been truly obsessed
this

Title

Churches" (1883)

fully printed periodical (the first of

many

such bibliophile publica-

England and also later on the Continent

atmosphere of Art Nouveau) were
decorated with small landscapes taken from Blake's Virgil woodappear

in

so well in the

cuts (plate 38). In the second issue

Home then quoted one of Blake's

and a facsimile of William Blake's broadsheet of Little Tom

the Sailor was included, so as to show Blake's lettering, which was
also praised by Mackmurdo in the accompanying text. The 1887
issue reproduced Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. From the

essays,

example

in

order to achieve a similar synthesis of image, text, and

ornament. In Flora's Feast above

all

(facing page), in the flaming

flower-creatures that seem to be a blend of the animal and the

human

elements, Blake's ideas are developed by Crane, though in a

daemonic manner. On the Continent, Crane was then considered the most important representative of the "English style"; in
less

his later writings

on

art teaching, he never failed to express his

gratitude to Blake and, for didactic purposes, likewise reproduced

many of his

master's designs to illustrate his

own

arguments. 111

Charles Ricketts, whose ambitions went further, worked

in

sphere of the fabulous that was not really intended for children.

CHARLES RICKETTS

many

Being interested in

Vignette from "The Dial" (1889)

quainted with Blake's work at the very

began to work on

his

own,

Mackmurdo and

Blake's works.

As

his contributors

early as 1882,

were thus familiar with

Hey wood Sumner, who was closely

connected with

Mackmurdo and

ing, Blake-like,

flaming flowers for the binding of the score of Cin-

the Century Guild, designed dart-

derella (plate 115); actually they

somehow

still

seemed to

bristle,

SumUndine, English High

work.

On

passes

it

the cover, which owes a lot to the

second issue

writings. Later, Ricketts spoke critically of Blake's belief that he

own

faces of these apparitions

mainly with colorful

illustrations, remain, together

with those of

Kate Greenaway, perhaps the most beautiful illustrated books for

the young that the second half of the nineteenth century produced.
At the very start of his career, in the sixties, Crane had known
Blake's work, 110 but then only gradually did he begin to follow his

in his

but sur-

woodcut vignettes (at left)

and style from Blake's visionary art. The
of The Dial begins with a quotation from Blake's

ner's design for the binding of the fairy tale

However, the lines of the draped garments flow

with a more even, broad, and symmetrical sweep than those of the
slender twigs and leaves of the water plants, though their forms are
similar and related to each other as if the former had somehow
developed from the latter. Nor was it fortuitously that the Romantic fairy tale of Undine inspired this design where the watersprite with the Latin name suggesting waves is represented by the
"eloquent" forms of waves. Here, a decorative and illustrative
design is both "surface and symbol," as Oscar Wilde claimed that it
should be. Again, we see how closely English Art Nouveau, during
all the time that it lasted, was connected with Romantic and Symbolist literature. In their predilection for fables and fairy tales,
Blake and Art Nouveau are closely related.
The numerous children's books which Walter Crane designed,

became obvious

Hobby Horse

in richness, Ricketts printed

was merely copying

are assimilated.

As soon as he first
when he published his

that derive their themes

the flow of their lines lacking real continuity. But in 1888, in

Art Nouveau appears fully developed. Just as with Blake, but in a

more organized manner, a half-illustrative, half-decorative design
surrounds the lettering in a streaming movement in which all forms

ac-

start.

as early as 1889,

periodical, The Dial, the influence of Blake

start,

was

strange and remote things, he

his

visions.

Blake also believed that the

were revealed to him

as

forms that were

if "organized and minutely

beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can
produce." To this, Ricketts objected that: "To copy, even from a

already complete in themselves, as

articulated

vision,

is

a picture

not to create. Blake

was

made

this mistake,

a literal rendering of a vision, in

speaking as though

which the technique

already existed." 112 This was affirmed in an age

also asserted that a

poem

is

made of words, not

when Mallarm

of thoughts.

Even Aubrey Beardsley was influenced by Blake during a period

which was decisive for the development of his art. In its structure,
between image and text, in the flame-like leaves,
ornament and the style of design and of lettering, the still
somewhat juvenile drawing of 1890-91, Dante in Exile, is an imitation of Blake. An unpublished Beardsley drawing of 1891-92 is
in the relationship

the single

titled after Blake, Thel

who wrote

Gathering the Lily, u3 and

a biography of Morris,

how somebody

tells

Beardsley showed a drawing without a

artist's pleasure,

Down

that the

the Valley's Wild.

work had been

114

Aymer

title

Vallance,
to

whom

recognized, to the

by Blake's Piping
Other Beardsley drawings from 1892
inspired

concern themselves more and more with Blake's treatment of deco-

and reveal themselves often as derived in their

theme from the whirlwind which is characteristic of Blake and
rative ensembles

Burne- Jones. Only a

bit later,

around 1892 or 1893, did Beardsley

112

113

III

WALTER CRANE

Illustration for "Flora's Feast" (1889)

adopt

his

mature

style of

drawing, in which English Art Nouveau

appears most strikingly.

Above

line.

the structure of their framework, with

all,

and

lack of weight

In 1893, The Studio began to appear and

its

first

was

issue

lines that are

and the transparent character of

its

apparent

both functional and decorative,

were often
features which they have in

these buildings that

also the first periodical to publish drawings by Beardsley. The

same year, Victor Horta achieved, with his Maison Tassel in Brussels, the first true example of Art Nouveau architecture and of
Continental High Art Nouveau in general; in that year, Ellis and

encased in a thin sheath of

Yeats also published the standard work on William Blake, in three

the techniques

monumental volumes. The Royal Academy then exhibited a series

of Blake's watercolors for Dante's Divina Commedia, and William
Butler Yeats, the poet and spokesman of the "Celtic Renaissance,"

ments of functional architecture,

137), but also to the requirements of private homes (plate 131), a combination which proved him to be a

wrote

real

articles

on these

published in

illustrations,

896 in The Savoy,

was conceived entirely in Beardsley's style.

Oscar Wide had concluded his Decay of Lying as follows: "And
now let us go out on the terrace, where 'droops the milk-white peaa periodical that

cock

like a ghost,'

while the evening star 'washes the dusk with

silver!'

At

and

not without loveliness, though perhaps

is

twilight nature becomes a wonderfully suggestive effect,

illustrate quotations

Star,

we

its

chief use

is

itself,

but also the expres-

"and wash the dusk with silver." Both literature and art thus
refer back to the man who had become the prophet of a new style.

sion

glass, are all

with the later architecture of High Art Nouveau, with

its

mass and space. The buildings of Horta reveal

linear conceptions of

the full importance of architectural initiative. This designer adapted

and the

Brussels (plates

innovator

style of engineering not

as in his

only to the require-

Maison du Peuple

in

136,

in his field.

The

steel skeleton,

developed as an architectural element only

Crystal Palace of 185

however, was not

France. Paxton's

in

certainly remains as an important example

of earlier English achievements in this field; but later French

examples appear to have inspired the architects of Art Nouveau

more

directly.

An

to

from the poets." In Blake's poem The Evening

not only find the "evening star"

common

early example of approximation to the style of Art

Nouveau

in French arts and crafts can be found in a glazed ceramic dish

which the painter and etcher Flix Bracquemond (183 3-1 9 14) dec-

orated in 1867. 115

One can

borrowed from plant

life

scarcely assume that these ornaments

were copied directly from nature, even if

Bracquemond himself wrote

maximum

that those

works which required a

of artistry are also the ones closest to nature, since he

then adds, quite understandably, that, in order to create a work of

art,

Preliminaries to Art

Nouveau

in

more

nature.

France

Louis

by numerous cross-connections with various other movements

which have already been discussed, the
continuous development of the early
English Art Nouveau cannot be compared with the somewhat isolated symptoms of the same style that first appeared
ecured in

itself

From about 1 870

in France.

and the intentionally asymmetrical use of space

as well as the

choice of exotic flowers tend rather to suggest a Japanese source of

Nor would

inspiration.

been the

first in

their stems
in

on

Europe

this be surprising, since

Bracquemond had
The flowers and

to discover Japanese art.

his plate are thus outlined

and transposed

entirely

terms of surface-design, the lines of which indeed follow move-

ment, though

it still

lacks the typical

We

waxing and waning of the

have no knowledge of any direct influence

general direction occurred in France, the

Bracquemond may have had on the later French style of Art

Nouveau, for instance on Galle; nor do we have any reason to
believe that Gauguin knew such works of Bracquemond in 1889
when he sketched similar designs for ceramics (plate 120) which

skeleton buildings of the engineer-

probably remaining the most

important.

Such

works

as

Gustave

and
for the same occasion, have at

for the Paris World's Fair of 1889 (plate 302)

Contamin's Hall of Machines, built

least a slight

smooth outlining of the

contrary to the principles of Rococo porcelain decora-

of the century, a few initiatives in this

steel

Tower

end

is

his dish displays scallop designs in the

style in delicate relief, but the

later "Belgian" line.

architects

Eiffel's

until the

required of an artist than the exact reproduction of

The border of

XV

flowers
tion,

is

116

connection with Art

Nouveau

in their

swinging out-

that

are stylized according to notions of folklore or of primitive art

and

(if

only

Nouveau

in this respect) are

no longer so closely

allied to

Art

designs.

114

Nouveau already appear

In 1869, elements of Art

designed by Edouard

where

Manet (1832-83)

whom we

last artist

temporaries of being at
all

book Les Chats. No-

can one detect anything of this nature in the work of

else

Manet, the very

In

for the

in the poster

might suspect among

infected with Art

all

Nouveau

his con-

ambitions.

of Manet's graphic work, for instance in the delightful illus-

and sketchily in 1876 for

find no trace of this style.
The forms, very open and painterly, and the lively resurgence of
interrupted lines in the contours of the naked bodies, do not allow
any integration of the whole as a surface-design, which is an indispensable condition in Art Nouveau. However, the lines in Manet's
poster for Les Chats are continuous and gliding and all combine in
an effective simplification which already makes us think of Toutrations that he improvised so freely

Mallarm's L' Aprs-midi d'un faune,

we

louse-Lautrec. In the midst of a painterly atmosphere, the contours

of the cats stand out as silhouettes, filled in with white or black, so

that surface-forms of a kind are produced. Japanese
certainly influenced this design in order to

make

it

woodcuts have

appear so closely

Art Nouveau.
Even more surprising is a poster that Jules Chret (1836-1930),
who was later to become very successful and popular, designed as
one of his very first as early as 1877 (plate 303). Here we find
related to

entirely un-Impressionistic figures presented in stylized simplification

and arranged

as closed

forms parallel to the picture's surface,

with even outlines, homogeneously

filled flat fields of color,

and a

movement. Later, however, Chret's posters

became increasingly Impressionistic, fuzzy, and painterly.
lively suggestion of

EMILE SCHUFFENECKER

Illustration

from a catalogue of an

exhibition at the Caf des Arts (1889)

That the Art Nouveau characteristic of Chret's posters should

thus recede
relatively
its

is all

new

the

more remarkable when one considers

artistic field of poster art 117

more general conversion

very function requires that

might have

that the

facilitated

Art Nouveau. A poster's

be clearly legible and emphatic in its

to the style of
it

formulation, and this corresponded to the aspirations of Art

veau.

Whereas the idiom of forms

use of perspectives in space

until then,

such an

art.

and

its

in

applied graphic

art,

Nou-

with

its

hatched or shaded lettering, had,

always remained unsuited to the long-range effects of

Actually, the poster never played a leading role in the

avant-garde of Art Nouveau during the seventies and eighties.

Only toward

the beginning of the nineties

already imposing

itself in

any

(when the new

case) did Toulouse-Lautrec

style was
and Bon-

nard produce posters (plate 170, colorplate VI) that remain of real
importance, whether as works of art or from the point of view of
the history of Art
disciples

115

and

Nouveau, and which then inspired numerous

imitators.

Eugne Grasset (1841-1917) was the only French artist working

who had already developed an early version of Art
Nouveau to which he subsequently remained faithful, developing it
constantly until 1900. In 1879, Grasset had designed the decorative
before 1890

and

illustrative

framework

for the color-printed pages of a

book of

Quatre Fils Ayman, published in 1884.

book required a "Merovingian" style, and

fairy tales, L'Histoire des

The subject matter of

this

Grasset therefore sought inspiration in the art of the age of the

Germanic invasions and

manuscripts.

He

in Celtic

miniatures and initials from Irish

thus developed a style that

was

clearly his

own,

though one might presume that he also knew something of the

general style of Japanese woodcuts and of Japanese decorative art.

was very soon influenced by Walter Crane and one

might even suspect that L'Histoire des Quatre Fils Ayman follows
the example of Crane's books for children and of the English Pre-

Besides, Grasset

Raphaelites.

choice of subjects and his mood, Puvis de Chavannes refrained,

however, from turning his back on the world of Romanticism

which was already imbued with Symbolism. But he tended to represent this world somewhat frigidly, in a brittle or laconic manner.
This

mood

of dry understatement in his art later became, in the

work of Maurice Denis (plates 126, 174), more communicative

or intimate, with more flowing outlines and less developed figures
that, however schematic, are more in formal harmony with this

EUGNE GRASSET

Illustration

from "Mthode de composition

newer

ornamentale" (1905)

style.

Gustave Moreau,

like

Puvis de Chavannes and Maurice Denis,

too (among the later Nabi painters), remained somewhat alien to

main stream of French painting of his time, especially as it was

its more advanced or modern school, the Impressionists. His sumptuous and figuratively symbolistic painting
contrasts sharply with the Arcadian classicism of Puvis de Chavannes and may indeed appear somewhat exotic or bizarre. Though
Moreau refrained from selecting for his subjects, as most of the
historical painters of his generation were doing, the more catastrophic moments of world history, he reveals a predilection for
ancient mythology, which he represented with Orientalistic trappings, and especially for its tragic figures and its themes of disaster.
His world is thus peopled with sirens, sphinxes, and other such
the

Grasset's widely

known

illustrated

work, La Plante

et ses appli-

cations ornamentales began to be published in 1896

and also appeared in an English edition in London and New York. However,
it not only came too late to contribute anything to Art Nouveau,
but was also clearly retrograde in style. Besides, Grasset certainly
knew the existing English literature on ornamental or decorative
art, from Christopher Dresser's works to Owen Jones' Grammar of
Ornament, which was first published in 1856. One cannot affirm
that Grasset's pieces of furniture

known

to Galle.

On

and objects of applied

art

were

the other hand, Grasset's rather medieval style

Nouveau furniand Nancy and all

of design had no visible connection with High Art

ture

and objects of daily use produced

in Paris

then represented by

monsters; his

nymphs

are borne aloft as

from the laws of gravitation;

in

levitating or liberated

if

one of

his

works an apparently

revealing a distinct influence of Rococo. In the nineteenth century,

weightless female figure thus represents (plate 124) the twilight.

France's greatest contribution toward Art Nouveau, before

Her dreamy

actual birth,

was made by engineers and,

later,

by

its

painters. Indeed,

French painting 118 remained far ahead of the other

arts, in fact the

greatest achievement of French art in general throughout the century. It

appeared almost

as if all France's artistic energies

concentrated in this one field of

art,

and

it

would seem

had been

as

though

there were less creativity before 1890 in the fields of decorative

applied arts than in England during the same period. The

first

and

of the

with

its

expression of nostalgia and her gently soaring body,

supple swan-like neck, would

in Ingres'

La Source (which was

refinements of

mood and form were

Moreau's figures and

and makes

little

allowance,

if

any, for three-dimensional effects of

space, all these features of his art indeed offered a kind of spring-

board for the

later

development of French Art Nouveau. In

his

only

in this respect,

he

from those
application of paint was some-

their contours are thus derived

theless

reminds one of fresco painting

if

betrays his affinity with Art Nouveau.

which he had inherited from Ingres. But

his simplification of outlines and his reduction of all details to a
complex of forms presented mainly in terms of surface, especially
his technique of representation that

achieved by Moreau at the

cost of considerable losses of substance;

of Ingres or Chassriau, though his

tradition of composition

the allegorical figure

mind) appear almost too squat and coarse by comparison. Such

whose works we can detect elements of Art

Nouveau are Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1 824-98), 119 Gustave
Moreau (1826-98), 120 and Odilon Redon (1840-1916). 121
By and large, Puvis de Chavannes remained faithful to the linear

great French painters in

make

certainly at the back of Moreau's

times surprisingly free, and remains closer to that of Constantin

Guys, while
those of

his richly

opium dreams

somber color harmonies and

suggest Delacroix,

whose

his scenes like

Moreau neverand artificial, as

fire

transformed into something strangely cool

opalescent or glimmering as Debussy's music in Pellas et Mlisande.

Moreau's

figures, often conceived

on a large

ghostly in spite of his obvious sensuality.

They

scale,

seem rather

are surrounded

by

and decked with jewels or costumes which

he depicts with numerous and infinitesimal details that are typical
architecture or landscape

of historicism or of the studio-style of the later nineteenth century.

116

1 1

&

19

PAUL GAUGUIN
(circa 1888)

Vase with Breton designs

PAUL GAUGUIN

120

Honni

soit

fireiow

Womcw

qui mal y pense (Leda

Swan) (lity)

-'At<i

QeJJinS

'

mr~.

.-

EMILE BERNARD

i2i

k,

120
121

fl
b
It

**

.-

(n. d.)

and

the

in PAUL

GAUGUIN

Portrait -vase of

Mme.

Schuffcnccker (1888-89)

;j

I2 3

124

25

120

[23

ON'

BAKST

Stage-setting tor "L'Aprs-midi d'un faune" (191 2)

124

GUSTAVE MOREAU

125

OD1LON REDON

77>e

126

MAURICE DENIS

Title

Dusk

(n. d.)

Death of Orpheus

1898)

page for "Amour" (1898)

126

'27

[28

i2 7

AUGUS RODIN

12S

PAUL GAUGUIN

Danade (1885)
Soyez amoureuses, vous serez heureuses (1890)

122

He

sought inspiration in the Middle East for his fantasies, bor-

from Islamic architecture or Indian jewelry. In

all French painters of his age) the one
whose affinity with the English Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti, and
Burne-Jones strikes us most immediately, though there exists no
evidence of their direct influence on him. In his artistic and esperowing

his details

addition, he remains (of

by far superior to them.

Art Nouveau elements may have existed in Mo-

cially his painterly

Whatever

latent

reau's art

came

refinement, he

is

clearly to the surface in the

work of

his

admirer

Fernand Khnopff, the Belgian Symbolist (plate 66), who was,

however, not only a disciple of Gustave Moreau, but also of Edward
Burne-Jones.

As

early as 1890, Arthur Symons, in England,

Redon

fined Odilon
(plate 12$)
its

is

as a

French William Blake.

much

less in

had already deBut Redon's art

Nouveau and contributed nothing toward

not Art

development, only remaining close to

sists

12 -

This relationship con-

it.

formal similarities than in an affinity of the

moods and

and of the artist's world of ideas

and fantasies. Like Moreau, Redon was a Symbolist, though he
never needed all the props and paraphernalia of Moreau's Symof

spirit,

its

bolism. Originally, he

attitudes,

had been a

explain the quietude that his art

disciple of Corot,

which might

But the decisive influ-

still reflects.

ence in Redon's artistic evolution had been that of Rudolphe Bresdin's black-and-white graphic

one of
din."

his earlier etchings, in

The infinitesimal

however,

work, and Redon gratefully signed

1865: "Odilon Redon, lve de Bres-

detail of Bresdin's style did not survive,

Redon's later and more mature

in

relatively small format, his pictures

form) almost spacious and

full

remain

of fresh

air.

art.

In spite of their

(in their structure

and

His objects appear im-

material; his vases of flowers seem to be held in space

by the hands

of invisible spirits; his seashells are revealed to us as

if in

a vision

of inaccessible depths of the ocean.

At

Redon remained an

first,

and pastels become

Nouveau
though

illustrator

major

and limited himself to

later, especially after

field

1900, did

of activity. As for the Art

nature was the source of

him

it.

to

more imaginative

Nature was

Redon

creations, so that he finally sug-

make

it

serve his purposes in the invisible

the Surrealists later valued Odilon

Redon

so

highly.

From Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau,

or Odilon Redon,

no direct path leads one to French High Art Nouveau. Paul Gauguin

(1

848-1 903) 123 was the only great French painter of

his

time

own, a formal idiom that is recognizably Art

Nouveau (plates 118, 119, 120, 122, 128, and page 169). This was
evolved even before the poster work done by Toulouse-Lautrec.
Gauguin had begun his career as an Impressionist, clearly deriving
his style from that of his friend Pissarro. However, as early as 1886,
Cezanne's influence can already be detected in the work of Gauguin who, in the course of the same year, retired for the first time
to Pont-Aven, a village in Brittany, where he began to develop his
own style: heavy outlines, simplified forms, unconventional fields
of color, and principles of composition that stress two-dimensional
effects of planes or of surface. Gauguin's Pont-Aven style was then
to develop,

on

his

formulated in close association with the painter Emile Bernard,

who was twenty

years younger. Because of

its

similarity with Far-

Eastern cloisonn enamels, the artists themselves called this style

cloisonnisme or else synthtisme.

It is

obvious to us that Japanese

colored woodblock prints played a decisive part in the evolution of

this style; this

moreover proved by

is

literary

and iconographie

documents that have survived, for instance by the presence of

still-life composition. However, the refinement and delicacy of Japanese graphic art is transformed under
Gauguin's hand into something that seems more coarse or rustic.

Japanese objects in a

From

the point of

view of Art Nouveau, the unstable, curving,

asymmetrical, and intentionally decorative composition of this

style of painting

is

one of

important characteristics. Perspectives

its

seem superimposed as receding planes or surfaces. As a

result of the

elimination of small details that might be reproduced in a naturalistic

manner, of the homogeneous color treatment of individual

He

his

concise juxtaposed forms

work. The

artificial colors,

force this impression

produced, like intarsia or cloisonn

is

both symbolical and decorative, rein-

by making

it

difficult for the observer to

ferment that stimu-

situate the subject of the picture in terms of the three-dimensional

wrote extensively and

world. Color harmonies were moreover determined, for the painters

his point of departure, a

own art and, in his ability to reflect on it, was

many Art Nouveau artists. But his main purpose

about

indeed close to

123

why

forms, and the independent nature of the outlines that seem no

lated him, but never his ultimate aim.

brilliantly

order to
is

longer to circumscribe them except as surface details, a structure of

things for

gested a butterfly, a flower, or a seashell instead of simply repre-

senting

in

this

also,

all

nature quite minutely, he soon experienced a "boiling of the mind"

that led

world

world; and

very special sense. In attempting to copy a detail of

artists,

in a

his

visible

logic of the

of air or of light are neglected, and the different zones of space

black-and-white work. Only much

oils

remained to find ways and means of adapting the

of the Pont-Aven school, by theories founded on music. 124

Gauguin's interest

in

the applied arts

would alone prove

his

Nouveau. But his wood sculpture, his neoprimitive furniture, and ceramics also reveal a number of characteristic
features of Art Nouveau (plate 128). In a vase of a clear, cylindrical and almost timeless form (plates 118, 119), the decoration
Breton peasant women who seem to emerge from Gauguin's
and Bernard's paintings of the same period, and a tree, the branches
affinity with Art

of which curve after the fashion of Jugendstil

appears

jections in the plane of perspectives

and of volumes observed

in the

round. These broad and irregular areas that seem to be silhouettes

Nouveau which, from the

and are composed only in two dimensions. Gau"two-dimensional" bodies thus have absorbed all the quali-

contradict the real silhouettes of Art

very

start, exist

guin's
ties

of material reality such as perspective, foreshortening, volume,

to be a

material mass, movement, light, and shadow; in other words, in

link with Art

Nouveau. As always with the school of Pont-Aven,

however, a touch of the barbaric or of brutality which

spite of the synthesizing

there

data of reality are maintained intact and are bound to be completed

is

here,

even makes
ness

itself felt in

the

way

the

medium

and vigor of Bernard's Bretonnes

from the disguised

traces of the

wood

is

treated.

The rough-

(plate 121) springs partly

block; Gauguin's relief Soyez

amoureuses (plate 128) opposes the smoothed parts of the human

bodies to the roughly carved frame and ground of the

relief, in

contrasting effect of matter and form that Rodin too

knew how

In spite of

there

all affinities,

tween the forceful

vitality of

is

a fundamental difference be-

Gauguin's art and Art Nouveau.

Gauguin was interested in the origins preceding civilization, while

Art Nouveau always remained in a highly civilized world. Thus
the line that readies from Gauguin to modern art leads, narrowly
escaping Art Nouveau, to" Fauvism, Expressionism, and to the
barbaric works influenced by African Negro art of early Cubism.
Far closer to Art Nouveau are the paintings of the Nabi artists
(through Srusier, likewise influenced by Gauguin), especially in
certain works by Bonnard and Denis (plates 126, 174). The
hedonistic, refined outlook of the Nabis and the softened glow of
their colors had more affinities with Art Nouveau than Gauguin's
rough power. Whenever a similar vitality appears in the work of
Edvard Munch another great painter who similarly stands in

opposition to Art

Nouveau

one discovers there a real distance

from the world of Jugendstil; and, finally, this is true of Van Gogh
too (plate 304). The energetic thrust and the abruptness of Van
Gogh's brush strokes create a gulf between his paintings and Art

Nouveau, although
is

their lurching outlines

and

their composition

almost askew, especially in the landscapes, remind us of

it.

Art Nouveau understood nature from a biological point of view

and used it as decoration. Van Gogh saw

view and painted it heroically.

Not only

artificial effect of the outline, the

by the perceptive observer whose thought participates in the process. French painting, when it approximates Art Nouveau in works
of Gauguin and in Lautrec's posters, always extends from the art
form itself to reality, from the picture and its elements on the one
hand to the "fortuitous" optic phenomena of reality on the other
hand.
Sculpture plays a comparatively unimportant role in Art

to exploit.

that

and

it

from a

veau, where

Rodin

(1

it

appears (only

in the nineties) in the

work

Nou-

of Auguste

840-1917). 125 In Rodin's titanic achievement, orgiastic

nymphs and fauns, of lovers and of the damned, the

upright human figure no longer occupies a central position. A flow
processions of

of forms

is

created, not only between the different figures of a

group, but also between the individual formal details. In the play
of light and shadow, the broken surfaces flow together like melting

wax, reminding us of the

impressionistic, blurred forms of

Medardo

Rosso,
who actually modeled many of his sculptures in wax.
With Rodin, the nervously quivering outline is wonderfully simplified and, more than with other sculptors, a complementary "negative" form of space is thus created.
In many works of Rodin, the human or humanoid figure is still
half-imprisoned within an amorphous substance a symbol of all
forms and degrees of biological life. This primitive matter of life,
from whidi the form seems to have only just freed itself, is to be
found in Rodin as in Art Nouveau. In the palm of Gall's glass
Hand which looks as if seaweed were growing all through it, and
1 '-'

as if

it

were studded with

that the

work

shells,

one recognizes a human figure, so

gives the impression of being a

parody of Rodin's

Hand of God.

religious point of

personal disposition and character, but also the con-

ception of the picture and of

its

relationship to the objective world

created a certain distance between the Frendi Post-Impressionists

and Art Nouveau. Even though the different areas of their pictures
represent planes and appear decorative, they are nothing but pro-

124

HIGH AND LATE ART NOUVEAU

Brussels

On

where High Art Nouveau first assumed a clearly defined form. It was here that English
examples had their first impact. This stimulus, together with the

was the

the Continent, Brussels

city

Nouveau, formed a very

fruitful synthesis. Brussels thus acted as a mediator between England and the Continent, when its own Art Nouveau, which had
been essentially bound to two-dimensional art, also developed

quite different approach of France to Art

However much the Brussels

by London or Paris, it expressed itself

three-dimensionally in terms of space.

may have

style

been inspired

with complete originality, allowing an exceptional range of individual creative possibilities within the general scope of

its

own

Bel-

gian style.

In the eighties and the nineties, Brussels was the most active
place of exchange for the ideas of avant-garde art. Its most impor-

and promoter of novel ideas and styles 127 was Octave

Maus who, in 1881, founded the review L'Art Moderne and, one
tant initiator

after

created

the other,

also

the Socit or

Cercle des

Vingt

(1884-93) anc tne association La Libre Esthtique (1894-19 14).

In his book Trente annes de lutte pour l'art (1926), the yearly
l

by these organizations come

to life again. One is surprised to see at what an early date many
works representing the newest trend or of the most prominent new
artists were then shown in Brussels: in 1884, Rodin, Whistler,
Khnopff; in 1886, Odilon Redon and Georges Minne; in 1887,

exhibitions, concerts,

and

lectures given

Seurat; in 1888, Toulouse-Lautrec and Signac; in 1889, Gauguin.

Van de Velde became a member of the Vingt; in

1890, they were joined by Czanne and Van Gogh and by Toorop,
Khnopff, and Redon too, as representatives of the group that sought
to transpose into art its emotions, dreams, symbols, and poetic
In the same year,

memories. Imported from Paris, the doctrine of the Symbolists

penetrated Belgian literature, painting, sculpture, even architecture

and decorative

cry of the

Nabi

arts. Increasingly, artists

painters

who

submitted to the battle

proclaimed: "There are no paintings,

only decorations," to quote the Dutch Nabi, Verkade.' 128 Works of

Walter Crane,

who was

the most popular Morris pupil

and repre-

sentative of Pre-Raphaelitism throughout the Continent in

field of applied

arts,

were thus exhibited

in Brussels in

the

1891. In

same year, Georges Lemmen, who later created works of Art

Nouveau himself, wrote a comprehensive essay on Crane in which
the

he stressed the importance the English

CHARLES DOUDELET

Illustration for a

Maeterlinck's "Serres chaudes" (1895)

125

poem from Maurice

ity

in 1891, as

attached to the capac"' 1

and arabesques.
we are told by Octave Maus, the Maison Die-

of expression contained

Again,

artist

in

forms,

lines,

VICTOR HORTA Door

129

handle in the Solvay residence, Brussels

(1895-1900)

MAX ELSKAMP
Vignette (circa 1900)

bookshop in Brussels to sell art books, offered for sale

large-sized photographs of works of Burne- Jones and Rossetti. In
1894, there followed exhibitions which, under the title Libre Esthtique, showed, among other things, Ashbee silverware, Morris
trich, the first

fabrics

and

carpets, Beardsley designs,

and

also, in

895, examples

of Voysey's architecture. 180

thus,

even

in pattern

and theme, there

is

complete harmony or con-

formity between Horta's style of decoration and

his

English

sources.

Van de Velde has written about the

close relations

between Bel-

gian and English artists during the decisive years. 133 A.

Belgian painter of partly English extraction

ceramist,

was

the first to

who

W.

later

Finch, a

became a

become aware of the English revival

the applied arts and crafts. This happened around 1890,

in

when he

Victor Horta

began to purchase a few objects which greatly impressed his Belgian friends. Soon Gustave Serrurier-Bovy in Lige also began to

The greatest Art Nouveau artist who was active in Belgium was
certainly Victor Horta (1861-1947), 131 an architect who also took
charge of the interior decoration and furnishing of his houses, down
to the most insignificant detail. The works which made him famous

design and

what was formerly the rue de

and finished to the last item of
decoration in 1893 (plate 131). For a long while, the date of this
house was reckoned as that of the birth of Art Nouveau; it was also
the year in which the first issue of Tl)e Studio was published, intro-

make

his first pieces of furniture

ences. Within a short while,

under English influ-

wrote Van de Velde, the English style had

thus become transformed into something original and Belgian. In

the series of exhibitions organized, after 1884,

by the Socit des

begin with the Maison Tassel, on

Vingt in Brussels, products of applied arts were shown for the

Turin, a house planned in 1892

time beside avant-garde paintings; they included books illustrated

ducing Beardsley to the public. Though the beginning of High Art

Nouveau now has

on account of
developments in England to say nothing of early Art Nouveau in
London, of Gaudi in Barcelona, and of Furness and Sullivan in the
United States it remains a fact that Continental High Art Nouveau found its first and most complete expression in the Maison
Tassel, inasmuch as it combined architecture and decoration, structure and ornament, the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional,
in other words the total work of art.
Certain of Horta's ornaments are surprisingly similar to those on
an 1888 bookbinding by Hey wood Sumner, a member of the Mackmurdo's circle (plate 113). This allows us to assume that the world
of Horta's forms was inspired by English book decoration. 132 On
the walls of the staircase in the Maison Tassel (plate 131), the wide
to be antedated

by ten

years,

first

by Herbert Home and Selwyn Image, who were friends of Mackmurdo's and contributed to the Century Guild and to the Hobby
Horse. Such decorated books had long been appreciated on the
Continent as an English speciality. Thus, Kate Greenaway's Undei

Window appeared

German and, in its French edition

finally sold more than 100,000 copies. As early as the beginning of
the eighties, the Museum for Arts and Crafts in Hamburg purthe

in

1880

in

chased books illustrated by Walter Crane. Crane himself wrote:

England of decorative art of all kinds culminating,

in book design, has not escaped the eyes
of observant and sympathetic artists and writers on the Continent.
The work of English artists of this kind has been exhibited in
Germany, in Holland, in Belgium, and France, and has met with
remarkable appreciation and sympathy. In Belgium particularly
the work of the newer school of English designers has awakened
"The revival

as

it

in

appears to be doing,

the greatest interest." 134

In the history of art, minor works or designs had often acted pre-

curves are interlocked with wavy, star-like flowers, revealing that

viously as a stimulus on great art; one need but think of the patterns

abstract forms originate in those of plants. These star-like orna-

suggested by antique gems and coins to Western European sculptors

ments are related to the wide curved ribbons much

woodcuts on
sixteenth-century Italian painting. Around 1900, houses with Art
Nouveau faades were mockingly described as "book-decoration

as

Undine's

whirling locks in Sumner's binding, seen in the smallest detail, are

related to other lines that swing

on a wider

scale. In

both cases,

we

rhythm of Art Nouveau; the linear ribbons

move in the sense of what was later called the "Belgian" line, which
had already been expressed by Sumner. Though Horta's mural
paintings scarcely invite interpretation, anyone who might ever
feel an urge to interpret them would think, first and foremost, of a
bower of undulating water plants on the floor of a transparent sea;
feel the characteristic

in the

Middle Ages, or of the influence of

Diirer's

architecture"; Crane, on the other hand, once spoke of a "book like

and goes on to discuss a fronand an endpaper as a garden. 135 A prophetic

note seemed indeed to have been struck when in 1856 Owen Jones
wrote in The Grammar of Ornament that a new style of ornament
ought to be devised independent of any new architectural style,
a house" as his ideal in decoration

tispiece as a faade

126

130
1

VICTOR HORTA Door handle

VICTOR HORTA

in the

Solvay residence, Brussels (1895

Staircase in the Tassel residence, Brussels

892-93)

132

VICTOR HORTA

Armchair

133

VICTOR HORTA

Detail of a door in the Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)

134

VICTOR HORTA

Inlaid floor in the Solvay residence, Brussels (1895-1900)

(i

895-1 900)

133

'34

35

.36

135

VICTOR HORTA
residence, Brussels

(1

Detail o) the balcony oj the Horta

898-1 900)

130

i}7

138

136

VICTOR HORTA

Auditorium of the

Manon du

Peuple, Brussels

(1896-99)
1

37

138

VICTOR HORTA

Maison du Peuple, faade, Brussels

VICTOR HORTA

Dining room

31

98- 900)
1

in the

[896 99)

Horta residence,

Brussels

i39

139

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Haymaking

140

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Bloemenwerf

(circa 1893)

residence, Uccle, near Brussels (1895-96)

132

133

142

Hl-NRY VAN DK VELDE

HENRY VAN

I>l

VI

Dining room furniture (1895)

DE Woman's

dress

(ana

1S96)

'43

143

GEORGES MINNE

Fountain with five kneeling hoys (1898

144

GEORGES MINNE

Le petit porteur de reliques (1897)

1906)

MAX ELSKAMP

and that new ornamentation would be the most effective means of

introducing a new style, since architecture borrows ornament and
136

own.
This
structure,
is exactly what began to happen. In terms of space and
the forms of Horta's staircase fulfilled their purpose and corresponded to the materials used without being determined by them.
But the style and decorative themes of the staircase are not developed from the elements of cast-iron construction, which was a recent
innovation; on the contrary, the cast-iron structure borrowed its
idiom of form from other sources, all very appropriate to the linear
character of the skeleton structure, and developed this idiom furadapts

it,

but never develops

it

independently, on

its

The assumption that

we

its

1900)

"capital" sends out into space plant-like ribbons such

find on top of Blake's pillars. Their

rhythm is echoed in the

brackets and openly displayed iron supports, and more freely repeated in the metal bands that are twined around the banisters of
the staircase. Like expanding circles in water formed by a thrown
pebble, these ornaments spread from the supports over the ceiling
as

to the walls; their flow even continues onto the mosaic floors. But

each form

is

individual and the pattern

is

not endlessly repeated as

which seems to confirm the assumption that

Sumner's bookbinding had acted as a stimulus.

in

a wallpaper,

An

exciting novelty in this building

was that metal

structural

supports were displayed both in the interior and the exterior of a

ther in terms of space.

particularly in the

flower and

Vignette (circa

this

England,

luxurious private home. The basic construction, in contrast to one

has been confirmed by

of massive masonry, allowed for a relatively free and unconven-

ornamental style originated

Mackmurdo

circle,

in

Henry-Russell Hitchcock. 137 The use of cast iron for purposes of

tional

structure

and expression, characteristic as it may be in Horta's Art

architecture, was inspired on the one hand by Gustave
Eiffel's great engineering constructions, culminating between 1887
and 1880 in the Eiffel Tower, and on the other hand by the theories
and illustrations contained in Viollet-le-Duc's Entretiens sur l'architecture, which appeared in 1872 (page 61). But even if Viollet-le-

distributed in a novel manner. This interior

Nouveau

itself

Duc's projects encouraged Horta to use and display the combination of cast iron and stone in construction, this influence, according to Hitchcock, scarcely explains the

new ornaments

that

Horta

ground plan with rooms opening into one another and

rhythm of space found
repeated, moreover, in the swing of the faade: the curve of

the walls, certain sculptural details, the protruding of the central

windows which appears as a transparent linear framework on

which is stretched the membrane of the surface. Cast iron is not
and the slender window ledges, but
also in the supporting horizontal beams. Horta thus adapted to an
elegant town house features that make us think of riveted metal
only displayed in the

plates

grilles

on cargo ships or of a factory's machine rooms. Horta was

then introduced, nor the homogeneity that his ornamental style

not unreceptive to this contrasting effect, as

immediately assumed in his Maison Tassel. Moreover, Hitchcock

in the

same way, he

we

shall see elsewhere:

also banished all artificial decoration

from

his

has discovered that

own

ornamental cast-iron structural elements

and pleated

Maison

Tassel;

he treated his ceiling like the vault of a subway station and coated

already

knew English decorative work when he designed

in 1892.

Horta used English wallpaper between visible

in the dining room of the
he therefore thinks it is extremely likely that Horta
the house

These were probably the tulip pattern wallpapers of

wood Sumner, whose bookbinding

of

decisive in forming Horta's style. Besides,

Hey-

his walls

with brightly glazed

built in Brussels after the

Van de Velde wrote

certainly the Solvay

that

the stairs, a slender iron support rises freely like the stem of a

tiles.

In the series of private homes and public buildings which Horta

1888 had already been

Sumner was "well known ever since his unusually beautiful wallpaper, Tulip, had first been printed by Jeffrey." 138
The stimulus coming from England, the typical Art Nouveau
curve with its whiplash rhythm, was first developed in terms of
space and structure by Horta. In the staircase of what was formerly the Maison Tassel, the linear Art Nouveau style of English
wallpapers and bookbindings was merged into an architectural and
ornamental unit, a total work of art of a perfection that even
Horta was never able to surpass. A single leitmotiv expresses itself
here both in two- and in three-dimensional terms. At the foot of

135

house (plates 135, 138), such as lamps that electric blossoms

frills transform into a glass bouquet; instead of this,

Maison

residence

Tassel, the

most outstanding

is

(Htel Solvay) on the Avenue

Louise (plate 14). The swinging lines of the faade have become

more ample and, while

the lateral

bow windows

protrude, the

The same movement expresses itself

vertically, for instance in the gliding transition from the wall to
the cornice, with its low-relief sculptured ornamentation of the
soft corbels. The dominant note, however, is the impression of

central part seems to recede.

delicate lines

and great expanses of

tuated points

membranes of
The

is

glass. Stone,

handled ornamentally, iron and

glass,

down

its

interposed

achieve a symbiosis seeming to live and breathe.

interior of this house has been

designed

which at accen-

to the slightest detail

well preserved and

by the

architect. It

is

was

a real

masterpiece of a perfectly articulated distribution of rooms in

From

space.

the driveway, one enters the hall "where a wonderful

swelling space surrounds the visitor,

warmed by

a multitude of

caramel and golden apricot hues." 139 Here, as everywhere, the

slender metal elements are freely displayed.

From

ornamental ramifications which frequently end

deliers

whose

tufts of

these emerge

in electric chan-

flower-shaped bulbs radiate light (plate 12).

The broad, curving staircase, made of heavily veined marble, leads

to the main floor; there, the rooms (of which the dining room
overlooks the garden and the three drawing rooms the street) are
separated only from the glass-roofed staircase by glass partitions.
These partitions, some of which can be removed, consist of wooden
frames, which also have a linear effect; their lower parts are set
with panes of opaque colored glass or slabs of real onyx or alabaster, while their upper parts are set with transparent glass, so
that the central staircase, with

from

all

the rooms.

Nothing

is

its

translucent glass roof,

thing remains flexible, movable, transparent.

visible

With

the endless

Art Nouveau lines and forms, the house, seen from

floor, makes an overwhelming impression; the light brown

variety of
the first

is

heavily massive or enclosed; every-

its

and central halls, Horta's greenhouse roofs are composed of

membranes of glass that remind one of the veinings on butterfly
wings, a special feature of Horta's art in which the graphic effects

Nouveau

reveal his individual conception of Art

(plate 15).

Horta set
the realm of Art Nou-

In contrast to these luxurious private mansions,

himself a social task, practically unique in
veau,
Its

when he

also built the

Maison du Peuple

(plates 13e, 137).

faade consists of an irregular succession of curves that give the

building an appearance of elasticity. Built mainly of a steel frame

which remains

through great surfaces of

visible

to the utmost the conception of a structure

glass,

is

achieving real greatness. The rhythm

embodied

Ornamental
balcony

is

exceptionally simplified,

details

have

railings, the edifice

importance; for instance

lost

related to

is

form
Nouveau.

in the basic

structure being in itself linear Art

its

carries out

composed of a skeleton

and membranes. Here, Art Nouveau

of the building,

it

Rococo and, compared

and only a few horizontal undulating movements are added to the alternately concave and
convex movements of the faade: in the Maison du Peuple, the
metal structures are

all

straight

attractive elegance of Horta's luxurious mansions has given

brocades, the ornamentation of walls and ceilings, the furniture, the

harsh and rigid

handles, and hinges,

from a

all

these are conceived in one style

and emanate

True, the

it

is

so severe that

the designs for his private

reminds one of the interior of a factory

torium under the roof of the building. The columns supporting the

Tassel. If Gothic,

manner remi-

niscent of eighteenth-century forms created for the same purposes,

Art Nouveau, which

its

in its beginnings

with Williams Blake

pulsating rhythm and plastic substance from the Ro-

style, now reverted to the traditions of French Secound Empire

Rococo of the nineteenth century. But this was no longer neoRococo in the sense of historicism; instead, it was a new Art Nouveau Rococo which was subsequently destined to play an important
part in French Art Nouveau.
The Htel Solvay was begun in 1895 and took some years to
complete. Among Horta's early private homes, his Htel van
Eetvelde (1897-99) and his Htel Aubecq (1900) display particularly beautiful and original glass domes. Arched above staircases

coco

remain consistently sober,

all

Baroque, and Rococo traces

Maison

intimate, sociable salon atmosphere of the house, in a

had derived

to

du Peuple

Though

or the hold of a cargo ship. After ascending stairways which con-

had been present only in the faade of the latter, elements of Rococo, both inside and outside the entire Htel Solvay, cannot be
overlooked. It was no doubt natural to design furniture, fixtures,
woodwork, balconies, and banisters; in other words the whole

so that

way

homes
the functional quality of Horta's Maison

lines.

movement (plates 129, 130, 133, 134, and 305).

Art Nouveau style of the Htel Solvay is less pure than

single

that of the

to

Horta's early works, cannot be called original. The vertical linear

tones of the rare woods, the ormolu fittings, the marble and the

paneling, and the inlaid parquet floors, even the keyholes, door

the

in

firm the impression of ship building, one reaches the great audi-

side galleries are as graceful in

form

ments of the construction while the

back to Rocaille ornamentation.

140

as they are necessary require-

railings of the balustrades

hark

In this linearly arranged

room

the walls and the side parts of the ceiling are also enclosed with

membranes or with thin panes.

Indeed, Horta interpreted his metal structures (in the sense of
Art Nouveau) as something plant-like; technology was thus conceived by him in terms of biology. After 1900, his creative energies
weakened surprisingly. He then left it to others to imitate and
commercialize his own style and its formulae.
glass

Henry van de Velde

Horta's dynamic and abstract idiom,

if

plant-like forms, can also be found in the

Velde

(1

863-1957).

141

Van de Velde's

not his suggestions of

work

of

significance

Henry van de
lies

less in

his

136

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Initial

from "Dblaiement d'Art" (1894)

architecture than in his furniture, interior decoratons, ornamental

mental, by

or graphic designs, and theoretical writings, in fact in his univer-

latter,

salism.

His Art Nouveau shows no trace of unassimilated historical

on the structure of the skeleton, as his English predecessors had, above all, developed it in
their furniture. After having abandoned Post-Impressionist painting, Van de Velde turned mainly to English influences, to Ruskin,

examples of

style;

it is

entirely based

Morris, and their successors.

The Belgian artist Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910), 142 of

Lige, was also of importance to him. Serrurier-Bovy had been
among the first to be stimulated by the English movement. When
the group of the Vingt exhibited in

tributed a writing desk "inspired

1894, Serrurier-Bovy contaste." 143

by English

Serrurier-Bovy worked with straight or curved supports

which do not always exercise a structural function and often assume

an independent
niture

role.

The relatively simple basic form of

contained and framed by these freely developing

is

Van de Velde

seized

upon such

features,

and

his

own

his furlines.

designs are

based chiefly on the conscious interplay of curved lines and empty

spaces (plate 203). In one of his masterpieces, the writing desk of
1898, a

line,

sometimes swinging freely

in

"interlacings,"

leads

around the whole piece of furniture, the outer edges of which are
moreover turned inward. The impression of a closed unit is thus
reinforced in spite of the numerous component parts and joints of
the desk. It is also typical of Van de Velde's style, inasmuch as its

own ornamen-

His furniture designs, though inspired by the Arts and

cerning functional forms are carried out in appearance only. If one

interior decorations (plate

306),

and from

and materials

Crafts movement, nevertheless strike a

economy of

detail

new

in his

these stimuli, which

included England's Japanese style, he developed his

greater

also

Godwin's; but even more than the

dynamic symbolism and expressionism exaggeratedly stresses the

structural element. Much more strength than necessary has been
used, quite apart from the fact that Van de Velde's principles con-

the first in Belgium to use Morris wallpapers

tal style.

He was

structure, like

its

Belgian note. With far

than Horta, Serrurier-Bovy mainly

which he revealed with scarcely

any ornamental additions. Furniture in itself thus became orna-

stressed the constructive element,

tried to write at this desk, the available space

stricted

and one would wonder how much space

one's elbows.

strict functionality,

would be very
is

re-

actually left for

which as such already reaches

beyond the sphere of Art Nouveau, is more clearly achieved in Van

de Velde's straight chairs and easy chairs, where dynamism is symbolically expressed in ornament; these chairs are linear, conceived
as a structure of lines and, in spite of a

few

rustic or

hand-crafted

features, achieve a personal "functional" elegance.

The capacity for synthesis which so clearly emerges from Van

de Velde's writing desk

is

to be felt in groupings (plate 208) as well

as in the individual pieces. All his pieces of furniture

dissolving into each other, as

swinging curves.
ful

Wood

is

if

united by walls and doors into great

indubitably Van de Velde's most success-

medium even though he

also

and stone, or designed

and leather book-bindings.
porcelain,

Van de
during
so

many

were

Velde's architecture

this

worked with metal,

glass, ceramics,

carpets, fabrics, wallpapers, books,

is

only of secondary importance

period. Without having been trained

other excellent architects, in

first

seem to be

and foremost painters

he

as

an architect

Germany

particularly,

built, in

1895-96, his

as
who
own

house named Bloemenwerf in Uccle, near Brussels (plate 140).

furnished

it

He

himself with some of his best pieces (plate 141), such as

the chairs, table,

and sideboard (not reproduced

here) of his dining

room, where butter-colored waxed wood is decorated with orangecolored copper. Every detail being of importance to him, he also
designed appropriate dresses for his wife and went so far as to

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

137

Menu

{circa 1895)

concern himself with the color composition of the foods served:

We

sense here the influence of Millet, the Post-Impressionists, and,

above

Seurat. But

all,

Van de Velde translated

all this into

two-

dimensional and almost poster-like figures that not only appear in

color but are treated homogeneously according to their consistency,

with concentric parallel

This theme returns in

lines in

Van de

an entirely unnaturalistic manner.

Tropon poster of

Velde's subsequent

1898, one of the best posters of Art

Nouveau and

certainly

its

best

way

of merging illustration and

abstract decoration into a synthetic

whole was borrowed from

abstraction (facing page). This

Aubrey Beardsley, who

in

1892 applied

it

in his illustrations for

Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

Georges Minne

Among

Belgian Art

Nouveau

artists,

Victor Horta represented

the French ethnic or cultural element and was thus the one to

was the most

Paris

receptive.

whom

Van de Velde, the conscientious

craftsman, with his honest work, his dynamic expressionism, his

systematic theories propounded with a certain heaviness and lack

of charm, was bound to appeal more to the Germans. Georges

Minne (1866-1941) was of Flemish

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

Title

page for

Max

Elskamp's "Dominical''

proximity of Holland

is

origin; 144

most strongly

felt,

in his

work, the

reminding one clearly

(1892)

of Toorop, with whose art Minne was certainly acquainted.

tomatoes, for instance, were served on green plates that were

As far as compactness, narrow shaft-like figures, and sensitive

rhythm are concerned, Minne was probably the purest sculptural
artist of Art Nouveau. The human body, particularly that of
youths, is his one and only theme. As Meier-Graefe expressed it so
rightly in Pan, human bodies transformed themselves for Minne

complementary

to

tomato

red. S. Bing, Meier-Graefe,

and Toulouse-

Lautrec came to see this house and Van de Velde then created some
ensembles which were shown

in Bing's

L'Art Nouveau gallery, and

into plastic ornaments. Basing his conception of

Minne

form on Gothic
and austere

Dresden in 1897. In Paris, the Goncourt brothers launched the

term "Yachting Style," alluding at the same time to the part

art,

played by English inspiration

in this development. Van de Velde's

met with the greatest enthusiasm in Germany; most of
his patrons were Germans and, after 1899, he worked exclusively
in Germany.
Just as Horta derived his three-dimensional Art Nouveau creations from flat surface-art, Van de Velde developed his own particular Art Nouveau style not only from English furniture and Ser-

grief.

creations

designed by him in 1898, with five naked boys kneeling on the

in

rurier-Bovy's manner. In

was
139)

relatively late

as a painter,
lier

Van de Velde's

originally two-dimensional.

work from

the period

and which he had begun

shows that the roots of

case too, Art

painting dated

to

Nouveau

1893

when he was

youths and maidens

One

his

over-slender,

introverted,

who seem consumed by some extreme inward

of his most outstanding achievements

is

the fountain

was carried out for the

As a composition, it shows very
Minne is exclusively concerned with

pool's edge; this design, slightly modified,

Folkwang Museum

(plate 143).

clearly that even as a sculptor

the outline.

The ornamental element of the forms, which are both

expressive and symbolical, cannot be overlooked. Through the fivefold repetition of the

same figure an

"infinite regress"

is

suggested

(plate

which, in the circle round the fountain's edge, returns ceaselessly to

active

itself.

abandon some years earand drawing.

his style lay in painting

stylized

Not only Gothic

art,

but Rodin too exerted an influence on

Minne. "What attracted him

in

Rodin's work was

its

amazing

138

139

IV

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

"Tropon," design for a poster (1898)

faculty of expression combined with a very

the gift ... of creating

life

summary

treatment,

through movement, through a very

arbitrary but most purposeful and even profoundly calculated

arrangement of the limbs which, with all its audacity, may have

been the imperative desire to find an

No

wonder

that

rhythm." There

budding

all this
is

much

artistic

language of

that

own.

effect, inherent in

Minne borrowed from Rodin. "The

Rodin's marble, can also be found in

Minne's figures of youths; the poetic character of

limbs, the suppleness of flawless flesh.
is

its

attracted an artist struggling to express

still

undeveloped

But any notion of sensuality

excluded here; the perverseness sometimes suggested in Rodin's

work

is

considered too complex by

ferentiated."

Minne

or not sufficiently dif-

145

importance (plate 307). He

illustrated Maeterlinck's volume of poems Serres chaudes (seen
Minne's graphic work

is

also of

below); this early drawing of 1890, "with which the periodical Van

Nu

en Straks (which was great within

its

limitations) introduced

the artist to a very small circle of art lovers,

future master."

146

and

also revealed the

In this drawing, the flowing diagonal and the

asymmetry of the whole group are particularly

Art Nouveau.

ARISTIDE MAILLOL

Illustration for Longus'

"Daphnis and Chloe"

(i937)
characteristic of

After 1886, not only did Minne exhibit with the Vingt

GEORGES MINNE
chaudes" (1889)

Illustration for

Maurice Maeterlinck's "Serres

sels,

but he was also one of the members of the

in the

Art Nouveau gallery

model of

his fountain,

in Paris in the

first

in Brus-

exhibition held

winter of 1895-96.

which may be regarded

as the culminating

point of his creative art, was exhibited by the Libre Esthtique

group which then succeeded the Vingt.

Fernand Khnopff
The world of Fernand Khnopff (1 858-1921 ) 147 is entirely different. To a certain extent, his forms anticipated those of the late Art

Nouveau
and

of Glasgow and Vienna, although his Symbolist painting

his decorative

graphic art began to develop early

in the eighties.

His personal style was formulated in the painting, L'Art, of 1884,

representing a youth before a crouching sphinx. The Pre-Raphaelite

feminine type, with

its tall

slender figure, angular profile, sensual

heavy chin, and sea-green eyes, recurs in many of his drawings.

He was indeed so powerfully impressed by the paintings of Rossetti
and Burne-Jones which were exhibited at the World Exhibition of
1878 that their work, together with that of Gustave Moreau, belips,

came the foundation

for his

own

future creations.

Khnopff

fre-

140

quently gave his pictures English

Upon

titles

such as

Lock

My

Door

Holland

Myself, of 1891 (plate 64), or Britomart and Acrasia (1892).

In his house, which he furnished entirely according to his

own

very

was an empty room with walls vocered with

Japanese brocade in which were set two bronze rings engraved
with the names of Burne- Jones and Moreau.
unusual

taste, there

In the interior of this house, where no Art

to be found,

Japanese influences

Nouveau curves

make themselves

are

strongly felt in

and the utter bareness of the rooms. Confined to the

rectilinear and rectangular in every detail, the inside of the house is
formed of box-like chambers, long corridors, and asymmetrically
displaced passages. Suggestions of labyrinthine rooms from pictures
of Rossetti and Burne- Jones (plate 55), rendered even stranger by
the addition of a Japanese element, assume here an uncanny reality.
The same Japanese influence shows also in the lettering and typography created by Khnopff, who was a member of the Vingt,
for the first catalogue of their exhibition of 1884. Art Nouveau
elements are revealed in their purest form in Khnopff's graphic
work, in his designs for bookplates, book illustrations, and title
pages, all of which are important fields of his activity as an artist.
the simplicity

Entirely different from the Belgian style which bears the

of Victor Horta, the Dutch version of Art

Nouveau mainly

mark

reveals

a character of austere reserve, with no sign of Rocaille or of an

drawing-room atmosphere. As in England, whence the

Arts and Crafts movement had influenced Dutch furniture and
utensils, all forms and techniques of historicism, with the latter's
relationship to an aristocratic style of living that was decisive both
for Horta and for the Parisian artists, were abandoned in Holland.
The style of Holland, like that of other Nordic countries, is consciously middle-class. With the exception of the eloquent, somber,
unadorned but grandiose Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Dutch interiors and objects in Jugendstil often seem petit-bourgeois, laconic,
aristocratic

intimate, craftsmanlike, all of which, strange to say, does not ex-

clude an exotic, Javanese, and sultry atmosphere.

Jan Toorop

was not merely by chance that Khnopff, who was an excellent

writer on art, should have written about the personality and the

Jan Toorop (1 858 1928), 149 the most important Dutch creator of
form of his period, developed, however, an unmistakably Dutch

work of the Viennese

Khnopff was first and

Art Nouveau to unrivaled heights of poetic intensity.

Beginning toward the end of the eighties and under the influence of

It

first

architect,

Hoffmann. Outside of Belgium,

best understood in

Vienna and,

in 1898, the

year of publication of the periodical Ver Sacrum, a special

number was devoted

style of

Toorop turned toward Symbolism,

technique of painting remained Post-Impressionist. Con-

the Belgian poet Maeterlinck,

though

"Fernand Khnopff, in
his paintings, wishes to turn away from every-day life, from the
present, and invokes the deepest feelings, reminders of eternity.

temporary with

his

sionist pictures

which he painted throughout the

When we

interiors, the sea,

to the Belgian painter.

see his motionless calm figures, we think of Maeterlinck,

from whose poems Khnopff often borrowed themes, or of Hofmannsthal
Like this poet, he is a painter of inner life. The words
.

of William Blake, the painter-poet, apply to these figures too:

T am

only the secretary, the authors are in eternity.' Khnopff too seems
to note

what

is

dictated to

him by the

secret voices of eternity." 148

tillistic

his

Symbolist drawings, there are also Post-Impresnineties: bridges,

and dunes that are certainly related to the poinand Signac, but not at all to Art Nouveau. This

art of Seurat

splitting of his artistic personality as both

and a Symbolist draftsman

reveals,

an Impressionist painter

even more clearly than

in the

was primarily through

his graphic work that Toorop was connected with Art Nouveau.
Even though there existed genuinely Art Nouveau painters like
Hodler, Munch, and Klimt, oil painting, always independent and
isolated, remained on the whole inaccessible to Art Nouveau. From
its beginnings with William Blake, graphic art had always been
more in tune with the aspirations that characterize Art Nouveau,
because design is closer to poetry and more abstract by nature,
following thought more freely.
case of Toulouse-Lautrec or Khnopff, that

it

89 1, Toorop's mystic style appears fully developed in the

design Decline of Faith, a work of hermetic content which reason
In

alone cannot easily explain, just as

141

it is

impossible to disentangle the

confusion of emaciated limbs and heads of every

size,

with faces

sharp as knives, and

all

of them

abandoned, rapturous attitudes,

in

sometimes doll-like, sometimes frighteningly expressive and almost

ghost-like, angular creatures, passionate

demented. Inextricably entwined as

fables,

Irish

in Celtic line

ornaments or

book illuminations, a comparatively homogeneous pattern

gun barrels with bayonets, a

significance:

bell,

a rope, a piece of

Gothic architecture, and, everywhere, bodies with limbs as soft as

amoebae or as rigid as bones. This work, with its great difference of

sizes and styles, is a classical example of neo-Mannerism in Art
Nouveau. The "basis" of the picture is quite unstable: a body of
water over which hangs this mass of figures; a sea, the waves of
which seem to come rolling from unfathomable depths. In spite of
this tangle of forms which opens up here and there, the action
depicted is conceived as a parallel to the picture surface and to the
limits of its composition, especially the verticals.

two swans

(the heraldic birds that

But what

is

achieved here, a structure of long narrow forms of heterogeneous

Sharply outlined,

were dear to Jugendstil) float on

the water below, calm and unconcerned.

and

sensitive: a

world of

perfumes, mysticism, and bareness.

is

most amazing are the strands of hair arranged

imagination a motif that, as so

much

else in

Toorop's

art,

horror that

I feel

for

my

hair"

up

to the hair fetishism in Maeter-

linck's Pellas et Mlisande, or in Wilde's

I am enamored of, Jokanaan
moon hides her face, when the

that
the
as

thy hair. The silence that dwells

nothing in the world that

is

Salome: "...

thy hair

the long black nights,

stars are afraid, are

in the forest

is

."

of repetitions or parallels, with almost decorative harmonies,

An

erations,

replaced here by an urge to deliver a message from a mystic, neo-

Romantic world of thought. In 1893, the

first issue

of The Studio

reproduced Toorop's The Three Brides, a painting which probably

exerted an influence as far as Glasgow, where Mackintosh and the

Macdonald

sisters

were developing

their not unrelated style. This

"strange, fantastic, sibylline work," as The Studio called

between the Bride of Christ on the

right (the

Good and

left

it,

150

shows,

first

swathed

permitted themselves a definite play

allit-

and rhythmic calligraphy lyrical products of an imagination which seeks, as Baudelaire in his Paradis artificiel, the new
and the different in trying to escape from the realities of everyday
life. But, however much this play with lines may be laden with
significance, it always reverts to itself in hedonistic self-sufficiency,
a tendency indeed common to the whole of Art Nouveau. However
literary or concerned with subject matter this art

may

be, the final

and the courtesan on the

the Evil of eroticism), the veiled

"human

and their fragrance, surrounded by hosts

of disembodied beings, by swinging bells, visible waves of sound,
masses of flowing locks, lilies, butterflies, and thorns. Yet the picture is conceived as an arabesque; it can even be proved that this
ornament, in this case symmetrical, had served as the starting point
for the painting; on account of its almost abstract design, one of the
bride,"

Poetry and the fine arts

when

not so black

not so black. There

so black as thy hair

now

It is

Other works of Toorop from 1891 and 1892 are entitled The
Garden of Sorrow; Apocalypse; Oh Grave, Where is Thy Victory.
is

was

borrowed from Rossetti. In related Romantic and Symbolist poetry,

we find the same fascination for women's hair everywhere, in poems
by Rossetti and Baudelaire, in Mallarm's Hrodias "to live in the

is

Impressionist's indifference to the significance of subject matter

in

which come flowing out of bells. No other artist of

Art Nouveau in which, in addition to swans and lilies, feminine
hair plays such an important part, has paraphrased with so much
parallel bands,

in roses

JAN TOOROP

Vignette from "Van

Nu en

Straks" (1893)

tv.v
$1

drafts (plate 117) can be considered as a sort of shorthand or

notation for choreography. In a typical Art Nouveau

so Ricketts tells us,

151

spirit,

Toorop,

designed an almost abstract ornament, a kind

of formal "vessel" which only later was filled with figurative ele-

ments that explained

its

meaning and translated

it

into terms of

concrete illustration. The incorporeal phantoms such as the figures

in the

foreground retain the character of an ornament. Slender,

ephebic beings are depicted with delicate limbs, in which the Pre-

Raphaelite ideal of beauty

arms

like the

antennae of

is

heightened by a Javanese note, with

insects, profiles as thin as

paper and as

142

i45

J.
|.

JURRIA.W KOK
W. VAN ROSSEM

Vase {circa

146

and

900)

AGATHA WEGERIFGRAYI MI V N Wall hanging

(circa 1900)

47

JAN TOQROP

Song

148

JAN TOOROP

Preliminary study for 'The Three Brides" (1891

of the Times

[893)

144

i49

CHRISTOPHE KAREl

Dl

NERE TOT BABBERICH

Benediction (before 1909)

150

'49

145

150

JOHAN THORN

PRIKKI K De BruCd (tS^z^i)

HENDRIK PETRUS
Stock

152

change

III

RLAGE

Great Hall of the Amsterdam

[898-1903)

HENDRIK IM.TRUSBERLAGE

Desk (area 1900)

CHARLES RICKETTS

result

is

always

l'art

pour

l'art,

Illustration

from "The Dial" (1889)

on account of

its

special kind of

Bundles of

lines of a similar

stress the single,

nature as those in The Three Brides

hieroglyphic forms in Toorop's Song of Times of

and give to the entire work a consistency of

wickerwork, parts of which seem to be almost geometrical. But, more
than that, abstract rhythms invade the picture frame itself, together
with lines which designate objects. Like The Three Brides, this picture, drawn on brown paper with pencil, charcoal, and chalk highlights, finds its continuation in the frame. With Toorop, the frame
is indeed part of the painting and becomes a "field of approach" in
which the black lines, emerging from brown and white, green and
orange, change over to a golden ground and appear in relief. Frame
and painting grow into an undivided whole, the frame being
drawn into the picture as the imaginary closed-in world of the
893 (plate 147),

picture also extends to the objective reality of the frame

into the reality of daily

a complete
this

is

work of

art

life.

and

One

feels

and thus

here an attempt to achieve

to "transpose into ornament," as far as

possible, the shapes of life,

to this,

is

in

Toorop's art nothing of Beardsley's elegant impudence,

and irony, nor of the dandy's pose. In spite of the

graceful and delicate element in his work, Toorop's art is laden
with seriousness and meaning, and is thereby more closely related
to German Jugendstil, which said of itself: "And soulfulness oozes
erotic arrogance,

narcissism.

there

even of daily

life itself.

In addition

by means of the deeply engraved gold of the frame and of

and the archaic idiom of form,

out of every corner." 152

Toorop's "mystic style"

first

eleven years of his

ways

strives

toward

line

toward stressing
toward precision of

a strictly defined technique,

flatness as such in the two-dimensional, in fact

and sharp delimitation of two-dimensional bodies. Ev.-ry trace

of plastic form, of the illusion of space, of light and shadow, every

hint of a material surface

and its attractions is abolished. With great

form and with strict homogeneity, as well

restaint in the handling of

as

with an ascetic use of color, Toorop brings his style to the point

of perfection. In his vignette for the periodical Van

Nu

en Straks

(page 142), condensed and concise as a signature, a great economy

of expression appears. The black two-dimensional
space, together with the little dots,

Beardsley (page 74). Toorop had

artist,

is

much

body of the

filled

related to the forms used by

in

common

with

this English

for instance the "grain" of hair (plate 148), like that of

wood; by 1893 at the latest, he must have known Beardsley's work.

Both Toorop and Beardsley expressed the purest linear Art Nouveau, and the morbidezza style is typical for both of them. In spite
of all their renunciation of space, gravity, plasticity, and stability,

147

clear

Rosenburg firm produced

(plate 145).

al-

is

the nonfigurative ornamentation of delicate, beautiful vases such

Toorop achieves an elevation into almost sacred realms. His picture

almost becomes an icon, isolated from the profane world. The relationship between the picture and the frame is not developed here as
it was by Rossetti and Whistler, who had established it as purely

Nouveau

life

fluence of these surroundings

as the

But, besides thus crossing aesthetic frontiers, Art

founded upon a variety of inspirations.

had been spent in Java; the inenough in his art. The little
figures, derived from Javanese shadow puppets, seem to glide stiffly
along the wavy lines of his paintings and to fill them with their
gracefully affected gestures and their somewhat remote daintiness.
Not only for Toorop, but for the entire Dutch Jugendstil, Java
partially assumed the role that Japan had played elsewhere in Art
Nouveau. True, the sleek contours of Japanese woodcuts appear
also in the Netherlands and, most of all, in Toorop's work. But we
also find here a particular Dutch feature: the rhythm of the pointed
arch, a more rigid structure, and the lace-like interior pattern of
Javanese shadow-play puppets. This may be seen, for instance, in

The

the strict agreement of the colors

decorative and aesthetic.

is

in porcelain as thin

as

paper

Holland but maintained close connections with

was a member of the Vingt group.
When he turned to Symbolism, he borrowed some of Fernand
Khnopff's fantastic forms (plates 64 and 66); indeed, the latter's
sensitive but heavy-chinned faces appear here and there in Toorop's
early pictures. But what probably appealed to him most were
Minne's woeful figures. However, Toorop's closest connections
were with England. Like Khnopff and Obrist, Toorop also had an
English mother. In 1884, when he went to London for the first
time, he met his future wife, an Irish girl who (as a spiritual dowry)
brought him the "Celtic" element. Between 1885 and 1889 he spent
his time partly in Brussels and partly in London, and was thus able
to study at firsthand what interested him in the Pre-Raphaelite
Toorop lived

in

Brussels where, after 1887, he

tradition.

He borrowed
figures (plate

from Rossetti the idea of the

in) which fills the background

frieze of juxtaposed
in

The Three Brides.

The strange motif of the thorny scrub covering the ground in the
same picture appears in Rossetti's watercolor St. George of 18 ji,
a work that Toorop may well have known, for Rossetti's tolling
bells and his hair fetishism have rarely been more obvious or
lovingly treated than in The Three Brides.
Rossetti's St. George,

which

is

It is also

surprising that

a completely realistic conception,

should include strictly plane, abstract, and ornamental patterns of

a heraldic character. Moreover, furniture

by Rossetti

and

reproduced

utensils

might have been made

in his paintings

in the

Nether-

lands before 1900. The typical, concave half-profile of the Pre-

Raphaelite maiden with her dreamy eyes and protruding chin,

is

who

leaning her head against that of the knight, appears in threefold

Dutch appliqud embroidery designed by

Babberich (plate 149). But as these features were the

peasant women's winged bonnets, the stressed contours, and the

homogeneous planes of color.
But this French device of diagonal space arrangements, of composing the picture on the basis of color with the whole composition
and the individual forms derived principally from the optical
appearance of reality, was of little practical significance for the

repetition in a piece of

"mystic style" in Toorop's graphic works. There

Nere

Toorop, in his "mystic style," preferred English examples, though

tot

common

property of the entire Pre-Raphaelite school

necessarily
setti.

The

it need not
have been borrowed from any particular work of Ros-

embroidery already belongs to Late Art Nou-

style of this

veau, the only phase of Art

Nouveau

and
Klimt (plate 265). This proves
anew the importance of Rossetti's invention of crowding the picture
surface with abstract ornamental details so as to produce a surface
with an irregular pattern like that of marquetry work, which could
easily be developed for entirely ornamental effects. In the ornamental surfaces of works by Nere tot Babberich and Klimt, only
shows a very close relationship

to exist in Holland,

to

hands and faces stand out with three-dimensional

reality, as in

is

no doubt that

he was also addicted to French Pointillism. Toorop's world was one

where

reality

figures

played no part

in the

content of the picture, but where

and symbols were refined instead by

eclectic tradition.

Blake's visionary creations, Rossetti's artificiality, and the decorative graphic

much more

manner of

early

High Art Nouveau in London were

somewhat schematic appear-

suitable as sources for the

ance of the ghostlike apparitions of Toorop's nostalgic inner visions.

JAN TOOROP

Binding for W. G. van Nouhuy's "Egidius en de

vreemdeling" (1899)

Russian icons, where the hands and faces alone stand out from the

surrounding covering of precious metals.

We

can trace the sources of Toorop's art even further back, and

Nikolaus Pevsner has suggested

deed,

it

its

possible origins in Blake. 153 In-

seems most unlikely that Toorop, with his ribbons of soaring

genii, his

ornaments of stylized and immaterial

metrical structures,

and

his

figures, his

sym-

frames that extend and paraphrase the

and

picture (plates 127, 147, 148, 310,

312), should

have been

unacquainted with Blake's similar ideas (plates 34, no, and 116).
If Charles Doudelet in Belgium took over certain motifs, which
could only stem from Blake, in such a

literal

way

we might

that

entitled to substitute visible proof for literary evidence, this

be even more legitimate for Toorop.

drawn perfumes and

pictures are derived

On

be

would

the other hand, the visibly

currents of breath that appear in Toorop's

from

drawing which Ricketts published

in

The Dial (page 147).

1889
But what could French Art Nouveau offer to Toorop? At any
in the

rate, Brussels

and the exhibition of the Vingt allowed him

cover Gauguin's art and to enter into

its spirit,

as

is

to dis-

revealed in a

and page 169) in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. In a less sophisticated way, the style and themes of
Pont-Aven reappear in this Toorop painting: the landscape background is created of superimposed planes with only a minute piece
of sky, the ornamental interweavings of trunks and branches of
trees, the reclining female figure whose hat is a variation of Breton
Gauguin work

(plate 310

148

149

V JAN TOOROP

"Deljtscbe Slaolie," poster for salad oil (circa

898)

painted smoothly in even strokes. As Thorn Prikker's murals

Johan Thorn Prikker

Another outstanding painter of Dutch Jugendstil was Johan

Thorn Prikker (1868-1932). 154 Like Van de Velde, Van Rysselberghe,
Lemmen, and Finch in Belgium, Prikker also began as a Post-Impressionist and, inspired by Maeterlinck's and Verhaeren's poetry,
developed Symbolist and Christian themes first in easel painting,
then in murals. Once again, Japanese woodcuts (not Javanese shadow puppets as in Toorop's case) were a decisive influence. In addition, we are conscious of those French paintings closely related to
Art Nouveau, particularly of Gauguin's art that aims at a synthesis.
Thorn Prikker's style, compared to that of Toorop, thus seems more
generous in form and contour, more spacious, and more monumental.

In spite of

its flatness,

compact quality, a
colors,

and density of

color.

But

his

unnatural

with their intense brilliance, lack the glow of Gauguin's pure

pigments.
green,

solidity,

his painting, like Gauguin's, displays a

De Bruid

(The Bride) (plate

mauve, and gray; her veiled

appears as a

tall, shaft-like,

is

seen,

jo) glimmers in soft blue-

closed silhouette.

ilarly lacking joints or limbs, supple

the crucified Christ

figure, strangely

and

metamorphosed,

Next

to her, sim-

stylized, all but distorted,

His crown of thorns mingling with her

myrtle wreath. The half-averted faces are featureless. The main

by a whirlwind of lasso-like lines

and almost unidentifiable, retire into the world of forms that surrounds them one of Rossetti's devices composing with it a sort
of flat marquetry with an irregular pattern in which the detailed
forms are sharply juxtaposed and vigorously outlined. In the upper
figures of the picture, enveloped

left-hand corner, slender, vertical shapes predominate, like

or

wax

tapers,

whereas at the bottom we

see large

icicles

rounded oval

that he designed in Hagen, in

metrically conceived

manner of

Germany, around 1906, we

flowers, centered

window

of 191

most Cubistic

1,

disintegrated forms interlock, producing an al-

effect. Since 1904,

Thorn Prikker had

portions, whether as a
details, of a fresco or a

whole or

in

the interrelationship of

mosaic mural, an impression that

is

its

vividly

communicated by the painter's pointillistic stipple technique, which

Thorn Prikker had borrowed and adapted to Art Nouveau painting.
But the picture's composition is by no means founded on the inner
coherence of the colored dots, nor is it in the least developed from
and of its optical appearance as,
the works of Seurat and Signac. Only parts of the

the artist's impression of reality

for instance, in

picture were, so to speak, subsequently patterned in terms of pointillistic

dots,

and

these parts alternate

moreover with others that are

lived, taught,

and worked mainly in Germany. But even when he was still living
in Holland, he had not limited his artistic activity to painting; like
Van de Velde in Uccle and the German Jugendstil artists, most of
whom had started as painters, Thorn Prikker likewise took an
active part in the applied arts and "decorated the interiors of houses
and shops, thereby simplifying Van de Velde's style in his own
individualistic manner." 155 Besides, Thorn Prikker also designed
fabrics and wallpapers which sought their inspiration in the batik
techniques of the East Indies.

Ornamentation inspired by batik is a special feature of Dutch

Art Nouveau, which is altogether influenced to a great extent by
The East Indies had belonged to the Netherlands
ever since 1596, but their art was only now being discovered. Java
was thus for Holland what Japan had been for London and Paris,
Javanese

art.

a source of inspiration that helped achieve clarity in the struggle

for liberation

and

from

historicism. But, contrasting with the perfection

discipline of Japanese art, with

its

subtle simplicity

and volup-

tuous asceticism, there emanated from Java a heavy, exotic atmos-

phere of the jungle that actually produced some rare samples of

High Art Nouveau

in

Holland. This exotic Indonesian influence

Beginning in 1886, T. A. C. Colenbrander

crucified Christ

themselves after the

Art Nouveau. The form is kaleidoscopic in its

structure, with interruptions, reflections, and reduplications. In a

made

The

in

see geo-

late

and the Bride, Death

and Life, are thus transposed as ornamental emblems which lend
themselves to a variety of symbolical interpretations. The composition of the painting has the large and somewhat monumental proskulls.

Van

de Velde's Haus Leuring (1902) show, his austere style gradually

became more angular, till it even became geometrical. In a window

forms of sturdy buds intermixed with bunches of white orchids,

vaguely recalling

in

itself felt almost exclusively in ornament and surface patterns.

objects inspired

(1

841-1930) thus created

by batik work; he applied

these forms, originally

designed for textiles, to ceramics (plate 308). Dutch books, designed

and illustrated according to principles of Jugendstil, also offer

examples of batik ornaments; for instance in the vignettes by the
architect and book designer, Van Bazel. In other respects, Dutch
book design remained very much influenced by English examples.
A Dutch adaption of Walter Crane's Claims of Decorative Art, for

was decorated by Gerrit William Dijsselhof (1 866-1924).

The Dijsselhofkamer designed by Dijsselhof for a private house
is generally considered a masterpiece of Dutch Jugendstil (plate
309). The walls above the wood paneling were covered with canvas
and decorated with airy yet somewhat rigid patterns of birds and
instance,

plants which again were carried out in batik work. The result of this

150

was a sort of a Peacock Room in miniature, a room which in itself

was a total masterpiece of decorative art. But Whistler's princely
Peacock Room had now shrunk to the proportions of a middle-class
Dutch bausfrau's front parlor, the furniture of which stresses modesty and craftsmanship, in the spirit of the Art and Crafts
movement; indeed, only with a large amount of charity can it be
described as Art Nouveau.

A few pieces of furniture designed by the architect Hendrik Petrus

Berlage

(i

856-1934),

156

one of the strongest personalities

in

Dutch

around 1900, are more powerfully individual and of greater

artistic significance. The style of his little writing desk (plate 152),
so charmingly sedate with its precise, closed, box-like form, stands
midway between Godwin (plate 73) and late Art Nouveau (plate
art

High Art Nouveau as

exemplified by Gaudi, Guimard, Horta, and Van de Velde. Straight
256), but without in the least belonging to

and a structure founded on the idea of a framework for surfaces stretched over it like membranes also appeared in
folding screens which originally came from Japan but soon became
very typical of Dutch Jugendstil, though their unsurpassed prototype had been created by Mackmurdo (plate 100). Another peculiarity of Dutch Art Nouveau was a preference for beautiful or semiprecious metals, especially fine brass, out of which utensils and
ornamental vases of sober form were fashioned. Outstanding among
these were the great round dishes designed by F. Zwollo, which
were engraved with geometrical ornaments suggesting primitive
art. Flowers, as ornamental patterns, are but rarely seen in Dutch
Art Nouveau, perhaps because they appear in such profusion in
Holland's gardens and fields.
lines, right angles,

Middle Ages and, above

entirely lacks the
theless large,

pomp

form of

all,

of Romanesque, the building almost

of these styles. In the compact, but never-

its

mass, with

bare surfaces,

its

precisely

its

placed tower, which assumes strange and even exaggerated propor-

due to

tions
floor,

we

tiny double windows,

its

see a building of clean

and the great loggia of its top

and firm lines, free of all unneces-

sary ornament.

The methods of the construction, consisting of massive brick walls

steel supports for the roof, are relatively conservative, compared for instance to those of Horta's Maison du Peuple, which
with

dates

from the same period. Like

his

English colleagues, Berlage did

not wish to break with the past; his intention was to free himself

from the dishonesty of historicism and

its

masquerading. In

his

writings of 1895 and 1896, Berlage advises architects not to think

of existing styles
says,

when

designing plans for buildings.

Only

then, he

can one achieve a true architecture which he qualifies as "pure

functional art." Berlage

was thus one of the few who not only

considered that an ethical attitude in architecture was necessary but

also (like Philip
ly fulfilled his

Webb

in the

demands

Red House

he built for Morris) actual-

for a purified architecture. In the

main

hall

of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the construction of the roof

Between the

freely revealed.

glass roof

with

its

iron

and the supporting orick walls no illusion of synthesis

there is here nothing but an undisguised juxtaposition.

is

framework
is

created;

The character of surface is stressed in the brick walls of the hall.

The architectonic components are indeed distinguished by the use
of different materials: granite for the compact pillars and light
colored quarried stone for the capitals. But no sculptural effects are

attempted here. The arcades seem to be cut out of the wall, their
segmental arcs fitting closely into it. Not even the capitals of the

columns protrude; they seem to be "cut off with a razor blade." 157
One thus gains the impression, so typical of Art Nouveau, of the

Hendrik Petrus Berlage

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange,

considerable greatness,
verity.

of

Geometrical

High

An

by Berlage, is a work of
not devoid of humanity in spite of its sebuilt

in its design, its style

Nouveau

is

closely allied to that

in other countries. Berlage

was mainly con-

"cutout form."

Wie

brick balustrades of the balconies achieve the

same effects of sheer surface: as decoration, they

empty spaces which, as negative contrasting forms,

truly produce
alternate with

When he lectured on style in architecture in

"We must, above all, show the naked wall in

positive forms.

1905,

cerned here with problems of architecture as sheer construction and

Berlage said:

with

Bussum (1893) had already

and functionalism which are entirely based

smooth beauty

on purpose and construction, features that could be found elsewhere

only in Norman Shaw's or Voysey's work in England. The Amster-

of the wall." 158

dam

Stock Exchange was built between 1898 and 1903, after a

number of various preliminary designs in historical styles which

buildings and houses which, although appearing as three-dimen-

date back as far as 1897. Despite some distinct reminders of the

Except

its

aesthetic expression.

displayed a simplicity

151

His

villa at

capitals; the joints

and columns must bear no protruding

and nodal points must melt into the flat surface
pillars

Dutch Art Nouveau

is

content with two dimensions, even in

combined of seemingly two-dimensional planes.

ceramics, Dutch Art Nouveau created no bodies or spatial

sional cubes, are

in

all its

FLIX

VALLOTTON

Portrait of Henri de Rgnier (1896-98)

figures in curved lines

and practically no sculpture of

real

impor-

tance. Inspired by the English style in its conceptions of structure,

and by Javanese ornaments, Holland produced a highly individual
Art Nouveau of an earnest, reserved character. In this reticent and

almost bare

art,

paintings by Toorop and some

Dutch Art Nouveau

porcelain appear like a spray of extremely delicate and exotic flowers.

displayed in vitrines, or in complicated boudoir furniture. In

forms and conception we

feel the

its

connection with the eighteenth

century. Seen against this background, the decadent character and

tone of the ancien rgime and fin de sicle in French Art

become clear, together with

what erotic quality.

its

aristocratic elegance

and

Nouveau
its

some-

In the designing of furniture, honest craftsmanship and simple

or significantly displayed construction had been, since Morris,

important

in

all-

England, where form was primarily derived from

and technique, though Art Nouveau frequently

by exaggerating its proportions. Except for Godwin.
Mackmurdo, and Voysey, such furniture is rectilinear, shaped like
chests or cabinets and often laconically purposeful. The great French
cabinetmakers, such as Galle and Guimard, and the masters who
were then greatly admired, like Majorelle, De Feure, Colonna, or
function, material,

Paris

and Nancy

Art Nouveau

in

developed

France developed primarily as High Art Nou-

veau, revealing an entirely three-dimensional character which

was

due to a considerable admixture of Baroque and Rococo elements.

it

Though the assimilation of these influences guaranteed its very

plastic and vital quality, and whenever this Baroque-Rococo blend
was not fully achieved French Art Nouveau tended to degenerate
more than in any other country into an impure Art Nouveau disturbed by elements of historicism.

Gaillard, all conceived pieces of furniture as objects of luxury in

not only because of the quality of the products of Paris and

constructed furniture of the Arts and Crafts school, French furni-

It is

Nancy, but

also because of the intentions of the artists

who

created

them, that the decorative element and craftsmanship are so clearly

up

wood and

in

upholstery. Contrasting with England's logically

ture of this period, as that of

grown

Horta and Gaud, seems often

to

have

like a plant.

Creations of this kind indeed claim to be considered inde-

stressed.

pendent works of

art.

Such a development

is

on the whole

formity with the philosophy of form of Art Nouveau

tended

which structure and functional considerations were of secondary

importance, to such an extent indeed that chairs were often first
modeled in plaster and then subsequently copied from this mock-

in

in con-

though

it

Admiration of English Style

in

France

France more than elsewhere to produce precious and

highly stylized small works of art, or objets d'art. The jeweler

Ren Lalique

860-1945) (plates 154, 158, 275, and 277)

thus one of the most admired masters of the nineties. With
(1

semiprecious stones, and translucent horn he

made combs,

159

was

pearls,

brooches,

In the Rossetti and Burne- Jones circle in London, ethereal and

unworldly dream princesses were created and real people then

strove to adopt their appearance and manner. Paris, with its back-

ground of decorative

art, fashion,

and jewelry, preferred

to pro-

more worldly beauty of the living woman.

and Chelsea
Pre-Raphaelite fashions which included, among

and other pieces of jewelry which seem quite alien to all traditional
forms. He was not interested in the rich hues of rubies, sapphires,
and emeralds, nor in the cold fire of diamonds and their crystalline

claim

appearance, nor indeed in the rounded perfection of pearls; what

other things, dresses without waists; fashionable marriages, as that

attracted

him most was the

lique's colors

delicate,

irregular shape of baroque pearls. La-

seem to have been

with stones and pearls

distilled
set in

from moonlight: pale and

mother-of-pearl and milky-

colored enamel. His jewelry was figurative, representing almost

exclusively costly

and

fragile blossoms

and plants

in

which poetic

invention forms an ideal union with the function of the bauble.

French applied art was diametrically opposed to the honest

craftsmanship of Morris or

Mackmurdo and

is

extremely subtle and

of great virtuosity, shining enticingly in jewels and other objects

its

allegiance to the

Since the seventies, the "aesthetic" ladies of Kensington

had dressed

in

of Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd in 1884, were celebrated

in

Pre-Raphaelite garb. In Paris in the nineties, on the contrary,

Marcel Proust writes:

"... one evening at the house of one of Saint-Loup's aunts on

whom

he had prevailed to allow his friend to come there, before a

some of the speeches from a symbolic play

in which she had once appeared in an 'advanced' theatre, and for
which she had made him share the admiration that she herself
large party, to recite

professed.

152

'But

when

she entered the room, with a large lily in her hand,

and wearing a costume copied from the Ancilla Domini, which she
had persuaded Saint-Loup was an absolute 'vision of beauty,' her
entrance had been greeted, in that assemblage of clubmen and

Swann, might indeed serve us here as a striking example of French

Anglomania in the last decades that preceded 1900. As early as
1872, when she was "one of the youngest of the well-known cocottes of the time," she posed for her portrait as "Miss Sacripant";

which the monotonous tone of her chantings,

the oddity of certain words and their frequent recurrence had
changed into fits of laughter, stifled at first but presently so uncontrollable that the wretched reciter had been unable to go on.

had found the grand

manner both as a painter and as an individual, becomes Elstir an
English-sounding name with a slightly exotic touch. Behind the

Next day Saint-Loup's aunt had been universally censured

others, a personage

duchesses, with smiles

for

Biche, the artist later, once he

first called

identity of Proust's fictional Charles

who

Swann

is

concealed,

among

actually existed, Charles Haas; rather than

having allowed so grotesque an actress to appear in her drawing-

preserve his originally Germanic name, meaning "hare," Proust

A well-known duke made no bones about telling her that she

Ton
had only herself to blame if she found herself criticised. '.

chose for

my

Besides,

room.

soul, Paris

is

not such a fool as people

make

out. Society does

not consist exclusively of imbeciles. This little lady evidently be-

was going

lieved that she

to take Paris

make

But Paris is not

some things that

surprise.

and there are

so easily surprised as all that,

they can't

by

still

us swallow.'" 160

tion of

poems

Pre-Raphaelite and of Jugendstil, and a recita-

that might have been

was

terlinck (actually, Proust

by Swinburne, Wilde, or Mae-

refering to Maeterlinck); but Robert

de Saint-Loup had been converted to the

us later that he

had decorated

his

new

home with

style.

Proust

tells

furniture designed

Bing and that Rachel, Saint-Loup's actress friend,

who had

by

at first

been so unsuccessful, soon acquired great fame. This turn of Fortune's

wheel

is

significant. In

illustrated periodical of the

897, L'Illustration, the conservative

grande bourgeoisie, had,

in its Christ-

mas number, a front cover designed by Grasset with angels

in the

(who designed the front cover the

following year). Toulouse-Lautrec was among those who had their
homes decorated by Bing in the "Yachting Style," and it is also
known that Toulouse-Lautrec liked Burne- Jones' paintings and was
friendly with Wilde and Beardsley. In 1896, Lautrec designed a
poster for the Irish -American bar in the rue Royale which was
called The Chap-Book, after the small avant-garde Chicago periodical which had published Bradley's Serpentine Dancer (Loi'e Fuller,
plate 35). Lautrec also immortalized the invasion of English and

English style of Walter Crane

Anglo-American

artistes

who

aters of Paris: his posters for

drawings inspired by

suddenly appeared in the variety the-

Jane Avril and

Loi'e Fuller,

May

Belfort,

May

Milton and

his

stars such as

Isadora

Duncan and

the

Barrison Sisters inspired poets like Hofmannsthal.

Proust's charming character, Odette de Crcy, later

153

phaelitic."

and

it is

and movements reand are, one might say, "Pre-Raadopts the English custom of drinking tea,

loves Odette because her face

Botticelli's figures

Odette also

soon part of her ritual to invite her admirers to her "five

makes a point of
speaking English to young Proust (it must have been toward the
end of the eighties), so that others should not understand what she
is saying, whereupon the author observes that only he could not
understand her although everybody else knew English. Both Odette
and her daughter Gilberte always speak of "Christmas," never of
"Nol." It was obviously the "thing" to be thus Anglicized. Proust
also greatly admired Whistler, whom he called the "swan of Chelsea," and translated works of Ruskin into French, proving to us
that he did

Madame

know

English after

The fact that fashionable

all.

and poets were all proEnglish did not yet demonstrate the influence of an English decorative style, but did create a favorable atmosphere for the importation of English objects which were meant for the leading circles of
art and fashion. S. Bing, the dealer in Japanese art, toward the end
society, artists,

of 1895 transformed his art shop in Paris into one for

decoration and called

it

modern

L'Art Nouveau, and also commissioned

painters to design furniture and decorate rooms.

From

the start, he

had exhibited ensembles by Van de Velde and worked with MeierGraefe and for the Berlin periodical Pan; 161 obviously, he was a
man who knew what he was saying when in 1898 he wrote: "When
English creations began to appear, a cry of delight sounded through-

out Europe.

and Ida Heath bear

witness to the popularity of English names. In Vienna too, world-

famous Anglo-American

Swann

mind him of

o'clock teas." After becoming Swann's wife, she

costume designed after Rossetti's best-known painting (plate

57), the lily of the

him an English-sounding name suggesting "swan" which,

moreover, was appropriate as a symbol for the Art Nouveau period.

But

it is

Its

echo can

still

be heard in every country." 162

not always easy to prove that France followed English

in the applied and decorative art of this period. In fact,

was mainly in Brussels that English inventions of form were first
assimilated and transformed before they then spread to France.

examples
it

Furniture designs by Serrurier-Bovy (plate 306), closely related to

those of English Arts

and Crafts, and above

Horta's creations,

all

us praise the

whims of

having allowed a Japanese to be

fate for

translated the flat curves of English wallpapers into three-dimen-

Nancy." 166 Traces of Gall's botanical studies can be found

everywhere in his floral Art Nouveau; through his eyes flowers

and thus enriched them with the form, dynamics, and

are not merely beautiful forms of nature but can be charged with

were accepted
sional terms

power

in

France as quite exemplary. Horta had already

to transmute that characterized Rocaille.

Nor

now

is it

troversial to attribute all this to the influence of Brussels.

an

as 1895,

article

con-

As early

appearing in Paris demanded that French design

become more independent of Belgian

influence.

183

born

in

emotion too. Galle himself can be called a Symbolist, and often

engraved or cut in the glass of his vases Symbolist verses or
stanzas
linck.

He

his free
in

Emile Galle

quotations
also

time to the large garden that surrounded his beautiful

Nancy.

roots

from Poe, Baudelaire, Mallarm, or Maeterwrote scientific articles on horticulture and devoted

On

lie in

the soil

pool," 167 another statement that reveals

was not

It

achieved

its

in Paris

but in

Nancy

that French Art

Nouveau

greatest independence, reaching the highest quality in

sought to come to the origins of

forms of

life,

French

came acquainted

of Gall's works (plate 313). This

work;

at

an early age with the materials used

in his later

first studied philosophy and

London. In the South Kensington
Museum, he was fascinated most of all by Japanese glassware displayed there after the World Exhibition of 1862. Chinese and Japanese glassware, above all the coloring techniques used in small

like Obrist after

botany and,

bottles,

in

him, Galle

1872, went

to

gave him the idea for

his

extremely subtle and complicated

method of production and inspired

In

Nancy

1874 and founded his own glassworks) Galle

became acquainted with a Japanese student, 105 who had come

(where he settled
later

his artistic style.

in

Rococo element may

have contributed to the evolution of Gall's art, since Nancy's
finest buildings are of that period. Cabinetmakers and gifted artistcraftsmen, such as Majorelle and Prouv who in the nineties
founded the cole de Nancy with Galle, and had previously
worked in the Rococo style returned to Rococo in 1900. Pieces
of furniture which had been designed by Galle himself in collaboration with Prouv and which are noteworthy because of their
elaborate marquetry (plate 315) are likewise mostly inspired by

there in 1885 to study botany. In addition, a

made

designs for his father's workshop. It

is

chronology of the productions of his own

workshop, so that we cannot distinguish with any certainty when
difficult to establish a

Art Nouveau period started and when he actually arrived at

High Art Nouveau. But a Far Eastern touch can always more or

his

and must certainly have already been noticeable in the

works he sent in 1889 to the World Exhibition in Paris. E. de Vogue
writes about Galle in his Remarques sur l'Exposition de 1889, "Let

less

be

felt

close

Art Nouveau

and the primitive

to water,

usual, the English influence

art. Nevertheless, a clear

is

the most difficult to trace in

example of
is

it

can be found

one

in

a vase, a kind of pitcher,

which belongs to early Art Nouveau and surely made before 1 890,
decorated with a design and ornaments derived from the illustra-

and book decorations in Walter Crane's Echoes of Hellas of

1888 (plate 314). The way in which it was possible to express this
graphic art in a plastic form eminently suitable to High Art Nouveau is shown both in Crane's ceramic works and in Gall's vase,
with the wavy outline of the latter's neck and the almost amphibian
tions

character of

its

handle.

Although entirely faithful

to

Art Nouveau, some of Gall's works

attain a degree of severe beauty which shows they are free

from the

and time. The cyclamen bloom on a bottle-shaped

vase (opposite) grows like a water lily on a delicately curved stem,
from the transparent layers of colored glass. The seemingly simple
form of the vessel is actually extremely subtle; in it we sense the
echo of a Greek amphora. Contrapuntally, the form encompasses
bonds of

style

the suspended blossom,

vase.

As

in the case of

cient unto itself,

and

if

its

corona echoed

in the

many Art Nouveau

curved

vases, this

a flower were placed in

it

of the

lip

one

is

the effect

suffi-

would

only become overdone.

eighteenth-century types.

Galle had already

how

life.

the glassware of Emile Galle (1 846-1904) (plates 4, 15 3, and 159). 164

As his father owned a workshop for glass and pottery, Galle be-

As

home

workshop there was a slogan: "Our

of the woods, in the moss by the rim of the

the door of his

had an

from the first they were

exhibited in the Bing gallery and were soon to be found in all important private collections, and later also in public collections.
Galle tried to meet the increasing demand by employing more and
Gall's vases

incredible success:

more craftsmen and by lowering his standards of quality

stance by etching instead of cutting the glass); by doing

(for inthis

he

inevitably repeated himself, no longer achieving the high quality

of craftsmanship and originality of his earlier work.

154

155

MU

GAI

Vase(circa [895

'54

HIM LALIQUE

Woman's hoot

French

5 5

Brooch (circa
(

900)

902)

Opposite:
156

HECTOR GUIMARD

157

CAMILLE GAUTHIER
.1

.
1

Mil

\!

GA]

[Ql
I

Detail 0} aParis Metro station (circa 190c)

Vase (circa 1900)

Ornamental comb

(circa 1900)

Vase (circa 1S95-1900)

156

M7

157

158

M9

io

161

162

158

i6o

HECTOR GUIMARD

Staircase in the artist's

home,

Paris (1911)
161

HECTOR GUIMARD

Upholstered chair (1904)

62

HECTOR GUIMARD

Upholstered chair

163

HECTOR GUIMARD

Auditorium

Romans
164

908)

Humbert de

Building, Paris (1902)

HECTOR GUIMARD
(circa 1900)

159

in the

Detail 0} a Pans Mtro station

I 7
I

ll,lll 11

ill

160

i65

TOR GUIMARD

Metal picture frame (with an early-

nineteenth-century Japanese color prim) (before 1900)

166

HECTOR GUIMARD

167

Pll-RRUBONNARD

161

Desk

(circa 1903)

Screen(i%w)

Iroupe de

^EGLANTINE
Qopatre

me
ne AvrK

Gazelle

170

168

RAOUL LARCHL

169

PIERRE

170

ROCHE

Veil

Damer

(Loe Fuller) {circa

163

900)

Loe Fuller (before 1900)

HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC

Troupe de Mlle. Eglantine

(1896)
171

ARISTIDE MAILLOL

The Laundress {circa 1893)

'72

164

173

174

iji

HENRI

173

EDWARD

SI

Thinker"

902)

174

TOULOUSl LAUTRE(

1)1

MAURICE

III

DI'.NIS

Loe Fuller (i)

Rodin, Victor Hugo, and "The

Nos mes,

en des gestes laites (1898)

175

AUGUS'IT.

PERRET

Apartment house, rue Franklin, Pans (1903)

166

Hector Guimard

conceived as a metal cage, a structure of membrane-like surfaces

which

and of the boudoir style

Art Nouveau, could be discerned in the architecture of Paris and Nancy too, and not always
to its advantage. Apart from the late French phase (as for instance
with the works of Emile Andr and Xavier Schollkopf), we have
The love of Rococo, of rare

which

is

bibelots,

characteristic of all French

here an Art

Nouveau perverted by

historicism, with faades super-

imposed at random on the actual structure of works of poor

quality. Only Hector Guimard (i 867-1 942), 168 an architect of the
universal quality of Horta,

Van de Velde, or Gaudf,

rises

mediocre. With the strangest forms, his imagination

above the

knows how

to

to

recalls Brussels

Art Nouveau. But these elements do not seem

have belonged to the original plan; they were probably added at

Once converted

Nouveau, Guimard indeed

created buildings that were homogeneous and ornamental units in
their structure and their details.
a later date.

The most remarkable

to Art

Branger consists

detail of the Castel

in the

main
Rococo blends with flamboyant Gothic. However,

surprisingly freely conceived asymmetrical ironwork of the

entrance, where

the decisive force, the stimulus that sets everything in motion,

again springs from the flowing lines of the curves of Japanese

woodcuts

in particular

and Japanese surface ornamentation

in

draw an entirely new value from the components of French Art

Nouveau. His station entrances and pavilions for the Paris Mtro,
most of them created in 1900, are still landmarks of the city (plates
156, 164, and 274). True to the decorative style of Art Nouveau, they
never suggest to us that they are accesses to a mechanical means of
mass transportation. There is no sign of stark functionality in the
orchid-shaped electric lamps that swing out from cast-iron stems
painted leek-green. With their organic, soft, and sensitive forms,
with the erotic associations of their details, these subway entrances

general. In the application of the characteristic features of these

appear rather as gateways to a subterranean Venusberg such as

counted among the most incredible but convincing pieces of Art

Beardsley described so vividly in his story, Under the Hill.

comparison with Horta's insect-shaped inkwell,

lamps that

his

look like flowers, his curved glass roofs, and cast-iron supports

and 131) clearly reveal the source of Guimard's inspiration. Guimard's ironwork portals and pavilions rooted in the
sidewalk pavement seem to be the colossal counterparts of Horta's
objects. Not only in their abstract and ambivalent idiom of forms
are the Mtro entrances singular and magnificant hybrids. According to their origin they might belong to the field of engineering
(plates 3, 12, 15,

rather than to that of architectural

yet

Guimard was

far

works

in the traditional sense;

from considering himself an engineer. Not

only did he call himself an architect, but an architecte d'art. Like

Obrist's fountain (plate 215) or Gaud's
his constructions are
art,

domed

roofs (plate 13),

hybrid products of architecture

and applied

of sculpture and decoration: plastic ornaments of utilitarian

lines,

Soon after Horta's creation of the Brussels Maison

Guimard

Tassel, in

built his Parisian Castel Branger, a luxurious

apartment house which was started

in

1894 and completed in 1898.

and

artist are

that

167

is

entirely

as late as 191

Nouveau

surpasses Horta,

as if riveted

(plate 160).

furniture,

is

up space and

in

which

demonstrated in a desk that can be

Guimard's

own

writing table (plate 166).

and actual sense

of the term, and at the same time both a stucture and a piece of
cabinetwork, the desk gives an optical illusion of motion due to the
veining of dark wooden strips. Two box-like elements are united in
it by an asymmetrically extending tongue-shaped top.
"linear body," closed in itself both in the formal

The great centrally situated auditorium of Guimard's Humbert

de Romans Building of 1902 (plate 163) is important as a constructed interior; an engineering construction reminiscent of the Eiffel

Tower of 1889, but conventionally surrounded by brick walls, this

hall is spanned by straight-lined ironwork. The separate girders
rest

on stone pedestals

in

which the flow of their

an ornament. The structure of the room

is

lines terminates in

entirely conceived in

plant forms. The spoke-like supports radiate throughout the audi-

torium in a diagonal curve and

rise

upward

from which the

to the

open translucent

electric light

-pray forth in

from the iron supports that Horta used in the Solvay

house in Brussels. But Guimard's hall can also be compared with
the auditorium of Horta's Maison du Peuple (plate 136). Both these

clusters as

Guimard's centralized

which

cramped

unification, their evenness of lines,

This asymmetry, which seems to open

Guimard

engineering

hall,

and

surpassed by the irregularly asymmetrical staircase railing

Guimard designed

remains unrelated to Art Nouveau, though the latter appears in

and the entrance

outshines even Horta, whose

their relationship to space, the masterpieces of the Belgian

This complex building in a traditional historical style as a whole

such details as ironwork

Guimard

furniture basically appears knotted and

together. In their synthesis

center of the cupola,

nature.

1892/93,

smooth and gliding

by forceful

constructions,

lines

Horta's

hall, are

long

rectangular

hall

and

of a linear nature and characterized

and thin or transparent membranes.

On

this

Art Nouveau principle, closely related to that of timber

in medieval houses, Guimard also built the villa Castel

framework

asymthe inner distribution and

Henriette near Svres (plate 316). The layout of the whole

metrical, as are also

is

most of its details:

rooms or landings are recognizable from the

the different levels of

outside.

But

this entire building,

with

its

reminiscences of histori-

cism and of the medievalistic robber-baron castles of the prosperous upper bourgeoisie, can scarcely be said to represent Art

veau at

Nou-

of his well-balanced pictures removes Seurat entirely from the constant flux of

Art Nouveau and

stability. Seurat's pictures are

sense of the

its

luxuriant

void of significance

in

Nouveau

The works of Picasso's Blue Period offer us the

with Art Nouveau: in the sentimental content of
artificial coloring; in the

"Pan" (1895)

painting.

easiest

analogy

these paintings,
in the soft

drawing of the outlines and

importance which determines the composition

Vignette from

the truest

word; they are poems for the eyes without any sym-

cynical eroticism that frequently governs Art

and

in-

or literary intention and lack either the sentimental or

bolistic

with their aristocratic beggars and their huddled women,

its best.

FLIX VALLOTTON

movement and

their

in spite of the latter's

high pictorial qualities; and in the almost complementary relationship between figures

and background. However, in spite of

works are static, immobile,

Picasso's lyrical gliding lines, these

steeped in the blue depths of dreams. But, even in this phase of

Picasso's
is

work, a barbaric, brutal element opposed to Art Nouveau

latent. This barbaric feature

is

subsequently displayed openly by

among whom Matisse alone remains close to Art Noumuch in his Fauvist works as in his later
tamed style of the thirties through the fifties, when Dali called him
the "painter of seaweed." Following the early Art Nouveau master
Gauguin (whose Tahitian paintings are far less in the Art Nouveau
the Fauves,

veau, although not so

Pont-Aven period) the only major French

painter between Seurat and the Cubists whom one can occasionally
consider as belonging to the Art Nouveau movement was ToulouseLautrec ( 1 864-1 90 1 ) 170 and with him the Nabi group.
style than those of his

Toulouse-Lautrec's painting develops that of Degas, whose vision

had been influenced by Japanese art; Lautrec's paintings and his

unconventionally free drawings thus do not really belong to the
field of Art Nouveau. However, this is not true of his posters
which, as "art for the street," helped to determine the character of

French Painting and Sculpture

in

Art Nouveau

Paris in the nineties. Contrary to Lautrec's

sionistic paintings the thickly

The decorative period of Art Nouveau lasted roughly fifteen

years and corresponds to the period between the last of Seurat's

and the first Cubist works, when Cezanne's "classical picwere being painted practically without the public knowing
anything about them. Georges Seurat, Czanne, and the Cubists
were as alien as possible to the conceptions of Art Nouveau. Even

make

the poster

more

tonal variations or shading.

La Chahut may have been inspired by an early Chret

poster,
related to Art Nouveau (plate 303), there is an abyssal
difference between the scientifically dry technique of pointillism,
reminiscent of mosaic or powdery pastel, and the viscous substance
of Art Nouveau forms. The total immobility and abstracted rigidity

outlines in his posters are

striking, limited in

to

169

Impres-

colorplate VI). The colors are bright, sharp, aggressive, and, in order

tures"

Seurat's

less

often filled in with homogeneous patches of color (plate 170 and

pictures

if

drawn

more or

As

number, without any

the figures of the posters often stand

out against an empty and unprepared background, the impressionistic quality of

also in

Japanese art becomes more evident there, as

works of Beardsley. In contrast

to the latter,

we

see that,

despite the rhythmical outline of the figures and the composition,

Lautrec's posters (which

veau)

still

retain a

may

compact

ized outline of his figures,

be compared with Gauguin's Art

Nou-

quality. In the exaggeratedly character-

we

discover effects of foreshortening,

168

O^Jr****^ u**%^
PAUL GAUGUIN

Bretonnes la barrire (circa 1889)

whereas Beardsley's
sensuality, remain

figures,

on the contrary, with

all their erotic

disembodied and ethereal, almost other-wordly,

while Lautrec, with his personal portraits and caricatures,

is

al-

171

ways rooted in concrete reality. Pierre Bonnard (1 867-1 947)

also
owed a great deal to the art of the poster, and it is still a moot point
whether his posters were influenced by those of Lautrec or vice
The four colored lithographs for a screen (plate 167) which
were published in 1899 are, in the arrangement of space and in their
theme, a kind of parody on the large Degas painting of Count Lepic

versa.

and

his

it is

not fortuitous that traces of Art

daughters posing on the Place de

decorative furniture that

origin.

169

is

la

Concorde. Once again,

Nouveau appear

of Japanese

or, at

any

rate,

in a piece

of

Far Eastern

Another painter of the Nabi group, Aristide Maillol (1861172

after having made decorative designs in the Art Nouveau
1944),
style in the nineties, shifted his interest to sculpture.

From

the

first,

and monumental
weightiness which can be seen even in his small figures, went far
beyond Art Nouveau. Nevertheless, a number of his earlier works

work

Maillol's

may

in the round, in its static quality

be attributed to this

still

style,

such as the delightful figurine

of a washerwoman (plate 171), a theme he had also treated in

painting but which here became a kind of functional sculptured
ornament. The swerve of the skirt, the smooth curves of the body,
the absence of all naturalistic detail, link this work with Gall's
shell-shaped glass bowls. Although his sculptural activities began
at an early period, the rigorous discipline in the art of Maillol and
the architectural character apparent in the construction of his

place

it

in the

work

nating the unit in the shape of a rose window. The thin projecting
ledge that runs along the top like a

is

Endell's Elvira Studio (1897-98, plate 200)

identical to that of

and

to Mackintosh's

north wall of the Glasgow School of Art (1897-99, plate 244).

Perret's architecture

is

an example of the geometrical, rectilinear

Art Nouveau which had not as yet universally asserted itself.

We find the wavy and linear as well as the wavy and flat Art Nouveau as late as 1909, and even up to 19 14, in the stage designs of
late

Lon Bakst

as well as in the field of Parisian haute couture. Bakst's

compactly built-up hori-

stage-sets (plate 123) usually consisted of

Nouveau's late phase they also reveal characteristics of High Art Nouveau such as can be found nowhere else. In High Art Nouveau
zonless landscapes,

and

in spite of clearly

belonging to Art

painting landscapes as themes were largely neglected except by

Gauguin and

category of the more severe late Art Nouveau.

hem

Other

his friends of the

late influences of

Pont-Aven

school.

High Art Nouveau may be found

in

Georges Lepape's watercolor renderings of dress designs by Paul

Nouveau

Late Art

in

The principle of a "framework" building which Guimard had

adopted recurs in the work of the architect Auguste Perret (1874173
In the block of flats which Perret built on the rue Franklin
1954).
in Paris in 1903 (plate 175), he employed reinforced concrete and
covered the framework with decorative

tiles.

Here, as

in the

garage

on the rue Ponthieu he built in 1905 (plate 317), the faade of

which was treated as a framed and braced surface, the skeleton
membrane-structure of Art Nouveau buildings

is

already divested

asymmetry, curves, and organic associations. The chief examples of French Art Nouveau architecture around 1 900 are these

of

all

two

buildings, masterpieces of Perret's style

which already belong

much

chronologically (since

to late Art Nouveau, although not so

1914 were still building in the

undulating organic style) but rather because Perret's style belongs

Gaudi

in

1910 and Van de Velde

in

clearly to the rigorous geometric late phase of

Art Nouveau,

like

Mackintosh's west wing of the Glasgow School of Art of 1907-09

and Hoffmann's Brussels Palais Stoclet of 1905-11 (plate

257). Among these architects, Perret closely approaches the modern
way of constructing in reinforced concrete and it is he too who
comes closest to our own more truly modern architecture of recent
(plate 341)

decades. But the ornamental details of the building

new

still

separate

which found such a forceful expression only a few years later in Walter Gropius' Fagus Factory in
Alfeld. The faade on the rue Ponthieu is conceived by Perret as a
geometric ornamental surface with a real central ornament domi-

Perret from the

architecture

which were printed in the Paris Gazette du Bon Ton. Even

Edward Steichen's photographs reveal how greatly the continuous
flow of lines, the totally enclosed contour, the homogeneous twodimensional body, and the refusal to concentrate on any minor
Poiret,

France

even these fields of fashion and applied art. These

clothes, fashion illustrations, and photographs belong to the style
with Poiret's gowns seeming to be the only
of Gaudi's Casa Mil
detail affected

clothes stylistically suitable for the inhabitants of Gaudi's later

buildings.

In this style that remains grand even in

culminating phase of Art

which

Nouveau

lives

its

simplified form, the

on so that

in the creations

works of decorative and applied

the innermost quality of the uninterrupted form is embodied.
art
Photographic portraits of around 1900, especially those of the actress Rjane or of Liane de Pougy, a leading cocotte (both of them
authentic representatives of the latest in fashion), show that dresses
of fashion

are likewise

were then composed of numerous small pieces panels, appliqu,

and beadwork. In reality, their figures were still far from being
those of the simplified sweeping outlines which Lautrec and Bonnard produced on screens, posters, and canvas. Proust was thinking

of this lack of homogeneity in fashion when he wrote about Odette

as she appeared in the nineties: "... while as for her figure, and she

was admirably

built,

it

was impossible

to

make out

its

continuity

(on account of the fashion then prevailing, and in spite of her being

one of the best-dressed women in Paris), for the corset, jetting forwards in an arch, as though over an imaginary stomach, and ending
in a sharp point, beneath which bulged out the balloon of her double

170

171

VI

HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC May

Milton (1895

skirts,

gave a woman, that year, the appearance of being composed

London

of different sections badly fitted together; to such an extent did the

frills,

flounces, the inner bodice follow, in complete independence,

controlled only by the fancy of their designer or the rigidity of

their material, the line

which

lace, fringes of vertically

of

bust, but

led

them

hanging

to the knots of ribbon, falls

jet,

nowhere attached themselves

or carried

them along the

to the living creature

."

Only

after 1900 did Odette appear in the long flowing robes which
were not taken in at the Waist. This proves, in fact, that short-lived
fashion often lags far behind art in matters of style.

The love of the heterogenous and of interrupted forms which

English Art

Nouveau

of the last decade of the nineteenth century

bears the characteristics of the traditional English gentleman, sug-

and equanimity, and addicted

gesting great reserve

to understate-

ment. Exaggerated proportions were accepted almost as a matter

of course and even the sensational and lascivious element in Beardsley's

drawings, since

it

was expressed

in

symbols, never overstepped

the limits of decency. In the tranquillity of London's Art

more

delicate melodies

became audible

too,

Nouveau,

and the coolness of

this

style never excluded recourse to a strongly manneristic imagination.

belong to historicism lives on in the photographic portraits of 1900.

Urban functionalism and

Not before Edward

lowed enough scope for Romanticism which went far beyond mere
illustration, though the "soul" of which this Romanticism is by no
means deprived was never deliberately exposed. Even the typical

be qualified as Art

Steichen (born in 1 879) does one see what might

Nouveau photography. The Viennese periodical

Ver Sacrum sometimes reproduced photographs taken by the Viennese

Camera Club, which remind one of Steichen's

their quality
still

is

not quite as remarkable as his

style

even though

own work. But

it

was

almost impossible for photography to achieve linearity and,

above

all,

the sharp contours which correspond to Art Nouveau's

tendency to shun the real aspect of objects and people. The trans-

body
medium which can only

seemed rather frightening

in

England. 175

London Art Nouveau owed

its

reserve to the long years of prep-

aration supplied by the aesthetes and to the continuity of a nat-

development

ural

thing had

in

which for more than half a century everyits own roots or sprung from affinities with

grown from

capture actual appearances, whether plastic or spatial. Photography

an appropriate

by drawing details together and abolishing the roundness of bodies, in other words deforming by means
of light and shadow, a pictorial process which in reality was alien
to Art Nouveau. The two-dimensional was thus achieved with a
device originally intended to produce the opposite effect, Leonardo
da Vinci's sfumato.
Steichen's famous 1902 portrait of Rodin (plate 173) illustrates
most strikingly the way in which the human figure and its environment were disembodied and immersed in a spectral and nebulous
atmosphere. This photograph is symbolical and neo-Romantic as
well as neo-Manneristic. Reduced to a mere silhouette, the sculptor

the beginnings of the style remained for a

is

approach

this ideal

seated like a demiurge opposite his Thinker. Rodin's Victor

emerges from the darkness

like a flame, as if materialized

ualism. The confrontation of the sculptor

ed

in a

way unknown

to nature

and

his creations

and takes place

in

Hugo

by

spirit-

is

effect-

some imaginary

two-dimensional space. The flowing outlines, the closed forms, the

flaring, ghost-like substance, the contrasts and the interplay of light
and shadows characteristic of Art Nouveau, are achieved here in
the media of photography and for the purposes of photography.

al-

Nouveau remained a mere suggestion of what had

been developed and made more apparent on the Continent but still

position of the three-dimensional into the two-dimensional

tried to

still

element of Art

can only be achieved conditionally

in this

the comfort of country houses

style; as in this case,

Japanese

art.

much

On

the Continent,

longer period, sup-

pressed by the overpowering influence of historicism. The latter's

ideal of

form

the open

form, picturesque effects,

cumstance in complicated plastic forms

Continental Art

Nouveau

and, above

result of this lengthy delay was that

appeared on the Continent,

it

therefore

all, its

pomp and

cir-

contaminated

French version. The

when Art Nouveau

finally

blossomed suddenly with a decided

tendency toward exaggeration. London's traditional wealth of

trends which prepared the way for Art Nouveau not only allowed
a reserved attitude to

it

but also, in the nineties,

modify and discard many of

reached the second decade of

its

its

made

it

possible to

elements. England had by then

own High Art Nouveau,

the

first,

during the eighties, having been characterized by the works of

Mackmurdo, by Sumner's Undine and the fiery visions of Ricketts.
Thus, the flickering movement of Mackmurdo's works (plate 85)
has almost vanished from the more tranquil forms of his pupil
Voysey (colorplate VII); and even Charles Ricketts withdrew more

and more into a world of almost classically serene forms, while

Beardsley soon discarded Art Nouveau lettering in order to use
antique type face. Nothing could be more remote from English High
Art Nouveau than the fashionable elegance of Guimard's Mtro

172

toward the

rectilinear, frequently

adopting the bare and box-like

forms of a style which

in Vienna and Glasgow later crystallized as

Art Nouveau, but which was inherent to London from the very
first. Curves remained within the confines of two dimensions, and,
late

when they appear in the round,

remain limited either to small objects (mostly silverware) or to
except for Gilbert's sculptures,

architectural details. Obviously, English

in the last

Art Nouveau

still

existed

decade of the nineteenth century and continued for some

when it achieved a full-blown quality all its own.

At most, one could ask if it was still High Art Nouveau according
years after 1900,

to Continental standards

but could Beardsley's art be considered

anything but an example of

anywhere but

EDWARD GORDON CRAIG

thal's

Illustration for

in the

this,

London of

and could

it

have been possible

the mid-nineties?

Hugo von Hofmanns-

"Der weisse Fcher" (1907)

Aubrey Beardsley
entrance gates (in spite of the roguish joy that Wilde would have

derived from them); nor could anything be more alien to

and

the convulsive fits

starts of

light of

Merlin's magic

a touch of snleen,

English
of

a.

It

i-^rt

Nouveau basks

an imaginary Elysium,

wand and

its life

seems arrested by

lethal

and

ghost-like, the creations of

reveal both a solid efficiency

and bear

signs

long and uninterrupted cultural tradition.

is

"Some flaws, if skillfully set by the jeweler, can shine even more brightly
gem of virtue."
La Rochefoucauld, Rflexions ou Sentences et Maximes morales

than the

in the delicate air

frozen into immobility and silence. With

somewhat

Nouveau

than

Van Gogh's painting or of Munch's

wild Expressionism. English Art

and pale

it

not surprising that after

Mackmurdo

there

was no

longer,

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-98) 176 deliberately chose to be

the buffoon and harlequin of his age. He knew he was destined
to die of consumption and hankered after immediate success. In his
art as in his life, he masked his efforts and hard work behind the
pose of the dandy, seeking and achieving success through scandal.

Up

to his death at the age of twenty-six, he

with the exception of Beardsley, any real representative of London

igy, first in the field of

Art Nouveau.

ner's sensual art

by Art Nouveau, one understands nothing but

Horta's curved iron structures and glass roofs, Gaudi's highly plastic architecture, and the muscular dynamism of Van de Velde's
furniture, the above statement is indeed justified. These spatial
developments of Continental Art Nouveau were almost entirely
unknown in England, where there was no trace of the Rococo
elements which influenced the Continental style while also exposing
it to the risk of contamination from historicism. But the creations
of Gaudi, Horta, and Van de Velde remained styles that were both
personal and nationally conditioned, expressing the utmost exaggeration of its possibilities (despite the fact that the two latter-

named

artists

If,

served to impart a character to the style, the influ-

which traveled far beyond the borders of their native

Belgium). However, none of the three above-mentioned men can
ences of

be accused of imposing universal or binding criteria.

Indubitably, even mature

features of

173

its

London Art Nouveau retained the

and spatial forms kept tending

early phases: bodies

in the fields of

music

remained a child prod-

the sad music of Chopin and Wag-

belonged to the few things he took seriously

then

both draftsmanship and literature.

Beardsley was born in Brighton and the bizarre character of the

Brighton Pavilion

may have

influenced his conception of art

his life. In London, where for a while he worked as a

draftsman in an architect's office, he soon entered the circle of

throughout

which (from Rossetti and his followers onward) almost

well-known artists of English Art Nouveau found themselves united. Aymer Vallance, the biographer of William Morris,
was one of Beardsley's first friends. The aging Morris himself had
little to say to him and was soon annoyed by the frivolity of the
designs that Beardsley made for Malory's Morte d'Arthur. But
from Sir Edward and Lady Georgiana Burne- Jones Beardsley met
with much kindness and encouragement; it was in their house, too,
that he became acquainted with the Wildes. Later, it was Whistler
at first somewhat distant because he may have felt parodied
(page 73)
who found words of appreciation that brought tears to
friends in
all

the

Beardsley's eyes.

On

the whole, Beardsley belonged to the group of

dandies who, like Whistler and Wilde, kept in close contact with

John Gray and Ernest Dowson were also

of this group, as well as the painter Charles Conder, 177 who painted
silk coverings for fans, screens, and the walls of complete boudoirs
for Bing. As "un jeune Anglais qui fait des choses tonnantes"
Beardsley, who as yet had little to show, was praised in Paris as
Paris; the Symbolist poets

early as
less

892 even by the President of the Salon des Beaux Arts

man

than Puvis de Chavannes.

178

It

he was later also admired by Lautrec, to

Book of

no

seems more natural that

whom

Beardsley sent a

whose studio he tried

the effects of hashish. It is scarcely surprising that one whose art
was so much involved with "black magic" should have had a human
skeleton seated beside him when he played the piano. Nature,
natural behavior, or anything like the "simple life" were notions as
copy of

his

Fifty

Drawings and

alien to Beardsley as to Wilde.

On

in

the other hand, he never missed

were done on a large scale with a view to their subsequent reduction, which conferred on them the appearance of etchings, and were
also of great technical perfection. Apart from a number of ornamental designs (page 205, right) and a few posters (plate 1 80), Beardsley
chiefly produced illustrative works. Stimulated

by Ricketts, he
moreover designed bookbindings which may be counted among
the most beautiful of his time in the whole field of book decoration
in general (plates 84, 184).

The highly ornamental character of Beardsley's work

only to the network of fantastic ornament woven around

above

but,

picture

all,

itself.

to the

ornamental structure which he

coldly precise nerve fibers; forms in hectic motion that, despite

their unrest,

that resents anything disturbing their outline. Intellectual art of

kind expresses neither warmth nor sentiment and

with elegance and an infernal and disturbing grace.

this,

there soon appeared a sensitive outline, a sharp

istic

stroke of penmanship, the tautness of the outer

tours of

Greek vase painting of the age of Douris

and characterand inner con-

as well as the very

all

appear rigid and immovable, with Baudelairean beauty

this

Burne-Jones and Morris, Japan and Whistler's particular "Japan-

his figures

stresses in the

Beardsley lays bare the ornamental elements of actual

artificial

ism" provided the foundations of Beardsley's work. In addition to

due not

representation: asymmetrical ornaments that seem to consist of

a "Wagner night" at Covent Garden and, for the

rest, lived in an
world of the ballet and fashionable drawing rooms, of
gambling casinos and hotel lounges.

is

is

endowed

Beardsley allows himself such liberties with his texts that these

sometimes lead to parody and anachronisms. In the frontispiece of

Salome, he imparts Oscar Wilde's features to the

moon, and he

woman

in the

dresses his Semitic princess of the first century b.c.

either in Japanese

kimonos (page 74) or

dresses of Parisian haute couture of his

in the

own

low-cut evening

era. In a

compartment

expressive silhouettes of Toulouse-Lautrec. These heterogeneous ele-

of Salome's dressing-table, an Anglo-Japanese piece of furniture in

ments are very soon transformed by Beardsley into something entirely individual and new, filled with an explosive force and an

(page 75), Beardsley places books on which

can be seen the names of the Marquis de Sade, Choderlos de Laclos,

expression of unerring artistic taste. Indeed, the character of Beards-

and Zola; whereas Wilde had conceived his "dream-princess" as

"romantic and mystical" and hinted at a court which, however

ley's art

was

so strong that he

was

later able to absorb fully the

Rococo (in his illustrations for Pope's Rape of

Claude Lorrain (in the bindings for The Savoy), and

the style of

Godwin

influences of French

fantastic, suggested that of the Tetrarch in Jerusalem, suiting his

the Lock),

poetic diction to the metaphoric

Mantegna and
submerged

his

Ben
none of these very powerful influences

the Italian Renaissance (in the initial letters for

Johnson's Volpone)

own

yet

and a few
was confined
to pure black-and-white drawings. No preliminary sketches were
ever made: all changes were made with pencil on the same sheet,
and were erased once the final version had been decided and drawn
single oil painting (plate 182)

colored drawings (colorplate

in

II),

Beardsley's output

with India ink. Produced after endless endeavor, feverish aban-

don, and unlimited self-infatuation, these creations were almost

means of the
demands of which were

exclusively conceived for mechanical reproduction by

then

new method of

fully

met by the

allegoric style of the

Song of

Songs.

Author and

illustrator, in spite of all such individual differences

of intellectual approach, agree in the exalted, hysterical, highly

style.

With the exception of a

and

line engraving, the

linear character of Beardsley's

work. His drawings

strung atmosphere and in the sophisticated abundance of metaphors

and

details:

pale.

She

is

"How
like the

pale the Princess

is!

shadow of a white

Never have

seen her so

rose in a mirror of silver."

In the decorative splendor of the green and gold peacock-feather

binding for Salome (plate 184), Beardsley has summarized the

cli-

mate of the whole tragedy: a luxuriance that pervades everything,

a vegetative and abstract world of forms in which disaster lurks

and

fascinates us hypnotically out of sightless eyes.

design of this

kind can be understood as a visual parallel to Wilde's poetic metaphors, for instance that of "scarlet sin."

174

76

HARRY

J.

TOW

(?)

1.

Wineglass

(circa 1899)

177

CHARLLS ROBERT ASHBEE

and spoon

Sugar bou-l and creamer

i-S

English

179

CHARLES KNOX

76

Mustard pot

(circa 1900)
(circa 1900)

Jewel box (circa 1900)

177

178

179

175

i8o

So

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

Poster for a booh publisher

(detail) (circa 1895)

182
1

S3

CHARLES ROBERT ASHBEE

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

GEORGE WALTON

Pendant 'una

9 cc)

Caprice (1894)

Andiron

(detail) (1K96)

176

it

8 2

183

A'

iS 4

AUBREY BEARDS]
Celtic

Detail of

.1

Binding for

"

Salome* (1894)

mirror Irani Dcsboroiigh (second century

B.c.)

184

178

iS6

BEGGARS TA! HROTHKRS (WILLIAM NICHOLSON and JAMES PRIDE) Poster for "Don Quixote"

DON

95)

187

THOMAS JAMES COBDEN-SANDERSON

Binding for "Utopia" (1893)

SS

CHARI

IS

IIIXOTE

RANCIS ANNESLEY VOYSI.V

Woven Decorative
1S9

"

Fabric (1899)

CHARLES FRANCIS ANNESLEY VOYSEY

Printed Decorative Fabric (1899)

86

188

189

mi

<!

Irl

'Zsfm

h\J

rv
/"""\.

179

'

Iv

'.

H/

w ^r

>2&
~

191

190

192

ALFRED GILBERT
in Piccadilly Circus,

tain"

91

Detail of the Sbaflcsbttry Memorial Fountain

London

(generally

known

as the "Eros

foun-

(1887-93)

VICTOR HORTA

Detail of the faade of the Maison du Peuple,

Brussels (1896-99)

WILLIAM REYNOLDS-STEPHENS
0) St.

Mary the Virgin, Great

Detail of the choir screen

W'arley, Essex,

England (1904)

i93

181

WILLIAM REYNOLDS-STEPHENS
St.

Mary

the Virgin, Great Warley, Essex,

Detail

of

the

England (1904)

interior

o)

194

CHARLES ROBERT ASHB1

j8 Cbeyne Walk, London (1903)

PO
/

H
Hftii

^^BK

182

Nouveau. His line is strongly

suggestive of concrete subject matter but at the same time never
allows us to forget its abstract geometry. If Beardsley relies on
outline, he also uses its complement: the homogeneous two-dimensional body. With his lines he creates hard contours that may seem
splintered or widely free in their diverging curves. He was fully
Beardsley

is

a master of linear Art

conscious of the significance of his line as early as 1891,

stated that the artists of his

importance of the contour.

own day understood

He

felt that the strength

masters lay in their use of outlines and

the

modern

artist's

very

weakness was

of the

of the old

linear relationship,

his reliance

when he

little

sometimes inserted as architectonic elements, or as a stable counterpoise to his unstable curves, were actually
lines,

drawn with a

ruler.

with sharply defined

patches filled in with black, and with playful alternations of black

and white

spaces, a

method

that he

borrowed from Whistler.

himself to an exclusively two-dimensional art that remains obliv-

and gravity, of nature and anatomy, of sculptural

effects, and of light and shadow. It is a world of the surface, of a
surface that appears ironically immaculate but does not lack depth.
On the contrary, magically saturated with mystery and danger, it
reveals that it springs from subconscious regions lying below our
daylight awareness. If Beardsley lived in rooms decorated with
black wallpaper and black furniture, and worked even by day with
drawn curtains and lighted candles, this was not only because he
hated what was normal and therefore shut himself off from the
ious of space

He

also insisted

on

this artificial night

because

it

stim-

ulated the instincts for the research on which psychoanalysis

later

founded. Julius Meier-Graefe, the

German

discoverer of

was

many

a genius of his generation, describes his visit to Beardsley as follows:

"Beardsley

owned

the most beautiful Japanese woodcuts one could

London, all of them of the most detailed eroticism. They were

hanging in simple frames on delicately shaded wallpaper all of
see in

them indecent, the wildest visions of Utamaro. Seen from a distance, however, they appeared very dainty, clear, and harmless." 180
Beardsley was also stimulated by the designs on Attic vases in the
British

183

page for "The Forty Thieves"

(n. d.)

world literature. But it is more important that, by nature,

"he had an intuitive knowledge of evil and secret things that

erotica of

reached back beyond the

memory of a

Museum, and he was an outstanding connoisseur of

the

single generation.

frightening people with this knowledge"

181

He enjoyed

and, like Baudelaire,

what might disgust us

The same might also be

"cultivated the magic skill of transforming

into something fascinatingly beautiful." 182

work, the romantic short narrative,

which transposes the legend of Venus and Tannhuser, made famous by Wagner's music, into an erotic grotesque.
said of Beardsley's only written

Under

the Hill,

Certain passages of this prose

Beardsley was content to rely on a minium of means and limited

light of day.

Title

on color harmonies

and relationships rather than linear harmonies and relationships. 179

Blake had already demanded concise and determined lines: "the
more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect
the work of art." As everywhere in Art Nouveau, Beardsley too
was opposed to pictorial Impressionist art. His lines have the sharpness of a draftsman's blueprints, and the straight lines which he

Moreover, he worked with dotted

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

and that

poem make

us think of an excerpt

from Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexnalis, which belongs to the

same age, and which Beardsley might well have disguised here as
an elegant fairy

tale.

More than 300 illustrations, marginal drawings, and initial letters

Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur (pages 7, 30, and 205, right)

for

kept Beardsley busy in 1891 and 1892, and constitute his

first

important work. His Pre-Raphaelitic style immediately had a slight

quality of caricature and, with the addition of Japanese elements

due to the obvious influence of Burne-Jones, became increasingly a

From

some designs by William Morris, Beardsley extracted the Art Nouveau element which
in his hands assumed the highly decorative qualities of Art Nouveau. When, in 1893, the publishers of The Studio wished their
first number to create a sensation, they introduced Beardsley to
their readers; from that time he never stopped being the target of
the press in London, New York, and Chicago, and he soon became
parodistic style.

the borders that frame

Wilde's rival as the cynosure of the

critics.

In 1894, Beardsley

achieved his peak in Salome. Nothing of the kind had ever yet been
seen

and

by the mystical quality of

attention on the anatomical

his irritated critics, disturbed

Beardsley's genius, concentrated their

weaknesses and the obviously perverse features of the illustrations

in

order to condemn him as a leader

in the

djcadent movement

in

art

and

literature. In April, 1894, the first issue of

TI-jc

Yellow Book

filled this new quarterly's bound issues mainly

own drawings and provided shocking cover designs for its

appeared; Beardsley

with

his

various issues.

When, on April

1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested,

5,

Arnold Schonberg's Pierrot Lunaire, in the manner

it was performed (the reciting lady standing before a Japanese
screen), but most of all in its very music, we hear an echo of the
as the text for

hysterical Beardsley atmosphere.

In Russia, extensive Beardsley

Beardsley 's activities on The Yellow Book came to an end, and his

monographs were published, and

drawings were withdrawn from the press a few days before the

in

appearance of the new

and even the masks of the actors being

to

issue.

Wilde's

(which Ricketts declared

trial

have done irreparable harm to English

art)

not only provoked

a migration from London's fashionable districts to the French coast,

but also acted as a warning: the limits of what the

and the

critics

public could accept as a provocation had been reached.

It

almost

marked

the end of hedonistic aestheticism, the manneristic, symand romantic component of Art Nouveau. But, after Wilde
had served as a scapegoat and indignation had died down, his plays
continued to be performed before full houses with the suppression
of the author's name. A new Beardsley periodical then appeared,
more brilliant than ever; The Savoy, started in 1896, died with
Beardsley in 1898. The very title of this voluminous artistic and
bolistic,

literary periodical suggested the

play was staged

entirely in the Beardsley manner, the sets, costumes,

in

Beardsley's black and

white.

Apart from Lautrec, Paris

showed little interest in

shown at the World's
a particular domain of the final

at

first

Beardsley, whose drawings were nevertheless

was only in
phase of Art Nouveau, and subsequently in the styles of the
couturier Paul Poiret and the sophisticated designers around him,
as well as in the Gazette du Bon Ton (1915-26), that Beardsley
Fair of 1900. But

it

found many Parisian followers.

Charles Ricketts

Savoy Hotel, which was already

synonymous with metropolitan elegance. In 1897, Beardsley still

turned out a few wonderful drawings, in a new style reminiscent of
aquatints, the most beautiful of which was a bookplate for Olive
Custance, the wife of Lord Alfred Douglas, which Beardsley
created just before he died on the French Riviera. In the last of

which one can

Moscow

as late as 19 14 a

human

being die," 183 he begged

The

art of Charles Ricketts (1 866-1 93 3) 186 reveals the

same

re-

finement and reserve, the same disconcertingly manneristic charm,

though the form and the

mood may

from Beardsley's. In
1889, the periodical The Dial appeared, bringing him to the attention of the public. It was mainly decorated and illustrated by him
differ

other lascivious drawings, a desire which was fortunately never

(pages 112 and 147), and also published some of his fairy tales.
The illustrations, endpapers, and binding for Wilde's A House of
Pomegranates followed in 1891. Later, Ricketts also turned toward

fulfilled.

antique themes, such as

his letters "in

see a

his publishers to destroy his illustrations for Lysistrata

"His influence was far-reaching:

it

and

all

of his

spread from the art of book

and even to the style of living." 184 It extended from Will Bradley in Chicago (page 229), who left a lasting
mark in the field of American books and posters, to Lon Bakst in
St. Petersburg. In Germany, Marcus Behmer, Franc von Bayros,
and Alastair gratefully acknowledged Bcardsley's stimulus. Without
him, Thomas Theodor Heine's style would not be imaginable, any
more than the styles of Otto Eckmann or Heinrich Vogelcr-Worpsillustration to literature

wede, and

it

has been proved that even Paul Klee was initially

influenced by Beardsley. lM In Glasgow,

donald

sisters

Maduntosh and

were known to be Bcardsley's followers.

the
It

Macis

less

easy to obtain evidence of the deep impression he made in Vienna,

though Fritz Wrndorfer (whose famous music room was decorated by Mackintosh, and who owned sculptures by Minne) assem-

Hero and Leander, Amor and Psyche:

Nimphidia and the Muses' Elizium was set in an Arcadian and
idyllic world. Rossetti was a powerful example to Ricketts, but

and Japan itself acted on

him as stimuli as they also had acted on Beardsley. Like Beardsley, Ricketts learned much from the Greek vase painters, as had
Walter Crane before them (this is especially evident in Crane's
Echoes of Hellas and even in Baby's Own Aesop).

Burne- Jones, Whistler's Japanese

Among

style,

other things, Ricketts decorated most of Wilde's books.

The binding for

A House

of Pomegranates (plate 10) of 1891 com-

bines a fairy-tale atmosphere with great elegance

and a rare quality

of form. With the linear symmetry of a carpet design, the strange

boughs of the pomegranate

tree reach out into the corners of the

binding. The crocus blossoms appear in uniform rows like a repeated

wallpaper pattern, yet with interesting variations

in their

orna-

bled a great

mental arrangement. The themes of the peacock and the fountain

translated

help to establish a balance between abstraction and illustration. But

number of Beardsley's drawings and autographs and

some of his letters into German. In the poems that served

184

CHARLES RICKETTS
and

Title

page for Michael Drayton's "Nimphidia

the Muses' Elizinm" (1896)

the images, intentionally transposed as symbols, oblige one to pro-

ceed from optical contemplation to the deciphering

of the signs. This

was what Wilde's critics were unable to do; they were scandalized
by this bookbinding design in which they could find no sense, or
could see at best a tophat turned upside down. 187
The

style of the lettering follows that of

(who had

also

borrowed from Blake);

itated irregularity, these characters

creatures. Quite in the sense of

letters,

Blake or of Rossetti

in their curves

seem to be

and premed-

little

ornamental

Blake and with great imagination,

image, and ornament are alternatively assimilated to each

other in a

manner

that served as a criterion both for Blake's

decorations and for Art Nouveau. In 1889, Wilde

was

still

book
com-

"At present, there is a discord between our pictorial

and our unpictorial type. The former are too essentially imitative in character and often disturb the page instead of
decorating it." 188 Wilde's House of Pomegranates was the first book
that Ricketts decorated. Owing to the cover and the endpapers, the
illustrations, the asymmetrical construction of the page in Whistler's style, and, last but not least, the harmony of design and text,
Ricketts created a book that may be considered as one of the most
outstanding in this field of Art Nouveau.

CHARLES RICKETTS

page for Christopher Marlowe's and

George Chapman's "Hero and Leander" (1894)
Title

Under

a kind of symbolical disguise.

(page 271), the "wheel of the flame of

up

to the figure of

verse. Fishes

and

man who

birds, bees

and frogs

all

its

up

flames leap

into the uni-

inhabit the boughs of the

But what most surprises us is perhaps a landscape represented in The Sphinx (page 186, right), a poem by Wilde for
which Ricketts designed a decorated book. Cliffs formed of jagged
and sharp-edged stone slabs surround a circular lake with a flat
island in

its

center.

On

the island, there are three trees in which

vague reminiscences of nature are crystallized into ornaments and

symbols. Apart from a total renunciation of

all

natural objects and

forms, one could scarcely imagine anything more remote from

was

nature. Later,

ated by a Cretan artist of the

185

whirls as

tree of life.

illustrations

from Beardsley by using landscape

elements and forms borrowed from nature which, it is true, appear
as ideas conceived by Darwin or Bergson and presented here in

life"

ecstatically reaches

plaining:

Ricketts distinguishes himself

Ygdrasil, the universal tree

it

said that this

unknown in 1893.
Laurence Housman (page 186,

zation was

book might well have been decorperiod, though this civili-

Minoan

still

were both endowed with dual

left)

and Thomas Sturge-Moore

and poets or

gifts, as illustrators

writers. Like the designs of Ricketts or Beardsley, their

were conceived
began more or

as applied or decorative

less

from the same

book

art.

drawings

They likewise

starting point, the Pre-Raphaeli-

tism of Rossetti and Burne-Jones and Whistler's Japanese style;

and of course they both knew Blake. The expression of the personality of each artist varied within the limits of this synthesis, but

they both preferred to turn

away from everyday

life

and

live in a

wY W

"

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works exclusively with compact, bare, cubic blocks and their negative complement, the cubic hollow, clearly belong to late Art Nou-

veau. In their geometrical abstraction, they surpass the creations of

'to

Glasgow and Vienna.

1
!

THE END OF

(ELFINTOWN
/

Charles Annesley Voysey

SfS

BY

JANE BARLOW
ILLUSTRATED BV

bKt^h

LAURENCE HOUSMAN

Nouveau
High Art Nouveau.

In English architecture, examples of extreme late Art

~?^^<i^i

are as rare as buildings in the curved style of

LONDOV

Voysey and Ashbee developed the Arts and

Crafts architecture of Philip Webb (plate 58) and Norman Shaw
Instead, architects like

MACMILLAN u CO
i8 9+

(plate 298) in

more modern

terms. "Webb

and Shaw diverged from

the styles of true historicism in that their houses followed the

LAURENCE HOUSMAN

Title

page for Jane Barlow's

'

The

End

tradition of their native land

Greek temples, or Gothic town

Elfintown" (1894)

fairy-tale world,

But

which did not preclude elegance in their work.

this spectral, weightless

decadent, with

its

and did not imitate

idyllic

world of

fable, iridescent

and

Italian palaces,

of

slightly

CHARLES RICKETTS

halls. Besides,

Illustration for

they adapted tradi-

Oscar Wilde's "The Sphinx'

(1894)

groves filled with amorous nymphs,

muses, oreads, undines, and sylphs, youth-like maidens or maidenlike youths, this

dream world of the Sphinx, of Salome, of Nar-

cissus,

of peacocks and

ficiel,

irrevocably began to fade and wither after Wilde's

Toward

lilies, all

these creatures of a paradis arti-

the turn of the century, English posters and illustrated

books thus became more

realistic,

more

life,

even Queen Victoria, take the place of disconcerting

creatures born of the imagination;

true

and reasonably
newspaper vendors,

"adult,"

normal. Figures from contemporary daily

soldiers,

trials.

women,

all is

again as

it

men

are true men,

women

are

should be.

The Beggarstaff Brothers, a working community founded by

(1 869-1949) and James Pryde (1 872-1949),
distinguished itself in the domain of the poster (plate 186), and
Edward Gordon Craig, 189 who later reformed stage design, in that
of the original woodcut (page 173). Line engraving is momentarily
discarded, the linear style of Beardsley and Ricketts is abandoned
in favor of two-dimensional bodies, broader and more "plastic" as
the outlines assume volume. French influences of Lautrec and Vallotton (the Beggarstaffs had studied in Paris) are visible now
that figurative invention is no longer conceived from the start in a
two-dimensional plane but begins from the optic appearance of
reality, with foreshortenings, plasticity of the forms, and effects
of light and shade. Craig's subsequent stage designs, in which he
William Nicholson

186

VII CHARLES ANNESLEY

VOYSEY Wallpaper, "Tulip

and Bird" (1896)

tional.

forms to new needs and

possibilities,

Charles AnnesleyVoysey(i857-i94i) 190 was influenced by Mack-

which led them to a

moderate purism and an almost geometrical expression of form.

murdo,

Voysey and Ashbee followed them

which they simpli-

In his furniture, rooms, and houses, he borrows the forms of the

fied until they found a basic form, thus achieving a distillate, the
few and constant elements of which they used creatively in new
combinations. The thread of tradition wore thin without altogether

older master, enriching the habitual box-like furniture of the Arts

in this trend,

breaking; but this did not allow them the freedom of originality

which Mackintosh attained though he proceeded from the same

starting point.

In their almost affected

ries,

purism and

in their lack of all accesso-

Voysey 's and Ashbee's buildings scarcely

purist examples of late or final

Art Nouveau,

fall

short of the

as exemplified

Mackintosh, Hoffmann, Perret, and Loos. In addition,

we have

by
in

as

is

obvious

in his surfaces, his fabrics,

and

his wallpapers.

and Crafts by using Mackmurdo's shaft-like supports (plate 319).

However, for Voysey as an architect, Japanese influences were
perhaps even more important, though they are scarcely recognizable as such in his work. One of his most interesting works, the
tower-like house in Bedford Park that he finished in 1891, is an
exception (page 188). The light roof with its low gradient, the concave curved roofing of the

oriels, the thin

metal supports that seem

to raise the roof over the body of the building, the unusually small

windows, and the one

stressed bull's-eye

window

are not outright

Voysey and Ashbee a typically English conception of structure.

The contrast between supports and beams, the plastic values of the
building, the volume of a wall, these they scarcely stress; for that

Japanese forms; but the graphic, abstractly ornamental, and asym-

matter, English architects in general tend similarly to conceive a

the frieze-like disposition of various groups of

metrical character of the surfaces, the contrast in black and white

between the apertures and the whitewashed walls, not

to

mention

windows under

building in terms of thin upright surfaces which are created solely

thin horizontal ledges, all clearly reveal the relationship to Japanese

by the proportions and the somewhat graphic lineaments of the

windows.

architecture, easily recalling Japanese teahouses

187

house of

this

kind

is

and small temples.

High Art

of course not quite as typical of

CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY

Elevations for a house

Bedford

Park near London (1888-91)

X TV
/
au .*,
Nouveau

as Horta's

portions,

its

stressed

and Gaudi's works. But

asymmetry,

its

its

exaggerated pro-

oppositions between the posi-

Art Nouveau. This can be seen

plated (plate 181), and above

in his silver jewelry, often goldall

in his silverware, in

which he

tive forms of the wall surface and the negative forms of the
windows, as well as between the concave and convex curves of the

follows England's famous century-old tradition. This same tradi-

some relationship to
Art Nouveau, so that one may consider this house and Voysey's
similar but lower and longer country houses (plate 299) as a sort of
particular national achievement which is related to Art Nouveau as
Chippendale furniture is related to Rococo.

Liberty jewel box (plate 179) has slightly bulging curved surfaces
but still retains the form of a rectangular box, with its planes set at

Both within and without his houses, Voysey discards ornamental

detail. His only decorative effects are produced by the essential

outlines of the surface bands

elements of the rooms; while their functionality

stressed, their

leading architect and designer; he was also the only artist (apart

proportions are eccentric. The fireplace in the hall of the house

from Burne- Jones, Morris, and Crane) to be mentioned by name

when English style was discussed on the Continent in a more than
general way. Though less known, Ashbee is to be counted among the
most important English architects of his period. His art also derived quite naturally from that of Webb and Norman Shaw, but he
remains the architect who was best able to transpose most consis-

brackets supporting the oriel roof, all suggest

called The

hearth

is

Orchard (plate 318)

is

is

purposely heightened, but the

disproportionately small; the door next to

it

seems unusu-

and the hinges and doorknob are placed on its outer edges;
which reaches right up to the ceiling suggests a well, a
motif that was later often adopted, particularly in Vienna and
Glasgow. However cozy and founded on respect for tradition
and culture such rooms may seem, their asymmetry, their accenally low,

the staircase

tuated bareness and luminosity, nevertheless strike a slightly ex-

travagant or disturbing note.

This particular feature
chair (plate 319),

which

is

is

also to be seen in Voysey's

box-shaped

painted white, like nursery furniture. In

from the Arts and Crafts movement ("poor people's furniture for the rich," it has been called) and
of the revealed structure, we can, at the same time, detect here a
touch of fashionable elegance and almost irritating attractiveness,
especially where the curved edges of the sides behind the supports
swing in and out. As in Voysey's architecture, functional and strucspite of all the restraint inherited

tural considerations are expressed both as design

and decoration.

In his metal vessels, Voysey comes closer to Continental Art

Nouveau, even more than in his designs for textiles. As early as
1883, he began working on this kind of design under the supervision of his master, Mackmurdo. His designs for fabrics and wall-

tion

was

also followed

by

his

right angles to one another

contemporary, Charles Knox, whose

and

entwined ornamentation of the

Celtic interlacings,

During the

last

is

sharp edges. The intricate,

its

sides

and the

clasp, reminiscent of

not truly plastic but has

and

its

origins in the

lines.

decade of the century, Voysey was London's

tently England's traditional country house style into a style suited

to London's multiple dwellings.

Like Voysey's houses, and related to them

in

form, Ashbee's

London house in Cheyne Walk, dated 1903 (plate 194), substitutes

mannerism and artificial shapes for movement and swinging lines.
The narrowness of the faade (which may have been imposed by the
proportions of the ground plan) was consciously stressed, especially in the exaggeratedly pointed gable which contains a wheelshaped window

in

somewhat

asymmetrically at different

Classic style

levels, as

and

is

terminated

well as in the overlong win-

dows, the upper row of which seems to hang from the cornice,

in the

relationship of the floors to one another, in the division of the

faade into a light color above and dark below. All

this

is

original,

and composed with great feeling. In spite of obvious affinities with Voysey's house in Bedford Park and with Norman Shaw's
Old Swan House (plate 298) which cannot be overlooked, Ashbee's
work can never be mistaken for that of any other architect.
strange,

papers (plates 98, 102, 188, 189, colorplate VII) are all so fresh,
with their flowers, birds, and shrubs suggesting spring, that they
survived Art

Nouveau and remained popular

for several decades.

Charles Harrison Townsend

Charles Harrison Townsend (1852-1928) 192 was the only one of

Charles Robert Ashbee

The

in

and designer Charles Robert Ashbee (1 863-1 924)

his handicraft work a curved and swinging style of

architect

developed

the

London

architects to

adorn

his buildings

with ornaments and,

moreover, with sculptured ornaments. Townsend also followed

Continental developments more closely than his colleagues. The
faade of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, built in 1897 (plate 320),

188

in

which

relief

whole, but

its

is

was conceived by him as a symmetrical

are asymmetrical and its naturalistic relief of

stressed,

details

trees

embrace the low marble wall and, over the thin square shaft

and amidst the thick

Much

glass,

flowers

more than Voysey or Ashbee, Townsend's ornamentation is borrowed from historistic medieval examples and presented in the Pre-

193).

But

foliage

disposed in a geometrical, non-naturalistic manner.

is

Raphaelitic fashion. In his publications,

helped to

make Townsend known

Hermann Muthesius

has

Germany, where Townsend

Hagen town hall.

in

designed a fireplace with similar motifs for the

The bunches of leaves adorning the capitals of

wooden
late

pillars are

them

its

thin, stem-like

compressed into small abstract cubes which

to the rectangular overmantle.

Townsend

re-

also built the

church at Great Warley, Essex (plate 193). 193 Simplified and synthesized in form, it reminds one of medieval English village
churches;

see

pomegranates made of red

made

all this is

relegated to an ideal plane, just as everything

in this church

seems to exist

in the cool

mystic atmosphere of the

kind of fairy-tale that remained so dear to English art of

throughout every phase of

railing separating the

its

this

period

development. The high sanctuary

nave from the altar and many of the flower

designs recall Baillie Scott, but seem to be translated into a harder

and more vigorous idiom, and the

figures of the angels "clad as if

for Dante's Florence" 195 both here and at the baptismal font are
inspired

by

107, and

112).

Rossetti, Burne-Jones,

and William Blake

(plates 57,

ensemble, though the style expres-

again in decoration and furnishings rather than in pure

stereometric form of the baptismal font and the lectern, the squares

hewn

and rectangles of inlaid marble and glazed enamel are all features
which are already characteristic of a later period. They show, however, certain signs of High Art Nouveau: the bases of the pillars

architecture.

interior offers us England's

Nouveau

The predominating color note

stone which, together with the walnut

basic

we

Great Warley stands between High and late Art Nouveau, even
though it is closer to the latter. The square form of the pillars, the

its

extant of a unified Art

ses itself

foliage,

of shells, and angels of oxidized silver (plate

harmony. But the vaulting

is

most complete example

is

the gray of the

brown of

the pews, forms the

traversed by ribbons

made of

aluminum; plates of aluminum decorated with embossed lilies are

inserted into the walls, and above the light-green marble balustrade
and an altar in dark-green marble, the whole vaulting of the apse is

of the principal screens belong (together with Gilbert's three-di-

covered with sheets of aluminum. Bunches of grapes in the style of

proach the Franco-Belgian

William Morris stand out in brilliant red and

Heywood Sumner's

mensional works) among the most sculptural inventions of

particular style that were produced in England.
style; in fact,

we

They

this

closely ap-

find in Horta's art

and sometimes ten years before Great

The preliminary phases of Great Warley
must be ascribed to England and are to be found in the feet of
Dresser's pitcher (plate 90) or the feet of Mackmurdo's small desk
similar ideas that existed five

windows display angels in red robes standing against green foliage.

The whole interior was designed by Sir William Reynolds-Stephens
in close harmony with the plan devised by the donors; all the decorative designs were meant to divert attention from death and evoke
the idea of resurrection. When, in 1904, the church was handed over
to the community, a leaflet was distributed to explain the symbolical plan; it makes special mention of the "floral forms," which are
freely used everywhere as emblems of growth in earthly life, but
even more as symbols of the glorious hope culminating every year
at Eastertide when plants awake to new life. 194 The organic power

Warley

of self-renewal

veined and multicolored marbles and the sensitive contrasting

is

thus used everywhere throughout the church as a

Christian symbol of resurrection. Reaching far beyond traditional

church symbolism, the botanical style of Art

Nouveau

is

here con-

sidered suitable for ecclesiastical ritual.

In the ironwork dividing the main aisle from the neighboring

by blossoming trees; there is a hint

of the swelling "Belgian" line in the crowning foliage, but the delicate
openwork relief nevertheless remains a two-dimensional surface. The
altar railing is conceived in the same flat way and composed of
lines that recall Voysey and Mackintosh. The roots of the pillarareas, the pillars are represented

189

(plates 191, 192).

(plate 96).

The common genetic origin of High and late Art Nouveau resulting from the early Pre-Raphaelite period can be more clearly
seen in Great Warley than anywhere else. To this must be added
certain features of Byzantine art which played a part in the ecclesiastic architecture

the

little

of 1900. 196 The richness of the materials endows

church with a particularly Byzantine feeling, though the

harmony of
Nowhere is

brass, copper,

steel

produce no ostentatious pomp.

there an illusion of gold;

and cooler metals can

all

and

exert an attraction of their very

aluminum

is

on the contrary, the simpler

what they are, and

easily be identified for

own; and,

used here in decoration. In

its

for the first time,

stylish aloofness,

Great

Warley is distinguished by a quality common to many of the best

works of Art Nouveau, a quality which might be described as
"ascetic restraint in the luxurious."

Alfred Gilbert
197
is the only English sculptor whose
J4 1934)
production might be taken for Continental and especially French

Alfred Gilbert

work.

Of

(i 8

his creations the

all

Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain,

or Eros, at Picadilly Circus (plate 190),

High Art Nouveau

is

in the

most exuberant

and forms an integrated unit in spite of

its disrupted details. We see here forms from nature fancifully and
sculpturally realized, such as fishes, and mermaids with the heads
of children. The leaping, rippling, spraying, overflowing water, and
the light that throws deep shadows on the forms which develop
in

volume of the bodies, as flabby as punctured balloons, merely indicated by shading. Beerbohm the dandy was still more of an amateur
than an artist, yet he knew how to make use of the weak points of
his drawings in order to achieve his purpose: his lack of artifice and
his naive vision produce a coquettish, hypocritical, and highly
sophisticated effect.

After passing through the

style

terms of receding spaces, are

all

part of the artistic effect of the

filter

of Beerbohm's style, the familiar

personalities reappear: the somber, romantic Rossetti, powerful,

good-natured and clearly very much the Italian; the graceful Swinburne, luminous and restless as a flame; Elizabeth Siddal, rigid,

consumptive, and aloof; and

lastly,

Mrs. Morris who, with pro-

truding chin, curving swan's neck, and swelling masses of hair,

whole. Gilbert does not belong to the English line of development

looks out of countless pictures with her cat's stare.

and, as an outsider, does not link up with the followers of the Pre-

collection, there

Raphaelites and the Japanese style.

marked by

He

is

academic and

influences of historistic neo-Baroque

manneristic features.

One

is

always aware of

his

his

work

is

and by strongly
Baroque concep-

Gabriel Rossetti

America.

Its

is

is

date

drawing (plate 321)

heard for the

is

first

1882, and the

At the end of the

name of Dante

labeled, The

time in the Western States of

lecturer

is

Mr. Oscar Wilde,

standing there as a prototype of the aesthete who, on going to

tion of plastic substance,

America, had found the Atlantic Ocean "disappointing" and

gians

spoken about the rebirth of Romantic art to an audience which

which was of some importance to the Beland of greater importance to the French, but which was discarded in the whole long English line of development following
Blake's proto-Art Nouveau or managed to survive only in an entirely

changed form,

like Rocaille in Blake's

work. Gilbert's sculp-

tural style, unconnected with any other in England, is High Art

Nouveau adulterated by a Baroque element.
If London was leading in innovation between 1850 and 1900, a
historistic reaction

was

felt there

very strongly after 1900.

No

markedly geometric late Art Nouveau was ever produced in London, even though elements of it were contained there in early and
High Art Nouveau. A neo-Regency style spread in England as a
parallel to neo-Biedermeier in

Germany which succeeded

the late

suit

youthfully long hair, and the

first signs

his

of his later obesity, he

bears a flower in his hand, as he had carried one in the streets of

London's West End: "If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy
or a lily in your medieval hand." 199

The composition of this drawing recalls the most famous of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pictures, the Ancilla Domini I The Annunciation, painted in 1849 (plate 57). The representation of
in profile, the position of the feet, the

not a

this case

madonna but

a calla

Wide

hand holding a flower

lily),

(in

the fair hair cut like a

a need for

pageboy's, are alike both in Rossetti's archangel and in Beerbohm's

arose and revealed itself in the clubs of Pall Mall, in the Ritz

Wilde. In the former, the lightness of soaring had to be indicated

Jugendstil in certain areas. In the

pomp

Edwardian period

seemed to belong to the pioneer period. Clad in his aesthete's

pumps with diamond clasps,

of black velvet, silk stockings,

new 191 1 faade of Buckingham Palace, expressed

Baroque classicism and in a sumptuous Louis XVI

Hotel, and the

by the flame burning under the

in a familiar

figure, despite

When,

Even

inflated.

style.

in 1916, Sir

Max Beerbohm

(1

the series of drawings called Rossetti

872-1956) finally published

his Circle, this was a

and

Nouveau. Beerbohm
was one of the youngest dandies in the group that surrounded
Beardsley. In The Yellow Book, Beerbohm had provoked this periodical's critics by his Apology of Cosmetics, and had then attracted
attention in 1898 by publishing a book of caricatures, The Poet's
Corner. His light pencil strokes and pale watercolors created a
mild, unimaginative variety of English Art Nouveau, with the

belated echo, a sort of parody of English Art

its

soles of the feet; in the latter, the

roundness, seems without weight and as

if it

were

the perspectives (that of the platform in Beerbohm's,

that of the couch in Rossetti's) cut sharply into space in an identical

way. But
if

in neither picture

is

there an impression of depth;

it is

as

the line were vertically suspended in the plane. This parody in

design

is

message

is

duplicated by parody in the content: in both cases, a

being announced.

longed" to the charmed

Max

circle,

Beerbohm,

waved

as

one

who had

"be-

a greeting here to those in

the rear, a last echo of the "Yellow Nineties."

190

Q3om
S(n

Gott unb

fie&en

cofe fur Winter

Snfef'SBertase

33erlin

unb

bet

wn

erjafjlt

Wlavia diiitcf efdjmirft

3m

Slnbere

wn

Gainer

(S. SR.

@d)uftec

Ceipjig/ <2Beif)nacf)ten

&

2Bei

oefflec

1900. C2.

Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland

German

Jugendstil

is

characterized by both floral and abstract

and the opposition between them found expression in violent disputes. The battle cries of both parties do in fact conceal
profound divergencies which conferred on each of these types of
trends,

Jugendstil a clearly contrasting character.

tension between
it

is

now

two poles

clear that these

Of

course, this creative

lasted only a short while.

two trends were

Looking back,

in essence phases that

succeeded and replaced each other. The more important achieve-

ments before 1900 were mainly of a

floral character,

and those

after

1900 almost exclusively abstract. In the two or three years preceding the end of the century, there was, as

were, a classical

it

period during which the two currents were able to intermingle.

Floral Jugendstil

is

mainly to be found

ornamentation of small objects

in the applied arts. Function, func-

according to a formula which

ears: "Beautiful and, if

floral Jugendstil

is

is

now

its

need be, useful as well." 200

light, delicate, sensitively

small parts, with

little

as

modern
The form of

so offensive to

EW.W-

shaped, often buoyant

or spindly, sometimes confused. The structure

detailed in

and

and functional symbolism played scarcely any part

tional form,
yet,

in the decoration

broken

linear but rather

is

lines of a distinctly

EMIL RUDOLF WEISS

lieben Gott

Title

page for Rainer Maria Rilke's

"

Vom

und Anderes" (1900)

graphic nature which creates the possibility of a comparatively

open form. The complementary relation between the forms

yet systematically carried out. The atmosphere

extends from the fairy tale to the purely fantastic.

is

not

and
There are roman-

is

spring-like

and symbolism, not in the Western sense of worldly elegance,

but in that of an ardently pursued approach to nature. The conticism

ception of floral Jugendstil also contains that of the object represented: not only flowers

swans and other

birds,

and

plants, but also the animal world,

even lowly

are used as themes. In spite of this,

drew

dachshund vignette,

this

mammals and other creatures

when Thomas Theodor Heine

merely represented a parody of the

languid aspects of Jugendstil. Unlike French developments, Ger-

man

Jugendstil aims at increasing abstraction and deformation of

patterns derived from nature, seeking to adiieve a metamorphosis

which would

result in the creation of

an indefinable, organic, and

elementary mixture of forms.

For a long time, German

artists

remained true to the two-dimen-

sional (like their English counterparts) but

Art Nouveau

191

also

in

English floral Art Nouveau. There

have been an influence coming from Belgium,

may

as for instance

from Van Rijsselberghe, or from Khnopff's and Doudelet's

illustra-

which had been published in Germany in Pan. There is no

trace of any influence from Holland, not even from Toorop; as for
Paris and Nancy, the style appeared there at the same time as in
Germany, if not a little later. Nor, in the years that followed, had
the German artists any particular connection with French Art
tions

Nouveau.
The later, abstract phase of Jugendstil was largely inspired by
Henry van de Velde. Ornament and decoration turn entirely away
from examples found in nature. What remains is dynamic movement stripped of all concrete form; this served as a leitmotiv for
Van de Velde and the entire school of abstract Jugendstil until (in
its late phase and mostly influenced by Vienna) the style stiffened
here as elsewhere into geometrically static form. In the Jugendstil

which had been so

of the abstract phase, the structural and tectonic element prevails

was almost nonexistent

in Jugendstil, although Rococo in Germany had assumed an extremely spatial and sculptural quality. The early phase of Jugendstil

decisive in achieving the three-dimensional,

almost entirely rooted

in opposition to

were

in the Lenin countries. Rocaille,

is

over the ornament, so that

all

that remains

the floral phase that preceeded, Jugendstil

is

body and space;

in

had remained confined

to the two-dimensional. Ethical tendencies, the need for a signifi-

MAX KLINGER
Page border from Apulcius'
"

cant reform

the

word "reform"

applied to everything from

is

find their advocates. The deand good workmanship that had been expressed
by Ruskin and Morris was largely echoed in the ideas of the
Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907.

"reform house" to "reform dress"

mands

for honesty

to

examples

in

Amor and Psyche"

(1880)

Japanese art in the contrasting empty areas and

crowded with small, detailed forms, as well as in

numerous objects. To be sure, this component
loses significance compared to the baroque invention of his work;
the irregular, extremely open, and heterogeneous forms and the
others that are

the representation of

frequently stressed naturalism.

Klinger's proximity to Jugendstil becomes most clearly evident

Preliminary Stages in

Germany

in the

books he decorated. His illustrations for the ancient myth of

Psyche (1880) are the first and only important work of
this field between the works of Adolf von Menzel and those

Amor and
Preliminary stages of Jugendstil, whether floral or abstract, are

Germany and very seldom have they any

with German Art Nouveau. The paintings of

rarely to be found in

causal relationship

Hans von Mares (1837-87) were

in

every respect painterly. But

art in

of

German

Jugendstil.

be found here, not so

borders. This

is

profusion of Jugendstil elements are to

much

in the illustrations

themselves as in the

undoubtedly early Jugendstil, but the forms are

the flowing relationship between the forms in a picture such as

still

Ganymede

revealed, nor the typically Jugendstil two-dimensional bodies,

(plate 322), the simplified outlines, the transformation

of the objects into two-dimensional bodies with scarcely any

shading,

the

sometimes

clearly

distinguishable

complementary

forms, the grandiose conception of the picture as a whole, the

too graceful, too disintegrated, the whiplash line

is

not yet

and
from a distance rather than at close
range. But the swinging curves already show the genuine rhythm

Klinger's objects are

still

seen

of Jugendstil.

unstable center in the asymmetrical equilibrium of the contrasts

of light and dark, the ornamental quality of the entire painting,

and

lastly the outer

border which encloses the scene represented by

The Munich Group

the picture, all these features are already close to the Jugendstil of

a few years later. Whether Mares

moot

compose

their pictures

that the

work of Mares belongs

is

knew how Japanese

point. There

is,

painters

however, no doubt

to the neo-Manneristic

phase of

Nouveau and

nineteenth-century post-Romanticism by which Art

Jugendstil were largely influenced. The themes and forms, the

highly unstable conception, the hints of figura serpentinata, the

slightly neurotic

atmosphere

full

of yearning and resignation, are

indeed reminiscent of Pontormo or Parmigianino. But the art of

Mares contributed no more to the formation of Jugendstil than
had Philipp Otto Runge's proto-Art Nouveau. After having been
entirely ignored for many decades, Runge's paintings were, thanks
to the

new

ideal of art

1906 by Alfred Lichtwark, the director of the

whose mind was receptive

Max

in

201

was

the only artist in

Germany

applied to

as belonging to

an independent early stage of Jugendstil. The

drawings themselves contain a considerable element of Jugendstil

even
cal,

to

style that clearly heralded Jugendstil. After 1875,

showed great powers of invention. They were mostly

frames and borders (above), which may be considered

his designs

if it is

not openly revealed; one can feel

it

in the

in his fine

book on the "turn of the

style," Stilwende. Obrist

the son of an aristocratic Scottish lady

first

and a Swiss doctor.

and geology
with the

asymmetri-

ornamental composition of forms foreign to nature, pointing

art:

He

was
had

botany, chemistry,
and from childhood had studied plants and animals

studied medicine, the natural sciences

liveliest interest,

"exploring the phenomena and forces of

Nature." 204 In 1886, a prophetic daydream showed him the

to other novel approaches to art.

Klinger (1857-1920)

have achieved a

Hamburg in
Hamburg Museum,

and beauty, rediscovered

Romantic Jugendstil stylizing forms of nature first began in

Munich, which remained the permanent center of the floral style, 202
as well as the German art center where inspirations and ideas originated. Although it was soon to be superceded by Berlin, artists
of every trend assembled there. The movement began in 1894, with
the Munich exhibition of embroideries by the sculptor and naturalist Hermann Obrist (1 863-1 927), 203 which contained "a certain
mysterious, primary charm," as Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann says

"A

complete city appeared

way

in the air, the architecture of

to

which

surpassed everything and was unlike anything" he had ever seen.

"In this city

and

all

was

in

motion; the

streets shifted, displaying squares

fabulous fountains; the houses opened up, showing inconceiv-

ably beautiful rooms and enigmatic object.

"'-'"''

In 1888, Obrist began to study ceramics in Karlsruhe; he soon

turned

away from

rural pottery

works

the traditional, academic style

in

and went

Thuringia. In 1890, he subsequently

to a

moved

192

and became a sculptor. In Florence, in 1892, he founded a

workshop for embroidery which was transferred to Munich in
1894. He had discarded the conventional manner of representing
figures in the round and devoted himself to designing ornamental
to Paris

forms, at

first

limited to the two-dimensional plane. These "organic

embroideries" were carried out by Berthe Ruchet. "Often, no single

any other; an inextricable flickering maze of different

invades the ornamental forms, as if animated by a pulse

artists

turned so resolutely

only derive from

helped by Japanese models, even though

how

den violent curves occasioned by the crack of a whip:

now

lightning;

now,

as the defiant signature of a great

man, a con-

queror." 207 Here, calligraphy blends with elementary forces in

powerful tension

the

form of the cyclamen

is

interpreted as the

pars pro toto of created nature, the delicate branching of the roots,
the sap-conducting stems, the stiff tips of the buds, the stamens

representing both the existence and the growth of a plant.

pistils all

On

the borderline dividing the

abstract

and

dynamism and

symbol and the ornament, between

the representation of a distinctive organ-

metaphor of palpitating and struggling life itself. Owing to its content and its decorative quality and
elegance, the Whiplash belongs to the small number of masterism, there arises the visual

German
Obrist's work

pieces of

(plate

100)

Century Guild. In addition to Mackmurdo's

does not exclusively adopt the "floral" style

in

Once Obrist had developed

chisels,

from

and constructs

fixtures, Obrist

to massive

or

flat,

turned from his weightless, feathery embroideries

eye of the

soft, elastic, stiff, supple, of

210

Questions of creative means and

who

man who

has learned to see plastic forms in nature, and

has learned to magnify the force of a tiny plant bud and the

curves and ribbings of a seed from their almost microscopic size into

man." 211 Actually, nowhere in his work did

himself to reproducing and magnifying minute bo-

tanical forms; instead, he condensed these into fantastic creations of

bird.

He had

adopted

Ernst Haeckel's famous phrase, "for the creative mind, only three

am I, Nature is over there, and here again is the

have to decorate." 209 But even during the period in which

great structural force. His fountain for

Krupp von Bohlen

(plate 215), conceived in the nineties, reminds

things exist: here

gaping jaws of imaginary sea creatures, but of the

a monstrous

iris.

He

in

Essen

one not only of the

object

193

swelling

is

examples drawn from the outside world. In 1901, Obrist thus

possibilities is exposed to the

Obrist restrict

what

wrote that "an unforeseen mass of

Klinger. Both artists

works of Klinger.

shifts

powers of expression, such as the problem of abstract form,

were already considered, but still related to abstraction and nature. For it was thought, according to biological and romantic
notions, that the new and the unconventional could still be found

figures as large as a

these

His big ornamental

or sculpted, his tombstones and fountains,

dissimilar shapes, Obrist's

may have known

plastic volumes.

smooth or sharp-edged."

opposed to the distant vision of the Impressionist. In this

dainty, delicately shaped form, seen almost microscopically in its
comparative openness, but also in the objective of a synthesis of

Obrist

who developed

all seem to
from stony
rigidity to the doughy clay from which ceramics are made. According to Obrist, figures in the round should yield "pleasurable sensations, imparted by touch and the joys of touching," and thus give
rise to a wide range of perceptions, "the sensation of what is

in

composed of the feathers of a

ornamental. Unlike Horta,

have sprung from an ambiguous substance which

above the "whirling of a brook." 208 The eye of the scientist

perceives a kind of microcosm seen at very close range, diametri-

to be

is

and powerfully

jars, chiseled

their

ornaments are related to the creations of

invent feathery forms of flowers which seem

from

"linear" bodies such as metal supports or floral electric lighting

most graceful among other

graceful topics that inspire his art, such as bark and lichen, deepsea starfish and corals. A cover for a couch is embroidered with
the "flickering, flowing" emanating from the "flashing waves of

cally

a personal style, he turned

linear English wallpapers with a floral pattern strictly

the literal sense. Flowers are merely the

light"

flaming flowers of

two-dimensional works to sculpture. Whatever Obrist models,

smooth, rough, hard,

Jugendstil.

the silk-embroidered

in

which one senses the organic life so eloquently described by Pan,

the photograph also displays a carpet with diagonally disposed
spirals that reveal affinities with Obrist's embroidered tapestry. A
widely traveled cosmopolitan artist who was half British himself,
Obrist may well have been acquainted with works of this kind.

ap-

pearing as a forceful outburst of the elements of nature, a stroke of

has rightly been stressed

greatly his

screen

The following has been said of Obrist's famous tapestry of golden-yellow embroidery on pale turquoise-colored rep, theWhiplash
of 1895 (plate 195): "Its frantic movement reminds us of the sud-

it

flat

stitches

living body."

was doubtlessly

works differ from Japanese art: after all, floral

Art Nouveau had already existed for many years in London. In 1887, The Hobby Horse published photographs of an ex-

and

hibition hall of the

206

historic examples, art could

In the beginning, Obrist

art.

stitch is like

beat or enlivened by organic forces and rhythms like the cells of a

away from

filigree

crown of

also included in his artistic conception of this

The

piece the rapid element of water, swirling around the raggedly

stone.

horned buttresses and the knobbed

grates all the above-mentioned features into the given

spaces, the interior

pillar, the

calices. The body and the empty

and the exterior contours, are all complementary. The round core is split and half curved toward the exterior
where, as a sort of cage, it spans and surrounds an interior form

The figure of man

is

all this. Even proportions and

anthropomorphic forms; in the
we have a kind of viscous gliding,

banished from

no longer related

to

place of articulations or joints,

out of whidi erupt bulges and volutes. "To be sure, the

figure permits wonderful sculptural possibilities.

pare

to the Tortoise Fountain in

it

form of the
abbreviation of the architectonic element, and terminates

the procedure as a period ends a sentence. This astonishing

thus stands

midway between

historicism

and modern

human

But merely com-

Rome whose

basins are

among

the most luxuriously plastic in the world. But

what connection has

the relief on the rim of these basins with the

human nude? What

and

it is

in the

the only

round.

It

is

known example
also the only

in the field

example of an

work

art and, as

early as 1898, embodied the style of geometric late Art

that appears as soft as flesh.

structure are

classically conventional abacus, the covering slab, inte-

Nouveau,

of abstract sculpture
artistic anticipation

work; generally, he preferred to work in a more emoin which he nevertheless continued to conquer for
Jugendstil the domains of monumental art, an area which he was
in Obrist's

tional

idiom

the first of his school to explore.

In 1902, the Design for a

Monument

(plate 196)

was created. At

could be more plastic than a small, old, round, and much-thumbed

first sight, it was again an abstract form: as sculpturally daring as

Rodin, Obrist here abandoned the urge for erect anthropomorphism

Japanese ivory box, and what could have a more

and went beyond the

and

titanic effect than the Tyrolian

nude

.?

No:

the

human

not the beginning and the end of sculptural form." 212 Obrist's

is

of examples

series

Dolomites

plastic, massive,

drawn from

a Japanese object of

common

real life ranges

unconcernedly from

use to a Manneristic fountain,

finally to a geological formation.

Apart from

and

his opposition to

ragged wingtips

is

lifting

an upward-striving figure veiled

monuments

will be erected representing neither

men nor
man with

time had already arrived: in the same year, 1898, Obrist

created an entirely abstract work, the plaster model for a

to the Pillar (plate 325).

Out

of a "natural" rock

immaculately smooth shaft of a column,

its

Monu-

rises

the

capital representing,

in a labyrinthine cluster of stereometric forms, the transition

from

jecting diagonally into space

way,

it

becomes a cry expressed

corresponds in sculpture to the painting by

prisingly to Tatlin's Constructivist design for a

Third International (1920).

Not only

does Obrist's Design for a

seem unusual; such a theme

is

symbolic, a parable, so to speak,

of the transformation of chaotic matter into such as has been shaped

by the mind. The beginning of the

twists out of the pedestal

pillar

winds up

made of raw, unhewn

scends this material base. The "capital"

movement which embodies

is

in

serpentine

rock,

and tran-

transposed into a stereo-

the crystalline nature of the

it

its

Monument

of the

215

Monument

the art of the past. This latter connection

the theme of this work, even though the choice

entitled

the objective theme and to point toward Expressionism,

dynamic element of Jugendstil pointed toward Futurism. Curjel has quite rightly compared this piece of sculpture to
Boccioni's Futurist Muscoli in velocit (191 1), and even more sur-

The actual

is

Munch

just as the

of the future, but in

pillar

in stone; in a

away from

But there are fundamental differences between such works by

Obrist and genuinely modern Cubist or Constructivist sculptures.

metric

clouds

The Cry. Here, the expressive element of Jugendstil begins to turn

the cross section of the pillar's shaft to the covering square slab.

may

in
214

posed the drama of content into the drama of form. The peak pro-

fill the heart of

exuberant enthusiasm and inconceivable enchantment." 213 In real-

ment

monument which actually never went beyond the

The form seems to dart like an arrow into space, a
monument of the diagonal, encircled by an orbital spiral. Only on
a second look does one realize that at the very top an angel with
plaster model.

1898, the popular review, Die Jugend, jocularly

animals, but imaginary shapes which will

ity, this

the vertical axis

toward the summit. This "sculptural study of movement"

is not
nonobjective in the modern sense of the word, but is the embodiment of its own symbolical content. Yet, in essence, Obrist trans-

emitted an ironic prophecy: "The time will come when, in public

squares,

norm of

revealed by such conceptions

academic conventionality and historicism, an entirely new anti-

human tendency in Art Nouveau is

which discard man as a theme for art.
In August

static, structural

in the case of a

anticipate the art

rather secretive relationship to

also permits one to recognize unequivocally

its

may

Mannerism

connection with

be detected

in its

plastically achieved suggestion of the figura scrpentinata, in the anti-

and diagonally constructed composition, in its substance

that appears to be somewhat soft and fluffy despite the rigidity of
the medium and the intensity of movement depicted, and, lastly,
even in its mood. The effect of gigantic form seems indeed exaggerated and dangerous; and frightening, too, is the suggested ascent
Classical

194

195

i95

196

195

HERMANN OBRIST
HERMANN OBRIST

"Cyclamen" wall hanging /"The Whiplash' (1895)

Design for a

Monument

(1902)

196

197

PETER Bf.HRENS Door

in

Haus Behrens, Darmstadt, Germany

(1901)
198

AUGUST ENDELL

Radiator screen

in the limites Theater, Berlin

(1901)

199

AUGUST ENDELL

Frieze on the Elvira Photographic Studio,

Munich (1897-98)
200

AUGUST ENDELL

Faade of the Elvira Photographic Studio,

Munich (1897-98)
201

OTTO ECKMANN

Fighting

202

OTTO ECKMANN

Sketch for a decorative design

'97

.98

199

Swans

(circa 1900)

897)

:o3

HENR VAN DE
1er,

VI

1.1)1

Dining

Room

Weimar, Germany (1902-03)

in the

Home

of

Count

198

204

re*>

c^wW ^**i.fr^**J*MJB

r*699*****H>w**>**9*m+f***fin>*t!it**j1

9**99s~***mWt>oQ9&m S m

wiMfwwnmwwMtt *t. m* wm>

206

204

IVAR AROSKNIUS
"Tjugonio Bilder

205

Endpapers for
Frg" (1909)

PETER BEHRENS ne

Brook

(before 1901)

206

FERDINAND
(1901)

199

HODI.I.R

Spring

209
>o8

VAN

207

KI.XRY

208

HENRY VAN

209

RICHARD RIUMtRSCHMID

1)1

1)1

VELDE
VELDE

Knife, fork,

Music room

and spoon

in the

Chair (iS 99 )

(circa 191a)

Folkwang Museum, Hagen, Germany (1902)

200

..-

210

213

21

212

2io

RICHARD RIEMERSCHMID

211

AKSELI GALLN-KALLELA Armchair

212

RICHARD RIEMERSCHMID

{circa 1900)

Armchair (before 1900)

214

2.4

201

Armchair (1899)

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

ffim/ing /or

HENRY VAN DE

Entrance to the Werkbundtheater,

Cologne, Germany

VI
(

1)1

4)

"

Vers" by Verlaine

2i5

HI-.RMANN
OBRIST
Fountain for the

Krupp von Bohlen

residence, Essen,

Germany

(191 3)

202

ii^

through distant, cloudy regions. In the two-dimensional plane,

at the top corners looking like looped-back curtains

something similar was also true of Obrist's Whiplash: there too, the
fundamental theme of the serpentine line was developed in long,

effect

juxtaposed loops with equally uncanny features. The snake-like

and which Nikolaus Pevsner reprinted

curve, the razor-sharp leaves, the exaggeratedly pointed stamens,

studies of the proportions of entirely flat faades in

somewhat anticipating

hypodermic needles all this suggested a blind and quivform of life, made doubly frightening to us by the sharp
perception of the biologist and by the artist's power of condensation.
The relationship between Obrist and August Endell (1871192 s) 216 was almost that of master and pupil. Born in Berlin,
Endell had first studied philosophy and later returned to his native
city after having spent a few decisive years in Munich in the Riemerschmid and Obrist circle. The chief work of his Munich period

was the redecoration of the faade of the Elvira Photographic Studio. The world of EndelPs forms is quite as subtle as Obrist's, but
more exuberant and unruly, suggesting at the same time some
grotesque features. The fanciful ornamentation of the Elvira Studio
is no more floral than abstract, but it is organically alive and
formed of a substance which possesses all kinds of biological possi-

all sorts

ering

the

entire

Art Nouveau. Similar forms are

repeated in the surprising designs which Endell published in 1898

tests the

rigid as

late

fifty years later. 217

They are

which Endell

emotional impact of over-narrow and over-broad faades

and window apertures. In Endell's Buntes Theater

(plate 198), the forms are

more

in Berlin of 1901

detailed than in the Elvira Studio.

The vaulted ceiling of the auditorium looks as though living cells

had grown together, a theme also employed by Gaud in the Casa
Batllo. From this sky, starred with small protoplasmic dots, hang

and coral-like as the trees decorating the

Around the upper part of the walls runs a frieze with

lamps that are

side walls.

as pointed

of submarine creatures such as sea dragons, sea serpents,

foamy waves of the sea. The whole shape has the swerve of a
mark and the vigor of an exclamation point; it is life,

and aquatic insects. Over the curved proscenium arch and

and box railings, metal spider webs are stretched; above
the stage is suspended a gruesome monster of mixed origin, part
squid, part jellyfish, and part sting ray, while the curtain is decorated with ornaments suggesting, butterfly cocoons, caterpillars,
and seed pods such an ensemble can scarcely be qualified as architecture. Endell decorated the Buntes Theater for Ernst von Wolzogen and his artistic Vberbrettl cabaret revue. "Since not much
money was to be spent, a dreary old dance hall in the distant Kopenickerstrasse was redecorated. Endell shot off the whole fireworks
in his decorations which were full of spikes, restlessly sparkling,
flickering in little flames; the rows of seats were of different colors,

without sense or aim, eternally quivering and

indicating the different prices; even the usherettes, dressed in green

although presented almost in confusion.

bilities,

finable cellular mass, sharp antennae emerge

gantic protruding thorn

comet's

tail.

Beneath

it,

which terminates on the

in the opposite direction,

ragged form like a bat's wing,

its

From an unde-

from beneath a
left in a sort

gi-

of

emerges a sharply

ramifications reminding one of the

question

aggressive in

itself,

sea horses,

the balcony

pliantly eluding all attack, a creation of magnificent decorative

and mauve, wore aprons which ended

whole of Art Nouveau (plates 199, 200). These forms are varied and repeated in the
relief of leaves above the door, in the window grilles, and in the

giving the arriving audience the impression that the

effect, a significant

form unparalleled

in the

interior staircase.

The ornamentation of the Elvira Studio

is

carried out in relief

which gives the appearance of looking as though one of Obrist's

in points

above and below,

little

theater

number of the program. As a piece of brilliant

was the highest achievement of Jugendstil. Had it been
achieved with less wit, it might have turned into the most shocking
218
tinsel amusement park decoration."
itself

was

grotesque,

Like

all

the first
it

other significant

German

Jugendstil

artists,

Endell was

embroideries had been enlarged to enormous size and spread over

very versatile; he designed furniture, carpets, fabrics, and jewelry.

The faade is entirely flat except

and the top ledge which proceeds to

In the big department stores and other buildings which he built

the faade of the entire building.

for the base at the foundation

curve outward forming a gentle overhang. The

window

apertures

any ledges or molded curves, and

wooden grilles of the central window, the

later in Berlin

and Brcslau, the ornamentation was greatly reduced

without however being entirely suppressed. The swing which had

are cut into the walls without

mostly been applied to the surface was

except for the wave-like

to the

windows and

the thidter portions of their inner frames are quite

different in style

houettes of the

from the ornamentation of the faade. The

window

apertures are geometrically defined, con-

sisting of right angles at the

203

sil-

bottom with convex quarter-circles

body of

now

extended to space and

the building itself; however, these buildings

fell

short of the originality of his first works.

OttoEckmann (1865-1902) 219 was

considered in

Germany the un-

disputed master of floral Jugendstil. As in Obrist's case, Eckmann's

beginnings date back to the decisive year 1894.

native of

Ham-

burg, he used to

furniture, lamps,
in

and

his

subsequently turning to the designing of

"artistic legacy," before

was achieved

by auction, considering them

pictures

sell his

articles of

common

two-dimensional

half-illustrative decorations for

art, in

work

usage. But his best

ornamentation and often

books and periodicals such as Die

Jugend and Pan. Die Jugend was started in Munich in 1896 and

was decidedly popular

critical in its choice

a very high level.

in its editorial policy, being

of contributors,

Eckmann

its

somewhat un-

presentation rarely reaching

therefore submitted his finest works

Die Jugend. As early as 1895, Berlin was in compeMunich,

with
and with the publication of Pan it became the

to Pan, not to
tition

German

second

art center.

The

spiritual father of this unprece-

202),

where they are reduced

upward

consisting of lines of such uniform width that they

may

to suggest plants.

Not only

is

every descriptive

movement has also been diverted from the repreany concrete vegetal pattern. Only four years later, in
1 90 1, did Van de Velde create anything similar, in the supports of
the Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum) in
Hagen. This is all the more worthy of attention because Eckmann,
in the polemical writings of Van de Velde, is named as the principal
sentation of

representative of "sentimentality as expressed in ornamentation."

Eckmann continued to produce floral designs,

many a sentimental blunder, he had been the first in

and

left),

almost

surging

Actually, although

welcomed contributors from all

over Europe, taking in its stride diversified talents ranging from
Nietzsche to Toulouse-Lautrec, from Khnopff to the poet Scheerbart, Van de Velde to Hofmannsthal (who wrote under the nom de
plume of Loris), from Seurat and Signac to Klinger, Bocklin, or
Liebermann, and from Beardsley to Minne. It was Pan that published the first and probably the finest vignettes and decorative borders by Otto Eckmann, Thomas Theodor Heine, and Emil Rudolf
Weiss; works by such writers as Fontane, Schlaf, Dehmel, and Bierbaum were also published there, and museum directors such as Bode,
Brinckmann, and Lichtwark were among its other contributors.
Some of Eckmann's finest works created for Pan were synthesized and simplified floral vignettes (page 9, right, and page 205,

lines,

impulse lacking in their form, but the basic theme of a supple,

dented periodical was Julius Meier-Graefe. Pan was a luxuriously

it

powerful

In 1897, he also designed some architectonic supports (below)

which might be said

produced publication, large in format, printed to perfection on exquisite paper, and very exclusive in tone. Its policy was one of openmindedness and generosity, and

to swinging,

reaching the abstraction of calligraphic symbols.

in spite of

Germany

to achieve an abstract

"Belgian"

line.

His

lettering, the

dynamism equal to that of the

Eckmann type, is also abstract and

dynamic (page 210); it may now be considered his main achievement, and its final form was created in i899.-- u True, he may have
seen similar initials published by Van de Velde in 1896 in the
periodical, Van Nu en Straks:

More clearly than in the case of Obrist and Endell, one recognizes
in Eckmann's work the part played by Japan in the final form of
Jugendstil. As a native of Hamburg, Eckmann in early youth had
seen examples of Japanese applied arts in that city's Museum of Arts

be

considered as linear two-dimensional bodies that sink into the white

paper

like inlaid

always

distilled

essence, but his

his affinity

work. In Eckmann's other creations his style

as it is here to the point where it yields its

form

is

is

not

finest

never heavy, never without grace. Despite

with Obrist, Eckmann's work refrains from appearing

it has a less interrupted flow of form and a

movement.
softer
Nor do Obrist's and Endell's symbioses of organic
hybrid forms occur to any appreciable extent in the work of Eckmann, who is mainly preoccupied with floral themes, using blossoms possessing swinging leaves and antenna-like stamens, above all
with lilies, irises, and other long-stemmed flowers; or else, with
those swans which have now become almost the symbol of his art,
with their gracefully curved necks and proud bearing. He represented them more figuratively, as in a colored woodcut (plate 201),
or more ornamentally abstracted, as in his frieze of swans (plate

as

hard or as pointed;

O'lTO

ECKMANN

Sketches for supports

897)

204

and Crafts, "whose enlightened founder and curator, Justus Brinck-

mann, had been the

first in

Germany

to acquire products of Japa-

man-high vases, but ornamental

sword guards, small objects in lacquer and jade, and colored wood21
cuts"-'
in fact, objects which in Japanese art come closest to Art
Nouveau. Eckmann and his contemporaries were very conscious of
the inspiration they were deriving from Japan; they also were aware
that the English had preceded them in adapting and assimilating
Japanese elements.- It is moreover in Eckmann's work that one
sometimes comes across examples of a direct relationship between
nese art, not the usual sumptuous

German

Jugendstil and English Art Nouveau.

Eckmann's 1895 decorations for a poem in Pan display in theme

and style a very strong affinity with Beardsley's decorative borders
for Malory's Morte d'Arthur (at right). The movement of the soft
tulip leaves is borrowed from Beardsley, particularly the downward pointing leaf tips and the vertical construction of the entire
design. In both cases, the design fills the wider, outer margin of the
book, proving that the

artist

visualized the total effect of the

open page.
Beardsley's

own

borders, however, were not independent of the

woodcut borders of books designed by William Morris. Morris had

also stylized flowers in two dimensions, and the strange spiral
curves of his stems and tendrils are much more strongly emphasized

Left:

OTTO ECKMANN

Right:

Margin design from "Pan" (1896)

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

Margin design from Sir Thomas Malory's

"Le Morte d'Arthur" (1893)

than in his subsequent "late medieval" designs. Beardsley thus lays

bare the latent Art

Nouveau element

in

Morris and also

utilizes the

powerful white-on-black effects of the Morris woodcuts, exaggerating them and transforming them into something quite new.
In contrast with the detailed fabric designs of Morris, Beardsley

who followed in the footsteps

Jones, and Whistler), Eckmann in turn attained a
and specifically German style.
exist for Beardsley,

of Morris, Burne-

highly individual

Peter Behrens (1868-1940) 223 was another of the more important

few individual flowers and brings them into the foreground. Eckmann, in turn, also transforms what he has borrowed:

Munich

the black-and-white effects vanish, as well as the dense structure

founder of the VereinigtenWerkstdtten (United Workshops)

singles out a

in

which form and complementary form alternately condition the

Eckmann's tulip dominates the entirely neutral page as a

other.

self-contained drawing. The linear design

striking, the
ley, the still

is

more opulent and more

format larger and of greater significance.

If, in

Beards-

undecided symbolical content of the very expressive

(who was more nonEckmann's broken tulip stem has a

very strongly defined meaning: it is the symbol of the premature
death of the girl who was the protagonist of the poem. Eckmann
takes his point of departure from the studies of natural floral

to

artists

Behrens, like

Eckmann, had

which
of

his

work

what can be

carried

in Jugendstil are

artists.

205

his

prototype

is

the perfected stylization of the English

Having learned much from Beardsley (and nature did not

objects.

The

in 1897,

and
where he chiefly designed

also started his career as a painter

him far beyond Jugendstil into the realms

modern art of building. His earliest works

called the

butterflies alighting

mentation

from Japanese

carpets and furniture, and at last arrived at architecture, a field in

flowers had already surpassed that of Morris

growth, but when he transmutes actual botanical forms into orna-

inspiration

designer, then turned to the applied arts,

committal

in his decoration),

draw

ornamental drawings

like the delicate sketch of

pads framed by rushes (plate 328), and

in this design his affinity with Japanese art is obvious. But unlike
the other Munich artists working in the early floral phase of Juon

lily

from the outset, continued to produce work that

integrated, somewhat heavier, hesitant, and viscous in
conception, instead of being spikey and vigorous. In the above-cited
butterfly design, the lily pads and the faintly indicated paths of the

gendstil, Behrens,

was more

OTTO ECKMANN
Foundry

toward the oval

fluttering butterflies already reveal his inclination

form, while the rushes indicate his predilection for broad, ribbonlike,

two-dimensional bodies. The forms are surrounded by contours

in contrasting colors, a feature

was subjected

which vanished

as soon as

to the influence of the "Belgian" line

Behrens

and shifted

to

Decorative border designed for the Rudbard Type

{circa 1900)

large Hanseatic liner. Jugendstil

to create a lighting system

new

was moreover the

adapted to

first style to try

electric light, then a relatively

invention. Pankok's designs in this field were very original,

consisting of glass plates covered with bronze

lighting fixture

was transformed

openwork

so that the

into an ornament. Besides, the

wiring was freely displayed, as at Haby's, the Court

the abstract.

electrical

The color lithograph, The Brook (plate 205), shows a highly abstract stream in the flat Japanese style flowing between tree trunks
and framed by large leaves. If, at this point, pictorial description

barbershop in Berlin, decorated by Van de Velde, where the entire

has been already replaced by a highly symbolic representation of

they did not wear their

idyllic nature, the

flow of the water

two

in

lateral panels of the triptych repeat the

issue

German Romantic

rens' art distills, so to speak, the essence of

art in

rendering landscape and nature, making it pleasantly unfamiliar

and adding an exotic element as a piquant note. The lyric, poetic
atmosphere of the drawing has the cool reserve that we find in all
of his works, and for all its instability and lack of structure, solidly
static and constructive values are still present: in fact, Behrens' work
belongs in the abstract and constructive phase of Jugendstil.
the style of Bernhard

belongs to that of Obrist's and Endell's

Pankok

(1

872-1 943)

224

Born in Munster,
Pankok lived in Munich after 1892 and, in 1897, was one of the
founders of the Vereinigten Werkstdtten. His career also began as a
sculptor and a designer of surface ornament, before he went on to
the applied arts and finally to architecture. His furniture and incircle.

teriors as well as his surface decorations represent

an individual

with

this

was

visible. Berlin wits

took

premature style of functionalism by remarking that

own

entrails across their waistcoats like a

watch chain. 225

In his graphic work,

an entirely ornamental and symbolic manner.

Far removed from any conventional representation of nature, Beh-

On the other hand,

electrical installation of polished brass

Pankok combined

with ornament, particularly

in his large

naturalistic verisimilitude

border designs iorPan, best

exemplified by those for the Phantasus poems by

Arno Holz, who

merits a place of honor close to the younger Rilke and Stefan George
in

German

Jugendstil poetry. Pankok's best design

is

probably the

color lithograph for the frontispiece in the official catalogue of the

German

section for the Paris International Exhibition of

(frontispiece). This

1900

a poetic and decorative creation in which,

is

however powerfully abstracted, a fairy-tale spring unfolds, wells up,

foams forth, and flares up like fireworks: a new symbol for the
metamorphosis of nature's forces

as joyously exemplified in flowers.

halfway between Obrist's embroideries and

Van de Velde; here again but none the less as
we find a floral style that had become almost abstract.

In style, this design

is

the line drawings of

late as

1900

226
tre only one of the Mu868-19 J7),
nich group to have been born there, was the first to follow this

Richard Riemerschmid

who

(1

He

variation of Obrist's and Endell's forms. His knotty and antler-like

trend and the one

forms are far removed from nature; irregular and gnarled after

as a painter, but as early as 1896 he designed

Durer's fashion, and almost grim. As quasi-organic growths, they

house

reveal a certain affinity with Hector Guimard's furniture (plate

ing from architecture to fabric design, glassware, and silver flat-

But elegance and a narrow linear construction are lacking;

everything in Pankok's work is much heavier, knottier, specifically

ware. But he was most of

of his chairs (plate 210), though

middle-class and cozy, creating an atmosphere like that of

stil, is

166).

fairy-tales.
like living

One

of Pankok's most beautiful interiors, the alcove-

room with an entrance through

was designed
in

doorway,
and shown again two

a vast curved

for the Paris Exhibition of 1900

years later in Turin. This

succeeded

Grimm's

room proves anew how German Jugendstil

conceiving and carrying out interior decoration in

terms of an integral work of

Pankok's ensemble thus shows signs of

"Yachting Style," except that the room

so ageless

it

to

its

farthest point.

and

too began

built his

own

near Munich. His field was just as universal, rang-

all

important as a furniture designer.

it

obviously belongs within Jugend-

and so convincingly right that

the furniture firm of

Dunbar

is

only the slightest modification.

One

in the

currently producing
It is

United States
it

again, with

devoid of ornament, having

become a plastic ornamental form in space. The chair's supple

supporting and connecting wooden frame seems alive, but not
itself

really "organic" or even at all "floral." It

is

the very manifestation

of vital forces, translated here into terms of ornament and symbol.

art.

Actually, the style of Van de Velde had already influenced this

interior.

in Pasing,

carried

is

his

awareness of the

not reminiscent of the

cabin of a streamlined motorboat, but rather of the stateroom of a

No

Van de Velde, who was faithful to the tradition of William Morris and Arts and Crafts in advocating integrity
and skilled workmanship, found these combined in Riemerschmid
and said that "each of his works is a good deed."

wonder then

that

206

modernism (not only in the Jugendstil sense), Riemerschmid was primarily inspired by folklore and regional tradition.
In his small easy chair of about 1900 (plate 212), he combined
sturdy rural craftsmanship and urban elegance. Constructed of flat
boards but still organic and plastic, a bit clumsy but almost toylike,
compact as a block but interrupted in its design within this context,
it is purposeful but manifestly exaggerated, simple and labyrinthine, rustic and elegant. This piece of furniture offers indeed a
For

all his

dialectical synthesis of the essential qualities of Jugendstil and, at

the same time, a convincing link between curved

and geometrical

German
effects.

late

High

Jugendstil

Art Nouveau.

ceramics of this period aimed just as consciously at rustic

The most important masters of pottery were

Max

Laeuger

very

tions. In the

first

number of Pan, he already

illustrated (or

rather symbolized) Nietzsche's Konigslied.

Apart from Royal Copenhagen porcelain, Scandinavia

guished

itself

mainly

in this period

through

its

woven

distin-

tapestries,

Gerhard Munthe's Daughters of the Northern Light and

it was Pan that, at an early date,
encouraged these endeavors which are related to Galln's style.
A Swedish example, so far unknown, is an endpaper by Ivar Arosenius (plate 204), 227 which stands midway between High and late
Jugendstil. Abstraction and lightness are present in it to the same
extent, while ambiguity of form that is at the same time organic
and geometric is represented in pleasing repetitions. The snail-like
chiefly

Frida Hansen's Milky Way. Again

coils

of hair on either side of each of the

and the openly revealed

little

heads recall actual

(1864-1952) and Johann Julius Scharvogel (1 8541938). Schartwo handles like an amphora,

snail shells,

which give

an almost circular outline. The vessel has a swelling

of beading, and the fiat spirals of the coils of hair are matched by

only

the twined ribbon-like strips that alternate with the rows of heads

shape modeled in clay and from the

and beading. The harmonious proportions of the uniformly sized

circular heads, the rows of beading and the breasts, the thinly out-

vogel's beautiful vase (plate 323) has

plasticity,

it

without any hint of nature's forms, deriving

from the movement of

mottled, down-flowing

its

glaze. It

its life

of course inspired by Chinese

is

breasts are also seen to be re-

versed hearts. The circular faces match the small circles in the rows

faint colors, all contribute to give the design an

models, but in such a vase the sophistication of the Far East has

lined forms

regained the spontaneity of pure craftsmanship.

evenly distributed density. Artlessness and subtlety are skillfully

Some French ceramics

offer a comparable rustic character, con-

trasting with the tendency prevailing in Paris

and Nancy. True,

in

a vase like that of Adrien Dalpayrat (plate 324), the rustic quality
is

much more apparent and

Actually, in

Dalpay rat's

counterbalanced, and together with

scale

In the

round

228

from cubic

to

cheery quality (as rare in

its

Art Nouveau) combine to assure

masterpiece a place of its own.

Jugendstil as

illusory than in Scharvogel's vase.

piece, the transition

and

1944),

it is

work of

in

the

this small-

Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-

Scandinavia achieved great art

in the truest sense of the

and contour, and the relationship between the body and the neck of

term (plate 276, colorplate XII, and page 208). Although Munch
borrows from Gauguin (whose paintings, together with Van Gogh's,

are very deliberate. For once, the proportions are not

he had seen during his 1898 sojourn in Paris) the essential elements

form, the subtle distinctions of curved and straight lines in surface

the vase

all

unduly elongated
squat. It

is

as

is

usual in Art

Nouveau; they

are consciously

a late and entirely artificial work, and, as so

creations of this period, coquettish in

its

many

other

simplicity.

of form that belong to his unmistakably personal style, the nature of

his art

is

so obviously

the context of

German

"Germanic" that

it

can be best understood in

Jugendstil.

During the eighties Munch joined the bohemian group of artists

working in Christiana (present-day Oslo) this group's outlook combined both libertinism and criticism of middle-class society, and
this viewpoint influenced the themes of the great works he was
;

Scandinavia

and popular art is also present in

the armchairs and straight chairs which the Finnish artist Akseli
Galln-Kallela (1 865193 1) constructed of birchwood and upholstered in a very beautiful wool material with fir-tree patterns appliqud in green and blue (plate 211). These designs appear somewhat alien to all the other trends current at that time, and stress a
middle-class and even rustic note, renewing the Biedermeier tradition. Akseli Galln was most famous for his murals and illustraThis mixture of craftsmanship

207

soon to produce. In 1892,

Munch

held an exhibition in Berlin at

provoked
few
days
after
the opensuch a scandal that it had
ing; this closing resulted in the founding of the group known as the
the invitation of the Berlin Artist's Union. This exhibition
to be closed a

Berliner Sezession.

During his Berlin years Munch lived in those circles of the Berlin
bohme that were frequented by such writers as Arno Holz, Richard
Dehmel, Otto Bierbaum, and August Strindberg, and by the art

EDVARD MUNCH

Paraphrase on Salome

For Munch, the outline was an

quently circumscribed in flowing

898)

essential device of creation, frelines

of color. After 1894, he also

used such graphic media as etching, lithography, and the woodcut;

he was equally great as a painter and as a draftsman. In those of

Munch's works which were typically Jugendstil, the lines are so
fluid, soft, and undulating that compared with them Gauguin's
harmonious outlines seem almost hard, rigid, and reminiscent of

woodcuts. In spite of their animal but helplessly revealed

his first literary

Munch's forms are capable of the most delicate curves, shapes that
may be large and synthesized, even clumsy, but with an expressive
and evocative quality which makes us feel with almost frightening
intensity the demonic power of the elementary side of nature and

Stanislas Przybyszewsky published an anthology

of the sexual nature of man. Colors play an important role and

and founder of Pan, Julius Meier-Graefe. At that time he also

the acquaintance of some of the great German collectors, including Count Harry Kessler, Eberhard von Bodenhausen, and

critic

made

Walter Rathenau. Berlin also provided

supporters in
:

8 94,

vitality,

Mundi with

Works of Edvard Munch. This collection contained

by many of the men who moved in the perceptive group of
artists that founded the Genossenschaft Pan (Pan Society) that same
year, and the following year launched Pan, German Jugendstil's
most brilliant and articulate periodical. Active literary support was
also provided by August Strindberg, who in 1 896 reviewed an ex-

may appear bloody and

of writings, The

courageously include black; Munch's reds

articles

poisonous; his colors are often crude and stabbing, but they never

Munch's works held at Bing's gallery in Paris. Strindberg's critique appeared in the Revue Blanche, 229 the most important publication of the Nabi group.
Between 1890 and 1900, Munch's paintings bear such titles as

allow us to forget the great painter in Munch,

over-obvious display of psychology.

veau

its

Munch

in spite

of

all his

shares with Art

Nou-

great decorative quality; but his anger, his torment, his

greed are never constrained by calligraphic effects.

hibition of

Jealousy, The Kiss, Puberty, The Cry, After the Fall of

Man, An-

Flower of Sorrow, In the Masculine Brain, Attraction, Detachment, and Fertility. Though his power carried him beyond the
limits of the movement, Munch shared with the whole of Art
Nouveau an inclination toward the Symbolist movement, and also
toward hysteria, hypersensitivity, and a fascination with eroti-

guish,

cism.

He

lacked the elegance, the fashionable playfulness, and the

Munch

aloofness of the dandy: "The animal breaks out in

as a full

expression of his unbroken being." 230

"Landscapes of Hell, somewhat

threat,

many

like Strindberg's

Each rock a

a tree a conspiracy, endless desolation in things. Once,

everything was convulsion: soon, everything will be a cry.

the cry of Nature,' says

Munch. When Pan died, the

trees

hear

wept and

Ferdinand Hodler and Ludwig von

Hofmann

The inclination of many German and,

in particular,

Scandina-

vian artists of Jugendstil tended toward the bucolic and a world of

unbroken

local

tradition;

similarly,

other

German

attracted to the world of the child and youth. Both trends reveal

the nostalgia of that age for the sources of unspent and intact
forces; both fight against historicism. The longing for youth in art
and life can be felt everywhere, but most clearly in English early
and High Art Nouveau as well as in late Jugendstil, wherever the
convulsive excitement of Continental High Art Nouveau does not
predominate. This nostalgic longing fills Kate Greenaway's and
Walter Crane's children's books; 232 while interiors, above all those

by Voysey, look

like nurseries. It

is

precisely the oft-used "inno-

cent" white color employed in furniture and rooms that recalls

We

meet

withered: they turned into crosses." This text by Theodor Daubler

nurseries suggestive of an almost clinical hygiene.

(already Expressionistic, but without denying

tendency, inspired by Voysey and later by Glasgow, in the

its

relationship to

were

artists

Hoffmann and

this

work

Jugendstil and Symbolism) goes on to say: "Palely priapic, the

of the Viennese architects

mauve

for the Princesses that Olbridi built in 1901 at Schloss Wolfsgarten

pulls the sexual tentacles of a lunar ghost

shivers

and
the room: it

birth of the nocturnal sky breaks into our existence

and

senses that

which

is

febrile

the North, in an upheaval of vast eroticism.

storm was released: Edvard Munch." 231

world into
His art

was born facing

A magnificent thunder-

bei

Langen, near Darmstadt (plate 343),

actual function, a sort of house for dolls

general,

Van de

Velde's

feature except once;

in

Olbrich. The Playhouse

is,

in

and

accordance with

its

children's games. In

more "adult" creations do not reveal this

1903 it is present in Count Harry Kessler's

208

handsome dining room in Weimar (plate 203). The white lacquered

furniture and panels and a childlike, naive mural painting by
Maurice Denis all seem to be intended for a young girl's room.

ground, and even as far as the background, the flowers are

German

tive effect of the pictorial surface.

The flower backgrounds were no doubt inspired by Japanese art

but have been transformed into something quite individual. In the

artist, Ferdinand Hodler (1853 191 8).

In its conception
and execution his work Spring shows a freshness and youthfulness
and a desire for a youthful art and a youthful style. Such paintings

same way, Hodler's relationship

are entirely devoid of the complicated, half-artificial childhood

but this relationship has in no

element that Von Hofmannsthal detected in the English style;

234

they are free from decadence or a coy toying with the childlike.

Eros awakens in the souls and in the undeveloped bodies of the

girl
is

and the adolescent boy;

in the fascinated

gaze of the latter there

something resembling surprise, something also

gesture of the girl

who, with eyes

closed,

is

like fright in the

listening to an inner

of

nearly the same size and thereby greatly contribute to the decora-

Features of this kind also appear in the paintings of the Swiss233

all

to French painting

ticularly to the equally fresco-like

evident, par-

is

works of Puvis de Chavannes,

way made

Hodler's work derivative

Nor does one find any trace of an affinity between Hodler's paintings and those of the English Pre-Raphaelites,
at any rate not in his early works. His style developed so logically

of French painting.

and evenly and matured

ing The Night, there

But

either.

is

so soon that, as early as

no reason to believe

in spite of all his

890, in the paint-

in later influences

independence, there

a certain link

is

Jugendstil, in spite of

between Spring (plate 206) and Rossetti's Ancilla Domini (plate 57).
Both show absolute purity, on the human level as well as in the

of

style of painting; in

voice. In

its

form

as well, Hodler's painting

is

closely related to

its powerful plastic quality and the heaviness

from ethereal figures, in spite of comparatively realistic
representation and the firm structure of the work. With his often
symmetrical and slim figures developed parallel to each other, and

far

its

with the parallelisms of his

Hodler achieves a clear, ornamental composition that confers decorative and expressive effects,
symbolism and monumentality, on paintings bearing pretentious
names: Eurythmies, The Chosen, Spring, Day, and Night. Hodler's
art is perhaps the best example of a monumentality rare in painting
that

is

details,

not necessarily inherent in the style. The simplified and

almost ornamental outlines

make

and
manner of

the plastic figures strictly

inevitably fuse with the surface of the picture. Hodler's

painting suggests no painterly quality; his treatment of color

is

and devoid of surface

which

his art

is

brilliance, as in fresco technique, to

also close in spirit.

Wthin

dry

the contours, the colors are rela-

homogeneous, with scarcely any effect of light or shade and

no cross-hatching. A fruitful relationship exists between the powertively

fully fascinating figures that transcend themselves like

their impressive plastic qualities

and the

symbols

in

entirely flat background,

which has practically no spatial depth. The horizon line is frequently drawn quite high, so that the highly stylized landscape

background (usually consisting of flowery meadows) lies like a kind

of wallpaper behind the figures, but in such a way as to include
them in its carpet-like pattern and structure. The large, round
flowers which Hodler likes to scatter through his
ratively

irregular

meadows

groups are individually seen

in

in

deco-

perspective,

causing the round form of the flower to be flattened into an oval.

In the relationship between foreground
this perspective

209

and background, or horizon,

remains almost without effect: up to the middle-

if

Hodler employs

both cases the theme

it

is

the Annunciation, even

in a transposed sense. In

both works there

is

a half-reclining figure and a half-upright figure; both are represent-

ed in juxtaposition and contrast, and in

and

in

full face

and

in profile;

both the empty space between the two figures

stressed. In spite of the

gap of

fifty intervening years, the

tures are closely related even in their proportions

and

heavily

is

two

pic-

structure.

The atmosphere pervading the paintings of Ludwig von Hof-

mann
less

(1

861-194 j) 235

Art Nouveau

latter,

Hofmann

is

equally vernal, although his

in style

work

is

slightly

than that of Hodler. But, unlike the

also illustrated

and decorated books

in a typically

Jugendstil manner.

Ludwig von Hofmann was inspired by the works of Puvis de

Chavannes and it is perhaps interesting to note that Hofmann
was the teacher of the young Hans Arp 236 though he softened
Puvis' severe and rather stiff forms and transposed the quiet immo-

bility

of the

French painter's idealized Arcadian

figures

into

something possessing a dancelike movement.

Hofmann went

where he
became friendly with the painters, Klinger, Leistikow, and Liebermann. From the beginnings of the nineties his art developed along
lines suggested to him by that of Hans von Mares, an earlier
painter in whose work Hofmann sensed elements that anticipated
Jugendstil. What the poet Theodor Dubler wrote about Hans von
After studies in Paris in 1889,

Mares' paintings in his

now

to Berlin

neglected book, The

New

Viewpoint,

might also apply to Ludwig von Hofmann's works: "His trees

murmur above blissful groves through which an enchanting green
light, as

tremulous

in color as aspen-leaves, filters

down

onto the

OTTO ECKMANN
Foundry

bodies of youths and maidens

as

had not been encountered

cissistic;

such youth [and youthfulness]

since Botticelli. These figures are nar-

they suddenly perceive their maturity, for the

first

time

legible

Decorative border designed for the Rudhard Type

(circa 1900)

and

their general aspect

is

harmonious. They are completely

abstract; letters transformed into ornament, yet these printed letters

retain the character of flowing

penmanship, as though written with

they are aware that they are young." 237 But, unlike the pre-

a soft, thick brush. Freely designed, they were naturally more

dominantly dark and heavy splendor of the palette of Hans von

accordance with Jugendstil than the more architectural Antiqua

Mares, the sweetness of watercolor tints prevails in the paintings

type face, even though the lettering of Jugendstil

of

Ludwig von Hofmann.

Hofmann comes
(plate 344),

latter

closest to

which are

at the

real Jugendstil in

same

time illustrations

his

lithographs

and symbolic borders: Pan reproduced many of them.

In 1903, Hofmann was appointed to the art school in Weimar, a
city which, thanks to Count Kessler and Henry Van de Velde, had
become a small but important center of art immediately after 1900.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal has expressed essential thoughts about

Hofmann

in his

book, Prologue to Ludwig von Hofmann's Dances:

"These drawings are beautifully assembled, like an album of

cates,

which the soul

is

born of the

bliss their

figures express nothing but their nudity. Rhythmically, they

them through page

space; the imagination can play with

and

is

softly rocked

Mo-

rhythm communieagerly accepts through the eye and ear. His

zart sonatas. Their unity

by them,

as

on a

blissful

neck gently curved backwards; a woman's

fill

after page

sequence of tones.

arm

raised so straight

According to the nature of

ward

architectural
in

empty of lushness
so that they are vernally at one with the world of the young trees
which rise into the pure sky from the hills of spring, at one with
the contours of the isles which emerge yonder from lyre-shaped
Southern bays into the fragrance of the morning." 238

Mature and Late Jugendstil

The work of Eckmann, Behrens, and Riemerschmid had already
way toward an abstract and constructive phase of
Jugendstil. To the decorative designs which he had published in
1897 under the title New Forms, Eckmann had then added a few
prepared the

with abstract curvy

lines,

somewhat

after the spirit of the "Belgian"

His ornamental capitals and typographical ornaments for the

Rudhard type foundry (page 207 and page 212, left) are firmly

line.

constructed in spite of their soft curves, and never

make

use of

any

purely decorative accessories. The letters are perfectly clear and

first

Every "promise" contained in his lettering, his ornaments,

and his drawings already seems to be fulfilled in the most personal
manner in the rooms of this house, particularly in the very unified
library which may be counted among the best examples of Jugendstil interior design, and also in certain details, such as the magnifitime.

wood with the linear design of

however, we cannot overlook the

cent door of dark-green lacquered

its

fittings.

fact that a

At

the

new

same time,

stimulus had operated from without: Van de Velde

and

a bull; a dance of maidens, bare to the waist. But,

in 1898. In his first

work, the house he built for himself on the Mathilden-

Belgian master whose

body of

is

Darmstadt, Behrens used abstract Jugendstil for the

forms riding faun-like on naked shoulders; crouching on the

ground, animal-like, hand on heel; feminine bodies strained against
the

shown in the fine

the book decorations

drawing, The Brook (plate 205), as well as in

and lettering designs that he began to produce

hohe

Behrens tended to-

his talent, Peter

a serious, heavy, constructive form, as

that the hollow of the armpit becomes flat; nude, slender-limbed

despite all their voluptuousness, these pictures are

based on the

and though only accessory elements were borrowed from

Gothic characters.

and arabesques,

idyllic scenes

is

in

his "Belgian"

opment of

line.

the style)

We

can detect here the influence of the

work (through his contribution to the develhad made him one of the main figures of Ju-

gendstil, not only in the

comparative weightiness of

his

forms,

which corresponded to the ideas of Behrens concerning form, or

his conception of space, but also essentially in the

in

"Yachting Style"

flavor that permeates the Behrens library.

The rooms which Van de Velde exhibited in Bing's gallery in

Paris in 1895-96 met with unfavorable criticism. He showed the
same rooms in Dresden in 1897, with the addition of a newly
created "relaxation-room"; there, in general, he was successful.
These rooms launched Van de Velde in Germany, and in 1899 he
began to work in Berlin where he at first decorated store interiors.
But Van de Velde's most important work of these years was the
interior of the

the

main

Folkwang Museum

hall,

Hagen, completed in 1902. In

the cylindrical fountain is dominated by Minne's
in

five sculptured youths with their tensely angular

143).

Not only

movement

(plate

the severe banisters of the staircase, but also the

side rooms and the small music room (plate 208) are worth mentioning. The unity of these rooms is achieved without the aid of
additional ornaments, whether painted, woven, or carved. Here the

"Belgian" line appears

in

wide, calm curves.

210

WASSILY KANDINSKY
exhibition in

Munich (191

Catalogue jacket for "Der blaue Reiter*

1)

BlA(/eR6f7K
Even elements of

Art Nouveau can be

Van de Velde's
work, expressing themselves in the interiors he designed for Count
Kessler in Weimar in 1902-03 (plate 203) in his noblest and
rare
for Van de Velde
most elegant manner. The interior architect,
decorator, and designer in him is subordinated here in order to
serve the purposes of the work of art. The convulsions of Belgian
High Art Nouveau are abandoned in favor of delicate curves,
with a suggestion of Biedermeier modesty and neatness.
late

felt in

These rooms are expressly decorated as a setting for Count Kessler's eclectic

such

collection of

moderns

as Maillol,

works of

art,

of old masters as well as of

Bonnard, and Maurice Denis; and no con-

spicuous decoration was to diminish their effect.

say that Van de Velde,

who was

One

is

tempted to

not entirely free from dictatorial

tendencies, has surpassed himself here through self-effacement.

Among Van

de Velde's works in the field of the applied

his set of silver

Most of Van de Velde's other works also show this synthetic

quality. The curved rhythm of High Jugendstil, which is often
expressed in a very noble and simplified compactness of form,
prevails in his ornaments and bookbindings, his furniture, jewelry,
and handwrought silverware, in his candelabra and tea services
(plates 213, 329). The noble distinction of Count Kessler's diningroom ensemble or the distinctive shape of the silverware already
pointing toward future styles was seldom again achieved by Van
de Velde, but

many

of his other creations

may

be considered as

prototypes of Art Nouveau: for instance, his masterpiece of a

"linear" Art

Nouveau, the candelabra of about 1902; or his main

example of a three-dimensional Art Nouveau, the silver tea service
of 1905-06 (plate 329); or his ideal form of an Art Nouveau armchair, for which Georges Lemmen designed the upholstery fabric.

arts,

flatware from about 19 12, in which beauty and

simplicity are perfectly

combined

(plate 207),

is

particularly note-

From

Jugendstil to

Modern Trends

worthy. Knives, forks, and spoons revert to fundamental forms;

here form attains the highest functional value and, from the point

most appropriate to the method of production. This tableware which even today might win the highest
award for good functional form, is one of the rare works of Van de

of view of the artisan,

is

Velde (and of Jugendstil in general) that achieved a timeless

the aim pursued

Far

less

by Jugendstil with

so

much

style,

ardor.

unostentatious were the sumptuous rooms for the Dres-

den Exhibition of 1906, the central hall in particular. Here, after

some years of working in a simple, distinctly geometric style that

was in keeping with his time, Van de Velde reverted to a curved

and linear style which he now greatly simplified, thereby alienating
himself more and more from the actual trends of the future. One
of his chief architectural works, which at the same time proved

how

long he remained faithful to a curved Jugendstil,

is

the

Werk-

hundtheater, built for the 19 14 Cologne Exhibition (plate 214).

Had

it

been built ten years earlier,

we might

consider

it

as a

main

achievement of Jugendstil and Art Nouveau architecture. In spite

of the extreme compactness of the bulk of the building, which seems
to

have been molded out of some liquid matter,

well as

its

directions

its

main body

as

separate parts are rhythmically arranged. Contrasting

and forms blend

in a synthesis

which comprises the geo-

The immediate transition from High and then late Jugendstil to

modern architecture is clearly seen in the work of Peter Behrens.
Soon after 1900, leading personalities among German architects
and designers adopted a new Biedermeier style: the poet, Rudolf
Alexander Schroder, for instance, in the rooms he decorated in 1901
for Alfred Walter Heymel in Munich, the founder of the famous
Insel books and publishing house; or Bruno Paul (1 874-1954) in the
rooms he designed for the Deutsche Werkbund, founded in 1905;
or Joseph Olbrich in 1901 in his own house in Darmstadt. For more
important buildings, Behrens developed a kind of neo-Classicism,

from which he soon progressed to a more functional style. The

which he built in 1909 and 191 1 in Berlin for the Allgemeine Elektrizitts-Gesellschaft (AEG), a huge electrical and enfactories

gineering industrial concern, deserve particular mention here. But

house in Paris on the rue Franklin (plate 175) and

his garage on the rue Ponthieu (plate 317) stand between late Art

just as Perret's

Nouveau and modern

lin

do the above-mentioned Berbuildings by Behrens reveal a link with the Jugendstil past. The

Berlin

and

steel.

an "architecture that speaks for

pillars,

mantic echo of Jugendstil.

this

211

turbine factory, for instance,

a rectilinear skeleton of glass

and the ornamental elements.

In spite of the quality of its form this building, which was designed
only five years after Behrens' AEG turbine plant and three years
after the Gropius Fagus Factory, might almost be considered a rometric, the organic, the functional,

AEG

architecture, so

whose tapering reminds

To

itself,"

us of

exaggeratedly heavy-looking gable

is

constructed entirely as

illustrate the principle of

it

has powerful corner

Egyptian forms;

lies

across the

besides, an

body of the

building, which thus acquires, as a whole, a certain grandeur, since

its

weight
is

now

quite static

seems

to symbolize energy.

scarcely in accord with pure functionalism. Mies

But

all

van der

Rohe then followed Behrens in

pius and Le Corbusier worked

his Classicist phase,

and both Gro-

for a while in his office: Europe's

ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER

illustrations to

Border design from the

series of

"Mann und Weib* (1900-02)

three leading architects thus reveal an affinity with Behrens.

In the field of painting, Munich Jugendstil offered the most

ground for the growth of modern art. Its Blaue Reiter group,
in their Romantic tendencies, were not so very far removed from
the Romantic element inherent in German Jugendstil, nor adverse
fertile

to the efforts to revert to

popular

art. It is

known

that

among

the

artists, Paul Klee had studied the works of Beardsley

and Blake. Franz Marc's paintings are largely composed of swinging

Blaue Reiter

and rhythmic relationships. In this

works of Wassily Kandinsky (i 896-1944) offer
perhaps the most interesting examples of such a transition. His
watercolors and colored woodcuts, with their somewhat Romantic
and withdrawn moods, are not only related to Jugendstil but also
satisfy most of its criteria of form (facing page). Flat areas and
surface-bodies that condition each other with swinging and gliding
outlines and remain entirely homogeneous in color (though with
somewhat painterly patches in certain areas) reveal a powerful
stylization in their forms which seem to be laid into the surface
rhythmically, almost as if they were inlaid. The early woodcuts
might even be classified as examples of Art Nouveau "volume
effects," being composed only of broadly formed, two-dimensional
bodies; but they still reveal convulsive movement in the swing of the
curves and in their self-sufficient (or narcissistic) calligraphy. Later
curves, two-dimensional bodies,
respect, the early

works, such as Kandinsky's cover design for the Blaue Reiter catalogue of 191

(page 211) and some of his early abstract compo-

sitions are closer to Jugendstil in this respect.

underwent all the transformacaused by contemporary developments but remains so original

style of building, often anticipatory,

tions

that

it

develops every aspect of style to

its

utmost

possibilities.

Antoni Gaudi's Early Works

The son of an ironworker, Gaudi was born in Reus. As a boy he

practiced his father's craft, a craft which for centuries the Spaniards
have developed with outstanding ability. This early training is
evident in many of Gaudi's mature works, where the inexhaustible
inventiveness of form and the admirable technique of the ironwork
play such an important and integral part (plates 218, 226). Even
his architecture

grew under

his

hands as though

it

from a smithy's forge, so that the completed work

from the original plan.

were a piece
is

often quite

different

Gaudi's studies of architecture were influenced by the theories of

Viollet-le-Duc,

and from

his

youth Gaudi was also familiar with

and John Ruskin, and probably with

illustrations in the early English Art Nouveau style. He was one of
the first in Spain to admire Wagner. As a young man, he lived the
life of a dandy and constructed palaces, villas, and architectural
"follies" for patrons to whom money was no object. During the
the writings of Walter Pater

Barcelona

n Spain, Art Nouveau flourished chiefly

in

Barcelona, the rich capital city of

Catalonia. Barcelona's greatest master

of Art

Nouveau was Antoni Gaudi

Cornet (1852-1926),

239

who was

also

the outstanding genius of the entire in-

ternational

Art Nouveau movement.

Starting with historicism and passing

through the various phases of early,

High, and

late

Art Nouveau, Gaudi's

last

decades of his long

life,

he retired like a hermit

in

order to

superhuman task of building the Church of the Sagrada Familia (plates 217, 228). Gaudi
had always been deeply religious; he felt increasingly that a mystic
symbolism inhabits the forms of architecture. His death through a
street accident was considered a national misfortune; the people of
Barcelona, who had loved both him and his art, accompanied the
devote himself exclusively to the almost

funeral procession for miles.

212

213

VIII

WASSILYKANDINSKY

Moonrise (1902-03)

ANTONI G AUDI

Detail of the roof of the Casa Batll, Barcelona

(1905-07)

Gaudi's conception of a building as an integrated whole, his love

seek English influences there.

Still,

we have proof

that

Gaudi knew

of rich decoration and decorative as well as symbolic elements in

English works of this kind at least in theory, and that his patron,

and finally, the forms he created and which draw

elements from every domain of plant life and animal life (here too,
in the figurative sense, he was eminently "catholic"), made him an
artist who, through an idiom of unconventional and individualistic
form, achieved the inner intentions of Art Nouveau in the most

Count

his constructions,

grandiose manner.

nerism. This affinity with Art

Nouveau

Gaudi designed for

Viccna (1878-80). This

built in

what was then

fanciful variation in

odical found

Gaudi's

In 1877, as assistant to the architect Jos Fontser, Gaudi began

working on the great waterfall in Barcelona's Parque Ciudadela, a
construction that was strongly inspired by Esprandieu's Palais
Longchamps in Marseilles. In the sculptured ornaments on which
Gaudi also worked, one can detect features of Art Nouveau in
spite of an otherwise historistic style partly dependent on Man-

furniture which

Giiell, was a decided Anglophile. English examples of form

were of importance to Gaudi, and his biographer, Rfols, states
that the Casa Vicena contained mural decorations and draperies
which were inspired by illustrations contained in an English peri-

is

is

even more clearly

his first

felt in

important work, Casa

a small but sumptuous villa-like house,

and conceived as a
the Spanish-Moorish Mudjar style. The entire

romantic dream-castle

a suburb of Barcelona,

fits

into the style of historicism, with

its

built

among Gaudi's private papers

first

masterpiece

is

after his death.

the palatial building he designed and

between 1885 and 1889, near the old so-called "Gothic"

downtown Barcelona, for the shipowner and industrial-

quarter of

Don

Giiell. The original design for the faade reveals

and decorative reminiscences of early Venetian
palazzos, but there is no sign of these features in the completed
faade. The interior, however, is largely influenced by such Gothic
and Venetian styles which are blended with Moorish influences.
ist,

Eusebio

certain stylistic

Whether

in the interior

decoration or in the final version of the

double portals of the faade,

we

nevertheless find no pointed Gothic

ogives or Moorish arches; instead, a creative development of both

Gaudi's own parabolic arches, forms which seem irregular but are
mathematically conceived and,

in the

arrangement of the colon-

disrupted and detailed forms, the asymmetrical connection between

nades leading toward the loggia (plate 221), display a refined

ele-

its polychrome and decoratively handled

and the floral pattern of its glazed ceramic tiles (called
azulejos) which are lavishly employed on the exterior and the interior, and with its small Moorish basket-shaped balconies fitted

gance. The capitals and the abutments blend in an entirely

new

its

heterogeneous parts,

surfaces,

with wooden or iron

railings.

But the small chimney-towers, the

more grandiose sculptured chimneys,

already strike one as inventive and entirely original, while the ironwork railings express Art Nouveau ideas even earlier than Mackmurdo's earliest creations. The garden railings, for instance, are
precursors of Gaudi's later and

element of construction and, in contrast to

all historical

and

tradi-

upward to form cone-shaped arches. As if

formed out of a ductile substance, these conic forms glidingly cut
into the stalactite-like, downward-hanging spandrels. Nowhere but
in Art Nouveau were such forms possible and, in fact, nowhere can
tional examples, taper

they be found except in Gaudi's work.

The interior is the most interesting feature of Palau Giiell. In the

ground plan as well as in the vertical construction, different space

rods terminate in the soft curves of the "whiplash rhythm." The

whole a magnificently labyrinthine

open or half-open
rooms, openwork walls, balustrades, railings, and columns, all of
which (in quite different, and above all far heavier, forms) anticipate Mackintosh's open-walled rooms (plate 248). This series of
rooms culminates in the central domed hall which reaches up to the
topmost floor and receives its light from a lantern-like cupola

comparatively naturalistic form of the details places these railings

window

in the category of early

Art Nouveau. Here, as in the somewhat

and timorous bunch of flowers carved on a door of the
billiard room and in the wide curves of the terrace railings, the
new style as was the case in all other countries expresses itself
first in terms of line and two-dimensional area.

parabolic arches. The impression of a very thin-skinned wall

detailed

firmed by the hexagonal

the most vigorous achievements in this field of flamboyant extrav-

agance (plate 330). Above a skeleton consisting of square areas

marked off by horizontal and vertical bars, and surrounded by

palm fronds are juxtaposed and superAt each jointure of the squares, plump
lotus-buds push forward and, at the top and bottom, linear iron

circular forms, star-shaped

imposed

in endless repetition.

Considering the originality of such a building,

it

would be

idle to

units intermingle to give the

aspect: a unit comprising sections of entirely

(plate 220).

The actual cupola

tiles

rises like

an airy tent above

is

con-

which honeycomb the inner surface

of the cupola; through the circular apertures, daylight or, at night,

electric light, illuminates the

creation

is

dome

in a

very subtle manner. Gaudi's

no doubt the most original new version of

since Borromini's

and Guarini's cupolas and,

theme
same time,

this old

at the

214

2'7

'*!^W
(

3?

5*
.Vk,

['

'

BO

tfm
9

!;

$mIS'

.*-

i<

216

2l8

219

217

ANTONI GAUD!

East faade 0) the Church 0) the Sagrada

Familia, Barcelona (1XS3-1926)

2

ANTONI GAUD

Detail of the faade 0) the Casa Mild,

Barcelona (1905-10)

219

ANTON] GAUDl
(1905-10)

Main entrance

0) the

Casa

M da,

Barcelona

220

221

218

22'

220

ANTONI GAUDI Domed

ceiling of the

music room

in the

Palau

Guell, Barcelona (1885-89)

221

ANTONI GAUDi

Drawing room

of the Palau Giiell, Barcelona

(1885-89)
222

LLUIS

DOMENCH Y MONTANLR

torium of the Palau de

223

LLUIS

DOMENCH

la

Chandelier

in

the audi-

Musica Catalana, Barcelona (1906-08)

MONTANLR

Catalana, Barcelona (1906-08)

Palau de

la

Musica

224

AN

225

AMONIGAUDI

["ON)

GAUDJ

Detail of a built-in bookcase (circa 1901)

Chandelier (area 1900)

224

"S
220

221

226

ANTONI GAUD

Banister in the Casa Mil, Barcelona (1905-10)

227

ANTONI GAUD

Chaise longue (1885-89)

rx
\

v^.

ANTONI GAUD1

228

Model

for the nave of the Church of the

Sagrada Familia (circa 192$)

disconcertingly recalls prehistoric architecture: the interior of sim-

cone-shaped constructions of the Stone and Bronze Ages.

ilar

great wealth of materials

and forms

is

combined

in the

Palan

some indications of the Art Nouveau tendency toward synthesis. One might almost say the same about the Tiffany rooms in
New York, which are equally opulent but less original.
selves

combine to give the

The furniture, particularly the chairs, which Gaudi designed for

the Casa Calvet in Barcelona between 1898 and 1904, is much
simpler. Here, the suggestion of copying earlier styles is no longer
noticeable. Instead, an element of purity of style and of independ-

anything but suggestive of mere comfort.

ence (in spite of their peculiarity) makes these pieces legitimate

Almost ten years before Horta had incorporated structural details

as part of his architectural ornamentation, Gaudi freely revealed

examples of High Art Nouveau. Not only do they perfectly achieve

on the ground floor and also

those above the curve of the staircase leading from the mezzanine
to the main floor. Furthermore, the marble slabs in the reception
rooms are sometimes secured to the walls by visible iron supports.

like snails

amazingly daring structural inventions. In

Giiell in

Gaudi belongs

entirely to the 1880 period. Pillars

this respect,

and

slabs of

marble, costly woods even more expensively worked, and a great

profusion of hand-wrought ironwork,

rooms a splendor that

is

all

the iron supports of the hall ceilings

Here, as with Horta, elements of modern functional construction

achieve a hitherto

unknown

In this composite structural

not been included), one

is

unity with those of opulent decoration.

work of

art (where only painting has

again impressed mainly by the ironwork,

especially the vehement, serpentine curves of the grilles

upper part of the parabolic arches of the portals.

interest are certainly the far smaller

interior of the master

tals

Of

on the

even greater

the fusion between the structural and the decorative, but, coiled

tal

and dynamic

as springs, they give the impression of vege-

and organic growth.

These qualities are developed on a gigantic scale in the chief

works of Gaudi's High Art Nouveau. The vaulted roofs of the

Park Giiell (plate 13) swell like an enormous
colored and shimmering Portuguese man-of-war; the scaly, tiled
roof of the Casa Batll (plate 216) is humped like the back of a
dinosaur. The outline of the parapet of Park Giiell seems like the
petrified curved line of a wave which the receding sea might have
porter's lodge in the

left

imprinted upon the sands of a shore (plate 16).

wrought-iron ornaments in the

bedroom, which playfully surround the capi-

and the abutments of an open arch with a design (plate 235) of

and imaginative power; although more mature,

Luis

Domnech y Montaner

incredible inventive

such forms recall the stone ornamentation of Furness (plate 231),

and Sullivan's early designs (plate 236). Equally admirable

is

the

small grid centered in the panel of a door, as delicate as lace, yet

full

of the cruel, vital force which

is

so characteristic of Spanish

The linear wood construction (plate 232) of this door

(which leads from the main staircase to the former offices on the

wrought

iron.

mezzanine) serves as a setting for hand-wrought or engraved metal

plates inserted like

membranes, with flowers reminiscent of early

English floral Art

Nouveau

differently disposed

on each

plate.

The furniture designed by Gaudi for the luxurious Palau Giiell

include a dressing table and a chaise longue (plates 332, 227)
which are particularly remarkable. In the continuous curve of the
latter,

reaching compactly out into space,

High Art Nouveau can

already be discerned, although the profusion of detail in the forms,

especially in the dressing table,

two

is

still

very heterogeneous. These

and lack
and the dynamic tension of Van de Velde's
They are showpieces of the grand bourgeois' "conspi-

pieces of furniture are indeed excessively elaborate,

During the time Gaudi was creating these works, he was undoubtedly acquainted with the Art Nouveau of northwestern Europe,

was the most cosmopolitan city

in Spain, a city eager for novelty and closely in touch with the latest
European trends. Even apart from Gaudi's personal style, the Stile
Modernista design of upper-class apartment houses was more popular in Barcelona than in any other city. 240 Symbolistic and Art
Nouveau periodicals appeared, among them a counterpart of Gerfor during those years Barcelona

many's Die Jugend, the Catalan Ioventut. Catalan Art Nouveau

concentrated mainly on architecture and pictorial art, and the
applied arts and textiles were somewhat neglected. The fine binding
designed as early as 1 899 by the poet Riquier for a volume of his
poems, Crisantemes (plate 81), deserves our attention if only because

it

shows that the Japanese

style also

came

to Barcelona as an

element already legitimately adopted by Art Nouveau.

The different

styles

which mingle

in the

Palau de

la

Musica Cata-

the simplifying element

lana (Hall of Catalan Music) are as heterogeneous as the inspira-

creations.

tions that

cuous waste" of the eighties; on the other hand, they show that
the conglomerates of the studio-style already carried within them-

223

marked Gaudi's early works. This building (plates 222

and 223) was built in Barcelona between 1906 and 1908 by Luis
Domnech y Montaner (1850-1923), and is the most brilliant and

artistically

terated

important example of a "hybrid" Art Nouveau adul-

by historicism

to be

found anywhere

in

Europe.

241

Particu-

hailstones, the

Doric columns and their Baroque capitals explode

into the rich colors of the ensemble, into the naturalistically chiseled

larly during the years following 1900,

when it became very popuArt Nouveau did not always progress from its curvy and organic High phase to the cubic and geometric late phase, but sometimes

leafy trees, the foaming masses of clouds,

lar,

Whirling motion

experienced a revival of what was characteristic of late historicism:

tradition derived

a tendency toward the conglomerate, or the synthesis of heterogene-

Nouveau with remote

ous elements. Such a blend of Art

styles

is

not inevitably inferior, but

markable

results

may

historical

sometimes lead to re-

which seduce us through their sheer fantasy and

and winged

horses.

opposed to motionless calm: on the semicircular

is

proscenium wall, the quiet forms of floating maidens

recall the

from Walter Crane, Grasset, and even Mackintosh

and the Macdonald sisters. These forms add a new variation to the
hybrid ones of Art Nouveau. Out of the flat mosaic, the upper

grow

part of the bodies

into relief

and

their heads, treated in the

round, project into space. Domnech y Montaner's not very selec-

power expressed

magnificence, such as D'Aronco's building for the Turin Exposition

tive imaginative

(plate333),orDomnech y Montaner's Palau de la MusicaCatalana.

With virtuosic ease and a barbaric strength much like Gaudi's,

chandeliers, in the colored glass balustrade of the balcony, in glazes,

Domnech y Montaner unites Romantic, Gothic, and Venetian

styles. The magnificent raw brick walls are decorated with manycolored mosaics and ceramics worked in relief. Above these walls
rises a dome and turret whose style is easier to feel than to define:
certainly Byzantine influences

(somewhat neglected by true

histori-

colored
this

tiles,

remain

visible. In his designing

Through all
beams supporting the ceiling

of the chandelier for the middle

existed before. It consists of a skylight which provides lighting both

by day and by night and

Sacre Coeur in Paris and Tiffany's 1893 chapel for Chicago. In

come

is

steel

of the ceiling, Montaner created a hybrid object which had never

jellyfish

building, the Byzantine element

strongly inclined

roses in relief decorating the ceiling.

ceramic facing, the horizontal

cism) play a strong part in their overall conception, just as in the

Domnech y Montaner's

and

itself in oblique,

swells

downward

into the hall like a huge

hanging upside down. Skylight and chandelier have be-

one.

vaguely

reminiscent of Saint Mark's in Venice, and even more of Russian

churches.

The cupola of the tower

is

carried

by supports that

re-

Gaudi's Late Works

semble spears from which are suspended shields, bringing to mind

the sword-flourishing Tartar hordes of Genghis

Khan. By transpos-

ing the studio-style into architecture the result becomes phantasma-

Art Nouveau's predeliction for the fairy-tale world now

reaches out as to the Arabian Nights. Japan and its art and, perhaps
at the same time also its subtle ability to choose and simplify, loose
gorial:

and are superseded by the Orient. After 1900, there is

moreover a reaction against the decadent and morbid quality of
Art Nouveau; instead, we can detect an enjoyment of sheer brutality which no longer seeks the vital element in primary forms of

their hold

life, in

delicate seaweeds or in the stamens of flowers, but rather in

the art of the South Seas or of Africa. The cult of brutality in the
early phase of

modern

art, in

Fauvism, Cubism, and bton brut

architecture, finds a parallel in

Domnech y Montaner's

the exuberance of Gaudi's and

buildings.

The Diaghilev

creasingly successful after 1909 because

it

came

ballet

was

in-

at exactly the right

If Domnech y Montaner combined heterogeneous elements in his

work, Gaudi achieved genuine synthesis in his Park Giiell (190014), a creation that

time.

By

is

as grandiose as

it is

bizarre and unique for

its

integrating organic nature with the forms of art and trans-

posing nature into ornament, he nevertheless fulfilled the aims of

Art Nouveau. The center of

ture

is

this

ensemble of garden and architec-

the great terrace which rises above a peristyle of slightly

inclined Ionic columns. The parapet (which also doubles as a con-

tinous bench) winds around the edge of the terrace in wide,

regular curves. It

various shapes,

is

set

sizes,

with myriad fragments of ceramic

and

colors, all

crowded together

ir-

tiles in

to

form

variegated patterns of infinite variety. Scintillating like the colored

scales of a petrified sea serpent

time immemorial,
tions of

this

parapet

which seems to have lain there from

is one of the most incredible crea-

Art Nouveau. However,

it is

interesting to note that the

moment and was animated by

serpentine contours of Gaudi's parapet had been anticipated else-

discipline,

where: during Blake's time, when

at

of houses that form Bath's

the same brutal vitality, rigorous

and luxuriant sensuality; besides, its productions were
first nearly always based upon Oriental or barbaric themes.
If any variety of style was missing on the exterior of the Hall of

Catalan Music,

it

can certainly be found

in the interior:

sharp as

may

be seen in the curved row

Lansdown Crescent

the late nineteenth century, in

linck's

it

(plate 42);

and

in

an illustration for one of Maeter-

works by the Belgian designer, Doudelet

(plate 43).

224

IX/X

225

ANTONI GAUDl

Stained-glass

(between 1898 and 19 14)

windows

in the chapel of the

Colonia Giiell

ANTONI G AUDI

Ground plan

for the Casa Mild (1905-10)

The same combination of the

reptilian

and submarine may

also

be found on the roof of Gaudi's Casa Batll (plate 216): in the soft

dome crowning the small turret and capped

by a type of Gothic cruciform plant shape, as well as in the unduyet powerful form of the

lating ridge of the roof to

by small

right.

its

bits of irregularly

it

half of this roof

broken marble, giving

of chain mail; the other half

which lend

One

is

it

is

covered

the appearance

sheathed with scale-like shingles

a rather saurian quality; while the dividing ridge

seems somewhat like the vertebrae of a gigantic sea monster or

dinosaur. The Casa Batll

is

an apartment house situated on the

Paseo de Gracia, a fashionable Barcelona thoroughfare. The main

was already in existence before Gaudi

transformed it between 1905 and 1907. The front of the second
story is enlivened and opened up by loggia-like galleries which
suggest movement. Nevertheless, the separate forms, as well as the
entire ensemble remain continuous and closely related, never
structure of the building

achieving the open Baroque form, with which this faade

The inner aspirations and goals of Art Nouveau architecture

were perhaps best realized in the necessarily labyrinthine construction of staircases. With its contrast of freely revealed steel supports,
softly colored tiles, cellular-patterned walls, risers of creamy colored marble, railings looking like aquatic plants, and unusual, undulating banisters on the upper floors, the staircase of the Casa Batll
may well be considered the most distinguished example of Art

Nouveau.
A few hundred yards farther down from the Casa Batll, and
on the same sumptuous street, stands the Casa Mil (plates 218,

often

219). This building looks something like the walls of a gigantic

compared. The supports of the loggia appear to be constructed of

bones, while above them the surface of the faade is covered with

undulating parapet decorated with mosaic, above

La Pedrera. The Casa Mil was

built between 1905 and 1910, but was never actually completed. It
is a stylistic continuation of the Casa Batll, progressing more and
more toward a unified synthesis and simplification expressed in
larger forms. The nature of the site suggested the building's convex
bulges and irregular form. A typical floor plan (above) is composed of curvy, asymmetrical units connected in the manner of a

the snaky silhouette of the roof itself (plate 331). The

labyrinth. The inner courts are also shaped irregularly: the one to the

is

a mosaic consisting of colored glass tesserae whose delicately changing hues lend

it

the quality of neo-Impressionist pointillism.

the back of the house, the faade

windows and wrought-iron

ribbon-like,

which

rises

is

more

unified;

it is

At

pierced by

balconies culminating at the top in a

parapet of the top balcony and the wall above

it

are covered

by

mosaic flowers which also climb up the sides of the building. These
flowers are similar to the rosettes of Viennese late Art Nouveau.

The stairwell of Casa Batll rises up through the entire structure,

and the last flight is illuminated by two small free-form skylights.
On the ground floor the stairwell reminds one of a labyrinthine
cavern washed by tidal waters: its walls are decorated with a dado
faced with smooth surfaced triangular tiles arranged in sets of four
to form square diamonds. These alternate with tiles having raised
borders and centered with rosettes in relief. The colors of the tiles
are subtle and unusual: the smooth tiles are cream-colored, and
those in relief are pale gray with a touch of lavender. The first
flight of the stairway is sheathed in milk-white marble and has
seaweed-like metal banisters and railings colored a yellowishgreen. At close range the apparently bare walls above the tiled dado
are seen to be covered with painted cell-like designs which
the walls look like a cross section of an organic substance

one the impression that the entire building

an organism composed of magnified

is

cells.

made

make

and giving

of living matter

quarry, and

is

popularly

known

as

somewhat kidney-shaped, and the one to the left a kind

is composed of widely spaced steel
girders which act as the building's main supports, and thus free the
inner walls from their function as props, thereby allowing greater
freedom in the distribution of the rooms. No two floors are exactly
right being

of hmicycle. The interior skeleton

alike in their layout, but in each apartment (the sizes of the apart-

ments vary considerably) the main rooms are always connected

without any dividing partition.

The same movement which animated the floor plans is also found
in the vertical projection of the exterior. The columnar supports of
the ground floor seem to lurch obliquely both inward and outward,
with

this

levels; the

movement continuing upward through

the subsequent

parapet of the outer edge of the faade beneath the

attic

movement, and rises and falls like the horizon

of hilly ground. On the upper roof, chimneys spiral upward like
nightmarish towers, creating a veritable "mass in movement" that,
level terminates this

however,

is

not in the least Baroque; despite their

many

apertures

which swallow space, the individual details of these chimneys are

compact and self-contained, and therefore un-Baroque. The plastic

226

mass of the entire building and

its

outer contours are so viscous and

fluid in their gliding spatial effects that the total impression

space flowing

away

in all directions

is

of

from the central mass of the

building.

The Casa Mil has quite correctly been compared with dune
formations, and the abstract sculptural decorations of the balcony
railings look like frozen sea

spume found on

The decorative theme of organic irregularity

a beach after a storm.

carried out with the

is

The inner faade of the end of the transept is entirely different

Here we see geometrically pure, rectangular, rectilinear,
or cubic forms that comply with the cubes and smooth surfaces
found in Glasgow's and Vienna's late Art Nouveau: in all of
Gaudi's work this occurs only here. Nor is the Casa Mil, in its
extraordinary compactness and simplification, far removed from
late Art Nouveau; only the qualities of that stylistic phase allow
(plate 17).

such a synthesis, though the latter

is

generally found in the phase of

Art Nouveau that employs geometrically hardened forms.

utmost consistency. Even the seaweed-like staircase railings (plate

late

226) and, above

The Casa Mil would thus appear to be an exceptional example of

curved or plastic late Art Nouveau, whereas the inner side of the
transept faade of the Sagrada Familia, with its delicate cubic
articulations, remains the only example of geometrical late Art

tals,

all,

the fine

with their coral-like

and

totally unique iron

interstitial parts,

and

glass por-

remain faithful to

this

one theme.

On

Gaudi

from using colors in the Casa Mil.

due to the plastic quality of their
design and their rough surfaces, and only the strip which forms the
porthole-windowed attic is faced with white tiles. The vast main
entrance hall and the lowest part of the staircase are colorful, however, but the paint has almost entirely worn off, and today one
can merely discern that the wall and the ceiling above the base of
the staircase were once covered with watery, wavy forms and a
the whole,

refrains

The effect of the masonry walls

mass of flowers conceived

in the

is

Japanese

style.

The whole development of Gaudi's art can be traced

diose but never completed

in the gran-

Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barceworked on this church (cer-

lona (plates 17, 217, and 228). Gaudi

tainly

most important

the

ecclesiastic

building

since

the

late

eighteenth century) from the beginning of the eighties until his

words during the whole of his life as an

supervisor was the architect Villar, who
in 1882 began building it in the neo-Gothic style. At the end of
1883, Gaudi began to direct the work himself and completed the
crypt and the window side of the choir according to Villar's pre-

death in 1926
architect.

in other

The church's

vious plans.

first

From 1891

to 1903, the faade of the transept of the

Nativity was erected according to an entirely

Dream by Ingres (plate 283), with

snow dripping icicles and its swarm of
snail-shaped figures. Here, High Art Nouveau is mingled with
Gothic elements, and in the towers (built between 1903 and 1926)
Gaudi transcends the style of his previous buildings in order to
achieve what might best be qualified as Expressionist architecture.
unlike certain forms in Ossian's

clouds like canopies of

The towers

rise like

hollow anthills or infinitely elongated beehives.

In spite of their "cubistically" sharp edges, they seem to be

made

of

organic matter, and are not unlike the arms of an octopus with
their

227

honeycomb

in

Gaudi's work.

New York

Chicago and

North America's contribution to Art Nouveau was mainly the

work of two artists: the architect, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), 242
and the decorator and glassware designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany
(1848-1933). 243

veau

From

the outset, they both conceived of Art

as a surface style, but their final results

were

Nou-

dissimilar, just as

they had both distinguished themselves individually from European

Art Nouveau. Beginning

in the mid-nineties,

Tiffany had a decisive

influence on the Continental style as a whole, but Sullivan never

became known

in

Europe.

Sullivan and the Chicago School

new plan Gaudi had

designed. The three stalactite-like gables over the portals are not

its

Nouveau

design of ornaments looking like suckers.

Before settling in Chicago at the age of twenty-three, Louis Sullivan had become well versed in the historistic architectural styles of
his day through two of its more prominent exponents: Emile Vaudremer in Paris and Frank Furness in Philadelphia. Sullivan worked
in Vaudremer's atelier as part of his studies at the cole des Beaux
Arts in Paris, and with the very individualistic Furness two years
previously.

works that show the beginnings of his extremely

were the Max M. Rothsdiild houses in Chicago, which

Sullivan's first

personal style

he designed in 1880 together with

houses was designed in the tradition

Dankmar Adler. This row of

of Norman Shaw's brick build-

ings (plate 298).

with rosettes

in

The woodwork of the bay windows was adorned

chip-carving and with vertical, highly abstract

plant ornaments, like symbolic "trees of life" carved in high

relief.

Here, Nordic popular

art,

Greek palmettes seemed

to blend in these strangely rigid forms.

Gothic

Similar but richer ornaments,

much

closer to

ment Store

style, Celtic interlacings,

more

free

Art Nouveau, are found

and

in the

is

and

Although

also

built of

purely a skeleton structure, the supports and

props of the skeleton being mainly connected by glass "membranes."

The origin of the highly abstract ornaments used here remains obscure, although we nevertheless perceive in them touches of Sullivan's later and more Gothic plant-like and plastic decorations. But
it can be assumed that Christopher Dresser's books on ornamenta-

Owen

which an echo

work

is

found

to be

curved ceiling girders. The iron-

in the

up

in this hall, like the staircase banisters leading

composed of metal

quasi-linear patterns

to

it,

reveal

rods. In the lighter, net-

and almost geometric structure of the elevator doors for the

Guaranty Building in Buffalo (1894-95), Sullivan almost achieves
a quality like that of the late phase of Art Nouveau. Nearly geometrical semicircles, octagonals, and beaded lines, as well as spiral
and organic forms in delicate open-work stone relief, also occur in
Getty's Tomb, a cube-shaped mausoleum designed in 1 890.
like,

Rothschild Depart-

in Chicago, designed a year later.

stone, this building

plastic

and

big auditorium in terms of the generous curve of the galleries, of

Grammar

In the famous department store built for Carson Pirie Scott

in

Chicago

well as

899-1904),

(1

more

we

ornaments

see luxuriant

reticent surface-ornaments (plates 7, 237,

The ground floor and mezzanine of

& Co.

in relief as

and 239).

covered with

this building are

and

of Ornament, were already as

well known in American schools of art and architecture and in
public libraries as in England, and that Sullivan was acquainted
with them. An American edition of The Grammar of Ornament
had appeared in 1880. The similarity with Dresser's ornaments
(plate 103) is easily detected in the Rothschild store, even though
the plastic quality of Sullivan's details is new. True, even this ornamentation is conditioned by the surface on which it appears, and

detailed, powerfully disrupted metal ornaments: overflowing

Sullivan's later architectural decorations (plate 229) are likewise

employed

developed

metric but very complex and imaginative forms are cut out of thin

tion, if

not

Jones'

terms of the faade's surfacing: only rarely do they

in

assume rounded, column-like forms. Only

later, in

the outwardly

curving upper cornice of the otherwise entirely rectilinear Guar-

anty Building (1894-95), do

architecture. Softer,
to

appear

in

we

find a swinging

more Gothic, and

1887-89

movement

and

in the

huge audi-

torium of the Chicago Auditorium Building (plates 234, 243), as

well as on the exterior of the Walker Department Store, both built
in

metal. The upper floors are entirely different: here the faade

Chicago during approximately the same time (1888-89). These

look like single bands, anticipating the style of the present day.

Each of the broad windows is framed and the bands of windows

are connected by friezes above and below which show discreet geometric interlacings. In the interior, gate-like

wood and produce

of their forms.

however

Sullivan's buildings themselves,

Art Nouveau. His oftquoted theory that ornament must form an organic whole with the
building and give expression to the structure

However much

in actual practice.

surfaces of his buildings

may

shift

employer, Frank Furness (1839-1912),

had adorned the

School of Arts in Philadelphia in 1872-76 (plate 231). Furness con-

scarcely be changed

neo-Gothic style of somewhat exaggerated propor-

ornaments were clearly derived from the

natural plant-like forms of late Gothic. The flamboyant style of
tions (plate 233); his

late

Gothic

is

transposed here into something fluid and lush,

its

if

very loosely applied

the stone, terracotta, or metal

life to

the imagina-

ornaments often cover the entire exvery scantily connected

with the basic structure. The general form of

his buildings

would

ornamented surfaces were simply

their

peeled off.

ceived his buildings in a very imaginative, independent, and strongly articulated

is

from organic

terior of the building), they are nevertheless

his first

significant in their ar-

chitecture, can scarcely be considered as

ornamental designs which Sullivan had created

244

partitions are

a clear, ornamental effect in spite of the variety

tively geometric (the vegetal

1884-85 (plate
236). In turn, these were closely related to ornaments with which

wooden

as if to filter space (plate 238); their powerfully geo-

decorations are evidently a translation in sculptural terms of the

in

is

covered with a smooth sheath and, from a distance, the windows

in his

plant-like ornaments began

in the staircases, the bar,

thorny acanthus leaves intertwining with smooth spiral ribbons of

In the flowing outlines of

in

Chicago

in

1891 by

veau. Although

modern

steel

ing skeleton

its

bulk, the

Burnham and Root,

is

Building, built

very close to Art Nou-

has stone supporting outer walls, and

it

skeleton structure,

by

Monadnock

its

it

is

thus no

produces the effect of a support-

narrow spandrels of

stone, the

windows being

vegetal forms almost assuming a reptilian aspect. In the interior of

stretched between these spandrels like membranes. Although

the Auditorium Building, Sullivan organizes the entire space of the

outer surface

is

totally undecorated,

it is

elegant thanks to

its

its

clear

228

formance (Diaghilev said that

Loi'e Fuller

was

a greater genius in

her ligthing effects than in her dancing): she employed moving

colored spotlights to illumine her veils, an effect which nobody
before her had ever thought of using. 245

Louis Comfort Tiffany

It

difficult to find a

is

common ground

in the entirely different

worlds of Sullivan and Tiffany, and much easier to establish a

and Tiffany's vases

in American
conceptions of form, than in terms of an extremist American version
of High Art Nouveau found in both dancer and designer. Lo'ie
Fuller must have produced the effect of a moving, iridescent, illumirelationship between Loi'e Fuller's dances

though

less in

terms of a certain consistency found

nated Tiffany vase, whereas Tiffany's slender, soaring, spiral vases

seem to be veiled dancers frozen into

glass.

However, the common

element that strikes one in such different manifestations of art expressed in Tiffany's vases, Loi'e Fuller's dancing, and Bradley's

WILLIAM H. BRADLEY

Poster for a bicycle

company

(n. d.)

and gently curved lines and contours, produced by the protruding

bay windows and the concave overlapping effect immediately
above the ground floor and beneath the overhanging roof ledge.
The proportions of its window openings, the relationships in its
mass between height and width, and between solid walls and apertures, are all

unusually and individually stressed so that the build-

smoothly abstract,

and relatively uncomplicated conception of form. Tiffany's forms seem indeed simple when
compared to Gall's glassware, so differentiated in their more subtle, morbid, and almost autumnal moods. Moreover, this applies
even to American architecture like that of the Monadnock Building.
Louis Comfort Tiffany did not work in his father's famous Fifth
Avenue jewelry store. After taking up painting and then going to
Paris, he turned to interior decoration. His evolution was thus
similar to that of William Morris, Van de Velde, and the majority
posters

is

their

German

of the

Jugendstil masters.

clear,

From

the very start, however,

ing seems as light

Tiffany was not concerned with simple structures

friezes,

instance) nor with

decorator of the

impression so often given by Art Nouveau: matter appears here to

homes of

of rooms in line

have been stripped of its skin and cut to the quick.

It was also in Chicago that the periodical, The Chap-Book, was
published, whose pages carried drawings by William H. Bradley

with the studio-style, which might have existed

but soon Japan also aroused his

(born in 1868), designs which so closely resembled Beardsley's. The

room

finest

and the most personal and independent of these is the almost

American dancer, Loi'e Fuller (plate 35), who
was so successful on the European continent and who, in the medium of dance (that is to say in real movement), was the very
embodiment of High Art Nouveau. She wrapped herself in long,
undulating veils which rose in whirls and spirals during her dance,
and thus produced an almost abstract rhapsody of movement and

adopt

abstract image of the

ulation

light

229

and almost as thin as paper. The entire absence of

framework, or conventional contours contributes to the

for

lighting indeed played an important part in her per-

(in furniture for

new forms of expression. As the

New York millionaires, he created suites

in

the Arabian

Nights. Like Gaudi, Tiffany had a preference for the Moorish style,

in the Bella

Apartments

in

interest. In 1880,

Japanese

style,

and

he decorated a
this led

him

to

and geometric arrangements in the articand decoration of his wall surfaces. The chestnut-leaf motif
of Jones now becomes manifested as a two-dimensional surface
design, and as openwork relief in the Japanese manner. In spite of
an eclectic and conglomerate quality inherent in his groupings of
various luxurious pieces of furniture employed throughout Tiffany's
interiors, every so often one finds simple Thonet chairs revealing the
flatness, conciseness,

sleek curves of their construction.

LOUIS SULLIVAN

229

Building, Buffalo,

Since his workshops also produced lamps and other glass and

metal objects for daily use, Tiffany studied the chemical composi-

and various

tion of glass

agents for his pieces.

He

effects of metallic vapors as coloring

then patented his

cent and opalescent glass, calling

new invention
At first this

of irides-

Detail of the main entrance of the Guaranty

New York

(1894-95)

and

The forms of these lamps

softly modeled sculpture of his 1884 chimneypiece combined with the shapes occurring in the molten glass of his opalescent
in favrile glass (plates 4, 36, 240,

242).

employ the

stained-glass

windows

(plate 334).

The

glass

is

sometimes opaque,

was

sometimes transparent, but with threads, whirls, or clouds, some-

used only for decorative "stained-glass" windows, but in one such

times with smooth, or else with ingeniously roughened surfaces of a

window, made

in

it

1880 for the hall of

he suddenly hit upon a design that

is

favrile.

his

own apartment

glass

(plate 334)

pure High Art Nouveau. This

and even
and evenly flowbe different and unique.

metallic patina; the pieces are incredibly varied in color,

more

so in their grandiosely conceived but precise

manifests itself here, as in most cases, in a two-dimensional manner.

The pattern on the window is entirely abstract and soft, it flows

One

asymmetrically in the manner of veined marble. Art Nouveau, with

shapes suggestive of Attic amphorae. Their scintillating, corroded

Tiffany, simply starts in the decorative use

thetic appreciation

Only much

of

and thus

movement expressed

in

in the aes-

solidified glass.

1893, did these beginnings lead

him

ing forms, so that each of

them appears

to

senses affinities with Persian flasks, antique

Roman

and

glass,

surface reminds one of ancient glass that has been buried in the

earth for centuries. Tiffany's formal inventiveness of form

is

par-

to ex-

ticularly striking: in spite of the regular, uninterrupted flow of

periments which resulted in the famous Tiffany vases. Tiffany did

the contours and of an ornamentation solely due to the haphazard

not

work

later, after

the glass himself, but his forms were created according to

his personal instructions,

and are thus expressions of

his

own

con-

flow of the molten

glass, these

magnificent individual pieces suggest

something bizarre and extravagant which

is

always convincing and

ception of form.

of great taste and distinction. The veined, marbled pattern of the

Meanwhile, Tiffany continued to design new interiors. In 1884,

he decorated a studio and penthouse apartment for himself, in the

resemblance to the peacock-feather design so popular throughout

main room of which there stood a chimneypiece with four fireplaces

(plate 335) placed away from the wall. With its smoothly curved
forms, it is the first example of plastically conceived American Art
Nouveau. Quite unconventional and inspired by no models extant
in traditional Western rooms, but possibly inspired by Moorish or
Byzantine examples, this room also has lamps of many kinds hanging from the ceiling, suspended by chains or bunches of chains in
asymmetrical groups and at different heights. Most of these hanging
lamps are spherical in shape; among them hangs an ostrich egg.
Tiffany later found other original solutions for lighting fixtures:
for instance, an electric lamp created shortly before 1900 is set on
a straight bronze stand and carries on its long stem a globe consisting of strips of metal between which is inserted black glass which
has a green shimmer when lighted (plate 230).
Until glass became his main preoccupation, Tiffany often designed
objects to be executed in metal. The banisters of the astounding
"hanging staircase" in the Havemeyer residence consist of threads
of metal juxtaposed in spirals and adorned with a metal fringe. The
pointed pendants on the hanging lamps are made of the same filigree work, and the lamps are pierced by unusual apertures which
seem to have been achieved by cutting out pieces of metal, a procedure which was later employed in Tiffany's above-mentioned
standing lamp.

glass takes

on a metallic shimmer

Art Nouveau.

as

it

hardens and assumes a

vase in the Metropolitan

Museum

(plate 242)

enchants us as a pure object rather than as an imitation of a pattern

found

no more abstract than the superbly outfeathers of an actual peacock. Tiffany also shares Art

in nature, yet

stretched tail

it is

Nouveau's predilection for "cutout forms"; his patterns go all the

way through the glass, as if the vessel had been formed out of a
slice cut from a homogeneously structured mass.
The few ceramics that Tiffany created are not so famous as his
glass, but they include some very fine pieces. After 1900, Tiffany
left the designing of his glass more frequently to his craftsmen
and, in general, his creative powers diminished with the decline of

High Art Nouveau. Replicas produced almost

as a series,

and of far

poorer quality, appeared with a greater frequency; the only

satisfying the

enormous demand for

his

way

wares was to produce the

same model over and over again and to employ craftsmen of

skill.

of

lesser

Until quite recently, Tiffany's workshops turned out lamps,

penholders, inkstands, and other articles mostly of doubtful quality.

By means

of his personal creations, however, and most of

all

through the glassware he produced between 1893 and 1900 that was

fame (he was clever in displaying it

advantageously in exhibitions, and in bestowing particularly fine
specimens to museums), Tiffany became one of the most prominent
artists of Art Nouveau.
responsible for his universal

After 1893, at the height of his career, Tiffany created his vases

230

^i

uk

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y.'

1.' ]/

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i

.<

m fl
i

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tes

J-;

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230

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COMFORT TIFFANY

230

LOUIS

231

FRANK FURNF.SS
h

ademy

Floor lamp (before 1900)

Detail of the entrance to the Pennsylvania

of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1872-76)

232

ANTONI GAUDl

233

FRANK FURNLSS

Door

in the

Palan

Provident Life

Giiell,

Barcelona (1885-89)

& Trust Company, Philadelphia

('79)

234

LOUIS SULLIVAN
Chicago (1887-89)

234

2 33

233

Staircase in the Auditorium Building,

23

235

237

235

ANTONI GAUD!

Ornamental

detail in a

bedroom

of the Palau

Ge//(i88j
236

237

LOUIS SULLIVAN

Sketch jor a decorative design (1884)

LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the faade 0} the

& Co. Department Store, Chicago (1 899-1 904)

Carson Pine Scott

238

LOUIS SULLIVAN Latticework

Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store,

239

LOUIS SULLIVAN Detail of the window limes of the

Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store, Chicago (1X99-1904)

on the faade of the Carson

Chicago (1 899-1 904)

Carson

240

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY

241

LOUIS

242

COMFORT TIFFANY

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY

Vase (circa

Bowl

9 oo)

(before

96)

Vase (before 1896)

241

236

24^

243

LOUIS SUI

IVAN Main

ball in the

Auditorium Building, Chicago

SS7-89)

238

NTtRNAI ONALtXIIIDlTlONQLAJOOW
corrtTmoNDcsKiN
duldinos

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Title for

a brochure outlining

an architectural competition (1901)

As

Glasgow

to the style of this frieze,

no

parallel to

it

can be found

in its

day, whether in England or elsewhere. Years before Beardsley and

work of

In the

the Scottish artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

(1868-1928),

246

nineties. This

phase found

in

Art Nouveau entered

its

Mackintosh's style and

its late

phase during the early

most important and

bear witnesses to the close

tie

is

not surprising that in

forms which

historic

still

have been discarded and

tions of the style of our

its

Mackintosh had demonstrated the originality of his forms. Indeed,

from the very start, he was much less dependent on outside influ-

between High and

appeared

late

phase

in early

that, in their stead,

own

Art

late

all

reminiscences of

Art Nouveau should

astounding premoni-

twentieth-century art and architecture

should begin to appear.

ences than has been supposed.

The tallboy in the photograph is clearly the first piece of furnimade by Mackintosh, almost quadrangular in outline, its lower
two-thirds being box-like and fitted with doors, whereas the top is
ture

open and contains a

shaft-like pillars

Sources of the Glasgow Style

Mackintosh developed his style within the surface of his work.

Although his buildings and rooms are often almost free of any
adornment, surface ornamentation was actually his point of depar-

monograph on Mackintosh, Thomas Howarth has

fully

shelf. This

is

a typical example of his earlier

and also of his architecture,

are already discernible, but as- yet have not assumed a clarity and
purity of form. The corners of the lower part terminate in two
work; features of

his later furniture,

which are covered by widely protruding

but at a later period

is

frequently found

metrical metal pulls. The main part of the cupboard

investigated the sources of his style, not only the influence exerted

two

on him by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Japanese school, but also

symmetrically subdivided, with only

certain secondary or less direct influences.

essential

appear

and

is

The early date

at

in

which

relatively independent features of Mackintosh's style

noteworthy. In a photograph of the interior of

his studio

taken around 1890 (plate 339), we see Japanese woodcuts hanging

on the walls together with such reproductions of Burne-Jones paintings as The Six

the ceiling

paper: in

Days

of Creation. The decorative frieze beneath

had obviously been painted on a long roll of wrappingcenter, the vertical figure of what appears to be an

its

angel forms a sort of symmetrical axis for other groups which, in

moon, two pair of

figures

is

cats

On

below an immense circular

face one another. The stylization of the

turn, are also symmetrical.

the

left,

very powerful: they are conceived as concisely limited,

homogeneous, two-dimensional forms with broad spaces between

them. With the exception of the purely geometric, circular disk,
these two-dimensional bodies are all curvilinear, but without

any
trace of the heavily flowing or convulsive outlines of High Art
Nouveau. In this instance it is rather a matter of wide and flat
curves, like oval segments, almost in the style of late Art Nouveau.

239

plinths.

works by
Voysey (plate 319), and the common source for both Mackintosh
and Voysey was Mackmurdo (plate 96). The lower part of the tallboy is already an example of what is called "broken symmetry,"
the combination of symmetry and asymmetry which was later to
be of such importance in Mackintosh's architecture. The bottom
drawer takes up the entire width and is provided with three symThis device

ture. In his

Glasgow group, could have had any influence

the style of the

who

Nouveau, both of which spring from the same roots, though the
more frequently geometric, rectilinear, and cubic late phase may at
first appear to be diametrically opposed to the curved, organic High
phase. It

are both generally quoted as the probable sources of

(Beardsley had not yet produced anything at that early date),

were intimately connected with him. The creations of these Scottish

artists

who

fruitful expression

of a small group of artists

in that

Toorop,

halves, the left side being covered

is

in

divided into

by a door, while the

its

right

is

right half fitted with a

door, the open portion on the left containing pigeonholes; above

this subdivision there

is

a shallow drawer. This articulation

spatial divisions of the piece

show

and

clear signs of Japanese influences,

and what was somewhat primitively attempted here was later carried out very lavishly and in perfectly balanced proportions; above
all, in the faade of the Glasgow Art School.
The metal candelabra standing before the fireplace in Mackinand bedroom are as far removed from any Occidental
tradition as the ornamental frieze, and even more radically alien
tosh's study

than the tallboy. They consist of nothing but cylindrical iron rods

and sending out small side branches which hold the

candles; the rods are capped by a large circular metal disk. The
vertical thrust of slender shafts terminated by a horizontal covering is a pattern which (in many variations and with additional
details) acts as the fundamental component in much of Mackintosh's
furniture, lamps, and fireplaces, and particularly in his architecture
rising vertically

previous to 1901. Mackintosh's creations differ radically from historicistic

examples

in that

they no longer use the plastic frames, con-

tours, friezes,

architecture.

and

On

Japanese models;

we

see

cornices, all of

which basically stem from Greek

the other hand, these candelabra can be traced to

Howarth copied

a woodcut by

very similar candlesticks, and

it

was

Utamaro

in

which

chiefly Japanese style

Morning

the

extremely

Stars

Sang Together

flat picture into

(plate 337): the division of the

oval and semi-oval sections,

filling

up

empty spaces with figures, and the blending of representational

and abstract elements. She likewise borrowed from Blake's waterthe

that helped Mackintosh to carry out his original conceptions of style.

color, The Procession

However, what did not derive from Japanese art was the emphasis on symmetry that so markedly distinguished the early ornamental drawings of Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters (plates
252 and 338) from asymmetric High Art Nouveau. In spite of the
probable influence exerted by Toorop's painting, The Three Brides,

the figures which, however, she presented partly in profile as they

reproduced

of poetic imagination sees

The Studio of 1893, none of the basic features of the

figurative graphic work of the early period of the Glasgow school
in

up to about 1896 are derived from historicism. Here, even though

no documentation confirms this fact, we find a relationship which
was of great importance to the whole of English Art Nouveau: the
impact of William Blake's work.
In the early watercolors by the Macdonald

sisters,

such as Frances

/// Omen (1893) and A Pond (1894), and November

jth by Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh (she was Mackintosh's

Macdonald's

wife), the affinity with Blake

is

easily discerned.

One may even

compare Mackintosh's design for a diploma of the Glasgow School

of Art (1893) with a specific watercolor of Blake's: in both we find
a composite ornament, a central figure seen fullface, with arms
outstretched and wings unfolded, flanked by figures in profile, and

a pattern of indefinable shape consisting of circular and oval forms,

which gives the group

its

structure

and

its

frame. Though the Scot-

tish artists translated Blake's ideas into their

own

individual idiom

of form, the basic conception and certain details of their patterns

from Calvary,

bear the load of the outstretched body. The main difference

all

again the transformation of the picture into a decorative

it"

much

also precisely trace the origins of the style of the

and

stripes

which

Glasgow

subject to Pre-Raphaelite influences, so that no direct contact with

Rossetti or Burne-Jones, for instance,

Yet

in the

work of

Glasgow school we find

would have been

necessary.

a concrete link with a specific

the early phase of Pre-Raphaelitism: an unfinished paint-

by Ford Madox Brown (plate 254). This picture, Take Your Son,
was strongly influenced by Rossetti, though it retained a definitely personal note. Here we find the first appearance
of those feminine figures which the Scottish artists transformed
into expressive ornaments, and we also see here the expression of
adoration and self-abandonment in the certainly not beautiful but
very characteristic faces and in the position of the woman's body.
But let us first of all examine the formal theme: the shape of a
ing

Sir (1856-57),

an unbroken, pear-shaped contour, her garment swing-

ing from neck to hem, hiding her feet; her small oval face framed
hair. In

appears against a mirror placed behind

lines,

without

group back to the Pre-Raphaelites of the late eighties and early

nineties. The whole world of Art Nouveau artists was naturally

by the simplest arrangement of

The tangle of powerfully curved bands,

in either direction

difficulty.

We can

added purely geometric elements, and emptied the theme of

content.

work

has given birth to a type of wall-

paper pattern which could be expanded

woman with

its

is

which has little meaning but remains vaguely symbolical. Blake's

vision "which represents the exterior universe such as the inner eye

remain so similar that a comparison shows that the analogy cannot

be merely coincidental
even though they had simplified the forms,

the parallel arrangement of

Brown's painting, the head

it

like a

vaguely symbolical

halo which corresponds to the most variegated abstract figures or

works of Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters.

The motif of the abstract rose, which the Scottish artists often

(without their having any recognizable sense as objects or symbols)

circles

and disks

enclose the very stylized nude figures was later transformed by

Mackintosh into entirely abstract ornamentation, while the Macdonalds were more inclined to remain faithful to figurative and

placed in the middle of an either circularly enlarged or vertically

in

representational ornament (plates 251

elongated figure (plate 249), and Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh's

stylized rose in the center of a work in stucco depicting a small child

course, find Blake's curves

(plate 252),

and 252). We do not, of

and rhythms here, but we do see evidences of his geometric structures, his rigid symmetry, and his
arangements in rows and parallels. The Glasgow artists indeed
discovered late Art Nouveau through Blake's work.
Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh,
cifixion of 1894 (plate 338),

in her greatly

ornamental Cru-

borrowed much from Blake's When

the baby

is

ever, in his

is

anticipated in Ford

Madox Brown's

painting, where

wrapped in a cloth draped in the form of a rose. Howwork even the indistinct form to the right of the young

mother, the bed-curtains loosely hanging from a curved metal rod

over the small cradle, has also

left

its

impact on later works,

although not as a figurative motif, but as an abstract and ornamen-

240

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

of the

Elevation of the north faade

Glasgow School of Art (1896)

metry

so

to speak

predominates.

As a

characteristic sign of

Mackintosh's work, a clear and unconventional

functionalism

blends with an imagination expressed in plastically conceived

and decorative forms.

However, this synthesis of contrasts does not express itself in the
Baroque manner that is, movement does not become the dominant
spatial

tal one, in the

downflowing

right-hand side of the

strip to the

stuccowork and also in curves on the left, which look like the eyes
-of needles. The interruptions of lines and forms by means of small
rosettes or circles

was

conceived by Beardsley

first

whereas the sense of proportion

(in spite

of

its

in his

drawings,

development and

exaggeration by the Glasgow artists) already appears in Ford

No

Brown.

Madox

factor. Actually, the overall effect in terms of unrelieved tension

closely related to Michelangelo's

Mannerism

of San Lorenzo. This tension in Mackintosh's design expresses

as a disruption of

is

as seen in the Sacristy

itself

forms minimized with great sensitivity through

doubt, the unfinished state of the picture, in which the

beautifully balanced proportions giving the impression of passive

blend of abstract and concrete elements, the sleek contours, and the

form. Yet despite this inner reserve and refined simplicity, the

two-dimensional bodies are stressed,

may have

exerted a particular

influence over these subsequent works.

innate vitality of the building

is

clearly evident,

and the faade's

apparent quality of combined symmetry and asymmetry

is

an

illu-

by a balance of forms that are both unrelated and

sion effected

disrupted.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

In the beginning of his career as an architect, Mackintosh (1 868

1928) worked for several years in the office of the architects,

Honeyman and

Keppie, and on

many

buildings designed

by

this

firm; in Glasgow's Martyrs' Public School (1895), in particular,

characteristic features of his

own style have begun to appear. But,

own style, derived from flat orna-

according to the standards of his

ment and interior decoration, one of his first really important

works was the interior decorations for Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms.
In 1897-98, he decorated the first of these restaurants, the famous
Buchanan Street Tea Room in Glasgow, having previously published his designs for

them

in

The Studio.

on the other, labyrinthine interpntration of powerful plastically

conceived units, deep apertures, and incisions. As a unit, however,
produces a homogeneous impression, and only within the context

of the general contour do

truding forms,

with

and

241

massive,

see the

now

play of receding and pro-

hollow.

On

the north faade,

enormous windows, the static, calm element predominates:

the symmetry of its broad rectangular form, internal asym-

its

in

now

we

means of eight shafts, or sections, of masonry which are placed between the window apertures. This arrangement is conceived so that
none of the eight shafts is centrally positioned. In spite of this, the
main entrance, which is placed in the fourth shaft, actually falls in
the exact center of the faade. However, this fourth shaft does not
occupy the entire center section, as this section contains only the
asymmetrically placed entrance or portal. As an architectural unit
this portal

is

actually twice as broad to the left of the building's

geometrical center as
fourth shaft

In 1897, he was fortunate enough to have his design for the

Glasgow School of Art accepted. The main part of the building,
the first important work in geometric late Art Nouveau, was finished in 1899 (seen above, and plate 244). The heavy, block-like
building was erected on an unusual site which slopes steeply to the
rear, and on its south side is mostly blocked off from the sun. The
design represents a complex synthesis: on the one hand, close units
as forbidding as fortresses and formed by sharply impinging walls;

it

The plans of the building demonstrate far better than any photograph how Mackintosh achieved these effects (above). The elevation clearly shows that he has divided the rectangular faade by

is

it is

to the right, so that one

an integral part of the faade's

shaft's eccentric position distinguishes

it

still

feels that the

left half.

The fourth

from the seven others

the former contains narrow, fortress-like window

slits,

as

while the

by very broad windows that open out widely.

But these seven other shafts also offer dissimilarites. The two on the
right, for instance, are somewhat narrower than the other five, so
that the sequence of shafts starting from the left presents the following: three wide shafts, an irregular fourth, two more wide ones,
and ending with two narrow shafts on the right. However, the
"disturbed" part of the entrance appears to have two shafts of its
own, so that the entire faade might be said to consist of nine shafts,
others are pierced

the fifth of which

is

situated in the exact center of the building.

This extremely subtle and almost acrobatic balance of

and asymmetry

symmetry

also extends to the horizontal plane of the building

as well as to the vertical.

The fourth shaft

is

three storeys in height

and bears an asymmetrically placed chimney, while the other shafts

two

and the windows on the ground floor

level are horizontal rectangles, while those on the second floor are
the same width but are twice as high.
These proportions which have been analyzed in the plan of the
building's elevation become even more complex to the eye of the
passer-by who perceives them three-dimensionally and in perspective from the street level looking upward. Seen from this angle, the
are only

storeys high,

"disturbed" area
its

is

distinguishable

topmost part terminates

profile.

from the other shafts because

somewhat rock-like in

in a cubic form,

All the other shafts, however, are terminated by

flat,

board-like cornices which project far out from the building, and

windows from the direct rays of the midday sun.

The whole conception and theme of the building (which is elaborated far more than in any of Voysey's buldings) shows a kinship
with Mackmurdo's designs and also recurs in Mackintosh's subsequent country houses as well as in his famous House for a Lover
protect the large

of design: a fine, linear network of iron railings and window-frame

decorations surrounds the building like a halo, bringing

it

into a

kind of harmony with the space surrounding the building. As

Nikolaus Pevsner stated: "... this row of metal lines reveals one
of Mackintosh's most important qualities, his intense feeling for
spatial values.

Our

eyes have to pass through the

first

layer of

by metal brackets, before arriving at the solid stone

front of the building. The same transparency of pure space will be
found in all of Mackintosh's principal works." 248 A theme upon
which Mackintosh was later to produce variations, especially in his
interiors, is here employed on an exterior as a device for reducing
space to a linear, abstract network stretched across the three-dimensional volume of the building.
space, indicated

247
of the Arts (below).

and almost ascetic quality of the Glasgow

Art School's faade also contains an additional subtlety and richness
The

severe, solemn,

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

"House for a Lover of

Preliminary sketch for the

the Arts" (1901)

242

243

XI

CHARLES REN NIE MACKINTOSH

Door

to the

"Room

de luxe" of The Willow Tea-Rooms (1904)

JOSEPH MARIA OLBRICH

Sketch for the exhibition hall of the

"Wiener Sezession" (1899)

In

its

typical form, Viennese Art

Nouveau

is,

almost without

exception, free from any admixture of Rococo and Baroque ele-

would have been particularly easy in Vienna to

We can detect here no relationship to
Horta or Guimard, though in the beginning, we may find now and
then Van de Velde's typical curves. Very soon, the boxy shapes
of English Arts and Crafts furniture and rectangular or rectilinear
architecture appeared in Vienna, with smooth surfaces that suggest
the styles of Norman Shaw, Voysey, Ashbee, and Townsend. Other
inspirations came mainly from the Scottish artists, Mackintosh and
the Macdonald sisters. In addition, there were affinities with
Khnopff and Toorop, Minne and Hodler.
ments, although

it

revert to the Baroque style.

Vienna
In 1898, Berta Zuckerkandl, a friend of

ical,

Ver Sacrum, entitled Examples of Viennese Bad Taste, in which

"Where has our refinement vanished? The ideal of our

she said:

present-day cultured society

on the Ringstrasse, with,

if

still

seems to be the possession of a flat

possible, a private entrance leading

from

the street. In one of these first-floor apartments in a four-storey

luxury tenement one lives amidst a perpetual cloud of dust and

noise rising

from the

street.

We have no

cially since the interior of such a flat

is

man

as banal as the exterior of

90 1, however, Viennese Art Nouveau inspired some Ger-

groups, for instance in the exhibition on the Mathildenhohe in

Darmstadt, which bore Obrist's distinctive

veau also depended on Vienna,

by

as well as

sign. Italian

Art Nou-

on English architecture,

borrowed from the famous

firm. Italian attempts at Art Nouveau were indeed founded mainly on imported ideas and limited to details, without
achieving any integrated idiomatic Italian Art Nouveau style.
as

is

indicated

its

name,

Stile Liberty,

London

Vienna's great architect, Otto Wagner (1841-1918), 249 had for

sense of real elegance, espe-

Our decorators and upholsterers are usually hostile

any artistic taste, being totally unaware of the important role
which might be played by such taste in interior decoration. To say
the building

After

Alma Mahler-Gropius-

Werfel, wrote an article for the second issue of the Viennese period-

many years designed

buildings in a historistic style that ranged from

the Renaissance to Rococo, with finally a touch of Louis

XVI. But

to

the simplicity of his box-shaped buildings and the clear fundamen-

the least, they are terribly stubborn

and obtuse: for instance, unlike

and Berlin they do not stock an entire range
of decorative art products designed by such artists as Walter Crane,
Gerhard Munthe
Kopping, Galle, Obrist, and so many others.

creasingly apparent in his work. The most important examples of

the decorators in Paris

Wagner's late Art Nouveau style include the faade of

Our

Viennese decorators take the rooms

to celebrate within

cade, plush,

and

As may be

them

their

own

we

entrust to

them merely

perfectly absurd orgies of bro-

by the above statement, Vienna was the last

number
of influential artists working there was small, including, among
others, the painter and designer Gustav Klimt, and the architects
Wagner, Hoffmann, and Olbrich. The latter two, after the manner
of other many-sided Art Nouveau artists, not only designed buildinferred

but also interiors, objects for daily use, furniture,

above

textiles,

ornaments, which are very much like those

The architect Adolf Loos was only vaguely
connected with this group, though we can detect in his work a
tendency toward late Art Nouveau, toward simplification, rectanlettering, and,

all,

in Klimt's paintings.

gularity, rectilinearity

elements on which his architecture

and amor vacui.

is

founded began

to be in-

his building

on the Wienzeile (1898-1900), which is decorated with colored

tiles, the somewhat Byzantine domed church in Steinhof,
near Vienna, the famous central Vienna office of the Administration
of Postal Savings Accounts
the last two buildings both date from
majolica

1906

gilt."

of the major European capitals to adopt Art Nouveau. The

ings,

tal

and,

the charming administrative offices of the

finally,

River Traffic Authority on the Danube embankment, built

in the style of his

in 191

former pupil Obrist.

In 1895, Wagner published his important and widely read book,

Moderne

Architektur.

Though Art Nouveau

here, all the important Viennese

to his school.

Wagner

is

not often mentioned

Art Nouveau

architects belonged

liberated Viennese architecture

shackles of historicism. "It

is

only a birth," he wrote. Josef Hoffmann also noted,

"I

am

from the

not a rebirth of the Renaissance, but

in this context:

particularly interested in the square as such and in the use

of black and white as dominant colors, because these clear elements

have never appeared

50
in earlier styles."-

In Wagner's architecture, the proportions of the cubic and com-

244

pact block-shapes of his entirely flat surfaces or of his discreet geometrical ornaments nevertheless revealed a slight touch of the

work of

his pupils, the architects

and

on

their part, the typical

appeared

style first

The

in their

earliest building

and

rectangle, transplanted to

no longer

visible

hohe, a most original piece of

Hoff-

style

mann (1870-1955) 251 and Joseph Olbrich (1 867-1 908), 252 and the
designer Koloman Moser (1868-1916). 253 After some initial indecision

the cube

and almost geometrical Viennese

Germany.

endowed

work whose independently personal

new landmark.

the city of Darmstadt with a

To the left of its entrance the hall of the Wiener Sezession bears
the words Ver Sacrum, which became the title of the whole movement's publication. The periodical's appearance and its almost

drawings for the periodical Ver Sacrum.

conceived in this general context was Olbrich's

hall for the exhibitions of the

Wiener Sezession,

and 1899 (page 244), which looks

as

though

it

built

between 1889

had been made of

Anonymous

Poster for the Exhibition of the

"

Vereinigung Bildender

KUnstler Qsterreichs. 1901" (1901)

compact, sharp-edged, flat-surfaced blocks topped by three-quar-

The latter is an openwork dome made of gilt bronze

The tendency to add a relatively incongruous element,

ters of a sphere.

laurel leaves.

sudi as this dome, appears frequently in Viennese

works of

this

period. In this building, the forms are not only reminiscent of

Wagner's earlier Empire

style,

but also of the retour d'Egypte

an

artist's

many

row of

houses.

A group of houses designed

kr-vcrcink

one BiLDcn
KRKuNrcR
oSTCRRSKHS

colony on the Mathildenhohe near Darmstadt in Ger-

also bears the imprint of Olbrich's personal style. This entire

Olbrich's

own

secessiN
IDKM.FRKD
RI01SSTR-12

N<>UmBCR
ibcccm
IBCRgS

house in the colony proved to be particularly fe-

kJLJTBCCfc

distinguished from the other buildings by

*ofrncT9-7
CIMTRITTilk

licitous in its design. It

row of

XlldUKICLft

for use as

community was designed by Olbrich (with the exception of one

house built by Peter Behrens), and is particularly interesting because
it was especially commissioned by Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of
Hessen who had it built for an exhibition called A Document of
German Art, a title that was subsequently given to the colony itself.
is

which girdle the structure, and by the roof of rustic

design (reminiscent of English country houses). Here and there themes
borrowed from designs by Webb, Norman Shaw, Voysey, or Baillie
its

ele-

ment displayed in much early Napoleonic Empire; all the blocks

and pylons decrease gradually in volume towards the top. This
exhibition hall, conceived in terms of cubes, squares, and spheres,
provided the groundwork for Vienna's late Art Nouveau. It had,
moreover, borrowed some decisive elements of design from Townsend's Whitechapel Art Gallery (plate 320), where the structure's
cubic articulation and the decorative carved foliage ornamenting
the faade were both more constrained to the two-dimensional
plane because Townsend had merely redesigned the front of an
already existing building that was part of a group forming a integrally designed

tiles

them in an
A real playhouse was built by Olbrich
for the young princesses of Hessen in Wolfsgarten, near Darmstadt
(plate 343). It is a good example of the Viennese predilection for

Scott can be recognized, but Olbrich has transposed

inventively playful mood.

245

Later, in 1907,

Olbrich built the Wedding Tower (plate 258) on the Mathilden-

designers, Josef

pire style or of Classicism; but these elements are

in the

Em-

UCR-iflCRUm
rvMFKSJflriR

244

square format likewise

metric form.

As a

make

periodical,

the most important artists of

use of the simplicity of a basic geoit

its

introduced to the public

time. Japanese prints

many

of

were repro-

duced; Hermann Bahr, Rilke, and Loris (the nom de plume of the
young Von Hofmannsthal) contributed articles of great subtlety on
art; articles in memory of Burne- Jones or Puvis de Chavannes were
printed; photographs in the manner of Art Nouveau by the Viennese Camera Club were reproduced; the new interior decorations
of the Sezession building, such as those by Klimt for Klinger's Beethoven, were shown; and throughout its pages the specific Viennese
style of ornament was displayed. This ornamentation, mostly designed by Hoffmann, Olbrich, and Moser, rarely uses the gliding
lasso-like line; what one finds there most frequently are rosette-like
forms which were multiplied and used in rows, friezes, and frames.
After 1900, lines disappear almost entirely, leaving mostly regular
squares, circles, dots,

and checkerboard

patterns. These last

were

HOFFMANN

Sketch for a country house (1900)

Main entrance
Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (1897-99)

of the

by the most refined of the Viennese artists, Hoffmann, who was even nicknamed "Checkerboard-Hoffmann." Such
rows of squares were used especially on edges and borders in interiors, and on exteriors often around windows which were set in
entirely unadorned, whitewashed areas.

particularly used

Viennese furniture of this period

many

reveals

affinities

is

almost always box-shaped and

with English furniture of the Arts and

Crafts movement, but with a

new element

of charm and eclecticism

which was not unknown to the English though

oped

in

it

was now devel-

Vienna with a more refined and feminine elegance. The

Viennese transformed these pieces of furniture into objects of luxury

by using materials of the highest quality. All this, and indeed the
entire style, was still strongly influenced by Japan; and it was
mainly through The Studio that Japanese and English art became
known in Vienna after 1893. The impression that this English periodical made there is illustrated by one of Peter Altenberg's charming stories in which he describes what a great event it was when
a

JOSEF

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

new

issue of

The Studio arrived in an art-loving, wealthy house-

hold: a kind of silently aesthetic celebration, after which the master

of the house had scant hopes of the fulfillment of more profane

desires.

The Viennese or Sezession style was represented first and foremost in Ver Sacrum, but found its last truly creative expression in
Hoffmann's Palais Stoclet, built in Brussels between 1905 and 191
(plate 257). This spacious building limits itself almost entirely to

and rectangular forms and to the relationships between

them. However, it gives us no impression of cubic forms; its extremely varied structure seems to be disembodied, as if composed of
rectilinear

The different sections of the walls are faced with

slabs, in turn, are framed by golden friezes, the

plates of glass.

white marble; these

ornamentation of the entire exterior being limited to these frames.

Reminiscences of Olbrich's Sezession exhibition building seem to

appear at the top of the tower of the Palais Stoclet, whidi displays
an element of drama not entirely suitable for a private home. The
garden of

this building

tectural plan,

certain Art

and

is

Nouveau

was conceived

as part of the general archi-

an extension of the structure

itself (just as

paintings frequently are extended into their

and its stone pylons, hedges, and small clipped trees all
suggest the same architectural style of the building. The dormer
windows protruding squarely from the top of the faade are also a
frames),

noteworthy feature of the building. These windows bear out Art

Nouveau's avoidance of the sculptured cornice (so characteristic of
Renaissance and Baroque styles), and are clearly borrowed from

England where

this architectural style

appeared for the

first

time

246

r.4

^&$&

1^

'

Dp)

*!Iff****
.

TIT

.ii ii

^45

CHARI.I.S

RENNIE MACKINTOSH

School of Art,

Glasgow (1907-09)

Library of the Glasgm

248

246

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

in the

bedroom

Mirror and

of the Mackintosh residence,

closet

247

24S

249

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

the Mackintosh residence,

Glasgow (1900)

Glasgow

( 1

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Glasgow (1904)

Fireplace in the studio of

900)

The

Willow

Tea-Rooms,

25C

249

251

250

249

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Decorative wall

banging (1902)
250

CELTIC

Wandsworth's Shield

(third or second century

B.C.)

251

MARGARET MACDONALD-MACKINTOSH
FRANCES MACDONALD

252

MARGARET MACDONALD-MACKINTOSI
Motherhood

^ W
i

J
254

251

902)

253

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

254

FORD MADOX BROWN

(1856-57)

25^

( 1

and

Candle-holder {circa 1897)

Taifec

For

Chair (1900)
So/7, 5/r

2 55

255

CHARLES RENNI! MAC K.INTOSH

Hallway

in

Hill House,

Helensburgh, near Glasgow, Sait!. nul (1902-03)

CHARLES RENNI1 MACKINTOSH

Chair (1900)

256

233

57

JOSM- HOI

MAW

l\ihii

'.

S toclet, Brussels (1905

.1)

2j8

JOSEPH OLBRICH

Exhibition Hall and Hoch/.eitsturm,

Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt, Germany (1907)

254

259

JOSEF HOFFMANN

260

ADOLF LOOS
P. ins

261

Vase (before 1906)

Street faade of the Tristan

Tzara residence,

(1926)

JOSEF

HOFFMANN

Staircase 0) the B. H. Villa {circa 1904)

260

261

M9

Jro

i(,i

263

KOI OMAN MOSKR

ADOLF LOOS

Decorative fabric (1S99)

Garden lacade

of the Tristan l'/ara residence.

Pans (1926)

262

263

Opposite:

264

ADOLF LOOS

Kamtner

Bar, Vienna (1907)

256

%*.

^J
fiiB
N

mi
VI

ai

MM

4^B

&

M-

i+jfe

-'I

*tHT

GUSTAV

KL.IMT

Portrait of

F ran Adcle Bloch-Baiwr (1907)

258

in

Norman Shaw's Old Swan House

was

later

in Chelsea (plate 298),

and

developed by Mackintosh.

Such a building as the Palais Stoclet

is

a perfect example of the

bare and unadorned style of late Art Nouveau, where curves appear

with

less

and

less

frequency, as can be observed in the buildings

designed by Mackintosh or Perret. As a disciple of Voysey, the for-

mer no doubt exerted a great influence in Vienna: Meier-Graefe

and Ahlers-Hestermann both describe the enthusiasm with which
Mackintosh's works were received in the Austrian capital, 254 especially on account of his refinement of means, and his curiously
evanescent or disembodied charm, so typical of his style. Mackintosh's predilection for white lacquered furniture

was bound

To begin with, the formats of Klimt's paintings are unusual: not

infrequently, they are rigorously square. Producing an extraordi-

to appeal to the Viennese,

who had

and dark wood

similar tastes. Fritz

nary effect from a distance, the human figure

in his works is transformed into an ever-asymmetrical and pictorial ornament. His

people appear to be overgrown with many small ornaments, striking us as strangely unfamiliar beings; actually his ornaments and
designs are not derived from any pre-existent sources, however
exotic. However, his treatment of eye forms as ornaments was
borrowed from ancient Egyptian art. Klimt's world of ornament
is founded mainly on geometric forms such as the square, the circle,
and the spiral, and within these we find similar or slightly varied

forms grouped in an irregular fashion. The fact that

especially

gold

are

his colors

sometimes applied so thickly that they

Waerndorfer, the Viennese translator and collector of Beardsley,

achieve relief effects, reinforces the impression of jewel-like splendor

had a large music room decorated by Mackintosh, and an issue of

Ver Sacrum, with color reproductions, was dedicated to Mackintosh
and the Macdonald sisters.
But there are fundamental differences between the styles of
Vienna and Glasgow. At first encouraged by English examples, the

in his paintings. Klimt's figures are stiffly

Viennese style became independent and had developed a character

of

its

known

own

before the closely related ideas of Mackintosh were

any appreciable extent among Austrian Art Nouveau

to

tine icons, but their faces are treated

realistically,

and

rising

from the

posed like those in Byzanmore three-dimensionally and

rigid bodies they

produce a kind of

shock in the viewer (plate 265).

Klimt was especially proud of the three symbolical or allegorical

decorations he painted on canvas for the ceilings of the main lecture
hall, or

Aula, of the University of Vienna. They represent Philo-

sophy, Medicine, and Law, and Klimt worked on them from 1900

and courageously original works provoked

enthusiasts.

until 1903. These vast

While Van de Velde fought against the Romantic element in the

ornament of floral Jugendstil in Germany, in Vienna, where neither

one of the great art scandals of the age.

the floral trend nor the "Belgian" line were popular, a distaste for

signed small

any kind of ornament was felt at a very early date. Developing the
ideas and tendencies of Wagner, Adolf Loos (1870-1933), 255 soon
after 1900, pronounced a veritable anathema on ornament in

Wittgenstein home. Klimt also designed mannequins for modeling

most of the theoretical writers on Art Nou-

in public as a bearded, collarless, Messiah-like figure, generally

general. In contrast to

veau, he was true to his

smooth and cubic

own

principles

style of architecture

and very soon attained a

and interior design (plate

264) that appears to be related to the slightly exaggerated proportions of late Art Nouveau, but which tends quite independently
toward modern architecture. In the house that Loos built in Paris
in

1926 for the Dadaist poet, Tristan Tzara (plates 260, 263), only

the proportions remind us at all of late Art

The most powerful personality among Viennese painters of this

236
Highly gifted as a deco(1 862-191 8).
rator, he may probably be compared with Beardsley in that his

period was Gustav Klimt

works, quite apart from their ornamental element, are charged with

an alarming expressiveness which

scious

from an obscure subcon-

domain, an inner world which Sigmund Freud, concurrently

(and also

259

arises

in

Vienna) had also begun to explore.

GUSTAV KLIMT

The

artist's

women's

draped

signature

small colored sketch for

in a

room which Hoffmann decorated

clothes,

very elegant and

style. Less felicitous

in robes

dered by society

in

very delicately dein

Vienna for the

keeping with the Sezession

seems to have been his habit of appearing

with ornamental epaulettes which were embroi-

women who were

Oskar Kokoschka (born

in

and close friends.

emerged as an artist from

his devotees

1886)

Klimt's circle before shifting to his

257

own

Expressionism. In his book,

Die traumenden Knaben (plate 342), Kokoschka created a work

which, in form, content, text, and illustration, represents one of

homogeneous and valuable examples of its kind in the

declining period of Art Nouveau. With a great flair for folklore,
Kokoschka also suggests the same curious impression of the nursery
atmosphere as may be found in certain interiors by Hoffmann
which, however indirectly, had their source in England.
the most

Nouveau.

Philosophy was used as a design element

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ART NOUVEAU

'All art

is

at

who go
who

once surface and symbol. Those

beneath the surface do so at their

peril.

Those

read the symbol do so at their peril."

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Biological Romanticism

During

highest phase, at least, the homogeneity of form and

its

structure in Art

with

ic,

lines,

Nouveau remained unusually

transversal axial curves,

original

and idiomat-

and uninterrupted contours

dominating. However, asymmetry of form appears nearly every-

where

phases of Art Nouveau, and signifies

in all

life

and move-

ment. All the swinging, swirling, throbbing, sprouting, and blos-

soming it intended to be an unequivocal sign of organic

life,

of living

form. Occasionally, the "life" of the elements manifests

leaping flames, rushing wind, and, most of

all,

itself:

flowing, rippling

waters. There are hints, too, of natural organic forms: the irregular
spots or stripes of the skins of the leopard or zebra; the "eyes" in

the feathers of peacocks and the wings of butterflies. Frequently,

these natural forms remind us of anatomical preparations preserved
in alcohol

under

glass and,

our minds suggesting "that strange interregnum inhabited by

in

the lower forms of

ALFRED ROLLER Day

and Night (1900)

even more frequently, associations arise

life

the plantlike animals of the sea bottom,"

that underwater world which, with

and elegance,

sive grace
life,"

its

its

unfamiliar and even repul-

"half-sucking, half-suspended

way

of

fascinated the artists of this period. 258

Nouveau, skeleton and membrane dominate as a

and smaller three-dimensional forms. Powerfully dynamic lines (like veins through which
the lifeblood flows) compose the structure and, between them, thin
and transparent planes extend like the wings of dragonflies.
Rooms, halls, or transparently constructed faades appear to be
In linear Art

structural principle in both architecture

groves of upward-striving saplings or supporting stems of flowers.

On

the other hand, three-dimensional Art

Nouveau produced

vases

and building exteriors

that look
rooms
that remind us of dunes swept by wind and water. In Gaudi's
buildings, there are passages with thin and perforated cellular
like caverns,

like mollusks,

walls, like the shell of a snail, while the interior construction of his

houses

is

as

complicated as a labyrinth. The measurements of the

human form

are never

employed

as a

module

to illustrate pro-

portions and rhythms. Instead of being habitations designed for

firmly built, square-shouldered men, these buildings seem to be

intended for gliding, floating beings whose bearing and movements

would tend

to suggest Rossetti's

Art Nouveau nymphs, or the grace-

260

fui

motions taught by Isadora Duncan. Considered from a

point of view, Art

Nouveau

structure at

seemingly without firmness or solidity,

it

its

peak

classical

nonstructural;

is

appears weightless and in

the walls of Gaudi's

of Art Nouveau,

we

Casa

Batllo.

Enlarged by the magnifying eye

find here the core of protoplasm, the original

units of living substance.

Above

a frieze with sea monsters

and

depicted on the ceiling

a constant state of flux.

between coral-shaped lamps,

The materials employed in the construction of these buildings is

of a similar nature, ambiguous in spite of clearly determined and

of Endell's Buntes Theater in Berlin, and Blake's watercolors for

sharply defined forms. The substance seems forever changing and

tending toward fusion and metamorphosis. In most cases the substance

employed

is

smooth, almost gelatinous, somehow managing

to give the impression of nudity

not so much a

substance deter-

mined by the actual material used, as an undefined, living subHowever much Art Nouveau developed form from nature

stratum.
(in

opposition to historicism), the material of a

Guimard

vase, for

instance, remains ambiguous, scarcely betraying the fact that

it is

porcelain. If pieces of furniture are lacquered white (a usual practice

during Art Nouveau's main phase), they are so masked with

the purposeful intention to conceal the

a

homogeneous mass of white

wood, disguising

it

under

so that one does not recognize the

material used for the construction.

Only seldom, and

principally

cells are also

Milton's Paradise Lost begin to intimate these themes.

few typical themes stand out in the iconography of Art Nouveau. The theme of the swan and that of the lily (which have in
common a pure white and a clear outline) were of course chosen on
account of their beauty. But the swan was also elected because it is
a rare, proud, and solitary bird and because its quiet gliding on
glittering waters arouses a vague nostalgia. The swan had Romantic
predecessors: not so much the decorative swans of the Empire period
as those of Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake, and the swan in Wagner's Lohengrin. Francis Viel-Griffin entitled a book of his poems

W. Degouve de Nunques painted Le

swans
The
of Eckmann, of Toorop, and of the
896.

Les Cygnes (1885-86) and

Cygne noir

in

Berlin Sezession painter, Leistikow, find their counterpart in the

English peacocks

also very decorative birds which,

with Gaudi, does the wall (or the "flesh") of a building wear a

play Art Nouveau colors, blue and green,

kind of armor consisting of mosaic, or ceramic "scales" (plate 216).

ing, brocade-like

However, when the wall

peacock, determined either by

is

so covered

it is

because

it

was meant

to

is seldom intended to
wood. The substance invariably depends on the imposed form, and this form alone determines the
outward appearance of the materials used.

appear iridescent. Stone

feathers, corresponds to

look like stone, or

wood

the

The figures on one of Gaudi's architectural pendants (plate 273)

thus seem to be corals, set in a tangled swirl of seaweed. Glass, also,

may appear
most

to be a veined substance, half plant, half animal, al-

as distasteful to the eye as living

matter torn from the body

is gracefully wrought
and presented (plate 266). In his fairy-tale, The Fisherman and His
Soul, Oscar Wilde writes: "... and putting forth all his strength,

of a sea creature, but which, at the same time,

he tugged at the coarse ropes

like lines of blue

till,

enamel round a

Who else might

have noted this simile before? Who else could have expressed it
with so much aesthetic feeling? Wherever high quality is concerned,
vase of bronze, the long veins rose up on his arms."

Art Nouveau

treats

even what

is

repulsive in the lower organic

forms with delicacy and often with playful grace. All serious Symbolist

and Art Nouveau

artists

from Baudelaire

Beardsley

to

in the metallic, scintillat-

splendor of their feathers. The silhouette of the

either scintillate or

like

in addition, dis-

its

trailing tail or

Art Nouveau's

ideas, as

unfolded

do the

tail-

details of

tail's scale and eye patterns; moreover, peacocks always strike

an exotic note. We have mentioned Whistler's Peacock Room;
Beardsley 's Salome wears a peacock train; and Herod, in Wilde's

Salome, speaks at great length of his white peacocks. Art Nouveau

would not be what it is without its love of the glorious exception

and the perverse inversion: it produced white peacocks and black
swans, and Oscar Wilde invented the "green carnation." In England, a book of poems was entitled Grey Roses. Ricketts designed a
peacock on his cover for Wilde's House of Pomegranates. Heinrich
title page for Von Hofmannsthal's The Emperor
and on the title page of the German periodical Die
Insel, drew the peacock as a fabulous bird, and Thomas Theodor
Heine then seized the opportunity of making charming parodies of

Vogeler, on the

and

the Witch

these designs.

The peacock

is

not only the symbol of beauty and

vanity, but also the bird of legends.

Up

until the early

Middle

Ages, traditional iconography showed the bird of paradise in the

shape of a peacock. The circle

is

then closed with Stravinsky's

possessed a magical ability to "transform the most loathsome things

Firebird and Maeterlinck's Blue Bird (though not peacocks per

into objects of particularly enticing beauty." 259

both were fabulous birds), both of which played a part

How
regress

261

far back to the origins of life this substance

is

is

made

to

revealed in the irregular small cells which entirely cover

in the

se,

neo-

Romanticism of 1900 not unlike that played by the "blue flower"

during the German Romantic movement of 1 800.

Art Nouveau's lily

early paintings, where
of the

Holy

is

derived from those one sees in Rossetti's

it

represents the flower of the Annunciation,

Virgin, of purity, retaining an element of consecration.

From Rossetti's day, the lily became the heraldic flower of the
London aesthetes. Lady aesthetes appeared in society with longstemmed

lilies

in

their hands;

street; Proust's little actress,

Oscar Wilde carried one

who endeavored without success

in

the

to recite

fragments from Maeterlinck, made her appearances holding a

lily

and wearing a gown copied from Rossetti's Ecce Ancilla Domini;

Otto Eckmann is famous for his fine lilies in Pan. Art Nouveau's
conception of form was, of course, also satisfied by the lily design;
a long, linear stem with sharply outlined and narrow leaves that

Nouveau

are

Heywood Sumner's

Undine, the

first

representational figure in

pure High Art Nouveau (plate 113), Jean Dampt's Melusine, with
her thick, jointless, snake-like arms, and the mermaid in Wilde's The

Fisherman and His Soul. The French poet Henri de Rgnier entitled
a volume of his poems Arthuse, after the Greek fountain-nymph.

is

Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau painted and repainted numerous versions of the birth of Venus, and in one painting, Redon
shows her under water, emerging from a shell. A Symbolist periodical was named after the sea shell, La Conque; another was called

fancied flowers with

Le Centaure. Verlaine wrote Pomes saturniens; Symbolist and Art

bears aloft a flower of striking shape, the beauty of which

revealed especially in profile. Art

meaning which, in another sense, is

not far removed from the biological domain.
Art Nouveau and Symbolism were particularly attracted to
nymphs, mermaids, and other hybrid creatures. Related to them

cattleya has acquired a special

long stems and blooms with petals that could easily be transposed

two dimensions: above all, irises, then poppies, and tulips,

too. Roses occur rarely in High Art Nouveau, being too substantial
with their petals that cover one another and whidi cannot be
in

Nouveau representations
right); Khnopff painted

of sphinxes are innumerable (page 186,

picted chimeras or aristocratic and marvelously adorned sirens. This

nostalgia for creatures that are half

human and

arranged in juxtaposition as a surface-design. But roses were then

characteristic of the

rediscovered by late Art

Nouveau on account of their geometriWater lilies were, naturally, popular; firstly

because they evoke water, and secondly because their stems sway
under the surface of the water like long and pliant tubes. Orchids
are also important; the first cattleya-like blossoms appear in

Jugend,

cally circular outline.

ideal images of unbridled eroticism; but in

Blake's watercolor for Dante's Purgatory; later, they reappear

also appear.

ty

volume of Proust's

la recherche

du temps perdu, the lovely

we

we

whole

style. In

half animal

popular publications

is

Die

like

and nymphs as the

works of a higher qualithe dangerous attraction and the demonic and magic

find laughing mermaids, satyrs,

also feel

elements of this intermediate world. Beside personifications of

voluptuousness, those of the enigma, of mystery, and of corruption

Another symptom likewise reveals

especially in three-dimensional objects sudi as glass vases. In the

first

Moreau often de-

the Blood of Medusa,

of the merely

human

dissatisfaction or weariness

condition: the closer relationship of the other

arts to music. This approach can already be felt in the great im-

portance ascribed to rhythm in Art

figure provides the basis for all

Nouveau

forms. "The

human

thought and art except music

where pure humanitas is not necessarily contained; there even exists

a kind of music which sets out to deprive man of this higher form
of his condition by bringing him back, with all the power of its
sweet seductions, to prehuman conditions." 200 Actually, this kind
of music developed mainly as a parallel to Art Nouveau, or even

preceded
in

it

in

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, with

its

fusion of love

death and death in love. Later, from Debussy's Pellas

et

Mli-

sande to Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps, such music offers infinite

temptations to abandon oneself to the primitive moods of the

dawn

of humanity (although Debussy's filaments of sound and Stravin-

rhythms are poles apart, they both arc

descriptions of that curious admixture of sex and death). In Stravinsky, we thus reach the borderline of brutality and barbarism
sky's brutal avalanche of

which

is

often suggested in

ROBERT BURNS

modern

art,

but a decade earlier, Scriabin

Natura Naturans (1891)

262

i66

263

mu

GAI

II

Bowl(ii 99 )

267

ANTONI GAUDl
Sagrada

Detail of the faade of the Church of the

I'amilia, Barcelona

{ana

1900)

RM
X
,,

>Sf?**& r

269

268

270

268

ANTON' GAUDl
I

Rain pipe on the exterior of the Church of the

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (1887

269

ALFRED GILBERT

(known

265

270

as the

j'j

Detail o) the Shaftesbury Manorial Fountain

"Eros Fountain") in Piccadilly Circus, London (1887 93)

Sea anemone

27i

271

HECTOR GUIMARD

272

ODILON REDON

*7*

Detail of a small table (circa I900)

Illustration for

"La Tentation de Saint-

Antoine" (1888)
273

ANTONI GAUD!

Pendant

in the cloister 0} the

Church of the

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (1887-91)

Z74

HECTOR GUIMARD

Detail of a Paris Mtro station (circa 1900)

266

274

^73

267

.-,

'-75

275*

REN LALIQUK

276

EDVARD MUNCH

Brooch (circa 1900)

Madonna

(1895)

276

268

277

RENLALIQUE

278

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

Pendant

{circa 1900)

decorative fabric (cira [884)

269

"Thorns and Butterflies,"

English

Plate {circa 1900)

270

CHARLES RICKETTS

Bookplate (1892)

had already expressed the voluptuousness of self-annihilation in its

most perfect form in his Pome d'extase.
The subconscious remembrance or nostalgia for man's interuterine avatars asserts itself in Art Nouveau's forms and substances as well as in the choice of thematic materials;

encounter the themes of water, marine

life,

we

repeatedly

or the lower organic

life

and silverware are

the chief mediums for this type of decoration. At the boundary
between English early and High Art Nouveau, Walter Crane represented mermaids in his ceramics, and designed a wallpaper
depicting water with a swimming fish here and there. In William
Burgess' house in Melbury Road, Art Nouveau expresses itself in
the frieze above the fireplace: incongruously enough, for a fireplace
decoration, it shows the waves of the sea with fishes frolicking
forms

in general.

among

Wallpapers,

textiles, ceramics,

the surging billows.

William Blake's predilection for

interest in aquatic themes, as

from

fire

motifs did not exclude his

can be seen in an illuminated page

which in addition also carries marginal decoshowing many varieties of submarine or worm-like crea-

his Jerusalem,

rations

High Art Nouveau, such themes are so frequent that we

need only cite two examples: Gilbert's fountain in Piccadilly Circus
(plate 269), and the choir in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (plate 268).
In the latter, the gargoyles in the buttresses appear in the form of
huge lizards, snakes, sea-shells, salamanders, and snails all successors to the demons of Gothic cathedrals. These creatures are connected to the building with tube-like drainpipes that look like umbilical cords. For the novel, Astarte (a title chosen by its "mystic"
author, Sr Mrodack Pladan, in remembrance of the Middle
Eastern moon goddess of fecundity), Fernand Khnopff designed a
cover depicting a female half-figure growing out of what seems
to be vaguely organic matter. As can be seen, the development and
tures. In

metamorphosis of organic

Nouveau

artists.

One

life in all its

phases fascinated

of Toorop's drawings

is

many Art

called Evolution, one

of the "brethren" in Sr Pladan's Rosicrucian circle painted The

with flames, an image that looks as though the fire-flower

in

had been transformed into a

Blake, the fire-flower was a womb-image, here,

Blake's Songs of Innocence (plate 27)

column of water

(in

the water could be taken to represent the element in which the fetus

we

works on embryology,
and his fascination with this subject may be seen in some of his
drawings (page 273), although most of these were published privately. In these latter works he not only gave expression to images
that reveal unashamed desires, but he also made use of gynecological themes which he developed with great precision, delighting in
details suggestive of both horror and disgust. At the same time,
however, these black-and-white drawings were treated with a
certain fanciful playfulness. Far from being frivolous, Munch, in
turn, represented a human embryo in his lithograph, the so-called
is

suspended). Beardsley,

Madonna

are told, studied

(plate 276). Here, the figure of the

mously surrounded by a border

Some

woman

is

blasphe-

flow of spermatozoa, the

Source of Life, and, long before any of these, William Blake had

"springs of life."

already spoken of the "springs of

Alfred Jarry, wrote a "modern novel," Le Surmle: to Nietzsche's

life."

The aims of Art Nouveau were not so much directed at nature in

the popular sense, as at the basic forces of life itself. The sources of
life, and the power of life to transform itself eternally, could also
be made apparent without employing themes borrowed from nature: they could be expressed in terms of eroticism.

Munch

painted

Puberty, and revealed the merging of bodies in The Kiss (colorplate

XII). In one of Ricketts' illustrations for Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx,
the diver seeking the ring

271

is

shown

in a

kind of water tank outlined

years later, in 1902, the French author,

superman he opposed the supermale, a monster of sexual potency.

In some of its brutally clinical details, Jarry's novel anticipates The
Kinsey Report by fifty years.
Art Nouveau's characteristic and fundamental concern with life
is confirmed by its literary production; the eloquent titles of many
of these works, the verbal images, and, of course, by the various
manifestoes, periodicals, and other literary mediums expressing its
doctrines. The principal Jugendstil periodicals in Germany were

Die Jugend and Pan. The

meaning "youth," speaks for itself;

Pan, the title of the second, recalls the Greek god of nature, the
master of the nymphs and satyrs who personified erotic and orgiastic existence. Nietzsche distinguished Apollonian and Dionysiac art
by assigning to the former category all that is luminous, clear, and
meditative, and to the latter all that is passionate and unbounded.
To the latter, he seems almost ready to categorize all the works of
Richard Wagner, who certainly influenced Art Nouveau through
his later music and his Symbolist writings. L'Aprs-midi d'un faune
is similarly the title of one of Mallarm's poems, and Rodin created
fauns and nymphs many times; ageless creatures, ideal images of
eternal youth

first,

and exuberant

life.

Ver Sacrum, "the sacred spring," was the name of the leading Art

Nouveau

periodical in Vienna.

The meaning of

this title

was made

quite clear in the cover design of the first issue: an ornamental shrub
in a

roots

wooden tub which

the tremendous vital forces of the plant's

had burst asunder.

later cover design

erupting flowers instead of lava

the springtime of

soms breaking forth with volcanic power.

periodical

was named

showed

Floral, the "official"

life

a volcano

and

blos-

French Symbolist

name

for

May

after

Awakening)
is the title of a drama on puberty by the German playwright, Frank
Wedekind (who also wrote a play called Erdgeist Earth Spirit).
The name of the Scottish periodical, Evergreen, suggests eternally
youthful life, and its individual issues were given the names of the
seasons rather than the usual numbers assigned to magazines.
Though there was a great deal in Evergreen relating to the Celtic
renaissance in Scotland, its pages also contain articles on biological
themes, treated with surprising frankness for the times. Nor was
it an accident or coincidence that an expert in sexology, Havelock
Ellis, contributed to Beardsley's sophisticated and worldly magazine, The Savoy. In the Spanish Art Nouveau periodical, L'Aven
the French Revolution. Friihlingserwachen (Spring's

we have suddenly
force

eternal

is

discovered that

the Pre-Raphaelites,
this general subject,

who

Sawa wrote about

vitalism. 261

cation on art, founded in his youth

by

Rossetti,

life:

a publi-

was thus

called

The Germ. Seed or germ are, of course, used here merely as meta-

phors for the origin of a

structive, so are verbal

new

art,

but just as certain

images which

may

titles

are in-

reveal an unconscious

toward the actual meaning they express. Van de Velde to

quote only one example among many certainly displayed great
control in his art, but, just as certainly, his verbal association was
completely spontaneous of any double meaning when he wrote:
"Beauty is once again filled with lifegiving sap and inner strength;
attitude

its

vital

and indestructible and can always produce new

Under the influence of Darwin's theories, Romantic historicism

was transformed into biological historicism. When a new Romanticism began to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century, it was
Romanticism of the early 1800s, and became
How much Darwin (who considered
all life, from the amoeba upward, in terms of "historical" development) had indeed influenced even the art theory of his time, becomes evident in a text by EberhardBaron vonBodenhausen. Bodenhausen, a German industrial magnate who later became a friend of
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, wrote in an 1899 issue of Pan: "Since
Darwin's achievement, we view the world in the light of his docrelated to the nature

a "biological Romanticism."

trines

modern

according to

ethics will respond to the trend of

our time

ability to develop according to the basis of his

its

doctrines." 262 Art

Nouveau did not

choose to favor forms that are

anemones and other such lower organisms, half plant,

half animal, for their flowery elegance and ornamental form alone,
similar to sea

but also because they are close to those forms which

when

life

was beginning. The

biologists

began their careers with research on

asks:

"What can

stir

first

appeared

Darwin and Haeckel both

and medusae. Obrist

jellyfish

our vital emotions more strongly than the

graceful, long, sinuous, linear tentacles of a jellyfish swaying in the

water?" 268 As

if

Nouveau

and rhythms were to be

and confirmed, Haeckel had written about

the Art

scientifically illustrated

lines

"the curvilinear progression of the procreation of

Abstract

life."

264

Dynamism
"Energy

is

eternal delight."

William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Even

otherwise revealed no great interest in

were concerned with the germ of

has not withered, since

blossoms."

the Catalan poet, Alejandro

it

Even

in

concrete expressions of fanciful ornament, abstract

forms already existed

in

High Art Nouveau,

suggesting

movement

and life without direct reference to any particular themes derived

from fauna or flora, or from the natural elements. Though Horta's
use of metal scaffoldings generally suggests elements of plant

many

life,

of his structures also become abstract by being conceived

in

terms of general and nonspecific dynamics. This abstract dyna-

mism, however,

is

also alive

and organic,

just as are the

forms of

Van de Velde, who, most consistently of all, aimed at abstract

form. Somehow, even in the work of Van de Velde, there is always
a suggestion of rippling muscles and taut sinews, though he uses

272

[J

La^

^H ^^L

v<

neither plants nor animals as his models. Representational Art

Nouveau had been

attracted to the lower or primal organisms, but

Van de Velde and abstract High Art Nouveau embody the dynamics of the elements of life itself, suggesting Henri Bergson's lan
vital, that eternal

energy which continues

sation, regardless of the stage of

metamorphosis

B9k.

uninterrupted pul-

its

in

which

it

happens

and of the particular form assumed by any species

at any given time. Van de Velde
strove to
at least in theory
distinguish the dynamism of his forms from personal and individual form: "A line is a force, filled with the energy of him who
drew it." 265 The "power lines" of Art Nouveau were thus conceived
as bearers of energy, and the artist almost as an abstract source of
to find itself,

energy. Such an abstract

dynamism

also has a lengthy previous

history, particularly in England. Joseph Paxton,

who was en

Art Nouveau, but, as one of the inventors of

sider to early

out-

v-

KHT7

'

K\\

water by their

own

266

^r

m
1
fl

"V

'*

glass

and iron buildings, had created the conditions possible for Horta's
buildings, was inspired to undertake his skeleton buildings on seeing
the great leaves of the Victoria Regia

AV*

\ *J

^J^

^^r^

*'.v^'

which are upheld on the

veins, so that his architecture also

owes

its

style

to plant life. Christopher Dresser, the English designer, likewise

lSj

from botany; having studied the development of plant life,

first to achieve, in his glass and silverware, an
entirely abstract High Art Nouveau, and one of his designs is even
entitled Force and Energy (plate 103). Here, we find hints of the
started

he was one of the

vegetal element, as with Horta, such as unrolling spiral tips of

AUBREY BEARDSLEY

on

ferns or abstract forms of plants in the Gothic manner. But,

Drawing

(circa 1894)

the whole, these associations were only intended to create an im-

and dynamism.
Art Nouveau's tendency toward functionalism, too strongly
emphasized today, is closely related to this and was already anticipression of energy

pated

in certain vessels

designed by Dresser and in the furniture of

and Crafts movement, which can also be qualified

its simple and almost primitive sense. From there,
the line of derivation leads via Serrurier-Bovy to Van de Velde,
who logically developed his principles of construction and decoration into functional Symbolism and, at least as a corollary of his
theory, was the foremost representative of functionalism in Art
Nouveau. Naturally, this apparently factual style of Van de Vclde's
the English Arts

as functional in

is

to a great extent an art of fantasy too; in

some of

wallpapers, a poster, or in book illustrations,

as the expression of a

function.
al

On

273

see

power

and
lines

in reality, has

no

the other hand, in opposition to entirely nonfunction-

historicism, there

in floral

we

dynamic tension which,

his fabrics

is

a considerable

Art Nouveau, where

it is

amount of "functionalism"

not a question of the function of,

say, a chair used as a seat, but of the function of vegetal

which underlies the form of the

chair.

Even

to

growth

Darwin, the notion

of functionalism was not unknown, for instance in the doctrine of

natural selection in which the survivor

one best adapted to

its

the fittest creature, the

environment.

This abstract, functional,

now

is

and dynamic aspect of Art Nouveau,

divested of Romanticism and of the orgiastic elements of

nymphs and satyrs, leads on to late Art Nouveau as well as to modmodern functionalism. In late Art Nouveau, biological
life and dynamism give way to rigid calm. The proportions are still
directly related to those of High Art Nouveau and the rudimenern art or

tary forms of the older curve are equally present everywhere. But

we might

well

wonder whether, between geometrical

rigid late

Art Nouveau and organically animated High Art Nouveau, a profounder relationship had not been expressed

duced

in

in a

common

nostalgia

The feeling of discomfort that culture proFreud, the lure of music and of decoration developed into

for the primitive state.

music, the attraction of a chaos created by a general fusion of the

forces of life

might not the

as

an "urge

all this secret nostalgia, in fact

animated organic

in all

Art Nouveau be under-

rigor of late

stood as a necessary final phase of

life to

return to a

more primitve

condition," even to that of inanimate matter, of the crystalline

stone? In his Jenseits des Lustprinzips, Freud,

beyond the

libido or

and its rights occurred, whether it was a genuine impetus coming

from the depths or whether the whirlwind of time had but loosened
a kind of ice pack that was already disintegrating
The harmful
effects of industrialization were to be limited,
life itself was to
be sanctified and declared the most precious of all possessions in
an appropriately renovated devotion to religious service." This
.

repose and permanent liberation, in Nirvana, from the tensions

is also mixed with melancholy and a feeling of uselessness:

"The premonition of the instability of everything (which was be-

and

ginning to assume the appearance of an indisputable certainty) filled

sexual drive, detects another instinct, the para-libido or urge for

conflicts of

which

life is

Art Nouveau could not

made. Because of

its

inner conflicts,

live long. Its turgid universe of the hot-

house and the aquarium was destined to bring about a desire for
immobility, for rectangular forms,

when

High

a reaction against

Art Nouveau assured, on the other hand, the continuity of

metamorphosis.

renewal

us with sadness. In the

start, a feeling

whole movement there was, from the very

of finality, of fading away, of renunciation, even of

weariness." 268

How

its

was of German Jugendstil too, and even of

Nouveau movement, in its attempt to establish a

true this also

the entire Art

contact with original traditions,

"the most precious of

Art Nouveau and

disappointment and

Time

Its

disillusion.

of self-frustration within

However

number of precious objects, admirable in their

fragile beauty, Art Nouveau may have produced, the universal regeneration of art and life that it attempted was condemned to
failure from the outset. The kind of return to the orginal source it
tried to achieve over and over again cannot be successful if undergreat the

taken too deliberately.

Nor

could the inner constitution of

this

style or the sociological background of its artists and patrons make

Art Nouveau an important movement of renewal. It was the ideal
world of a select group, and when at last it reached the public at
large it had already been corrupted by derivative and commercial

"When

artists:

crowd

is

left

social

fate, that

the leaders lose themselves in their dreams, the

empty-handed." 267

phenomenon

Art Nouveau shared the same

of the Wandervogel, a youth movement, resembling the

Boy Scouts, that remained peculiar to German-speaking countries.

Here too a longing for a new beginning (like the one that characterized Art Nouveau) strove to take shape. Werner Helwig, who
belonged to the movement, wrote in "melencholy memory" of the
Wandervogel: "The urge for 'realization,' the longing to make a
fresh start, the refusal of what was felt to be artificial, untrue, or a

all this

upward and sprouted

cult to say at

by

which point,

side

and

it

as

not so much because of

its

strong

and morbidezza, as because

shrink from the harsh reality of modern
sicle

in order to seek the

"uncorrupted" land-

screens covered with peacocks

unwelcome view with

after the manner of the

and

lilies,

Aesthetes.

The Aesthete and

of Art Nouveau.

symptom of

his brother, the

Max Beerbohm

Dandy,

said in

are the true key figures

895 that Dandyism

one's feeling of loneliness and, at the

sense the least egoistic of all the arts, since the

self to the

whole nation

home, when

all

as soon as he emerges

same time,

Dandy

is

in a

reveals him-

from the privacy of

people, whether princess or peasants, are free to

his masterpiece. 269

Dandyism, according to Sir Max, is one of

Dandy, as long as he is nothing but a Dandy,
never produces any work of art but turns himself and his life into a
"work of art." All "your days are your sonnets," Oscar Wilde states

admire

the decorative arts; the

in The Portrait of

Dorian Gray, so that the Dandy

is

even obliged

to raise the accessories of his life to the level of art. (Van de Velde

designed silver knobs for walking-sticks.) "Mr. Whistler's top hat

a true nocturne and his linen a

symphony

in

white major,"

270

is

Beer-

pressed forward, thrust

of appearing on the stage studied "eurhythmic" movements with

will

always be as

diffi-

in this general psychological shift of

emphasis, youth's awakening awareness of

and youth

swiftly ensuing

and

nature, self-preservation

devotion to the universal whole: ...

life
its

bohm waggishly declared, adapting Whistler's "musical" titles to the

painter's own appearance. A number of ladies who had no intention

diversion from the essential, the restoring of relations between

man and man, between man and

itself,

it

whether

well as

scapes of the Wandervogel, or to shut out the

his

parallel to

side

romantic nature made

industrialization,

adoration of

Art Nouveau thus contained a kind

element of decadence, of fin de

its

its

all possessions," as

itself

and of

its

struggle

Duncan or with Dalcroze at Hellerau, in order that the

synthesis of rhythm and ornamentation, the "homogeneous system"
of their Art Nouveau homes, should not be disturbed by the all-tooIsadora

274

275

XII

EDVARD MUNCH

The Kiss (1902)

ARISTIDE MAILLOL

Illustration for Virgil's "Eclogues" (1910-26)

donated to Barcelona the park named after him, he did

manner of
kers

who

a private patron, in the

manner of

this in the

the Continental ban-

continually underwrote the losses of Diaghilev's Ballets

Russes.

Louis Comfort Tiffany, the extremely wealthy son of a

York

New

homes of men like Hamilton

and Havemayer, designed a suite of studios for himself (plate
33 j) so lavish that they were fit to receive the court of Byzantium.
James McNeill Whistler, the son of an American engineer who
jeweler, before he decorated the

Fish

human behavior

of not yet fully stylized inhabitants. Oscar Wilde

the representative of the state of culture,

West Point education and

thereafter led a provokingly elegant existence. His famous Peacock
Room was commissioned by the Liverpool shipowner, Frederick
Leyland, 273 who was also a personal friend. Whistler painted the
room in Leyland's absence, overstepping the limits of their agreement both in his exorbitant fee and in the overdecoration of the
room (he had painted over the walls which had been covered with

Nouveau. Through

priceless

more than art imitates life, not

only because life is driven to imitate in any case, but above all because it consciously sets out to express itself and because art offers
discovered that

it

imitates art far

life

beautiful forms in which

the critical Aesthete

united in him, the

made

it

it

Dandy was
his

whom

this urge.

Together with

who are sometimes

of human being, or

artisan

thus the type

who best determined Art

demands, he closed the magic circle that

possible to change the

Jugendstilman of

can satisfy

and the productive

human

figure into an

ornament

the

the Viennese writer Karl Kraus said that

"the very convolutions of his brain became ornaments." 271

All this leads us inevitably to determine

more exactly

of this art

grow from

the socio-

the creative substance of a great mind. But

such a seed could prosper only in the favorable, well-prepared

offered by the material comfort of cultured and wealthy homes

soil
.

were,

like Perret's houses in the rue Franklin,

ed for occupancy by socially undistinguished tenants.

not intend-

When

leather

hangings),

thereby

terminating

their

friendship and resulting in a lawsuit. Leyland's house

at

Hyde Park Corner

It

home

in

London, and

of the rich

man

in

its

was situated
and
interior
exterior

Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga.

contained Leyland's extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite paint-

who,

Romantic
leanings were not incompetent businessmen. Burne-Jones was said
to be the highest paid painter of his time; Rossetti (whose Italian
ings

by

Rossetti

and Burne-Jones

despite their

was a Dante scholar and political exile), who died of melancholia and overdoses of laudanum, did not have to exhibit his
paintings to sell them. Collectors came to him and paid exorbitant
sums for pictures which had not even been painted, and for which
they had to wait many years, sometimes in vain. Arthur Mackmurdo, whose designs were the first expressions of Art Nouveau,
was well-to-do. He published the Century Guild and The Hobby
Horse as a hobby. Although Ricketts lived a modest life at first, he
later was able to afford thousands of pounds worth of flowers per
year. Oscar Wilde's parents were a Dublin doctor and a lady who
wrote novels under the name of Speranza. He was educated at
Oxford and then lived in Mayfair, and after his marriage moved
to Chelsea where Whistler and Godwin created the perfect specifather

The capacity for enjoyment, refined through many generations

finally, the security of inherited wealth; here is the soil in whidi
this art is rooted." 272 Ernst Robert Curtius wrote this about Marcel
Proust's novels. With the key passages left out, it becomes true of
Art Nouveau, to which Proust was no stranger. Art Nouveau is
indeed a style of the upper bourgeoisie, that of the cultured and
urbane middle class in the heyday of classical capitalism. It is essentially the first genuinely universal style of a period which was no
longer under the domination of the clergy or aristocracy. Like Impressionist paintings, its creations were not commissioned by patrons but were offered directly to the purchaser by the artist. For
whom did the leading Art Nouveau artists work, and what was
their socio-economic milieu? The Palau Guell, said to be the costliest
private dwelling of that time, was built by Gaudi for the cosmopolitan industrialist and shipping magnate, Don Eusebio Guell, who
was the architect's friend and patron, and was later raised to the
nobility. Gaudi's apartment houses
the Casas Mil, Batll, and
Calvet

Spanish

suggested the

background of Art Nouveau. "The delicate iridescent blooms

logical

built Russia's first railroads, received a

Guell

men

of the "house beautiful" for him.

and Nancy, Art Nouveau developed a decidedly worldly character and, not infrequently, had a luxurious quality that
even suggests the demimonde. Guimard's Mtro entrances arouse
in us expectations of the abode of Venus deep down in a mountain
rather than a democratic subway; they seem to lead straight to
In Paris

Maxim's, the interior decoration of which

is

still

unrivaled as a

276

Count Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa, a

restaurant interior.

descendant of the Crusade leader Godefroy de Bouillon, did not

depend for a living on the

sales of his pictures.

He made

a gift of

web of
one

the

of his

nymph

Arachne, about

whom

Marcel Schwob wrote

"Now

most astonishing and fanciful prose passages:

my

distinctly feel both of Arachne's knees gliding onto

my

body and

mouth. Soon

my

the entire edition of his color lithographs of Mademoiselle Lender,

the gurgling of

en buste to Meier-Graefe, the editor of Pan;

publication then

will be sucked

caused such an upheaval in

Germany among the professors and

Pan Association that Meier-Graefe resigned, whereupon Pan became a "German art review." 274
Victor Horta of Brussels, later raised to the nobility, built the
Maison du Peuple for the Belgian Socialist party, but worked

white threads.

museum

ders to the dazzling network of the stars. Using the silk skein which

its

directors of the

mainly for upper-middle-class and capitalist patrons. The mansion

he constructed for the industrial magnate, Solvay, was of princely

To be

proportions.

sure, there are exceptions to these

success: the sculptor

examples of

Georges Minne almost died of starvation and

was, in an artistic sense, in love with a

life

of poverty, the sort that

Maeterlinck praised but had never experienced. Minne's early

drawings do not suggest destitution so much as what Meier-Graefe

has called "the splendor of destitution." 275

Symbolist

On

the other hand, the

Fernand Khnopff, came from a patrician

painter,

family with international connections; he lived in a labyrinthine

house
at

in Brussels in

home. In

its

which the Minotaur would have

very much

almost Surrealistically disposed mazes, with

its

And

it rises

will

I? I will flee

Arachne will throw to me,

to her

remain smothered

through the kingdom of the

shall flee

fair hair shivering in

morning wind." The young fisherman in Wilde's The Fisherman and His Soul acts much in the same way: thanks to magic, he
follows the little mermaid into her realm of submarine voluptuousness but, in spite of all, is buried under the stars. With all its cynicism, Art Nouveau is extremely sentimental.
Starting from this psychological fin-de-sicle mood, and founding
his theories on his studies of hysteria, Sigmund Freud later wrote a
book on Uneasiness in Culture. Gauguin actually escaped from the
confinements and discomfort of civilization to the island of Tahiti.
But this escape was opposed to the more general trend or Art Nouthe

veau, which shut

itself in

its

eyes to the reality of everyday

life,

enclosed

the artificial paradise of the imagination, frequented the

chimera, and regressed from the world of

human

beings to the re-

Nouveau

surprising vistas like those in the back-

overdecoration alternated superbly with

never succeeded in shattering the glass walls of civilization.

in the

whole of Art Nouveau

imprisoned

the phrase

is

true for the

like the oyster in its

mother-

of-pearl shell, or entangled like the insect caught in the spider's

When

comfort and the self-indulgence of the mal du

sicle were
by a rough hand by the sudden appearance of Gauguin and Rimbaud, we have found that point in cultural history
where we must place the first real origins of modern art.

aesthetic

palace of art" 276

spi-

with her and leave to you

poor fools a pale corpse, with a shock of

its

"Imprisoned

heart

in its prison of

his pictures,

bare walls and empty rooms.

destroyed as

if

CHARLES RICKETTS
Pomegranates"

277

it

gions of biological prehistory. But despite all this, Art

unusual proportions,

grounds of

felt

blood as

empty; then

891 )

Vignette from Oscar Wilde's

'A House

of

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jugendstil and Art

art historians

Nouveau were

and by the Paris

first

Surrealist

rediscovered by

German

group surrounding Salva-

dor Dali. As early as 1925, when this style enjoyed as little prestige
as anything else which is merely outdated or relegated to the junk
heap, Ernst Michalski published a study on the significance of Jugendstil as a phase in the historical evolution of taste: Die ent-

Bedeutung des Jugendstils. In 1934, Fritz

Schmalenbach followed this farseeing introductory essay with a
doctoral dissertation on Jugendstil; though he limited his research
ivicklungsgeschichtliche

to

Germany and

to two-dimensional art, he thereby supplied the

basic concepts for all further studies in this field.

in 1933 Salvador Dali published in Le Minotaur e an essay De la

Beaut Terrifiante et Comestible, de I' Architecture Modern' Style.

photographs by

Man

Ray,

stressed those aspects

it

of the style which tend to shock us or to appear outrageous.

In 1934, the

Neue Rundschau published an

Dolf Sternberger, who interpreted

essay, Jugendstil,

by

phenomenon

in

this style as a

and emotional evolution. In 1936, Nikolaus Pevsner

published his Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to
Walter Gropius, a book that is now a classic and that its author had
been preparing since 1930. Brilliantly defined, Art Nouveau was
here treated for the first time as an entirely valid and independent
style in art, as an international phenomenon, and as one of the
prerequisites for the development of modern architecture and
intellectual

design. Reminiscing as one

who had

participated in the movement,

the painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann wrote a delightful small

book, Stilwende (TheTurn of Style), published in Berlin in

witty and reliable,
pretation of the

it

German and Austrian

was reprinted

941. Both

remains unsurpassed as a wellrounded interJugendstil movements. In

where the author

was at last free to give due credit to those Jewish friends and artists
whom he had not been allowed to mention in the earlier edition.
1956,

it

in Berlin in a revised edition

After the war, Nikolaus Pevsner's book was published

in

New

in

an expanded edition, and was later translated and pub-

lished in

Germany. Together with the 1952 Art Nouveau exhibition

York

in Zurich,

exhibition,

it

heralded a revival of interest in this subject. For this

Hans

Curjel collected from

all

available sources and

from many countries a great variety of works of superb quality for

the Zurich Kunstgewerbemuseum's exhibition of Art Nouveau and
Jugendstil of the turn of the century. Curjel also wrote an excellent
introduction for the catalogue, stressing the phenomenon's context
in the history

of art and of culture, and Willy Rotzler provided

explanations of the individual objects exhibited. At the same time,

279

winter of 1952-53, there followed an

tirely to Jugendstil. In the

London of

Edwardian decorative arts

which Peter Floud organized at the Victoria and Albert Museum;
limited to the applied arts, it covered the whole field of the English
and Scottish contributions to the Art Nouveau movement as a
whole. Peter Floud's catalogue remains a reference book of rare
quality, full of reliable and exact data.
Numerous other exhibits and publications followed these initiaexhibition in

Victorian and

tives: 1955, a Jugendstil exhibition, together

logue, in Frankfurt

Viewing Art Nouveau from an entirely different point of view,

Illustrated with

the Swiss periodical, Werk, published a special issue devoted en-

am Main;

cago, with a catalogue

exhibition at

New

with a published cata-

1956, a Louis Sullivan

by Edgar Kaufmann,

York's

Museum

of

show

in

Chi-

Jr.; 1957, a Gaudi

Modern

Art, with a cata-

logue containing numerous reproductions and an outstanding essay

by Henry-Russell Hitchcock. In the early part of 1957, Brussels
devoted a memorable exhibition to Le Mouvement Symboliste, dealing especially with its literature, its book decorations, its figurative art, and its posters; the catalogue of this show remains a

booklover's treasure as well as a valuable source of objectively collected data. In 1958, there

were three remarkable exhibitions: a

Louis Comfort Tiffany show in

New

York, with a catalogue by

Robert Alan Koch; a Munich from 1869-1958 exhibition, Aufbruch zur Modernen Kunst (The March Toward

Modern Art)

in

Munich, with a whole section devoted to Munich Jugendstil, which

and a Henry van de

Velde show in Zurich's Kunstgewerbemuseum, with a catalogue by
Hans Curjel. On the occasion of its Art Nouveau exhibition in
i960, the New York Museum of Modern Art published an informis

also discussed at length in the catalogue;

ative illustrated book: Art

Nouveau: Art and Design

at the Turn

of the Century. In the winter of 1960-61, these exhibitions culmi-

nated
Sicle,

1962,

in

the magnificent Paris exhibition, Les Sources

du

XX'

which had been sponsored by the Council of Europe. In

its

exhaustive catalogue was followed by the publication of

a profusely illustrated

book which was published

guages under this same exhibition's

in several lan-

title.

fifties also saw the pubnumber of important new works in this field. In
1952, Thomas Howarth published his monumental work on Charles

Independently of these exhibitions, the

lication of a

Rennie Mackintosh, a systematic piece of research accompanied

by an unusually satisfactory variety of illustrations. Nikolaus

Pevsner had already anticipated the publication of this standard
work in a useful small book on Mackintosh, published in Milan in
the series, // Balcone. In i960, an exhaustive work on Gaudi was
published by Josep Llui's Sert and James Johnson Sweeney. As a

presentation of Art

Nouveau

cock's Architecture Nineteenth

mains indispensable.
20.

architecture, Henry-Russell Hitch-

and Twentieth Centuries (1958)

Der Weg

collective study, Jugendstil:

re-

was
1959 by Helmut Seling, offering valuable information on the individual arts. Our best source of information on
published in

Nouveau

is

Stephan Tschudi Madsen's

still

Sources of Art Nouveau, translated into English and published in New

York

in

To

ins

Jahrhundert {Jugendstil: the Road to the Twentieth Century),

the origins of Art

The author avails himself also of this opportunity to express

gratitude and thanks to the following persons in particular:

have been brought together

book, providing us the most

in this

in this field.

But Madsen has concentrated

his attention

London and Cambridge Unihas provided invaluable aid to him in his

Professor Nikolaus Pevsner, of

versities,

who

since 195

research, with innumerable suggestions,

facts,

and practical

details.

To Professor Dr. Wilhelm Boeck, of Tubingen, under whom the

author had the honor of preparing his doctoral dissertation in this
field.

To

1956: newly discovered facts, quotations, and references

comprehensive historical bibliography that has yet been published

his

his

German

most generous
the original

in

publisher,

Gerd Hatje, of

Stuttgart,

providing material assistance

German

in the

who

has been

production of

edition of the present volume.

To the many persons who were particularly kind in providing

illustrative material or in making very use-

mainly on

the applied arts. Nikolaus Pevsner, in The Architectural Review,

photographs and other

and John M. Jacobus, Jr., in Art Bulletin, then published comprehensive reviews of Madsen's book which should be consulted for

ful suggestions, especially to Valeska Biese (Tubingen);

the additional information they supply concerning other fields of

(Museum of Modern Art, New York); Peter Floud (Victoria and

Albert Museum, London); Susanne Heiland (Museum der bildenden
Kunste, Leipzig); Philip Johnson (New Canaan); Edgar Kaufmann,
Jr. (New York); Mr. and Mrs. Eric de Mare (London); SenoraMont-

Art Nouveau

activity.

Art Bulletin deserves particular praise for

its

editorial initiatives,

having published Clay Lancaster's Oriental Contributions to Art

1952 and Joseph Grady's Nature and the Art Nouveau in 19 j j. But the more important architectural publications
have, on the whole, provided the more massive contribution in this

Nouveau

in

general field of research. London's Architectural

ready taken the lead when

H. Mackmurdo

it

Review had

al-

published Pevsner's study on Arthur

in 1938, and, in 1955, the present author's essays

Casanelles (Amigos de

Gaudi

serrat-Blanch de Alcolea (Arxin Mas, Barcelona); Joan Prats y Valls

(Amigos de Gaudi Society, Barcelona) Willy Rotzler (Kunstgewerbe;

museum, Zurich); Wulf Schadendorf (Museum fur Kunst und GeMme. Wittamer-de-Camps (Brussels).
I take particular pleasure in dedicating this book to my parents.

werbe, Hamburg); M. and

on
Robert Schmutzler

The English Sources of Art Nouveau and Blake and Art Nouveau,

where the part that Blake played

Enrique

Society, Barcelona); Greta Daniel

Nouveau
Stephan Tschudi Madsen also

in the

was

evolution of Art

first discussed in detail. In 1955,

published his study on Horta's buildings in The Architectural Re-

view. To Horta's masterpiece, the Solvay residence in Brussels, Ed-

gar Kaufmann, Jr. devoted a detailed description in 1957 in the

American periodical

Interiors; with the aid of Paul

May en's

excel-

and beauty
same
on Louis Comfort

lent photographs, he successfully stressed the elegance

of the building and of

its

periodical then published

Tiffany's glass (which

interior decoration. In 1955, the

Kaufmann's

Kaufmann

article

collects along

with other out-

standing examples of Art Nouveau) and his other study of Tiffany

as an interior decorator. In Italy,

Casahella Continuit and

issues or

two

important groups of

compendium of

have published special

on individual Art Nouveau

articles

architects. All the other sources consulted

this general field,

architectural periodicals,

V Architettura,

by the present author

over and above the works

the

more important

listed in the

sources, are

in

PAS 1ST DAS

preceding

mentioned indi-

eNPOTlifD
-"*

vidually in the notes and bibliography.

j
-^ *^-wv*

EMIL RUDOLF WEISS

"

Gugeline' (1899)

Vignette from Otto Julius Bierbaum's

280

NOTES

An

asterisk

the source

indicates that full information on

(*)

may

14
1

Pioneers

Nikolaus Pevsner,

(New York,

An

in

Modern Design

of

15

1949). P-

the main

as

motif for

5 5-

his

Modern

publication, The

be found in the Bibliography.

poster advertising the

Poster

(New York,

1895).

Fritz Schmalenbach, Jugendstil, pp. 12-22.*

Henry Wilson, "The Work of Sir Edward BurneMore Especially m Decoration and Design."

Jones;
original conception of Alois Riegl's, set forth

The Architectural Review,

16

p. 9.

Pan

No.

I,

was different

in color

25

Gilchrist,

26

(Berlin, 1895), p. 336.

"No

death

individual can keep these laws, for they are

/

To every energy of man and forbid the

from Jerusalem: The Emanation of

springs of life."

Poems and Prophecies of William

Max Plowman (London and New York,

the Giant Albion.

Blake, ed.

17

p. 212.*

28

Andr Malraux, Psychologie der Kunst; Das imaginre Museum (Hamburg, 1957), p. 114.

Much

of the literature of the 1900s used the terms

"complementary
4

Gauguin designated

his art as a synthesis,

and Van

de Velde wrote an essay called "Aperus en vue d'une

Synthse d'Art" (Brussels, 1895).
3

Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Physi-

ognomic,"

in

Die Neue Rundschau.*

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 73.*

Julius Meier-Graefe wrote a study devoted to the

sculpture of Georges

under the

title,

"Das

Minne

that appeared in

plastische

werbliche

(Van de Velde,

lines"

Laienpredigten*),

and

iiber Entwurf
und Bau Moderner Mobel," Pan*). In 1898, Karl
Scheffler spoke of the possibility of making a reverse
copy of a design where the empty spaces of the original would become the design elements in the reverse copy (or "negative" copy). Quoted in Fritz

Ornament."*

This idea

may

be found in Fritz Schmalenbach,

Jugendstil, pp. 3-1 1.*

8

Van de Velde's

essay,

"Aperus en vue d'une Syn21

thse d'Art" appeared in

German under

the title

"Allgemeine Bemerkungen zu einer Synthse der

Kunst." Pan V, No. 4 (Berlin, 1899),

The Life of William Blake*;

Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Blake, A Crit-

p.

261

ff.

p. 135.*

Essay*;

James Johnson Sweeney and Josep

Antoni Gaudi, p. 44/'

Llui's

Sert,

Darrell Figgis,

Aleksis Rannit,
8

"M. K. Ciurlionis." Das Kunst-

&9

(Krefeld and Baden-Baden,

!
95)> PP- 34"37- Titles of certain of Ciurlionis'
paintings are: Komposition, Fruhlingssonate (Spring

Sonata), Sonnensonate (Sun Sonata), Allegro, and

Andante (all 1907). Also see: Vytislav Ivanov, Ciurlionis and the Case of Synthesism in Art
in Russian
(Moscow, 1916).

12

Richard Dehmel, Pan

I,

No.

(Berlin, 1895), p.

13

In the

890s, the art of the poster began to be

widely used
well as a

Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau," The

as a

medium

and conceptions.

medium of

artistic expression

as

for the display of serious thoughts

Many

articles

were written on the

poster as an art form during this period, and

many

Review*

Aldous

31

Madsen coined

(New

Variations

this

phrase

his Sources of

Art

to the earliest phases of the

movement when it reached its highest point of development (here called "early Art Nouveau"). Madsen's
conception of proto-Art Nouveau has its anology in
that phase where
the term "proto-Renaissance"
the style has begun to assert itself, and before it has
swung into its full development.
32

Laurence

Blake*;

Followers

The

Binyon,

Geoffrey

Grigson,

William

of

Samuel Palmer:

The

Visionary Years (London, 1947).

33

Otto Boucher, PhilippOtto Runge (Hamburg, 1937).

34

Georges Wildenstein, Jean Auguste Dominique

Ingres, 1780-1867
35

(New York,

1956).

Dagobert Frey, Englisches Wesen

in der

Bildenden

Kunst.*
36

Henry

Cole,

who

played an active part

in

the

also the founder, under the pseudonym of Felix

Summerly, of the firm Summerly's Art Manufac-

Courtauld Institutes (London, 1954), pp. 193-215.

23

37

The Life of William Blake,

recent and revised edition (London and

24

1950), p. 27.

p. 291.

Nouveau*, referring

Work,

Gilchrist,

Theme and

Huxley,

of Art III: The

(New York,

Thomas Howarth, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

and the Modern Movement, p. 228.*

was

New

York,

tures. See: Sir

2 Vols.

Osbert

Henry

Cole, Fifty Years of Public

(London, 1884).

Wyndham

Hewett, "The Waldgrave Straw-

berry Hill," The Architectural Review

CXXII, No.

728 (London, 1957), pp. 157-61.

2-

Blake etched both picture and text into

(usually copper), but he

same way that

employed

his

wood engraver makes

his plate

acid in the
a

woodcut

thereby

to be printed

(rather

in etching: those parts

making the parts

than the usual method

reliefs

books and periodicals began to employ posters as

etched into the plate being printed). Blake then ap-

an advertising medium. Will Bradley used a peacock

plied both ink

281

Andr Malraux, The Psychology

Anthony Blunt, "Blake's Pictorial Imagination,"

England and the Mediterranean Tradition: Studies
in Art, History, and Literature, ed. Warburg and

Alexander

f.

organization of London's Great Exhibition of 18 ji,

22

1945). P-

114.

The Paintings of William Blake*;

William Blake's Engravings*;

Keynes,

Architectural

122

p.

30

192 1); Laurence Binyon,

The Drawings and Engravings of William Blake*;

Geoffrey

werk IV, Nos.

Ellis

(New York,

William Blake

10

II

Edwin John

Study of the Songs and Manuscripts

Arthur Symons, William Blake (London, 1907),

York, 1950),

Gilchrist,

and William Butler

Yeats, The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic
and Critical*; Geoffrey Keynes, A Bibliography of
ical

Ernst Michalski, Die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Be-

deutung des Jugendstils,

Alexander

p. 28.*

Pan
20

Joseph H. Wicksteed, Blake's Innocence and Ex-

Kunstge-

"complementary

forms" (Van de Velde, "Ein Kapitel

Schmalenbach, Jugendstil,

The Life of William Blake,

Twilight of the Absolute

29

19

intensity.

p. 101.

18

'

1950), p. 196.

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nouveau,

and

p. 62.*

(London, 1928),
27

Alexander

Second edition,

perience,

p. 117.*

901, Spatromische Kunstindustrie, second edition

(Vienna, 1927),

printing added more colors, so that each impression

and watercolors to

his plates,

and after

38

Olivier

Georges

Henry Currie

Destre,

Marillier,

William Michael Rossetti

Les

Prraphalites*;

Dante Gabriel Rossetti";

(ed.),

Ruskin;

Rossetti;

Pre-Raphaelitism: Papers 1854 to 1862 (London and

New

York, 1899); Evelyn Waugh, D. G. Rossetti,

and works (London, 1928); Robin Ironside

his life

and John Gere, Pre-Raphaelite

Painters."-

39

John Guille Millais, The Life and Letters of

John Everett Millais/'

Sir

40

Lady GeorgianaBurne- Jones, Memorials of Edward

2 Vols. (London, 1904); Malcolm Bell,
Edward Burne-Jones; A Record and a Review'-';
Henry "Wilson, "The Work of Edward Burne-Jones,
more especially in decoration and design," The ArBurne-Jones,

Review.*

chitectural

"William

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood* ; Frances Winwar,

Poor Splendid Wings; The Rossettis and Their Circle*

41

Roger Dvigne, "La

pedant

la

lettre et la

dcor du livre

priode 1880- 1905," Arts et Mtiers Gra-

phiques.*
45

Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen, preface by Aem.

Fendler.*
44

45

p.

1951); Peter

Ferriday, "The Peacock

Room," The

Architectural

Review.*
55

56

Gosse, The Life of Swinburne (London,

7-

72

Eduard von Bodenhausen, "Englische Kunst im

Art Furniture from Designs by E. W. Godwin*;

73

Ibid.

tural
57

Review*

74

M. H. Spielmann and G.

Paul George Konody, The Art of Walter Crane,

Of the Decorative
Books Old and New, pp. 16 1-62.

pp. 24-26'''; Walter Crane,

tration of
58

Illus-

away (London,
75

Novalis speaks of an "art with a pleasant

es-

Owen

76

and inviting." Life and Works Vol.

77

Ill (Berlin, 1943),

Richard Redgrave. Quoted

Mechanization Takes

78

Otto Eckmann. Neue Formen, preface by Aem.

ter

Formensatz,

Japanischer

first

edition,

Whistler,

Mr.

Whistler's

"Ten

O'Clock"*; James McNeill Whistler, The Gentle Art

Making Enemies (unauthorized edition), ed. Sheridan Ford (Paris and New York, 1890). Authorized
edition (London and New York, 1890). German
edition (Berlin, 1909); Joseph Pennell, The Life of

James McNeill Whistler*; The Arts Council of Great

Britain and The English-Speaking Union of the
United States, James McNeill Whistler, exhibition
catalog (London and

volume of

New

forming part of

illustrations

Work

of

Aubrey Beardsley (Lon-

The Decay of Lying,

Complete

Works: Prose.
T. R.

Way and G.R.Dennis,

McNeill Whistler (London, 1903),

p. 64.

Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill WhisPart 7, p. 170.*

tler,

M Nikolaus
p. 86.

Pevsner, Pioneers of

Modern Design,

Grammar

"The Work of Christopher Dresser," The Studio*;

Nikolaus Pevsner, "Christopher Dresser, Industrial

Designer," The Architectural

Review*

Art Furniture from Designs by

W. Godwin*

83

Ibid., p. 4.

64

See the bibliography in Stephan Tschudi Madsen's

84

Christopher Dresser, Unity in Variety,

85

Christopher Dresser, Principles

E.

Sources of Art Nouveau, pp. 189-90.

Werner

Blaser,

Wbhnen und Bauen

(Teufen, Switzerland, 1958), p.

in

Japan

9.

Museum

fiir

87

in

Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches Museum fur

Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankufe auf der Weltausstellung Paris, 1900, pp. 40-41, 54.*
8*

Henry

Cole.

Quoted from

p. 351
70

Jones, The

Giedion's

York, 1948),

f-

Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches

of

Ornament, Intro-

in

p. i.

Design (Lon-

p. 121.

Christopher Dresser, Studies in Design, Forward,

87

Christopher Dresser, Principles in Design (Lon-

88

I,

p. ill.

Arthur H. Mackmurdo, "Nature

The

Hobby Horse*; Nikolaus

in

Ornament,"

Pevsner, "Arthur H.

Mackmurdo," The Architectural Review*

8"

Edward Charles Pond, Arthur Hey gate MackAn Account of his Life and Work, manu-

murdo.

Sigfried

Command (New

I,

Grammar

p. 4.*

don, 1870),

Henry van de Velde, Dblaiement d'Art* Quoted

Van de Veldes's Zum Neuen Stil, p. 29.*

Mechanization Takes

Owen

don, 1870),
86

Justus Brinckmann, Hamburgisches

to Art

of Ornament, Chapter

93

88

The Art of James

81

The

duction, p. 5.*

stellung Paris, 1900, pp. 46-47.*

Oscar Wilde,

Owen Jones,
XX, p. 154.*
80

Ibid.

Beardsley's letters that certainly demonstrates that

prior to 1891.

Clay Lancaster, "Oriental Contributions

Nouveau," The Art Bulletin, p. 298.*

Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankufe auf der Weltaus-

Room

1948),

Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, ChapXX, p. 154 and Introduction, p. 8.

82

86

Gideon's

p.251.

29$) permits one to recognize decorative elements

that prefigure those in the Peacock Room.

don, 1925), plate 58 shows a drawing from one of

he had seen The Peacock

in Sigfried

Command (New York

79

H. Montgomery Hyde, "Oscar Wilde and His

Architect," The Architectural Review* Godwin and
Whistler had already worked together at an earlier
date in 1878 they collaborated on a display for
the Paris World's Fair: this was an "English-Japanese" room. The contemporaneous photograph (plate

65

York, i960).

of Ornament, Intro-

of

The Uncollected

Life

61

James McNeill

In the

Fendler/

Grammar

Jones, The

duction, pp. 5-6.*

60

Bing,

p. 65.

trangement, an object of an alien cast, yet familiar

p. 623.

Layard, Kate Green-

S.

1905).

George Moore, Modern Painting, revised edition

(London, 1898),

Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modem Design,

67.* Following this, the Italians called the style,

S.

p. 63.

Hause," Pan*

Edward William Godwin*

48

George Moore, Modern Painting, revised edition

of

Ibid., p. 15.

71

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende*

47

50

stellung Paris, 1900, p. 3.*

(London, 1898),

Edmund

1917). P-

Kunst und Gewerbe: Die Ankufe auf der Weltaus-

Dudley Harbron, The Conscious Stone; The

p. 11.*

49

C,

59

Stile Floreale.
46

The Whistler Peacock Room, Freer Art Gallery

Publication 4204 (Washington, D.

Nikolaus Pevsner, "Art Furniture," The Architec-

Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood* Ford Madox Ford,

41

54

script in the collection of

90

Museum

fiir

The Royal

Institute of

British Architects (London, 1958).

Owen

Jones, The

Grammar

of Ornament, Intro-

duction, p. 6.

282

'

Edward Charles Pond, Arthur Heygate Mack-

murdo.

An Account

of his Life

script in the collection of

and Work, manu-

The Royal

Institute of

British Architects (London, 1958).

92

Quoted from The Victoria and Albert Museum,

Catalogue of an Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts (London, 1952), p. $8.

w At

that time Lewis F.

and most

influential,

Day was

through

his

known,
writings on the

also figures as

Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau,"

The Architectural Review,

107

The design on the binding was taken from Blake's

Note-book (the so-called "Rossetti Manuscript").
However, this watercolor was not by William

(who died

Blake, but by his brother, Robert

None

1787).

thought

it

the

in

one of the artist-designers of

108

The Studio

109

jfoe

XIV

work

Konody, The Art of

Norman Shaw (LonNikolaus Pevsner, "Richard Norman

Shaw," The Architectural Review

95

96

LXXXIX

(Lon-

Laurence Binyon, The Drawings and Engravings

z*

(London, 1898)

p.

Century Guild Hobby Horse

Walter Crane,

Of

Jan Verkade, Le Tournement de Dieu

George Bir-

Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nacblehen

Literatur des

79.

und

in der

20. Jahrhunderts

(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), pp. xx,

Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.

9, 14

ff.

George Bir-

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-

130

112

Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles

Madeleine Octave Maus, Trente Annes du Lutte

(Lon-

Ricketts

113

A. E. Gallatin, Beardsley: Catalogue of Draw-

114

and Bibliography, No. 217.*

131

Stephan Tschudi Madsen and Arne Brenna, "Hor-

ta:

Works and

Aymer

Vallance, Reproductions of eleven designs

115

first

Morte

edition of "Le

d' Ar-

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-

veau, pp. 174-175.*

1,6

J.

There are plenty of caricatures to be found on

contemporaneous publications;

in

Jugend,

117

et

de

la

Couleur,

Album

d'affiches (a

publication of the magazine, La Plume, Paris, 1900);

Robert Allen Koch, "The Poster Movement and 'Art

for instance.

Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nachleben

Henry van de

und

20.

in der

Jahrhunderts

(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), p. 27.

119
101

William Blake, Descriptive Catalogue No.

XIV

(London, 1809).

Lady Georgiana Burne- Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, 2 Vols. (London, 1904), i, p. 231;

103

to

Post-Impressionism

from

Van

Gauguin.*

136

Ibid., p. 184.

136

Owen Jones,
XX, p. 154.*

englischen

Literatur des

79.

und

20.

(Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1927), p.

in der

Jahrhunderts

228.*

Grammar

Camille Mauclair, Puvis de Chavannes (Paris,

Ornament, Chap-

of

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture Nineteenth

287, 450. Also see

Van

de Velde's recently published account concerning

Van de Velde

in connection

with the

1928).

Horta's

furnishing of the Maison Tassel in Van de Velde's

Jean Laran, Gustave Moreau (Paris, 1913); Paul

Fiat

Le Muse Gustave Moreau, revised edition

Geschichte meines Lebens, p. 93

(Paris, 1926).

138

121

in

Andr

Mellerio, Odilon

nateur et Graveur (Paris,

Odilon Redon

Redon: Peintre, Dessi1923);

Charles Fegdal,

visit to

139

Henry van de
Van de Velde's

f.*

Velde, Dblaiement d'Art*, quoted

Zum

Edgar Kaufmann,

neuen S til,
Jr.,

p. 31.*

"224 Avenue Louise," In-

teriors, p. 88.*

(Paris, 1929).

7.

104

Robert Schmutzler, "Blake and Art Nouveau,"

The Architectural Review, p. 92.*

106

137

The

the Decorative Illustration of

p.

and Twentieth Centuries, pp.

pp. 290, 343.

Jakob Walter, William Blakes Nachleben

Of

Walter Crane,

Books Old and New,

ff.*

120
'**

II,

Rewald,

John

Gogh

Robert

Velde, Die Renaissance im moder-

nen Kunstgewerbe, pp. 61

ter
118

79.

Horta*

Robert Schmutzler, "The English Origins of Art

Nouveau," The Architectural Review, p. 116.*

Nouveau,'" Gazette des Beaux Arts.*

englischen Literatur des

Jr.,

132

134

Les Matres de l'affiche*;

Horta Before 1900,"

"Letture di Victor Horta," L' Architettura*

L. Delevoy, Victor

133

M. Bracquemond, Du Dessin

Style of Victor

The Architectural Review*; Edgar Kaufmann,

"224 Avenue Louise," Interiors*; Vittoria Girardi

pp. 218, 223.*

beck Hill (London, 1897), p. 241.

100

(Paris,

9 2 3)P-94-

pour l'Art*

97

in

128

p.

the Decorative Illustration of

thur" illustrated by Beardsley (London, 1927), p. 14.

this

Robert L. Delevoy, Victor Horta,

Books Old and New.*

omitted from the

99

6*

127

(Orpington,

beck Hill (London, 1897), p. 241.

Giovanni Papini, Medardo Rosso, second edition

ff.

Paul George Konody, The Art of Walter Crane,

ings

Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.

englischen

(circa

(Milan, 1945).

don, 1933), forward (unpaged).

1 941), pp. 41-46-

of William Blake, p.

Harmonie"

Camille Mauclair, Auguste Rodin* ; Sommerville

129

111

don,

iiber

(Berlin, 1917).

veau, pp. 250-52.*

Reginald Blomfield, Richard

1940);

Das Kunstblatt

Story, Rodin.*

p. 24.*

Walter Crane*

don,

1890),
125

Kent, England), p. no.

110

94

Paul Gauguin, "Notiz

126

of the former.

the time, but belonged (in a wider sense) to the Pre-

Raphaelites. See: Paul George

124

Shields, as well as Rossetti,

less,

to be the

Merette Bodelsen, "The Missing Link in Gauguin's

Cloisonism," Gazette des Beaux Arts.*

p. 92.*

chiefly

decorative principles of objects in daily use. Walter

Crane

106

122

Arthur Symons, "A French Blake," The Art Review (London), July, 1890.
123

Paul Gauguin,

Noa Noa, Voyage

de

Tahiti.

Fac-

140

Jiirgen Joedicke, Geschichte der

modernen Archi-

tektur, second edition (Stuttgart, i960), p. 44.

141

Henry van de

Velde, Dblaiement d'Art*;

Henry

Zum

Geoffrey Keynes, Illustrations to Young's Night

Thoughts
by Blake (Cambridge, Massachusetts,

simile edition of Gauguin's illustrated

son

neuen Stil*', Henry van de Velde,

Geschichte meines Lebens*; Karl Ernst Osthaus, Van

1927), Preface (unpaged).

temps*; Robert John Goldwater, Paul Gauguin*;

de Velde*; Zurich Kunstgewerbemuseum, Henry van

283

(Berlin,

1926);

Charles

Chass,

manuscript

Gauguin

et

van de Velde,

de Veldt, 1863-1957. Persnlichkeit und Werk, exhibition catalogue (Zurich, 1958);

Henry Van de

Velde,

number of the Casabella Continuai (Milan),

March, i960, No. 237.

special

141

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-

Compare with Max Osborne's

statement:

"To him

belongs the honor of having introduced to Brussels

new decorative forms from London." quoted

the

Roger Marx, "Ren Lalique," Art

Gustave Geffroy, Ren Lalique.'''
180

in

Stephan Tschudi Madsen's Sources of Art Nouveau,

Dcoration*

Work

ter

trans.

177

Julius Meier-Graefe,

"Das

Ornament,"
Pan*; Leo van Puy velde, Georges Minne*; Andre de
plastische

Ridder, Georges Minne.*

Franck Gibson, Charles Condor; His Life and

by Random House,

178

(New York,
181

Inc.

Reprinted by permission),

of Things Past, two-volume edition

195

1), p.

592.

In 1895, the magazine Pan inserted a prospectus

of Bing's which alluded to the imminent opening of

his display

182

rooms of decorative modern

art.

Pan

A.

W. King, An

178

Ibid.

,8

Julius Meier-Graefe, Entwicklungsgeschiohte der

modernen Kunst,

2 (Berlin 1895), p. 141.

Julius Meier-Graefe,

"Das

plastische

Ornament,"

Pan, p. 261.*

Bing,

184

Ibid., p. 260.

147

L.

Ibid.

183

Aubrey Beardsley; Letzte

Emile Galle, crits pour l'Art*; Louis de Four-

Hermann

184

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 101.*

185

Carola Giedion-Welcker. Paul Klee (Stuttgart,

Apollo*

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-

Ibid., p. 196.*
Ibid., p. 177.*

188

Hector Guimard, Le Castel Branger*; Hector

Guimard, "An

W. Shaw Sparrow, "Herr Toorop's 'The Three

I

(London, 1893), pp. 247-48.

Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles

Ricketts,

Forward

(unpaged).*

Decorative Art in America.

Opinion of 'Art Nou-

Record*

188

Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,

p. 52.*

188

Robert L. Herbert, "Seurat and Jules Cheret,"

(New York), No.

The Art Bulletin XL, April, 1958

2,

170

(New York,

1906), pp. 123-26.

Edward Gordon Craig, On the Art of the TheEdward Gordon Craig, Gordon Craig's Book
Penny Toys (London, 1899); Edward Gordon

atre*;

of

New

Theatre (London and Toron-

to, 1913).

Maurice Joyant,

edition

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec*

(Berlin,

1929), second edition

first

(Erlenbach-

Zurich, 1943); E. Julien, Les affiches de Toulouse-

Lautrec (Monte Carlo, 1950); Douglas Cooper, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Stuttgart, 1955).

John Betjeman, "Charles Francis Annesley Voy-

sey;

The Architect of Individualism," The Architec-

tural

Review*; Nikolaus Pevsner, "Charles Francis

Annesley Voysey," Elsevier' s Maandschrift*; John

Brandon Joncs, "C.

A. Voysey," Architectural As-

F.

sociation Journal*; Peter Floud, "The Wallpaper

171

M. Creutz, Johan Thorn Prikker*; August Hoff,

Johan Thorn Prikker.*

172

John Rewald, Pierre Bonnard (New York, 1948).

Maurice Denis, Aristide Maillol*; John Rewald,

Maillol*
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, first edi-

signs of C. F. A. Voysey," The Penrose

173

Ernesto Rogers, Auguste Perret (Milan, 1955).

knew

158

174

Marcel Proust, Swann's Way,

Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Gedanken iiber Stil in

der Baukunst*; Max Eisler, De Bouwmeester H. P.
Berlage*; Jan Gratama, Dr. H. P. Berlage Bouw-

Inc., reprinted

meester*

Remembrance

187

(New York,

Sigfried Giedion, Space,

Time and Architecture,

Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Gedanken

p. 52 f.*

well,

and said that the freshness of

spring seemed to emanate from

Modem

Library,

181

Inc.),

Charles R. Ashbee,

Teachings of

J.

it.

An Endeavour Towards

the

Ruskin and W. Morris*

two-volume edition
182

Charles Harrison Townsend, "Originality

in

Ar-

1), p. 151.

chitecture," The Builder*

176

ninth edition, p. 245.*

195

work

K. Scott

by permission of Random House,

of Things Past,

his

trans. C.

Moncrieff (copyright 1928 by The

De-

Annual*. By

1893, Voysey was already known through The Studio,

and by 1893 he had exhibited with the Vingt, and
their successors, the Libre Esthtique. Van de Velde

tion, p. 56.*

der Baukunst,

W.

Lecture by O.

Oscar Wilde, "Some Literary Notes," The Wo-

Craig, Towards a

pp. 156-58.

164

188

man's World, (London), January, 1888.

180

Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Physiognomie," Die Neue Rundschau, p. 258.*

188

Architect's

Gotthard Jedlicka, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,

152

153

187

Toorop*

Brides'," The Studio

181

Thomas Sturge Moore, Charles Ricketts*

R. Butler Glaenzer

veau,'" The Architectural

188

150

188

Together with Letters, Reviews, and Interviews, ed.

167

ff.

A. Plasschaert, Jan Toorop*; John Baptist Knip-

ping, Jan

"ff-

Bahr, "Fernand Khnopff," Ver Sacrum

(Vienna, 1928), No. 12, p. 247

148

Max Meyer-

Emile Galle*; Gabriella Gros, "Poetry in

166.
148

Brief e, ed.

feld (Leipzig, 19 10), forward.

veau, p. 196.*
186

1946), p. 131.

182

'954). PP166

ff.

treiben wir?" Dekorative Kunst.*

Glass; the Art of Emile Galle,"

Dumont-Wilden, Fernand Khnopff*; Wolfram

Waldschmidt, "Das Heim eines Symbolisten," Decorative Kunst IX (Munich), January, i960, pp. 158-

Vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1904), pp. 605

Martin Birnbaum, Jacovleff and Other Artists

61*

cauld,

148

"Wohin

A. Beardsley Lecture (London,

1924), pp. 72-73.

181

S.

1914).

I,

us Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,

p.

145

A. E. Gallatin,

Work (London, New York, and Toronto,

(New York,
144

Aubrey Beardsley*;

of

Beardsley: Catalogue of Drawings and Bibliography*

C. K. Scott Moncrieff (copyright 1924, renewed 1951

No.

p. 324.

et

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove,

Remembrance

veau, pp. 318-24.*

143

158

Stephan Tschudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nou-

veau, p. 300.*

The Early

W. MacDonald

Sinclair,

"New Church Work

at

Great Warley," Art Journal*; John Malton, "Art

iiber Stil in
178

,,s

Work

of Aubrey Beardslty*; The La-

Nouveau

in

Essex," The Architectural

Review*

284

John Malton, "Art Nouveau

chitectural Review, p. IOI.*
184

The Ar-

in Essex,"

214

Carola Giedion-Welcker, Plastik des

hunderts (Stuttgart, 1955),

XX.

Jahr-

233

Czanne und Hodler*; Ewald Ben-

Fritz Burger,

der and Werner Y. Miiller, Die Kunst Ferdinand

p. 281.

Hodlers*; Walter Hugelshofer, Ferdinand Hodler*

215

185

Ibid., p. 102.

186

Also see Tiffany's Chapel for the Chicago Co-

lumbian Exposition
Cathedral
1,7

J.

in

1893, Bentley's Westminster

in

London (designed

1894).

Hatton, "Alfred Gilbert, R. A.," The Easter

Art Annual of The Art Annual*; Isabel Macallister,

188

Published in book form:

and His Circle (London,

188

Rossetti

August Endell, "Gedanken: Formkunst," Dekorative Kunst*; August Endell, "Formenschonheit und

218

dekorative Kunst," Dekorative Kunst*; August Endell,

p. 120.*

237

Roswitha Riegger-Baurmann,

need be, useful." Jessie Newbery, wife of the

Max

Schmid,

Max

Review*

"Schrift

im Jugend-

Borsenblatt fur den deutschen Buchhandel, pp.

1958),

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Prolog zu Ludwig

von Hofmanns Tanzen," I nsel- Almanack auf das
Jahr 1906 (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 25-26.

525-32.*

238

221

Bergs, Gaudi,

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, pp. 27-

(New York,

Theodor Daubler, Der Neue Standpunkt (Leip-

220

Glasgow School of Art, 1892. Quoted

Nikolaus Pevsner's "Beautiful and If Need Be

1899);

Arp, ed. James Thrall Soby

238

p. 10.

(Frankfurt,

p. 20.

Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen*

Useful," The Architectural

201

236

Fischel,

219

director of the
in

Oscar

Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, Pa-

Meyerfeld (Berlin, 1909),

Ludwig von Hofmann*

235

See also: Oscar Wilde, Asthetisches und Po-

Max

Englischer Stil (1896),

1950), P- 3-

zig. i9 I 9).P-74-

1922).

"I believe in everything being beautiful, pleasant,

if

Kunst*

Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,

stil,"

and

"Architektonische Erstlinge," Dekorative

Hugo von Hofmannsthal,

included in Gesammelte Werke, Prosa,

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 73.*

lemisches, ed.
200

234

218

From

tience.

Max Beerbohm,

Curjel, "Konfrontationen," Werk, pp. 382-

383.

217

Alfred Gilbert*

Hans

Jos F. Rfols, Antoni Gaud!, 18)2-1926*; Joan

L'Home

I'Obra*; Henry-Russell

George

Gaudi*;

Antonio

28.

Hitchcock,

222

Gaudi*; James Johnson Sweeney and Josep Lluis

Sert, Antoni Gaudi.*

Otto Eckmann, Neue Formen, preface by Aem.

R.

Collins,

Fendler.*

Klinger (Bielefeld and Leipzig,

Hans Wolfgang

Singer,

Max

Klinger, Meister

240
223

Fritz Hoeber, Peter Behrens*; Paul Joseph Cre-

mers, Peter Behrens*; Peter Behrens, special issue of

der Zeichnung (Leipzig, 191 2).

Alexander Cirici

Catalan*; Jos

Pellicer,

Rfols,

F.

El Arte Modernista

Modernismo y Moder-

nistas*

Casabella Continuit.*
202

Munchen, Haus der Kunst, Miinchen, 1869-19)8,

Aufbruch zur Modernen Kunst (Munich, 1958), exhi-

bition catalogue, pp. 149-300.

Hermann

tur,"

Dekorative Kunst*; Hermann Obrist, Neue

Wilhelm Bode, "Hermann Obrist," Pan*

204

Georg Fuchs, "Hermann Obrist," Pan

1896), No. 5, p. 321.

des

XX.

206

Georg Fuchs, "Hermann Obrist," Pan

1896),

No.

5,

Konrad Lange, "Bernhard Pankok," Dekorative

Kunst*

225

Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,

pp. 59-60.*
226

Hermann

Muthesius, "Die Kunst Richard Rie-

(Berlin,

Arosenius stayed for a while at Pont-Aven and

advised his Goteborg patron, Furstenberg, to pur-

p. 281.
I

Gauguin painting. This painting may

be seen today in the Goteborg (Sweden) Museum.
(Told to the author by Edouard Roditi.)

chase an early

(Berlin,
228

p. 320.

Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Das Werk von Edvard

208

Ibid., p. 325.

208

Ibid., p. 319.

228

Munch*;

Ibid., p. 324.

Quoted from the exhibition catalog of the Zurich

Kunstwerbmuseum: Um 1900. Art Nouveau und Ju-

gendstil (Zurich, 1952), p. 34.

2,2

215

been

had not developed on

adapted

and

to be

in those

own

its

assimilated

almost

is a good example of this, the Italians having taken over the

ready-made formulae of both northwestern Euro-

Gustav

Schiefler,

riety.

Both of these

Viennese va-

on exterior design, so that the Italian

fluence

tects excelled chiefly in faades.

of this result
tini's

late

styles exerted their strongest in-

in

may

archi-

charming example

be found in a villa of Ciro

Con-

Ferrara (1902). Taking the basic square-

shaped Mediterranean house, the designer added

strongly sculptural flower motifs plus geometric linear forms.

The most imaginative

Italian

example

is

probably Raimondo D'Aronco's Pavilion for the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin

210

111

having

pean High Art Nouveau and the

227

Edvard Munchs graphische Kunst*; Frederick B. Deknatel, Edvard

Munch*; Otto Benesch, Edvard Munch*

207

"Hybrid" examples of Art Nouveau are

found everywhere, but are most common

wholesale from other countries. Italy

merschmids," Dekorative Kunst*

Quoted from Carola Giedion-Welcker's Plastik

Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1955),

224

places where the style

Obrist, "Die Zukunft unserer Architek-

Mglichkeiten in der bildenden Kunst, 1896-1900;*

205

241

d'Edvard

230

(1902).

work

Theodor Daubler, Der Neue Standpunkt (Leip-

Another

fine

of Giuseppe

monumental

style

example is to be found in the

Sommaruga, whose heavy and
reminds one of Frank Lloyd

Wright. The cohesion of design typical of Viennese

Art Nouveau becomes clearly apparent

work of Ernesto Basile, whose designs are

late

Quoted from Werner Haftmann's Malerei im

285

"L'Exposition

Munch," La Revue Blanche*

231

Ibid., pp. 33-34.

I,

Strindberg,

zig. '99 P- oo.

Ibid., p. 34.

Jahrhundert,

August

p. 79.''

232

20.

Ibid., pp. 95

f,

9^, 85.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal,

Englischer Stil (1896),

included in Gesammelte Werke, Prosa,

1950), p. 300.

(Frankfurt,

good example of the Neapolitan

in the

also a

Floreale."

"Stile

Manfredi Nicoletti, Raimondo D'Aronco* "Una

;

la

del

Vil-

1902 a Ferrara," L'Architettura IV (Rome,

2,

pp. 772-73; L'Architettura di

Vittoria Girardi, "Joseph

Giuseppe Sommaruga

(Milan, 1908); Francesco Ten-

cato," L'Architettura*

Wandervogels. Vom Aufstieg, Glanz und Sinn

Jugendbewegung (Gutersloh, Germany, i960).

e52

eM

No.

959)> March,

"Contributo

tori,

alia storiografia di

maruga," Casabella Continuit*

Giuseppe Som-

Renato de Fusco,

Floreale a Napoli (Naples, 19J9).

242

Louis

Henry

Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats

and

Other Writings*; Hugh Morrison, Louis Sullivan,

Prophet of Modern Architecture'"'; John Szarkowski,

p. 309.
270

Ibid., p. 311.

271

Karl Kraus, "Heine und die Folgen," Auswahl

253

Interiors*;

Edgar Kaufmann,

Jr.,

Then and Now,"

"At

Home

with

Louis Comfort Tiffany," Interiors*; Robert Alan

Furness, an

Kunst*

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Stilwende, p. 93

'w/ien.

246

ff.

Gleeson White, "Some Glasgow Designers and

Their Work," The Studio*; Nikolaus Pevsner, Charles

Rennie

Thomas Howarth, Charles

Mackintosh*;

Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement*;

Ernst Robert Curtius, Marcel Proust (Berlin and

Frankfurt
273

(Munich, 1957), p. 190.

am

Main, 1952),

p. 86.

Peter Ferriday, "The Peacock

Room," The

Archi-

tectural Review.*

Alfred Lichtwark, "Entwicklung des Pan," Pan

No.

3, p. 173.

Vereinigung der Bildenden Kunstler Oster-

Kollektivausstellung Gustav Klimt, exhibition

catalogue (Vienna, 1903);

Boris Kochno, Le Ballet (Paris, 1953), p. 124

dem Werk

(Berlin, 1895),

American Pio-

Furness," Ardoitectural Forum*.

272

274

The Architectural Review*; "Fearless Frank

neer,".

ff.*

Adolf Loos*; Heinrich Kulka, Adolf Loos*; Ludwig

Munz, Adolf Loos*; Adolf Loos, special issue of Ca-

reichs,

245

aus

Adolf Loos, Ins Leere gesprochen, 1897-1930*;

Adolf Loos, Trotzdem, 1900-1930*; Franz Gliick,

256

W. Campbell, "Frank

"Koloman Moser," Dekora-

sabella Continuity*

Koch, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1848-1933.*

2,4

Berta Zuckerkandl,

tive

255

"Tiffany,

Max Beerbohm, "De natura barbatulorum," The

Chap-Book IV (Chicago), November-May, 1896,

Olbrich*

Architecture/'
Jr.,

einer

Joseph Maria Olbriclr'; Giulia Veronesi, Joseph M.

254

Edgar Kaufmann,

Architektur von Professor Joseph M. Olhrich*;

Joseph Maria Olbrich, Ideen*; Joseph August Lux,

The Idea of Louis Sullivan''; Willard Connelly Louis

Sullivan as He Lived: The Shaping of American

243

Hoffmann maestro dimenti-

Max Eisler, Gustav Klimt*;

275

Julius Meier-Graefe,

"Das

plastische

Emil Pirchan, Gustav Klimt*

276

267

auf das Jahr 1906 (Leipzig, 1905),

Oskar Kokoschka, Die traumenden Knaben (VienHans Maria Wingler, Oskar Kokoschka;
Das Werk*

Ornament,"

Pan*
Arthur Symons, "Walter Pater,"

Insel- Almanack

p. 66.

na, 1908);

258

Dolf Sternberger, "Jugendstil, Begriff und Phy-

siognomic," Die

Neue Rundschau,

p, 258.*

Ferdinando Anichini, "Incontri con Charles Rennie

259

Mackintosh," L'Architettura*

Martin Birnbaum, Jacovleff and Other Artists

(New York,
247

In

1900,

Darmstadt publisher, Alexander

the

260

Koch, offered a prize for the best design submitted

for

"A House

for a

was awarded

prize

Hugh

Lover of the Arts." The

Jos Rfols,

Mackintosh was awarded

262

Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, "Entwick-

and reproduced in color: Hermann

Muthesius, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Haus eines
in large folios

Scott.

Haus

Hermann

eines

lungslehre

263

Muthesius, M. H. Baillie

Kunstfreundes*

Modernismo y Modernistas,

und Asthetik," Pan

p. ji.*

(Berlin, 1900),

No.

4, p. 236.

Hermann

Obrist,

denden Kunst,
264

248

am Untergang (Ham-

261

second prize. However, both designs were published

Kunstfreundes*

Friedrich Sieburg, Die Lust

burg, 1954), p. 286.

by Mackay

to a traditional design

Baillie Scott, while

first

1946), p. 131.

Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design,

Neue Mglichkeiten

in der bil-

p. 25.*

Ernst Haeckel, Die Perigenesis der Plastidule oder

die Wellenzeugung der Lebenstheilchen (Berlin, 1876).

p. 101.*

265
249

Otto Wagner, Moderne Architektur*; Otto Wagner, Einige Skizzen, Projekte und ausgefiihrte Bauwerke*; Joseph August Lux, Otto Wagner*; Vittoria

Henry van de

Velde, "Prinzipielle Erklarungcn,"

Kunstgewerbliche Laienpredigten: quoted

van de Velde's

Zum

neuen S til,

in

Henry

pp. 130-31.*

Otto Wagner," L'Architet-

266

tura.*

Kenneth W. Luckhurst, The Story of Exhibitions

(London and New York, 195 1), pp. 88-89.

250

Hoffmann: quoted in Stephan Tschudi MadSources of Art Nouveau, p. 401.

297

Girardi,

j ose f

sen's
251

"Commento

"A Brussels Mansion Designed by

Prof. Josef Hoffmann of Wien," The Studio*; Leopold Kleiner, josef Hoffmann*; L. W. Rochowanski,
A.

Josef

S.

Levetus,

Hoffmann*; Giulia Veronesi, Josef Hoffmann*;

bis

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Aufzeichnung

1895," Corona

1941),
248

No.

4,

1890

(Munich, Berlin, and Zurich,

pp. 443-44.

Werner Helwig, "Wehmutiger Ruckblick auf den

Wandervogel," Stuttgarter Zeitung, October 24, 1959,

p. 51; also see: Werner Helwig, Die Blaue Blume des

286

The Phenomenon

Proto-Art Nouveau (circa 1800 a.d.)

(Pages 7-28)

(Pages 53-55)

282

PHILIPP

OTTO RUNGE

The Small

Minoan So-called "Throne

280

fresco in the Palace of

Minos

in

of Minos,"

and

Knossos, Crete (circa

1700-1400 B.c.)

William Blake
(Pages 35-53)

v w\7

WILLIAM BLAKE

281

Eve

'It

(detail) (1807)

287

- r

'

Raphael

"'

warm Adam and

284

English

" Morn'

2S3

JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES

Le songe d'Ossian

(1808)

Upright piano (1830

?)

(detail) (circa 1812)

u Art

Nom eau

(Pages \%

287

JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS

drawing for "Christ

in the

Preliminary

House of His Parents"

(1850)

285

American

Lining of a tintype case

(circa 1850)

The Japanese Style

Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle

(Pages 73-97)

Pages 62-72)

XV

2S9

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

Rocket: Nocturne

288
of

DANTE

Mary

2S6

GABRII-l ROSSETTI

Black and

Gold

The Falling

(circa

S74)

The Girlhood

Virgin (1849)

EDWARD BURNE- JONES

wardrobe

Painted

8)

288

-rTjiiiji-

290

'

^~rCv>

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

Illustration

for "A Catalogue of Blue-and-White Nankin

Porcelain" (1S78)

293 JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER Symphony in

White, No. IV: The Three Girls
(1876-79)

ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN

FACTORY Bott7(i888)

291

>*>**

Tt ijfc.t b b.b Vfc.V'-A.l''

v.b

''.*.t,tv,t,e.,vvci>i*
,

bbb

ibbb

t.vvfcr6.. .> ce.*.

V VC> ,b A*- Vt V< b b b b
b.b.b.b b* ^tvtttvt'-tt
b.b v'- .*C -,

itttbs

-s*
,

^ b.b b

*Zb> .

tVt bb b

vtt> bb

b b,bb C.b, > b '.(,'. '.(,'. (. - .

& b.c. c b (,,* , b b,b . b fc b b b '.
b.'-bv.tt.t.Vbb'- .'^.ttt
.bib C b b b.b.b %.' - * b b b
-.b.b.b.b.i.b.b.b.b' /-.bbb.b
kl
1 /
* I b t b b b b b.b
b V .bb b
'

lb .bbbVbt bbb .'

v
b b.b b b b b b b bb b b b b
-, -, 1.

,C

fc

b.tb.vtbbbbb.bbb.bbbb
b b.b.b V. ib,b.Vbb

t
1,

<> b b b.b t b b
bbbbt &.bb>bbb,bbbvb
fc.Vb.b b V,b b.b.b.b b.b'b'b b b
_fc.bt.bb
rb.bbbbbbbbb
tfi>v,i, C,

Ibb,b,bbV -bb>bb'-bbb*.
b bb.b b b bb b>
b
-.bit
b b b b b.b.b b

?*- b.b.b
w
1. b.b
b b.b
*.c.b

bbb

b b b b b b.b b
. b bb
-. b b
b b '. b t b b b '*
fc b b b b.b.b t,'<,-.t;
b b b b.b b b.
bbbb
.

bbbt

,'.

ittbbbbbbbbbbwbbbbb

lb b b b b bb b b b b b b'b b b> b
f b b b b b b . b b b b b b b> b i> c
fbbbb/" bbb.b.bbbbbbbb
H'-bbt; vbbcbb.b.b>.b.b>
^KkiLfeiL. ft b C.b.b. cA!b.b_b.c>.
'

b'bt'v'v b C'v^

>bb>.

'^B

Japanese

Built-in

furniture in

Tea-Room

(first

hah of

?^

i9i

the seventeenth century)

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETT1

"Ballads and Sonnets" (1881)

295

EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN

McNMl

Fait (1878)

-b

.bbbbbb,
/.tb.b
b..t.vv^i_ri^3
b.b.b bb^ 1
-J

289

the

of the Detached Palace, Katsura

bbb>>>

-.' %f

294

Binding foi

WHISTI R

Stand

at the

and

JAM!

Pan, World's

The Masters oi

Iiulustri.il

Design

The Influence
(Pages icy

296

French

oi

William Blake

14)

Sideboard in Baroque style (circa 1S50)

29S

RICHARD NORMAN SHAW

Old Swan

House, London (1876)

300

JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS

Design for a

Gothic window (1853)

301

Body
297

WILLIAM BLAKI

Angels Hovering over the

of Christ (1808)

ARTHUR HEYGATE MACKMURDO

Chair (1881)

299 CHARLES ANNESLE Y VOYSI }

Broadleys residence, Lake Windemere (1S9S)

290

Preliminaries to Art
(Pages

302

Nouveau

in

France

124)

GUSTAVE EIFFEL

The Eiffel Tower, Paris

303

JULES CHRET

306

GUTAVE SERRURIER-BOVY

Ravine (1889)

Brussels

Poster for "Folies-Bergre,

305

VICTOR HORTA

residence, Brussels

(1

Wall Limp

in the

Solvay

A
^ffl^^Sr ^1[

"l

0L

WW

!
I

Interior

display for an exhibition (between 1X94 and (898)

895-1 900)

jEM

291

VINCENT VAN GOGH

(Pages 125-141)

(1889)

Les Girard" (1877)

304

3o 9

GERRIT WILLEM

DIJSSELHOF

Dijsselhof

Room

(1890-92)

310

JAN TOOROP

Willows

GEORGES MINNE

307

Under

the

(n. d.)

Drawing (1890)

Holland
(Pages 141-152)

THEODORUS

308
I

311

fi

A. C.

COLENBRANDER

886)

HERBERT HORN!

"The Angel with the

trumpet," decorative fabric (circa 1884)

312

JAN TOOROP

New

Art) (1893)

Lijnenspel (The

Old and

the

292

Paris
ges

and Nancy
\n-171)

EMILE GALLE

313

Pitcher,

with a design

WALTER CRANE

314

Hellas" (1888)

293

Illustration for "Echoes of

EMILE GALLE

Top of a small table

(circa 1900)

representing Thetis (before 1890?)

316

HECTOR GUIMARD

Svres, France (1903)

Castel Henriette,

317

AUGUSTE PERRET

Paris (1905)

Garage rue Ponthieu,

Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland

ondon

(P.igcs 191-212)

318

CHARLES ANNESLEY YOYSEY

Living

room in the artist's home, "71)e Orchard," Chorley

Wood, Buckinghamshire (1900)

319

CHARLES ANNESLEY VOYSEY

Covered

322

HANS VON MARES

Ganymede

armchair (before 1897)

71>e

Abduction of

(1887)

Right:
323

320

CHARLES HARRISON TOWNSEND

Whitechapel Art Gallery (1897)

JOHANN

JULIUS SCHARVOGEL

Vase

(circa 1900)

324

ADRIEN DALPAYRAT

321

MAX BEERBOHM

Rossetti

is

heard for the

The

Flask

(circa

1S93)

name of Dante Gabriel

first

time in the Western

States of America. Time: 1882. Lecturer: Mr.

Oscar

Wilde (1916)

294

PETER BEHRENS

328
Lilies

Butterflies on

HENRY VAN DE VELDE

329

Water

(between 1S96 and 1897)

Tea service

(1905-06)

325

HERMANN

OBRIST Monument

to the Pillar

331

(1898)

326

Left:

ERNST BARLACH

Barcelona
(Pages

PETER BEHRENS

Library in the Behrens

home, Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt (1901)

295

Rear faade of the Casa

Portrait of Justus

Brinckmann (1902)

327

ANTONI GAUDf

Battle, Barcelona (1905-07)

330

2-227)

ANTONI GAUD

railing of the

Banister and garden

Casa Vincens, Barcelona (1878-80)

332

ANTONI GAUDi

Dressing table (1885-85)

RAIMONDO D'ARONCO

Pavilion for the

33)
International Exhibition of Decorative Art, Turin
(1902)

Glasgow
(Pages 239-243)

Chicago and

New York

(Pages 227-238)

337

WILLIAM BLAKE When

the

Morning

Stars

Sang Together (1825)

334

LOUIS

COMFORT Till ANY

artist's flat in the

Street,

New

York

338 MARGARET MACDONALDMACKINTOSH Crucifixion (1894)

Window in the

"Bella" Apartments on East 26th

(circa 1880)

DANIEL HUDSON BURNHAM and JOHN

WELLBORN ROOT Detail of the facade of the

336

Monadnock

Building, Chicago (1891)

Left:

335

LOUIS

COMFORT TIFFANY

the artist's house on

Avenue,

New

York

72nd

Street

Fireplace

and Madison

(18J

296

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

339

artist's

room

at

The

340

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Xorth

faade of "Windyhill," Kilmalcolm, Scotland

Dennistoun, Scotland (area 1890)

(1899-1901)

Vienna
(Pages 244-259)

i4 :

OSKAR KOKOSCHKA

tr'ujnenden

341

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

Library

343

-jjing

of the

Glasgow School

JOSEPH OLBRICH

of Art (19c-

The Playhouse for the

Princesses, Schloss Woljsgarten near Langen,

(1902)

297

Germany

Knaben" (1908)

Illustration for

'Dit

The Significance of Art Nouveau

(Pages 260-277)

344

LUDWIG VON HOI-MANN

Vignette from

Pan"(iS 97 )

347

Diffraction pattern of the transversal section

of a tube

348

,45

EMILE GALLE

plants (circa

346

Vase,

Austrian

Decorative fabric (before 1902)

with a design of aquatic

900)

Japanese

Sword guard

(eighteenth or nine-

298

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Revue Wagnrienne,
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New

Beardsley, Aubrey. The Early Work of Aubrey

Beardsley, London-New York, 1899

Paris, 1880-1912

Paris, 1885-88

York-London, about
The Savoy, London, 1896

1891

The Architectural Review, London, about 1896

L'Art Dcoratif, Paris, 1898-1914

Rome, 1898-1901

L'Arte,

Arte Italiana Decorativa e Industriale, Rome-Venice,

The Later Work of Aubrey Beardsley, London-

New

York, 1901

Simplizissimus, Munich, about 1896

Behrens, Peter. Feste des Lebens und der Kunst,

Tiie

Studio, London, about 1893

Van

Nu

Jena, 1900

en Straks, Brussels-Antwerp,

892-1901

Ein

The Yellow Book, London, 1894-97

Art

Zeitschrift fur Innendekoration,

Bell,
Dcoration, Paris, about 1897

die Ausstellung

1901

1890-1914
et

Dokument Deutscher Kunst:

der Knstler-Kolonie in Darmstadt, 1901, Munich,

Ver Sacrum, Vienna, 1898; Leipzig, 1899-1903

Darmstadt, Germa-

Malcolm. Edward Burne-Jones; A Record and

a Review, London, 1892

ny, about 1890

L'Art Moderne, Brussels, 1881-1914

Bndite, Lonce. Ren Lalique. Paris,

n. d.

Avalun, Munich, 1901

Berlage, Hendrik Petrus. "Over Architectuur,"

Bouw-

Tweemaandelijks

en Sierkunst, Haarlem, 1898- 1902

1896, Part

The Century Guild

Hobby

Horse, Orpington, Kent,

England, 1884, 1886-92; The

Hobby

1893-94

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Literature (To 19 14)

Abbot, Thomas K. Celtic Ornaments from the Book

of Kells, London, 1892-95

The Chap-Book, Chicago, 1894-98

The Craftsman, Eastwood,

Contemporay

Horse, London,

York,

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Vol. I (October, 1895),

Dekorative Kunst, Munich, 1897-1929

No.

Poster,

New

York,

Drame Wag-

nrien, Paris, 1895

The Dome, London, 1897- 1900

L'Emulation, Brussels, about 1874

Ashbee, Charles R. "A Short History of the Guild

The Evergreen, Edinburgh, 1895-97

and School of Handicraft," Transactions of the Guild

and School of Handicraft, London, Vol. I, 1890, pp.

Die Graphischen Kiinste, Vienna, about 1879

19-31

Das

Intrieur, Vienna, 1900-15

Interiors,

New

W.

Paris, 1889-1913

Le Rveil, Ghent, about 1891

La Revue Blanche,

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898-1 921

Petersburg, 1899- 1904

Paw, Berlin, 1895-1900

La Plume,

1888-91;

Paris, 1891-1903

Rus-

La Culture

and

Essays,

Le Japon

Artisti-

Illustrations

edition,

German

edition,

Japanischer

"Wohin

Vol.

artistique en

Amrique, Paris, 1896

Salon de l'Art Nouveau, Paris, 1896

I,

treiben wir?" Dekorative Kunst, Munich,

1898, p.

"L'Art Nouveau,"

New

Record,

The Architectural

York, Vol. XII, 1902, No.

3,

pp. 279-85

Blanche, Jacques-Emile. Portraits of a Lifetime.

The Late Victorian Era. The Edwardian Pageant.
iByo-1^14,

and designed by Thomas Theodor Heine,

Aurier, G. Albert. "Le Symbolisme en Peinture,"

Mercure de France, Paris, Vol. II, 1891

New

No.

5,

Berlin,

I,

pp. 326-28

Bodenhausen, Eduard von. "Englische Kunst im

Hause," Pan, Berlin,

Bracquemond,

Bahr, Hermann. Sezession, Vienna, 1900

York, 1938

Bode, Wilhelm. "Hermann Obrist," Pan,

Berlin, 1897

kiinstlerische Be-

n. d.

Formenschatz, Leipzig, 18S8-91

1896,

Die Kunst, Munich, 1899-1945

The Pageant, London, 1896-97

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d'AuBECQ, Pierre. Die Barrisons. Ein Kunsttraum,

Jugend, Munich, 1896-1933

Kunst und Kunsthandwerk, Vienna,

The Teachings of

Morris, London, 1901

Modern English Silverwork, London, 1909

illustrated

St.

Oscar. Die Wand und ihre

Bing, S. Artistic Japan:

London, 1888-91; French

Die Musik und die Inszenierung, Munich, 1899

York, about 1888

loventut, Barcelona, 1900-03

Mir Iskustva,

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Bie,

The Dial, London, 1889-97

kin and

der Baukunst, Leipzig, 1905

iiber Stil in

1895

An Endeavour Towards

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Berlin, 1908

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Insel, Berlin,

Amsterdam,

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Die

Gedanken

handlung, Berlin,

Alexandre, Arsne. The Modern

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La Plume,

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J.

II,

1896, p. 332

M. Du Dessin

et

de

la

Couleur,

Paris, 1885

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Mackay H. "An

Artist's

House,"

The Studio, London, Vol. IX, 1896-97, pp. 28-37

"On

dio,

the Choice of Simple Furniture," The Stu-

London, Vol. X, 1897, pp. 152-57

Bajot, Edouard. L'Art Nouveau

Ameublement,

Paris, 1898

Dcoration

et

Brinckmann, Justus. Hamburgisches Museum fur

Kunst und Gewerbe. Die Ankufe auf der Weltausstellung, Paris, 1900; Hamburg, 1901
Caffin, Charles, H. "Edward

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An

New

Appraisal,"

pp. 21-24

Camera Work,

Steichen's

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Work
II,

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Cherbuliez, Victor. L'Art

Cobden-Sanderson, T.
Movement, London, 1905

et la

Nature, Paris, 1892

The

J.

and Crafts

Arts

Cook, Theodore A. The Curves of

New

Life,

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Eckmann, Otto. Neue Formen. Dekorative EntAem. Fendler, Ber1897

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the Art of the Theatre,

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Of the Decorative
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Illustration of

Books Old and

Berlin, 1900

Edwin John; and Yeats, William Butler.

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Um die Schnheit.

Eine Paraphrase

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Germany,
Line and Form, London, 1900

Everyday Art: Short Essays on the

Arts Not-Fine, London, 1882

Day, Lewis

F.

"L'Art Nouveau,"

The

Art Journal, London,

1900, pp. 293-97

Kunst und Dekoration, Darmstadt,

d., Paris,

I,

I,

1898, p. 280

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1898, pp. 119-25

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Munich, Vol.

Ill,

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1913

Fierens, Paul. Essai sur l'Art Contemporain, Paris,

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Olivier

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Style," L'Oeil, Paris

71, pp. 48-61

New

"Symbolist Painters of

York, i94i,pp. 117-52

'949

Weiser, Armand. Josef Hoffmann, Geneva, 1930

Sweeney, James Johnson; and Sert, Josep Llu(s.

Antoni Gaudi, Stuttgart, Germany, i960

Welby, Earle T. The Victorian Romantics, 1850-70,

London, 1929

307

JOSEF

HOFFMANN

Vignette from "Ver

Sacrum" (1898)

1952,

LIST OF PLATES

AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Colorplates

Illustrations in the

Text

48

Tho van Rysselberghe.

Page from Alma-

Title

nack: Cahier de Vers d'Emile Verhaeren, Brussels,

I

Bernhard Pankok. Endpaper design. For the Amt-

licbcr

Katalog der Ausstellung des Deutschen Reichs,

1900, issued by the

at

German Empire

for their exhibit

1900 Paris World's Fair. Color lithograph,

the

1900. 9V2 x 7V2". Art Library of the former Berlin

State

The number before each note indicates the page

number on whidi the illustration may be found.
5

Vignette

Whistler.

from

The

London-New York,

1890

Aubrey Beardsley. Isolde. From The Studio VI,

London, 1896. Color lithograph, circa 189$. 9V4X

yh"

I,

Walter Crane. Illustration, From Flora's Feast,

London, 1889. Color lithograph. Private

Tubingen,

collection,

Aubrey Beardsley. Initial from Sir Thomas MalLe Morte d'Arthur, Vol. 1, London, 1893

ory's
8

Thomas Theodor Heine. Vignette from Die

Berlin, 1900, No. 2

Insel

Annie Mackie. Vignette from The Ever-

(left)

Book

poster,

Crafts,

14V8 x

1898.

nW.

Museum

of Arts and

Hamburg

Jan Toorop. Delftsche Slaolie. Color-lithographed poster amvertising salad oil, before 1897.

27W.

Berlin, 1896,

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Ger-

No.

H.

Cook. Easy

Fitz

London,

Piroli
chair,

"The

Day Dreamer,"

and Illustrated Catalogue of

London i8}i

Eugne-Emmanuel

from Entretiens sur

the Great Exhibition

Voillet-le-Duc.

Illustration

l'architecture, Vol. II, Paris, 1872

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Title page for Christina

Goblin Market and Other Poems, London-

Rossetti's

Cambridge, 1862

from The Evergreen:

leaf

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The artist's signature.

from The Blessed DamozellSancta Lilias,
1874. The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by

63

The Book of Summer, Edinburgh, 1895

Detail

Charles Ricketts. Vignette from Oscar Wilde's

Engraved by

cuted in papier-mach from the Official Descriptive

II,

Helen Hay. Calendar

A House

series of

of Winter, Edinburgh, 1897

Otto Eckmann. Vignette from Pan

(right)

10

39 x

from the

Illustration,

about 1850, made by Jennens and Bettridge, exe-

62

IV Henry van de Velde. Tropon. Color-lithographed

John Flaxman.

1795.

61
9

green: The

Germany

54

illustrations for the Tragedies of Aeschylus,

56

Museums, Berlin-Charlottenburg

II

III

McNeill

James

Gentle Art of Making Enemies,

Woodcut

1895.

of Pomegranates, London, 1891

courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

many
12

VI Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. May Milton. Color-

Hoffmann. Vignette from Ver Sacrum

Josef

VII

Annesley

Charles

Voysey.

Tulip

and

Bird.

Wallpaper, 1896. Manufactured by Essex and Co.

Victoria and Albert

Fernand Khnopff.

14

ex

On

n'a que soi (bookplate),

page from Ver Sacrum

libris

Vienna, 1898, No.

I,

Selwyn Image. Title page from The Century

Guild Hobby Horse, Orpington, Kent, 1884, No.
1

Wassily Kandinsky. Moonrise. Colored wood-

VIII

16
cut, 1902-03.

9V8 x 5V8". Stdtische Galerie im Len-

Henry van de

Straks,

bachhaus, Munich

IX/X Antoni Gaudi.

Stained-glass windows, bein the

29

Colonia

"Room

de luxe" of the Willow Tea-Rooms. Painted wood,

metal, and colored glass,

1904.

Each panel 77

en

The

Kiss

(fourth

version).

Two-color woodcut, 1902. i7 3 /4 x 17V4". Oslo

Kom-

munes Kunstsamlinger, Oslo, Norway

Vignette

from Oscar

73 Aubrey Beardsley. Caricature of James McNeill

Whistler (referring to Mallarm's L'Aprs-midi d'un

London-

faune), from George Egerton's Keynotes,

Boston, 1893

74

Aubrey Beardsley. The Peacock

tion

30 Aubrey Beardsley. Initial from Sir Thomas

Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Vol. 1, London, 1893
32

Koloman Moser.

Oscar Wilde's

for

Salome,

Skirt,

illustra-

London-Boston,

1894

33

Jean Middle.

Monstre,

Vignette from Ver

Sacrum

7$ (left) James McNeill Whistler. Preliminary

sketch for a decoration for "The Peacock Room,"
1876.

page

Pen and ink drawing, from

size

Philip bequest

from Alphabet Lapidaire

Initials

7j

Aubrey Beardsley. The

(right)

for

illustration
1

a series of sketches,

12V8X7V8". University of Glasgow, Birnie

II,

No. 4

Oscar

Toilet of

Salome,

Wilde's

Salome,

London-

834-3 j
Boston, 1894

34

Gottlieb Leberecht Crusius. Capriccio. Copper-

plate engraving, circa

5V8X4V4", from Ru-

1760,

dolf Berliner's Ornamentale Vorlage-Blatter des rj.

bis 18.

Jahrhunderts, plate

4,

Leipzig, 1924-26

William Blake. The Divine Image from Songs of

Innocence, London, 1789. Copperplate engraving
3 j

(monochrome)
in plate 25

don

THOMAS THEODOR HEINE

Ricketts.

of Pomegranates, London, 1891

64 (right) Charles Ricketts. Illustration for Oscar

Wilde's A House of Pomegranates, London, 1891

Woodcut. Biblio-

1893.

Marcus Behmer. Drawing from Oscar Wilde's

Leipzig, 1899,

x zy h". The House of Frazer, Glasgow

XII Edvard Munch.

Brussels-Antwerp,

Nu

Salome, Leipzig, 1903

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Door to the

A House

Giiell,

near Barcelona

XI

Velde. Title page from Van

thque Royal de Belgique, Brussels

tween 1898 and 1914. Chapel

Charles

(left)

12
15

Museum, London

64

Wilde's

lithographed poster, 189$. 31V8 x 25V4". Kaiser Wil-

helm Museum, Krefeld, Germany

I,

Vienna, 1898, No. 9

similar

4V4 x

to

2 3 /s",

the

The

shown
Museum, Lon-

illustration

British

76

James McNeill Whistler.

Butterflies

Gentle Art of Making Enemies,

from

71>e

London-New York,

1890
86

(left)

Charles Ricketts. The

illustration for

Moon-Horned

Io,

Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx, London,

1894
86

(right)

Charles Ricketts. Chloe from Daphnis

and Chloe, London,

1896.

Woodcut

Vignette from

"Pan" (1900)

308

Philipp Otto Runge. Geometric drawing of the

98

cornflower,
Kunsthalle,

Pen

1808.

pencil,

15V4 x 7 7 /s",

Hamburg

Dante Gabriel

100

and

Rossetti.

Carpet design, 1861.

George Bir-

beck Hill, London, 1897

Christopher

from

Illustration

Dresser.

Heywood Sumner.

la

The

Vignette from Friedrich de

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo.

Flix Vallotton. Portrait of Henri de Rgnier

Remy

from

Title

168

No.

I,

Berlin,

barrire, circa

la

Germany
Charles Ricketts. Vignette from The Dial, Lon-

112

don, 1889, No.

John Duncan.

114

Book
1

Initial

from The Evergreen: The

of Spring, Edinburgh, 1895

logue of an exhibition at the Caf des Arts (Volpini),

Paris, 1889

Illustration

from Mthode de

Maurice Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes,

No.

189$,

126

poem from
Pan I, Berlin,

Max

Max

(left)

Henry van de

London

circa 1895.

Woodcut

Henry van de

blaiement d'Art, Brussels,

Velde. Initial from

1894.

kamp's

Dominical, Antwerp,
Royal de Belgique, Brussels

1892.

Max

page

Title

Bibliothque

(left)

Georges Minnc. Illustration for Mau-

rice Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes, Paris, 1889. Biblio-

186

Laurence Housman.

(left)

End

Title

page for Jane

and Albert Museum, London

186

(right)

Daphnis

142

Aristide Maillol. Illustration for Lonet

Museum, London
Charles

188

Brussels-Antwerp, 1893, No.

309

2.

Nu

en Straks,

outlining

an architectural competition. De-

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Elevation of the

242

Annesley Voysey.

Elevations

for

lieben Gott

Title

the Arts" (1901),

from

Darmstadt, Germany, 1902

page for Rainer Maria

und Anderes, Berlin-Leip-

1900

Max
Amor und

Klinger.

Page

border

from

244

Joseph Maria Olbrich. Sketch for the exhibi"Wiener Sezession," from Ver Sa-

Otto Eckmann.

Sketches

for

supports

from

Berlin,

Eckmann.
1896, No. 5

Margin

design

from

Aubrey Beardsley. Margin design

Thomas Malory's Le Morte d' Arthur, Vol. I,

205

(right)

from

Sir

37V8 x 12V8",

London, 1893

Museum

of Arts and Crafts,

Hamburg

die Praxis,

246

Otto

Leipzig, 1899

245 Poster for the Exhibition of the "Vereinigung

Bildender Kunstler Osterreichs. 1901." Lithograph,

Berlin, 1897
(left)

II,

Apuleius'

Psyche, Munich, 1880

Neue Formen: Dekorative Entwurfe fur

I,

"House for a Lover of

tion hall of the

192

Pan

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Preliminary sketch

Hermann Muthesius' Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Haus eines Kunstfreundes, Meister der Innenkunst
II,

Vom

Glasgow

north faade of the Glasgow School of Art, 1896

for the

Emil Rudolf Weiss.

191

Chloe, Paris, 1937. Woodcut

Jan Toorop. Vignette from Van

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Title for a bro-

1901. University of

241

Charles Ricketts. Illustration for Oscar

(right)

205
140

William H. Bradley. Poster for a bicycle com(n. d.). The Library of Congress, Washington,

of Elfintown, London, 1894. Vic-

thque Royal de Belgique, Brussels

gus'

Antoni Gaudi. Ground plan for Casa Mil,

for

crum
Els-

Weib,

signed for the International Exhibition, Glasgow,

204
140

Ricketts

cliure

Rilke's

Velde. Title page for

229

239

zig,

Henry van de

Mann und

Barcelona, 1905-10

and Leander, London, 1894. Woodcut

D-

Woodcut, Biblio-

of illustrations to

1900-02. Woodcut, 2 x 7 7/s", Stdelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main

Christopher Marlowe's and George Chapman's Hero

thque Royal de Belgique, Brussels

138

Charles

(right)

house in Bedford Park near London, 1888-91

(right)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Border Design

series

D.C.
18 j

bert

Menu,

Velde.

designed

circa 1900

(right)

pany

Wilde's The Sphinx, London, 1894. Victoria and Al-

Le Mouvement Symboliste, 1957

letter

Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Ger-

Drayton's Nimphidia and the Muses' Elizium, Lon-

Elskamp. Vignette, circa 1900. Exhibition

catalogue for the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,

Otto Eckmann. Capital

(left)

many,

226

toria

137

Aubrey Beardsley,

Charles Ricketts. Title page for Michael

(left)

Barlow's The

Le Mouvement Symboliste, 1957

137

of

Elskamp. Vignette, circa 1900. Exhibition

catalogue for the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,

135

page for The Forty

Title

Charles Doudelet. Illustration for a

125

212

from the

don, 1896. Woodcut, Victoria and Albert Museum,

composition ornamentale, Paris, 1905

Wassily Kandinsky. Catalogue jacket for "Der

blaue Reiter" exhibition in Munich, 191

London, 1901
185

Eugne Grasset.

116

circa 1900

block

From The Later Work

Thieves.

Otto Eckmann. Decorative border designed for

Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Germany,

210

212

Wood

Aubrey Beardsley.

183

Emile Schuffenecker. Illustration from a cata-

907.

Norway

Oslo,

for the

173 Edward Gordon Craig. Illustration for Hugo

von Hofmannsthal's Der weisse Fcher, Leipzig,
1

circa 1900

208 Edvard Munch. Paraphrase on Salome, 1898.

Woodcut, I7 3 /4X iiVs", Kommunes Kunstsamlinger,

211

Paul Gauguin. Bretonnes

169

Pan

1889. Lithograph, 6 l U x 8Vs", Kunsthalle, Bremen,

Wren's City Churches, Orpington, Kent, 1883

many,

the

Vignette from

Flix Vallotton.

1895,

page from

de Gourmont's Le Livre des Masques,

and 1898. Woodcut

Paris, 1896

Motte-Fouqu's Undine, London, 1888

1 1

lands, 1899. Paper, 11 x 7V2"

$2

Otto Eckmann. Decorative border designed

Rudhard Type Foundry, Offenbach, Ger-

207

for the

Jan Toorop. Binding for W. G. van Nouhuy's

Egidius en de vreemdeling, Haarlem, The Nether-

Rudiments of Botany, London, 1859

104

I,

148

In Letters of Rossetti to Allingham, ed.

101

Charles Ricketts. Illustration from The Dial

147

London, 1889, No.

Josef

Hoffmann. Sketch for a Country House,

from Ver Sacrum

259

260

Leipzig, 1900

Gustav Klimt. The

Pirchan's

crum

III,

Alfred Roller.
III,

artist's signature,

from Emil

Gustav Klimt, Vienna, 1956

Day and

Leipzig, 1900

Night, from Ver Sa-

262

Robert Burns. Natura Naturans (1891), from

The Evergreen: The Book of Spring, Edinburgh, 1895

Charles Ridketts. Bookplate, for Gleeson White,

271

1892

Aubrey Beardsley. Drawing

Hyperion II, Munich, 1908, No. 3
276

(circa 1894),

from

Aristide Maillol. Illustration for Virgil's Ec-

logues,

Weimar, Germany, 1926

(series

begun 1910).

Woodcut
277

A House
280

of Pomegranates, London, 1891

&

Co. Department Store. Cast iron,

899-1904. Chicago

Bierbaum's Gugeline, Berlin, 1899. 7 3 /sx

spor-Museum, Offenbach, Germany
9

Emil Rudolf Weiss. Vignette from Otto Julius

Thomas Theodor Heine.

Berlin, 1900,

No.

Charles

Vignette from

Pan V,

of Arts

Ricketts.

Binding for Oscar Wilde's

of Pomegranates. London, 1891.

Stamped

8V4 x 7V8". The British Museum, London

Art,

New York;

gift

of

Mme. Hector Gui-

room of the Solvay residence (presently

Wittamer-De Camps residence). 1895-1900.

Guell, Barcelona

The number before each note indicates not the page

Wittamer-De Camps

Victor Horta. Solvay residence (presently the L.

the

The Metropolitan Museum of

York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer
2

Art,

(?).

The William Morris

dome above

the staircase of

gilt,

circa 1900,

from the Solvay residence, Brussels. Height 4 3 /s",

width 18V8". Collection La Baronne Horta, Brussels

Aubecq residence (now destroyed).

1900. Brus-

Glass vases: Favrile glass, circa 1900. Height

13V8" to 15V4". Three-footed candlestick: bronze,

Emile Galle. Small goblets

(left

and

right of center).

Glass, circa 1900. Height 8 s /s".

All: collection

Jr.,

New York

Adrien Dalpayrat. Vase. Glazed pottery, circa

1900. Height 5'/e". Austrian

Arts,

Vienna

27

Museum

for

Applied

of Inno-

William Blake. Infant Joy. From Songs of InnoLondon, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate en-

28

William Blake.

Title page.

Museum, London

From Songs

Human

Soul,

Two

of Inno-

Contrary

London, 1794. Hand-coThe British

Museum, London
29

Matthias Lock. Rocaille. Copperplate engraving,

30 Lon Bakst. Vaslav Nijinsky in "L'Aprs-midi

d'un faune." Watercolor, 1912. 15V8 x ioVs". The

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn. The

Ella

Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection

Niccolo

16 Antoni Gaudi. Balustrade of the terrace of the

Park Guell, Barcelona. Before 1906

dell'

Abbate. The Frogman (design for a

costume). Pen-and-ink drawing with wash,

third quarter of the sixteenth century. 14V* x 9V8".

The National Museum, Stockholm

17

Antoni Gaudi. Detail from the

the

Church of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Circa

east faade of

32

William Blake. The Mission of

series of 102 illustrations for

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mirror for the

"Room

Canto

14V8". City

de luxe" of the Willow Tea-Rooms, Glasgow. Leaded

colored glass and mirrored glass, 1904. 3iVsx9'/s".

England

Collection of the University of Glasgow

33

II).

Watercolor,

Museum and Art

William Blake.

Tf)e

Virgil.

From

Dante's Divine

the

Comedy

1824-27.

zo'/sx

Gallery, Birmingham,

Great Red Dragon and the

Woman

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Wall-bracket light-

19

ing

of

20

Edgar Kauffmann,

From Songs

cence,

31

fixture.

Tin-plated

metal

and colored

glass,

1900-02. Height 12". Collection of the University

Height 11V4"

Title page.

London, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British Museum, London

ballet

Louis Comfort Tiffany. Glass vases and candle-

circa 1900.

William Blake.

(Inferno,

Victor Horta. Inkstand. Bronze

stick.

26

sels

1910

Gallery, Walthamstow, England

895-1900. Brussels

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Cromer Bird. Print-

son and Godlee, Manchester

New

ed cotton fabric, circa 1884. Manufactured by Simp-

residence).

Victor Horta. Glass

1 5

Museum,

British

5
1764. II 3 /4X 8 /s"

the illustrations printed

fore 1896.

The

London

lored copperplate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8".

Black-and-white Plates

Louis Comfort Tiffany. Bowl. Favrile glass, be-

William Blake. The Divine Image. From Songs

States of the

14

1750.

of Innocence, London, 1789. Hand-colored copper-

the L.

Antoni Gaudi. Cupola of the porter's lodge.

Colored tesserae and broken tiles, before 1906. Park

25

cence and Experience Showing the

13

number but the number of

French. Carpet design. Watercolor, circa

the dining

Brussels

on coated paper.

24

graving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British

Victor Horta. Detail of the main chandelier in

12

Charles Gamier. Grand staircase of the Paris

Opra. 1861-75

cence,

pearwood,

Modern
mard

London

plate engraving. 4V4 x 3V8".

Hector Guimard. Detail of a small table. Carved

circa 1908. Height 43V2". The Museum of

1
I,

Museum

and Crafts, Hamburg, Germany

A House

the Ball. Be-

Bibliothque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris

Kwanshosai Toyo. Lid of a Japanese lacquer box.

linen.

307 Josef Hoffmann. Vignette from Ver Sacrum

Vienna, 1898, No. 10

5W. Kling-

Anonymous photographer. Before

tween 1854 and 1864. Victoria and Albert Museum,

23

Emil Rudolf Weiss. Endpaper. For Otto Julius

10

Bierbaum's Gugeline, Berlin, 1899

308

son Pirie Scott

Late nineteenth century. 9 7 /s x 7V2"

Charles Ricketts. Vignette from Oscar Wilde's

22

Louis Sullivan. Detail of the faade of the Car-

273

Persian. Bowl. Ceramic, thirteenth century

and 1810

(?).

ington, D.

15V4X 11V4". National Gallery, Wash-

C; Rosenwald

Collection

Glasgow
Louis Jacques

Mand Daguerre.

Still Life.

Da-

guerreotype, 1839. Muse des Arts et Traditions Populaires

21

Clothed with the Sun. Illustration for the

Revelation of St. John. Watercolor, between 1805

du Rousillon, Perpignan, France

Louis

Comfort Tiffany. Hamilton

New York

dence. Circa 1880.

William Blake. Paolo and Francesca in the Whirlof Lovers in The Circle fo the Lustful. From
the series of 102 illustrations for Dante's Divine

34

wind

Comedy
Fish

resi-

(Inferno,

14V8 x 20 7 /s". City

Canto V). Watercolor, 1824-27.

Museum and Art Gallery, Birm-

ingham, England

310

35

36

No.

I,

2,

Chicago, 1894-95

Louis Comfort Tiffany. Vase. Favrile glass, be-

fore 1900.

37

The Serpentine Dancer.

William H. Bradley.

From The Chap-Book, Vol.

Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

William Blake. Lot and His Daughters

New
38

(detail).

x 11V4". Auckland City Art Gallery,

William Blake.

The

82 1. Woodcut.

39

53

Illustration.

Edward

British

Calvert.

For Robert John

Pastorals, London,

Museum, London

William Burges. Frieze. From a mantlepiece

London

English. Bowl. Glass, circa i860.

Made by

Samuel Palmer. The Valley Thick with Corn. Se-

pia drawing, 1825. 7V8 x 10V4".

Ste-

67

Thomas

The campus of the Uni-

II

54 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Girlhood of Mary

Virgin (detail). Oil on canvas, 1849. 33V8 x 24 3 A".

The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy

John Palmer. Lansdown Crescent. Bath, 1794

43

Charles Doudelet. Illustration (detail). For the

poem, Trois soeurs aveugles, from Maurice Maeter-

Dante Drawing an An-

55

Dante Gabriel

gel

on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death. Water-

Rossetti.

68

Paris, 1896.

Woodcut

Richard Ovey. The Scarlet Ground White Pas-

Flower Chintz. Printed

sion

fabric,

1802. Victoria

16V2X24". The Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford, England

47

English. Jug. Glass, circa 1820. Victoria

and Al-

Museum, London

Edward Burne- Jones. Painted

cabinet.

Oil on

Height

Co.(?).

Made by T.F.Christie and

io'/". Victoria

and Albert Museum,

London
Molding from a doorframe in the Waldegrave
at Strawberry Hill. Wood, before 1762.

Room

Twickenham, England

57

Dante Gabriel

Richard Redgrave. Christening cup. Embossed

and chased

Made by Harry Emanuel,

London and Chesnau, for Summerly's Art Manufactures.

silver,

Height

Ecce Ancilla Domini

Rossetti.

5'/s". Victoria

and Albert Museum,

in

51

1850. Pub-

and Illustrated
Great Exhibition London 18 }i

the Official Descriptive

Catalogue of the

Peter Cooper. Rocking chair. Steel framework

with velvet upholstery, circa i860. Height 87V8".

311

Vanna. Oil on

No.

)).

Oil on canvas, with a

oils

courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

James McNeill Whistler. The Peacock Room (origthe dining room in the Leyland residence,

London). Shelves designed by Thomas

D.C.

lery of Art,

Tate Gallery

Webb. Red House. 1859. Bexley Heath,

Kent, England
58

Philip

and landing.

Philip Webb. Staircase

1859.

Red

leather, 1876-77.

Jeckell. Oil on
The Freer Gal-

Smithsonian Institution, Washington,

Edward William Godwin. White House.

London

1877.

Chelsea,

72

Edward William Godwin.

Chair.

Made by Wil-

liam Watt. Black lacquer on oak, originally uphol-

House, Bexley Heath, Kent, England

stered in Japanese material, circa 1885. Height 42V8".

60 Edward Burne- Jones. Drawing. From an album

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Edward William Godwin. Small table. Made by Wil-

of drawings by Burne- Jones. Gouache, after 1884.

61

/s".

The

British

Museum, London

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Aurelia

i4 5/s".

I Fazio's

Mis-

Oil on canvas, 1863 and 1873.

Room

63

decoration supervised by Mor-

and Co.

Edward Burne- Jones. Drawing. From an album

of drawings by Burne-Jones. Pencil, after 1884. The

64

Museum, London

Fernand Khnopff.

Lock

My Door Upon

73

Edward William Godwin.

ware and imitation leather panels,

Myself.

74

toria

Rossetti.

The Blessed Damozel

Oil on canvas, 1874. i8Vbx

for furniture.

75 Christopher Dresser. Teapot. Made by James

Dixon and Sons, Sheffield, England. Silver plate with
ebony handle, circa 1880. Height ?'/>". Collection
James Dixon and Sons, Sheffield, England

76

Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen. Covered

Height 4". Museum of

Arts and Crafts, Hamburg,

(detail).

Height

and Albert Museum, London

Collection of Pictures, Munich

Dante Gabriel

circa 1877.

Edward William Godwin. Designs

vase. Porcelain, circa 1900.

Sancta Lilias

Made by

silver hard-

Pencil and watercolor, circa 1876. 7V2 x 9V2". Vic-

Oil on canvas, 1891. 28V8 x 55V8". Bavarian State

65

Sideboard.

William Watt. Black-stained wood with

70 7 /s". Victoria and Albert Museum, London

62 Philip Webb. Stenciled ceiling frieze. For the

Green Dining Room in the Victoria and Albert Mu-

ris

liam Watt. Black lacquer on oak, 1874. Height 27V8".

City Art Gallery (Georgian Room), Bristol, England

i6Vsx
The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by

tress (detail).

British

Grainger. Pitchers. Ceramic, circa

lished

Monna

and gold, circa 1865. 24V8 x

The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by

wood, 1850. 28% x 1 j 3 /4". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the

1848.

London
50

Silver,

frame painted with

wood, canvas, and

seum. 1866-67.

49

and

in Blue

(The Annunciation). Oil on canvas stretched over

courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

48

Rossetti.

James McNeill Whistler. Old Battersea Bridge:

Nocturne in Blue and Gold (original title: Nocturne

70

seum, London

Diameter

Richard Redgrave. Water decanter. Painted and

gilded glass, circa 1847.

the supervision

69

i9 5/V'.

59
45 English. Pitcher. Glass, circa 1820. Victoria and
Albert Museum, London

bert

Dante Gabriel

1853.

and Albert Museum, London

46

Anonymous photographer (under

canvas, 1866. 35 x 33 7 /s". The Tate Gallery, London.

Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate

71

44

I,

inally

42

Douze Chansons,

From Pan

Tenderness.

Gallery

of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

versity of Virginia, 1823

linck's

Khnopff.

Berlin, 1895

Circa i860. Victoria and Albert Museum, London

56

Jefferson. Wall.

1.

Height 5V2". Collection John Northwood

wood, i860. Height 46V8". Victoria and Albert Mu41

Fernand

No.

The Ashmolean Mu-

seum, Oxford, England

66

vens and Williams, Brierley Hill near Stourbridge.

color,

40

in a

of Dante Gabriel Rossetti). Mrs. William Morris.

O God! Thy Bride Seeketh Thee.

Copperplate engraving, 1828. The British Museum,

The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by

i8Vs".

courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

Zealand

Thornton's translation of Virgil's

1

52

for the Arts of Decora-

house in Melbury Road, London. Circa 1875-80

Pen-and-ink and wash (inscribed to John Flaxman),

circa 1820. 7V8

The Cooper Union Museum

tion, New York

77

Germany

Japanese. Silk brocade. Eighteenth century. Vic-

toria

and Albert Museum, London

78

Chinese. Bowl. Carved agate, eighteenth century.

Width
Main
79

Museum

j'A".

of Handicrafts, Frankfurt

Made by William

Russian. Bowl. Carved agate, end of the nine-

Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,

Pottery,

Vase.

J.

"Clutha"

1892-96.

Swadlincote.

Noh

Made

glass, 1896.

94 Kate Greenaway. Design for a

1864

tile.

Watercolor,

Henry van de Velde. Glass skylight. 1901. Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum), Hagen, Germany

Alexandre de Riquer. Binding. For "Crisan-

Swinburne's Atalanta

leaf

on

linen.

The

96 Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Writing desk.

Oak, 1886. Height 39". The William Morris Gallery,
Walthamstow, England

For Algernon

Calydon,

in

1865.

Grammar

83 Ogata Korin. Screen. Painted and gold-leafed

paper, circa 1700. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New

Owen

97

Museum, London

British

Horse Chestnut Leaves. From The

Ornament, London, 1856.

Jones.

of

Charles Annesley Voysey. "Tokyo" wallpaper.

98

1893. Printed

York. Fletcher Fund, 1926

Aubrey Beardsley. Binding. For Ernest Dowson's

Verses, London, 1896. Parchment. 8 x 5 7 /s". Victoria
and Albert Museum, London
84

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Decorative

Printed cotton fabric,

Woven

1883.

by hand

at Essex

and Co. Victoria and

(not reproduced) 9 x 9".

no

tury Guild by Simpson and Godlee, Manchester

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

86

Joseph

Height i2

Angell.
/s".

Pitcher.

Silver

gilt,

1825.

in Dante

Museum, London

for the

Flowers.

87

Thoughts. Watercolor with printed text, 1796. 20 7 /s

& Co.,

scriptive Catalogue of the

in

the Official

Orna-

104

Damask. Silk,
and Albert Museum, London
Jones.

Christopher

Dresser.

Made by William
Height

8 1 /!".

Ault's

Collection Miss

Ceramic,

Pottery,

J.

S.

Swadlincote.

called

Ault

Miss

J.

"Rossetti

Manuscript"), begun by William

Blake's brother, Robert. Watercolor, 1787.

ish

106

Height of mirror 23V8". Collection

Drew and

British

Museum, London

Heywood Sumner.

Binding. For Friedrich de

Motte-Fouqu's Undine, London,

1888.

Blind-

stamped on imitation leather

William Blake.

Cradle Song. From Songs of

Innocence, London, 1789. Hand-colored copperplate

engraving. 4V4 x 3V8". The British Museum, London

Frederick

edition,

Surrey, England

ish

The

Brit-

Museum, London

Gilchrist's Life

H. Drew, Aldbury Heath,

Heywood Sumner.

Shields.

text

by Henry

and Works

Museum, London

For

Alexander

of William Blake, second

London, 1880. Gold

leaf

on

S.

Leigh, London, 1882.

William Blake. Christ Ministered

116

From
T.

Gold

leaf

on

linen.

The

Brit-

to

by Angels.

the series of illustrations to Milton's Paradise

Watercolor,

1807

or

1808.

6V4 x

s'/s".

H. Riches Collection, London

Jan Toorop. Sketch for "The Three Brides."

117

Black crayon, 1892. 24V4 x 29V8". Gemcentemuseum,

The Hague
118 and 119
signs.

and

Paul Gauguin. Vase with Breton de-

Ceramic, circa 1888. Height irVa". Muses

Royaux d'Art

et d'Histoire, Brussels

Paul Gauguin. Honni

120
Binding.

Binding. For Cinderella, a

Fairy Opera in four acts, music by John Farmer,

Regained.

Christopher Dresser. Design for a stained-glass

Robert Blake. The King and the Queen of the

Fairies. From William Blake's Note-Book (the so-

Walnut, inlaid with ebony and sycamore, circa 1855.

Top of dressing table: inlaid marble. Height of dresMiss

The

linen

105

1879.

William Butterfield. Dressing table and mirror.

sing table 37 3 /s".

Victoria and Al-

window. From Christopher Dresser's Principles of

Decorative Design, London, 1873

circa 1870. Victoria

Pitclier.

Woolams and Co.

Museum, London
for

1870

don i8;i

91

of

Christopher Dresser's Principles in Design, London,

in the Official

Descriptive Catalogue of the Great Exhibition Lon-

90

Grammar

Christopher Dresser. Force and Energy. From

103

English. Carpet design. Circa 1850. Executed by

Owen

Made

1886.
bert

H. Brinton, Kidderminster. Published

Ai".

113
la

1 1

i8}i

89

Jones' The

Charles Annesley Voysey. "Cereus" wallpaper.

102

DeGreat Exhibition London

Crag. Published

s
1

ment, London, 1856

English. Carpet design. Circa 1850. Executed by

Bright

88

From Owen

Sir Galahad, Sir

William Blake. The Chorus of the Skies. From

Edward Young's Night

112

Arthur Heygate

Christopher Dresser. Plans and Elevations of

How

But Sir Percival's Sister Died by the Way. Water-

the series of illustrations to

101

Arts of Decoration,

Gabriel Rossetti.

Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sancgreal;

114

1854-55.

The Cooper Union Museum

New York

From the series of illustraBook of Job. Copperplate engraving,

8'A x 6V4". The British Museum, London

tions to The

99 William Morris. "Pimpernel" wallpaper. 1876.

Printed by Jeffery & Co., London. Victoria and Al-

Mackmurdo. Screen. Satin,

embroidered in silk and gold threads, 1884. 47V2
x 42V8". The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow,
England

(?).

William Blake. Then the Lord answered Job

out of the Whirlwind.

Albert Museum, London

100

Cen-

The Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford, England

color, 1864

bert

fabric.

for the

in a series

1875. Diameter 8V4". Size of entire sheet

Pencil,

x
85

Edward Burne- Jones. Orpheus. One

109

95

temes," Barcelona, 1899. Tooled leather. 7V8 x 4 3 /s".

Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg, Germany

Gold

William Blake. The Dream of Jacob. Water14V8X 11V8"

of works on the subject of Orpheus and Eurydice.

and Albert Museum, London

Charles

Oil

color, 1808.

Germany

Rossetti. Binding.

Stairs.

the Tate Gallery

108

by James Cooper and Sons, Glasgow

play. Eighteenth century. Victoria

Dante Gabriel

Edward Burne-Joncs. The Golden

107

on canvas, 1880. 109X46V8". The Tate Gallery,

London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of

Ault

Japanese. Silk brocade for the costume of an

actor in a

82

George Walton.

93

Width 7V4". Collection His Royal

Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein.

81

Ceramic,

Vase.

Ault's

Height 8V2". Collection Miss C.

teenth century.

80

Christopher Dresser.

92

am

soit qui

mal y pense (Leda

the Swan). Design for a plate used as a jacket

for the series, Dessins Lithographiques. Lithograph,

1889.

Art,

11V4 x 10V4". The Metropolitan

New

Museum

of

York. Rogers Fund, 1922

312

Emile Bernard. Breton Women. Colored wood-

i2i

cut. 4'As

x 15V8". Kunsthalle, Bremen,

Paul Gauguin. Portrait-vase of

122

Ceramic,

ecke>

Emery Reves,

1888-89. Height

Germany

Mme.

SchuffenCollection

9V2".

Victor Horta. Dining room of the Horta re-

139

Henry van de

Haymaking. Oil on can29V2 x }7 3 /s". Estate of Henry van

vas, circa 1893.

d'un faune." Design for the ballet produced by Sergei

140

Velde.

Velde.

Bloemenwerf

126

Maurice Denis.

Amour: Douze

For Maurice Denis'

Title page.

lithographies

en

couleurs,

Henry van de
Wooden chairs with

seats of

woven

room

furniture.

straw. Table of

Museum

Muse Rodin, Paris

Painted

wood

bas-relief,

40V2

x 28V8". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Door handle

the L.

in the

Solvay residence (presently

Wittamer-De Camps

residence).

Bronze

gilt,

142

Henry van de

Velde.

Woman's

dress.

Circa

the L.

Solvay residence (presently

Wittamer-De Camps

residence).

Bronze

gilt,

Georges Minne. Fountain with five kneeling

boys. Marble,

145

1892-93. Brussels

132

Jurriaan

J.

Kok

(designer of piece) and

J.

W.

The Hague

dence.

Mahogany upholstered

Height

34".

Collection

L.

From

the Solvay resi-

in velvet,

895-1900.

Wittamer-De

Camps,

Brussels

Agatha Wegrif-Gravesteyn. Wall hanging. Ba-

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

133

Victor Horta. Detail of a door in the Solvay

sidence).

134

Wood, 1895-1900.

Wittamer-De Camps

re-

resi-

dence). Parquet, 1895- 1900. Brussels

Victor Horta. Detail of the balcony of the

Horta residence. Cast

136

iron, 1898- 1900. Brussels

Victor Horta. Auditorium of the Maison du

Victor

Horta.

1896-99. Brussels

313

frame,

12V8X23V4" (without
Museum, Otterlo, The Ne-

1893.

therlands
148

Camille

Maison

du

Gauthier.

878".

Peuple,

faade.

Vase.

Glass,

circa

1900.

Muse des Beaux- Arts, Nancy, France

Ren Lalique. Ornamental comb. Horn,

158

circa

1900. Austrian

Museum

gold,

for

Ap-

Vienna

Emile Galle. Vase. Multicolored, carved, and

159

etched glass, circa 1895- 1900. Muse des Beaux-Arts,

Nancy, France
Hector Guimard. Staircase

160
1.

i6t

in the artist's house.

Paris
chair. Pearwood,
Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

Hector Guimard. Upholstered

l
1904. Height 43 /i".

162 Hector Guimard. Upholstered chair. Cherrywood^), upholstered in leather, 1908. Height 44V1".
The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, New York
163

Hector Guimard. Auditorium

in the

Humbert

de Romans Building. 1902. Paris

Jan Toorop. Preliminary study for 'The Three

1891 or

1892.

164

Hector Guimard. Detail of a Paris Mtro

tion.

Painted cast iron, circa 1900

165

Hector Guimard. Metal picture frame (with an

sta-

7V2 x 10V4". Krller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The

Netherlands
149 Christophe Karel de Nere tot Babberich.
Benediction. Embroidery on silk, executed by the
artist's

mother,

Mevrouw

C. de Nere tot Babberich-

van Houton, before 1909. 2iVsx

museum, The Hague
150

ii 3 /s".

Gemeente-

Johan Thorn Prikker. De Bruid. Oil on canvas,

57'/2X33 7 /8". Krller-Muller Museum,

Bronze
of

The Netherlands

Hendrik Pctrus Berlage. Great Hall of the

Amsterdam Stock Exchange. 1898-1903. Amsterdam
1 5

gilt,

Modern

Japanese

color

print).

before 1900. Height 8V4". The

Museum

Art,

New

York. Gift of Mme. Guimard

166 Hector Guimard. Desk. From the artist's house.

Ashwood, circa 1903. Height 28V4", width 101".
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of
Mme. Hector Guimard

1892-93.
Otterlo,

Peuple. 1896-99. Brussels

137

wood

frame). Krller-Muller

Brussels

Wittamer-De Camps

Made by
Mu-

Bally

157

early-nineteenth-century

Victor Horta. Inlaid floor in the Solvay re-

sidence (presently the L.

135

Jan Toorop. Song of the Times. Black chalk and

on brown paper in a painted and

pencil over colors

Brides." Colored crayons and pen,

residence (presently the L.

am Main.

Hector Guimard. Detail of a Paris Mtro staPainted cast iron and colored glass, circa 1900

191

tik-dyed chiffon velvet, circa 1900. 78V8 x }j 3 /s".

carved

Victor Horta. Armchair.

boot. Kidskin, 1902.

tion.

plied Arts,

van Rossem (decorator). Vase. So-called "eggshell"

porcelain, circa 1900. Height 12V4". Made by Manufaktur Rozenburg, The Hague. Gemeentemuseum,

147
Victor Horta. Staircase in the Tassel residence.

and

enamel,

898-1906. Height (of figures) 30V4".

1895-1900. Brussels
131

Gold,

seum of Shoes, Schnenwerd, Switzerland

156

143

146
in the

circa

glass,

Rotzler, Zur-

1896

1895-1900. Height 7V8". Brussels

Door handle

Brooch.

Otto Herz und Co., Frankfurt

Minne, Ghent
1890.

W.

Height 4V8", width 2V4". Austrian

Woman's

French.

155

residence, Uccle, near Brussels

Paul Gauguin. Soyez amoureuses, vous serez

heureuses.

Multicolored

for Applied Arts, Vienna

and enamel,

am Main

Strasser-

brass inlays. Height of chairs 37", 1895.

144 Georges Minne. Le petit porteur de reliques.

Bronze, 1897. Height 26 3 /s", 1897. Collection Baron

Frankfurt

Vase.

Lalique.

Auguste Rodin. Dandide. Marble, 1885. Height

128

130

Ren

54

pearls, circa 1900.

Height

12V4", length 28 3 /".

129

wood with

Velde. Dining

The State Art

Institute,

C.

Switzerland

Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus

Museum), Hagen, Germany

1898. Colored lithograph. 22 x 16V2".

127

Paris,

A.

residence.
ich,

Bloemenwerf

125 Odilon Redon. The Death of Orpheus. Oil on

wood, 1898. nVs x 29 s /". The Fogg Art Museum,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Collection

1895-96. Uccle, near Brussels

141

York

29' li".

Emile Galle.

153

Henry van de

Height

1900.

Berlage, Berne, Switzerland

1895. Height 7'/s". Collection Dr.

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Watercolor, 191

Gustave Moreau. Dusk. Watercolor and gouache.

1 24
14V8 x 8 s /s". Formerly in a private collection, New

Hendrik Petrus Berlage. Desk. Mahogany with

152

brass hardware, desk top covered with felt, circa

898- 1 900. Brussels

de Velde, Brussels

Paris

Lon Bakst. Stage-setting for "L'Aprs-midi

123

138

sidence.

167

Pierre

Bonnard. Screen.

Four colored

litho-

graph panels, 1899. Each panel 53V8X18V8". The

Museum

of

Rockefeller,

Modern Art, New York. Mrs. John D.

Jr. Fund

Raoul

68

Larche.

Dancer

Veil

(Loie

Fuller).

181

Charles Robert Ashbee. Pendant. Silver, gold,

Height 5V8". Made

Bronze, wired for a table lamp, circa 1900. Height

and mother-of-pearl,

2i 5/s". In the background: detail of Alfons Mucha's

by the Guild of Handicraft. Collection Miss Jean

Stewart, Letchworth, England

La Dame aux Camlias

poster,

Sarah Bernhardt.

Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

169

circa 1900.

Aubrey Beardsley. Caprice. Oil on canvas,

The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate
182

Pierre Roche. Loie Fuller. Bronze, before 1900.

Height 21V8". Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

31V.". Victoria

and Albert Museum, London

Aristide Maillol. The Laundress. Bronze, circa

7
1893. Height 7 /s". Collection Helmut Goedeckemeyer, Frankfurt am Main

Andiron

(detail).

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Loie Fuller

(1).

Color lithograph, 1893. 14V8 x ioVs". The Ludwig

and Erik Charell Collection,

with medallions of chased copper and colored

iron,

glass,
1896. Medallion 7V8 x 8 /s". Made by J.
Rowntree and Sons, Scarborough. Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Aubrey Beardsley. Binding. For Oscar Wilde's

Salome, London and Boston, 1894. Gold leaf on

Edward

Steichen.

New York
Victor Hugo, and

Rodin,

'The Thinker." Photograph, 1902. 10V4 x n'A". The

Art Institute of Chicago. Alfred

Steiglitz Collection

174 Maurice Denis. Nos mes, en des gestes lentes.

From Maurice Denis' Amour. Douze lithographies
en couleurs, Paris, 1898. Color lithograph. 16V2X22".

The Metropolitan Museum of

New

Art,

York. The

Dick Fund, 1941

175

Auguste

faade). 1903.

Perret.

Apartment

Rue Franklin,

house

(street

Paris

J.

Powell

(?).

with applied drops of green

glass

Mirror

186

Desborough

from

b.c. The British

(detail).

Museum, London

Beggarstaff Brothers (William Nicholson and

James Pryde). Don Quixote. Poster for a dramatization of Don Quixote at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Papier coll, 1895. 76 x 77V8". Victoria and

glass, circa 1899.

Height

Sons, Whitefriars

Albert Museum, London

177

Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson.

187

green glass, and semiprecious stones, circa

of Handicraft.

Museum

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey.

Woven

deco-

and wool, 1899. Made by Alexander Morton and Co. Victoria and Albert Museum,

London

1900.

of

English. Sugar

howl and creamer.

Made by W. Hutton and

Modern

Art,

Sons.

Silver, circa

The Museum

New York

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey. Printed deco-

and wool, 1899. Made by Alexander Morton and Co. Victoria and Albert Museum,

179

190

191

Silver,

decorated

1900.

11V4 x 6 x 3V4".

Made

by

Liberty

London. The Museum of Modern Art,

New

& Co.,
York.

Gift of the family of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller,

180

Aubrey Beardsley. Poster for

(detail).

Color lithograph, circa 189$. Dimensions

29V8 x nV". Victoria and Albert Museum, London

1901. Buntes

200

August Endell. Faade of the Elvira Photo-

Munich
201

Otto Eckmann. Fighting Swans. Colored wood1900. 6 3 /sx i} 1 /".

Museum

of Arts and

Hamburg

Otto Eckmann. Sketch for a decorative design.

From Otto Eckmann's Neue Formen,

Henry van de

204

room (wall paint1902-03. House of Count

Velde. Dining

ing by Maurice Denis).

Harry

Berlin, 1897

Weimar, Germany

Kessler,

Ivar Arosenius. Endpapers. For Ivar Arosenius'

together

Frg, Gteborg, 1909. Both pages

nVixai*.

Collection Mr. and Mrs. Eric

de Mare, London
Peter Behrens. The Brook. Colored woodcut,

before 1901. 14V8 x 18V2". Former Art Library of

Alfred
in

Gilbert.

The

Piccadilly

Shaftesbury

Circus

(detail).

Memorial

the Berlin State Museums, Berlin-Charlottenburg

1887-93.

206

Victor Horta. Maison du Peuple, detail of the

Hodler.

Ferdinand

Oil

Spring.

1901. Folkwang Museum (now the

hau<: Museum), Hagen, Germany

on

canvas,

Karl-Ernst-Ost-

faade. 1896-99. Brussels

William Reynolds-Stephens. The choir screen

of St.

Mary

the Virgin (detail). 1904. Great Warley,

Essex, England

William Reynolds-Stephens. Detail of the interior of St. Mary the Virgin. Pulpit and lectern
193

covered with sheets of metal. Screen leading into

side chapel: walnut.

Relief

over

Parapet of choir screen; marble.

pulpit:

hammered aluminum.

Great Warley, Essex, England

Henry van de

Silver, circa

Weimar;
ner,

Jr.

book publisher

screen.

graphic Studio. Colored stucco, 1897-98 (destroyed).

207

Charles Knox. Jewel box.

August Endell. Radiator

Munich

205

London

192

with mother-of-pearl, enamel, and turquoise, circa

Germany

Tjugonio Bilder

London
178

for Applied

199 August Endell. Frieze on the Elvira Photographic Studio. Colored stucco, 1897-98 (destroyed).

203

Fountain

of Applied Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

198

Brussels

1900. Height of mustard pot 4 /s"; length of spoon

Made by The Guild

Monument.

for

Museum

Binding.

3V8".

Design

Theater, Berlin

202

189

Charles Robert Ashbee. Mustard pot and spoon.

stadt,

For Thomas More's Utopia, London, 1893. Gold leaf

and leather. Muses Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,

rative fabric. Silk

Silver,

Obrist.

1902. Height 35 7 /e".

197 Peter Behrens. Door in the artist's house. Wood,

with wrought metal, 1901. Mathildenhhe, Darm-

Crafts,

Glassworks, London. Collection Whitefriars Glass-

works, London

Hermann

cut, circa

rative fabric. Silk

Made by James Powell and

8V4".

Blown

Wineglass.

Celtic.

Bronze, 2nd century

188

Harry

176

8V2 x 7". Private collection, Leipzig

linen,

185
173

196

Wrought

184

172

46V8 x 72V4". Munchner Stadtmuseum, Munich

Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

George Walton.

183

171

195 Hermann Obrist. "Cyclamen" wall hanging I

"The Whiplash." Silk embroidery on wool, 1895.

Plaster,

170

24% x

Charles Robert Ashbee. j8 Cheyne Walk. 1903.

1894. ii 3 /*x 9~/s".

Gallery

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Troupe de Mlle.

Eglantine.
Colored
lithograph
poster,
1896.

194

London

later

and spoon.
made by Thcodor Miillcr,

Velde. Knife, fork,

1912. First

by the tableware firm of Franz Ban-

Diisseldorf.

Collection

Dr.

Eich,

Dusscldorf,

Germany
Henry van de Velde. Music Room. 1902. Folkwang Museum (now the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum), Hagen, Germany
208

1904.

209

Richard

Riemersdimid.

Chair.

Oak,

with

314

leather seat, 1899. Height 30V4".

crafts,

Frankfurt

of Handi-

with leather

Modern

Height 31V2". The Museum

seat, 1899.

New York

Art,

Antoni Gaudi. Chaise longue. Designed for the

227

Palau Guell. Wrought iron, upholstered

Richard Riemerschmid. Armchair. Mahogany,

210
of

Museum

am Main

in calfskin,

244 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Main entrance of

the Glasgow School of Art. 1897-99. Glasgow

1885-89
Charles

245

Antoni Gaudi. Model for the nave of the

Church of the Sagrada Familia. Circa 1925. Barcelona
228

Gallcn-Kallela.

upholstered

Armchair.

handwoven

in

wool

Birchwood,

material,

circa

Height 30". Museum of Arts and Crafts,

1900.

Hamburg
wood,

before

Height

1900.

Museum

33V2".

of

Applied Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

Henry van de

213

laine's

Velde. Binding. For Paul Ver-

191 o. Executed by Eisa

Vers, Leipzig,

von

van Deventer, De Steeg, The Netherlands

214 Henry van de Velde. Entrance to the Werkbundtheater (destroyed). 1914. Cologne, Germany

Hermann

215

Obrist. Fountain. For the

Krupp von

Bohlen residence. 191 3. Essen, Germany

1905-07. Barcelona

Antoni Gaudi. East faade of the Church of

Sagrada Familia (seen from the inside).

the
1

883-1926. Barcelona.

218

Mil. 1905-10. Barcelona

220 Antoni Gaudi.

Domed

ceiling

of

music

the

Domench y Montaner. Chandelier

auditorium of the Palau de

1906-08. Barcelona
Lluis

223

la

in the

Musica Catalana.

Domench y Montaner. Palau de

la

Mu-

Antoni Gaudi. Detail of a built-in bookcase.

From the Casa Cal vet. Circa 1901. Barcelona
Antoni Gaudi. Chandelier. Wrought iron and

226

315

1900

Antoni

Wrought

Academy

to the

of Fine Arts. 1872-76. Phil-

Antoni Gaudi. Door in the Palau Guell. Wood,

with embossed metal plates and wrought iron,
232

Gaudi.

Banister

iron, 1905-10.

in

Barcelona

the

Casa

the

From

the bedroom of the Mackintosh residence.

White lacquer on wood, 1900. Glasgow

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Fireplace.

247

From

the studio of the Mackintosh residence. 1900. Glas-

gow
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Willow Tea-

248

Rooms

Balustrade of wrought iron and glass; frieze

Glasgow

of stucco, 1904.

adelphia, Pennsylvania

249 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Decorative wall

hanging (detail). Stenciled linen, 1902. I3'x24".
Collection of the University of Glasgow

1885-89. Barcelona

233 Frank Furness. Provident Life & Trust

pany. 1879. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Com-

250

Celtic.

Wandsworth's Shield. Bronze, third or

second century

b.c.

Width

15".

The

British

Museum,

London
Louis

Sullivan.

Staircase.

The

Auditorium
Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh and Frances

251

Building, 1887-89. Chicago

Macdonald.
Antoni Gaudi. Ornamental detail in a bedroom
of the Palau Giiell. Wrought iron, 1885-89. Bar-

235

Candle-holder.

Copper, circa

1897.

Height 29 7 /s". Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery,

Glasgow

celona

236 Louis Sullivan. Sketch for a decorative design.

237 Louis Sullivan. Detail of the faade of the

Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store.

238

Louis Sullivan. Latticework on the faade of

the

Carson Pirie Scott

Wood,

Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh. Motherhood.

252

Painted stucco on wood, 1902. 43V4 x 42V2"

253 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Chair. White lacquer on wood, upholstered in stenciled linen, 1900.

Height 59". The University of Glasgow

899- 1 904. Chicago

&

Co.

Department

Store.

899-1904. Chicago

254 Ford Madox Brown. Take Your Son, Sir. Oil

on canvas, 1856-57. 27V4X15". The Tate Gallery,
London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of

239 Louis Sullivan. Detail of the window frames

of the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Department Store.

255

Ceramic, 1899-1904. Chicago

House. 1902-03. Helensburgh, near Glasgow, Scot-

Mil.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Hallway in Hill

land

240 Louis Comfort Tiffany.

circa 1900.

241

Vase.

Favrile

glass,

The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts

New York
Museum

of Art,

New

York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Chair. 1900. Height

256
59".

Louis Comfort Tiffany. Bowl. Favrile glass,

before 1896. The Metropolitan

224

glass, circa

Stamos,

Frank Furness. Detail of the entrance

Pennsylvania

of Decoration,

Catalana. 1906-08. Barcelona

225

Collection Theodoros

Library of

Glasgow

the Tate Gallery

Antoni Gaudi. Drawing room of the Palau

Guell. 1885-89. Barcelona
221

sica

1900.

Palau Guell. 1885-89. Barcelona

in the

Lluis

before

glass,

Antoni Gaudi. Main entrance of the Casa Md.

Wrought iron and glass, 1905-10. Barcelona
219

222

New York

Pencil, 1884

Antoni Gaudi. Detail of the faade of the Casa

room

1894-95. Buf-

tiles,

New York

234

Antoni Gaud. Detail of the roof of the Casa

Batll. Glazed tiles, pottery and marble fragments,
216

217

Guaranty Building. Ceramic

falo,

231

Guaita. Gold leaf on leather. 9V2 x 6V4". Collection

S.

the

230 Louis Comfort Tiffany. Floor lamp. Metal and

Richard Riemerschmid. Armchair. Red-painted

212

Louis Sullivan. Detail of the main entrance of

229

Art. 1897-99.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mirror and closet.

246
Akseli

211

Rennie Mackintosh.

Glasgow School of

The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow

257

]ose{Hof{ma.nn. Palais Stoclet. 1905- 11. Brussels

258

Joseph Olbrich.

zeitsturm.

Comfort Tiffany. Vase. Favrile glass,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York. Gift of H. O. Havemeyer
242

Louis

243

Louis Sullivan. Main hall in the Auditorium

Exhibition

Hall and Hoch-

Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt, Ger-

many

before 1896.

Building. 1887-89. Chicago

1907.

259

Josef

Hoffmann.

Vase. Silver

and

glass,

before

1906. Height yVtT. Made by the Dresdener Werkstatten. Collection of the

Landesgewcrbeamt Baden-

Wurttemberg, Stuttgart, Germany

260

Adolf Loos. Street faade of the Tristan Tzara

261

Josef

Hoffmann.

H.

Staircase of the B.

Koloman Moser. Decorative

fabric.

Printed

circa

cotton,

Godlee, Manchester

(?).

The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, England

Silk

Made by Backhausen und Sonne,

Museum for Applied Art, Vienna

wool, 1899.
Austrian

decorative fabric.

Made by Simpson and

1884.
Villa.

Circa 1904

262

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. 'Thorns and But-

278

terflies,"

residence. 1926. Paris

and

Vienna.

English. Plate. Glass over mercury

279

Made by

1900. Diameter 9 ? /s".

circa

(?) silvering,

Stevens and

Williams, Brierly Hill near Stourbridge, England.

Collection John Northcote II

263

Adolf Loos. Garden faade of the Tristan Tzara

280

residence. 1926. Paris

264

Adolf Loos. Kdrntner Bar. 1907. Vienna.

The Palace of Minos,

Knossos, Crete

Paradise Lost. Watercolor, 1807. 10V4 x 8V".

Vienna

E.

266

Emile Galle. Bowl. Cut and engraved crystal,

1899. Length

nVs". Muse de

l'cole de

Nancy,

267 Antoni Gaudi. Detail of the faade of the

Church of the Sagrada Familia. Circa 1900. Barcelona

(detail).

Antoni Gaudi. Rain pipe. Church of the Sa-

the series of illustrations for Milton's

California

282

Philipp Otto Runge, The Small "Morn". Oil on

Sea anemone

271

Hector Guimard.

Hamburg,

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Le songe d'Os-

on canvas,

jW x

circa 1812. 11'

Napobedroom in the Palazzo Quirinale, Rome. MuIngres, Montauban, France

io8Vs". Originally painted for the ceiling of

284

of Arts

Dante Gabriel

Rossetti. Binding.

briel Rossetti's Ballads

and Sonnets,

For Dante Ga1881.

Gold

leaf

James McNeill Whistler. Symphony in White,

No. IV: The Three Girls. Oil on canvas, 1876
293

294 Japanese. Built-in furniture. First half of the

seventeenth century. Tea-room in the Detached Palace,

Katsura, Japan

295

Edward William Godwin

and

(mantlepiece, small

and James McNeill Whistler (color

scheme and decoration). Stand at the Paris World's
chair)

Fair. 1878

English

(?).

Upright piano. 1830

(?).

Height

Stuttgart,

Made by

A. G. Fourdinois. Victoria and

Albert Museum, London

297 Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Chair. 1881. From

The Studio Vol. XVI, London, 1899
298

Richard

Norman Shaw. Old Swan

House. 1876.

London
299

Germany

French. Sideboard in Baroque style. Walnut,

circa 1850.

Charles Annesley Voysey. Broadleys residence,

Lake Windemere. 1898. Westmorland, England

285

Carved pearwood,

292

296
283

beamt Baden-Wurttemberg,
270

Museum

Germany

42 Vs", width 53V8". Collection of the Landesgewer-

London

Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. Bowl.

and Crafts, Hamburg

table,

Memo-

Fountain (known as the Eros Fountain). 1887-93.

Piccadilly Circus,

Henry

leon's

Alfred Gilbert. Detail of the Shaftesbury

291 Royal

Porcelain, 1888. Diameter ij 3 /*".

Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino,

se

rial

From

sian (detail). Oil

grada Familia. 1887-91. Barcelona

269

William Blake. Raphael warns

canvas, 1808. 4i 3 /4 x 31V8". Kunsthalle,

Nancy, France

268

281

Henry Thompson."

-79

Adam and Eve

Gustav Klimt. Portrait of Frau Adele BlochBauer. Oil on canvas, 1907. 55V8 x 55 7 /s". Osterreichische Galerie des XIX und XX Jahrhunderts,
265

Sir

on morocco

Minoan. So-called "Throne of Minos," and

fresco. Circa 1700- 1400 b. c.

Forming the Collection of

London, 1878

small

table.

Height

29W.

Muse

Detail

circa 1900.

of

North American. Lining of a tintype

vet, circa

case. Vel-

1850

des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

286 Edward Burne- Jones. Painted wardrobe. 1858.

Height jiVs". Subject matter taken from Chaucer's

Odilon Redon. Illustration for "La Tentation

de Saint- Antoine." Lithograph, 1888. 8Vs x j 1 /i".

Prioress' Tale;

272

Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland

273 Antoni Gaudi. Pendant in the cloister of the
Church of the Sagrada Familia. 1887-91. Barcelona

300 John Everett Millais. Design for a Gothic window. Watercolor, 1853. From John Guille Millais'
The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, Vol.
I,

wardrobe designed by Philip Webb

London, 1899

(?).

William Blake. Angels Hovering over the Body

Victoria and Albert

301

loan from the

of Christ. Watercolor, 1808. i6Vs x

Museum, London. Permanent

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

1V4". Collection

Sidney Morse
287

John Everett

Millais. Preliminary

drawing for
Gustave

The Eiffel Tower. 1889. Paris

"Christ in the House of His Parents." Pencil, 1850.

302

274 Hector Guimard. Detail of a Mtro station.

Painted cast iron and glass, circa 1900. Paris

7V2X12". The Tate Gallery, London. Reproduced

303 Jules Chret. Folies-Bergre, Les Girard. Color

lithographed poster, 1877. 22'/* x 16 /*". Biblio-

Ren Lalique. Brooch. Gold and enamel, circa

1900. Height 3 7 /g", width i'/e". Muse des Arts Dco-

288

275

ratifs, Paris

Edvard Munch. Madonna. Color lithograph,

276
1895.

Oslo,

277

and

24 x i6'/". Oslo

Komunes Kunstsamlinger,

Norway
Ren Lalique. Pendant. Gold, enamel,

pearls, circa 1900.

Height

2 3 /s".

brilliants,

Collection His

Royal Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und

Rhein, Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,

bei

Germany

by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery

Eiffel.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Girlhood of Mary

Virgin. Oil on canvas, 1849. 32V8X25". The Tate
Gallery, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the

thque Nationale, Paris

304 Vincent van Gogh. Ravine. Oil on canvas, 1889.

27 s/s" x 35V8". Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The

Trustees of the Tate Gallery

Netherlands

James McNeill Whistler. The Falling Rocket:

Nocturne in Black and Gold. Oil on wood, circa

dence (presently the L. Wittamer-De

289

1874. 23V8 x 18V*".

The Detroit

Institute of Arts,

290

James McNeill Whistler.

of Blue-and-White

Victor Horta. Wall lamp in the Solvay

resi-

Camps

resi-

dence). 1895-1900. Brussels. (Wallpaper by Charles

Annesley Voysey, circa 1885)

Detroit, Michigan

Catalogue

305

Illustration for

Nankin

'A

Porcelain

306

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy. Interior display for an

Between 1894 and 1898

exhibition.

316

307

Georges Minne. Drawing. From Van Ntt en

Straks, 1890. Pencil

308

Theodorus A. C. Colenbrander. Bowl. Ceramic,

Height

1886.

seum, The

3'/*",

diameter y 1!". Gemeentemu-

Hague

Room.
309
for
Amsterdam.
Created
Dr.
Hoorn,
Wall
1890-92.
decoration in batik-dyed linen. Gemeentemuseum,
The Hague
Willem

Gerrit

310
n.

Jan Toorop. Under the Willows. Oil on canvas,

24V4 x 29 7 /s". Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

d.

311

Dijsselhof

Dijsselhof.

Home. "The Angel with the Trumpet,"

Made by Simp-

Herbert

decorative fabric. Velvet, circa 1884.

son and Godlce, Manchester. The William Morris

Gallery, Walthamstow, England

watercolor, 1916. 26V8 x ifU". The Tate Gallery,

London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of

Book

the Tate Gallery

6V4"

322 Hans von Mares. The Abduction of Ganymede. Oil on canvas, 1887. 38V8 x 30V4". Bavarian

338

State Collection of Pictures,

Jan Toorop. Lijnenspel (The Old and the New

Art). Black and colored crayon in a painted and decorated frame, 1893. i6 1 /xiS 1 /" (without frame),

24V8 x 26V4" (with frame). Gemeentemuseum, The

339

Emile Galle. Pitcher, with a design representing

Thetis.

Carved

Museum

glass,

before 1890

of Arts and Crafts,

(?).

Height

8 5/s".

Hamburg

Emile Galle. Top of a small

colored woods, circa

table. Inlay of vari-

1900. Collection His Royal

Highness Prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein,

Schloss Wolfsgarten near Langen,

316
vres,

317

Germany

Auguste Perret. Garage rue Ponthieu.

1905.

318

Charles Annesley Voysey. Living room in the

artist's

home, "The Orchard." 1900. Chorley Wood,

Buckinghamshire, England

319

lacquer on wood, before 1897.

From The Studio

Vol.

XI, London, 1897

320

Charles Harrison Townsend. Whitechapel Art

Gallery. 1897.
321

London

Max Beerbohm.

Monument

325

Hermann

326

Ernst Barlach. Portrait of Justus Brinckmann.

Obrist.

to the Pillar.

1898

Memorial plaque honoring Brinckmann's twenty-

Hamburg Museum of
Arts and Crafts. Bronze, 1902. 6Vs x 9V2". Museum
of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg

Rossetti

is

heard for the

first

Peter Behrens. Library in the Behrens home.

327

1901. Mathildenhhe, Darmstadt,

Germany

Wilde.

From

the series of illustrations to

Mr. Oscar

Max

Beer-

bohm's Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle, published

317

Peter Behrens. Butterflies on Water

328

ored woodcut, between 1896 and 1897. 19V8 x 25V4".

Stdelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

Henry van de
boxwood handles,

by William Heinemann,

Leipzig

343

Ltd., 1922. Pencil

and

Joseph Olbrich. The Playhouse for the Princesses.

1902. Schloss Wolfgarten near Langen,

344

Ludwig von Hofmann.

No. 3

Vignette.

Germany
From Pan

III,

Berlin, 1897,

Emile Galle. Vase, with a design of aquatic

1900. Height 15V4". Muse de

plants. Glass, circa

l'cole de

Nancy, Nancy, France

am Main

Velde. Tea service. Silver, with

329

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Library wing of

Glasgow School of Art. 1907-09. Glasgow

342 Oskar Kokoschka. Illustration for "Die traumenden Knaben." Vienna, 1908. Private Collection,

345

Col-

Lilies.

1905-06. Executed by Theodor

Japanese.

Sword guard.

Iron,

nineteenth century. Diameter 2V2".

eighteenth

Museum

or

of Arts

and Crafts, Hamburg

Miiller.Karl-Ernst-OsthausMuseum.Hagen, Germany
347

330 Antoni Gaudi. Banister and garden railing.

Wrought iron, 1878-80. Casa Vincens, Barcelona
Batllo.

1905-07. Barcelona
table.

DeAmigos de

1885-89.

Gaudi, Barcelona

Raimondo D'Aronco.

333

Pavilion for the Interna-

tional Exhibition of Decorative Art, 1902, Turin

Louis Comfort Tiffany.

flat in the "Bella"

New

York

tistic

Houses,

Window

in the artist's

Apartments on East 26th

City. Circa 1880.

New

Street,

From Appleton's Ar-

York, 1883-84

335 Louis Comfort Tiffany. Fireplace in the artist's

house on 72nd Street and Madison Avenue, New

From H. W. Desmond's and H.

Homes in America, New York, 1903

City. 1883.

Croly's Stately

336 Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn

Root. Detail of the faade of the Monadnock Building.

337

Austrian. Decorative fabric. Printed poplin, be-

fore 1902. Collection of the Landesgewerbeamt Ba-

den-Wurttemberg, Stuttgart, Germany

Antoni Gaudi. Dressing

332

Diffraction pattern of the transversal section of

a tube

348

Antoni Gaudf. Rear faade of the Casa

time in the Western

States of America. Time: 1S82. Lecturer:

the

year as director of the

York
The name of Dante Gabriel

room

341

334

Charles Annesley Voysey. Covered chair. White

artist's

324 Adrien Dalpayrat. Flask. Stoneware, circa 1893.

Height 10V4". Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris

signed for the Patau Giiell. Collection

Paris

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The

340 Charles Rennie Mackintosh. North faade of

"Wmdyhill." 1899-1901. Kilmalcolm, Scotland

331

Hector Guimard. Castel Henriette. 1903. SeFrance

Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh. Crucifixion.

at Dennistoun. Circa 1890. Dennistoun, Scotland

346

314 Walter Crane. Illustrated page. For Echoes of

Hellas, 1888

the series of illustrations for The

1825. Copperplate engraving. 8V4 x

seum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg

Hague
313

From

of Job,

1894

Munich

323 Johann Julius Scharvogel. Vase. Porcelain covered with flowed glaze, circa 1900. Height 4 3 /s". Mu-

fifth

312

Together.

89 1. Chicago

William Blake.

When

the

Morning

Stars

Sang

INDEX OF NAMES

Numbers

on which

in italics indicate pages

illustra-

Umberto 194

dell' 47;

42

Dankmar 229
Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich 192, 259
Adler,

Botticelli,

Dante

Dante Alighieri

see

Allingham, William 64
Altenberg, Peter 246

Andr, Emile 167

Angell, Joseph 90

Aronco, Raimondo D' 224; 296

Sandro (Alessandro

Arp, Hans 209

Ashbee, Charles Robert 104, 126, 187,

Dalpayrat, Adrien 207; 20, 294

Dampt, Jean 262

Dante Alighieri 35,

47,

14,

262

Filipepi) 210

Bouillon, Godefroy de 277

Debussy, Claude 12,116,262

Bracquemond, Flix 73, 114

Bradley, William H. 10, 74,
Brangwyn, Frank 103
Bresdin, Rodolphe 123

Degas, Edgar 73, 168, 169

Degouve de Nuncques, William 261

153, 184, 229; 44, 229

Dehmel, Richard 204, 207

Delacroix, Eugne 116
Delaherche, Auguste 97
Denis, Maurice 11, 116, 124, 209, 211; 72 7, 76;

Brinckmann, Justus 204, 205

Brown, Ford Madox 240, 241; 2$i

Arosenius, Ivar 207; 799

Dali, Salvador 168

Darwin, Charles 185,272,273

Daubler, Theodor 208, 209

Borromini, Francesco 103, 224

Alastair 184

Mand 37

Daguerre, Louis Jacques

Bocklin,

Abbate, Niccolo

Alighieri,

Boccioni,

Arnold 204
Bode, Wilhelm von 204
Bodenhausen, Eberhard von 208, 272
Bonnard, Pierre 115, 124, 169, 170, 211; 160, 161

tions appear.

Burges, William 271; 59

Diaghilev, Sergei de 14, 224, 229, 276

Burne-Jones, Lady Georgiana 173

Dijsselhof, Gcrrit William

176, 182

Burne- Jones, Sir Edward

Domench y Montaner,

Avril, Jane 153

102, 109,

88, 244; 17),

no,

14, 63, 64, 76, 85, 87, 97,

112, 123, 126, 141, 152, 153, 173, 174,

183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 205, 239, 246, 276; 66, 69,

Bahr,

Hermann 246

Baillie Scott,

Mackie

70, 106, 107,

Hugh

100, 104, 188, 245

Burns, Robert 262

Barlach, Ernst 29s

Butterfield, William 102; 92

9,

IO4,

Baudelaire, Charles 12, 48, 73, 142, 154, 174, 183,

261

Baudot, Anatole de 61

Carlyle,

Bayros, Franz von 184

Edward

n,

63, 74, 76, 85, 86, 88,

112, 114, 126, 138, 147, 153, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174,
183, 184, 185, 186, 190, 204, 205, 229, 239, 241, 259,

261, 271, 272; 7, 13, 30, 73, 74, 7f, 84, 176, 177, 178,
183, 20}, 273
Sir

Max

Behmer, Marcus

190, 274; .294

29, 30, 184; 29

Beggarstaff Brothers see Nicholson, William

and

Pryde, James

'99. 295

49

54, 55

ii, 76, 88, 100, 101, 102, 103,

228, 273; 8l, 91, 92, 9S, 96,

$3

Bergson, Henri 185, 273

Berlage, Hendrik Petrus 88, 151; 146

Bernard, Emile 123, 124; 118, 119

Bierbaum, Otto Julius 204, 207

Czanne, Paul 8,123, I2 5>

Chassriau, Thodore 1 16

x<>8

Eastlake, Charles 88

Eckmann, Otto

Chret, Jules 10, 115, 168; 291

73, 184, 203, 204, 205, 210, 261, 262;

9, 797, 204, 20;, 207, 210, 212

Chippendale, Thomas 188

Eiffel,

Chopin, Frdric 173

Ciurlionis, Mykolas Konstantas 12

Gustave 114,135:297

Ellis,

Edwin John 114

Ellis,

Havelock 272

Cobden-Sanderson, Thomas James 779

Cole, Sir Henry (Felix Summerly) 56, 98, 100

Elskamp,

Colenbrander, Theodorus A. Chr.

Esprandieu, H.-J. 214

50; 292

Max

Endell, August

726, 13}

n,

170, 203, 204, 206; 796, 797

Evans, Sir Arthur 15

Conder, Charles 174

Faberg, Carl 97

Contamin 114
Cook, H. Fitz j6

Feure, Georges de 152

Cooper, Peter 59
Corot, Camille 123

Fiorentino, Rosso 47

Finch, A.

Fish,

W.

126, 150

Hamilton 276

Binyon, Lawrence 103, 109

Edward Gordon
Crane, Walter n, 64,

Blake, Robert iof

153,

Blake, William

Cranston, Catherine 241

Francis of Assisi,

Crusius, Gottlieb Leberecht 46; 34

Freud, Sigmund 259, 274, 277

Bing, Samuel 73, 97, 99, 138, 153, 154, 174, 208, 210

8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 35, 36,

53. 54. 55 6 3> 85. 103, 109,

no,

707

Durer, Albrecht 126

Thomas 87

Constable, John 53
1

189,

Duncan, Isadora 153,261,274

Duncan, John 774

Colonna, Eugne 152

Behrens, Peter 205, 206, 210, 211, 212, 245; 796,

May

53, 54;

Il6,

Carries, Jean 97

Bazel, Karel Petrus Cornelius de 150

Bel fort,

Calvert,

Canova, Antonio

Beerbohm,

Douris 86, 174

Dowson, Ernest 174
Dresser, Christopher

153

Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent

Doudelet, Charles 55, 148, 191, 224; }r, i2f

Douglas, Lord Alfred Bruce 184

Douglas, Lady Olive 184

288

Burnham, Daniel Hudson 228; 296

Bakst, Lon 170, 184; 42, 120

Barrison Sisters

150:292

Lluis 223, 224; 218, 219

45, 46, 47, 48,

111, 112, 114, 123,

Craig,

154,

184,

Hans

188,

14, 186;

86,

77J

112, 115, 125, 126, 150,

208, 224, 244, 271;

113, 293

Flaxman, John 54
Fontanc, Theodor 204
Fontser, Jos 214
St.

36

135, 136, 141, 148, 185, 186, 224, 240, 261, 262, 271,

Curjel,

272; 3S, 4, 4*. 43. 44. 49. '6. '07, '08, 287, 290,

Curtius, Ernst Robert 276

Furness, Frank 61, 101, 126, 223, 228; 232, 233

296

Custance, Olive see Douglas, Lady Olive

Fuseli,

194

Fuller, Loi'e 10, 153,

229

Henry (Johann Heinrich

Fiissli)

54

318

Gaillard, Ferdinand 152

Hofmannsthal, Hugo von (Loris)

Gainsborough, Thomas 53
Galle, Emile 9, 11, 48, 54,

204, 209, 210, 246, 261, 272

Lemmen, Georges

Hokusai

Lepapc, Georges 170

56, 97, 98, 114, 116, 124,

12,

15,

141, 153,

15

Leistikow, Walter 209, 261

W.

12 j, ijo, 211

Holz, Arno 206, 207

Lethaby,

Galln-Kallela, Akseli 207; 20/

Honeyman, John 241

Leyland, Frederick 276

Garnier, Charles 109; 39

Home, Herbert

152, 154, 170, 229, 244; /;;, if7, 263, 293,

Gaud, Antoni

8, 9,

n,

298

16, 32, 55, 61, 98, 101, 126,

Horta, Victor

104,

m,

126; 292

9, 31, 32, 98, 103, ill, 114, 126, 135,

R. 104

Liberty, Arthur Lasenby 73

Lichtwark, Alfred 192, 204

Max

151, 152, 167, 170, 203, 212, 214, 223, 224, 226, 227,

136, 138, 141, 151, 152, 154, 167, 189, 193, 223, 244,

Liebermann,

229, 260, 261, 271, 276; 24, 26, 27, 21}, 216, 217, 218,

272, 273, 277; 18, 19, 23, 2}, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131,

Lloyd, Constance see Wilde, Constance Lloyd

220, 221, 222, 22}, 226, 232, 234, 264, 26}, 267, 29}

180, 291

Lock, Matthias 41

Gauguin, Paul

Loos, Adolf

150, 168, 170, 207, 208, 277; 117, 118, 119, 122, 169

Housman, Laurence 185; 186

Howarth, Thomas 239, 240

Gauthier, Camille i}7

Huxley, Aldous 47

Lorrain, Claude 174

Genghis Khan (Temuchin) 224

Huysmans, Joris-Karl

10, 12, 16, 73, 114, 123, 124, 125, 148,

Alexander 109, 110,

Godwin, Edward William

ni

Edmond

63, 110, 184, 224, 240, 244, 259;

2}0

Macdonald-Mackintosh, Margaret 63, 110, 184, 224,

73, 123, 125, 172, 207; 291

Jacobsen, Jens Peter 12

Mackie, Annie 9
Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

de 73, 138

Jarry, Alfred 271

110, 170, 184, 187, 189, 214, 224, 239, 240, 241, 242,

Jackson, Holbrook 16

289

Goncourt, Jules de 73, 138

Gonse, Louis 74

Jefferson,

Grainger }8

Jones,

Grasset,

Thomas }o

Eugne 101, 115, 116, 153, 224; 116

Owen

8, 64, 85, 87,

244, 259; 28, 239, 241, 242, 243, 247, 248, 249, 2}0,

11, 99,

100, 101, 102, 103, 116, 126,

Mackmurdo, Arthur Heygate

m,

14, 88, 102, 103, 104,

112, 126, 135, 151, 152, 172, 187, 188, 189,

228; 91, 94

109,

Jonson, Ben 174

193, 214, 239, 242, 276; 18, 89, 93, 94,

Kandinsky, Wassily 76, 212; 211, 213

154,

Gropius, Walter

Keppie, John 241

Mahler- Werfel-Gropius, Aima 244

211, 212

Kessler,

Guarini, Guarino 214

Don

Eusebio,

Guimard, Hector

Count de

11,

98, 151,

11, 214,

152,

Count Harry 208,

Khnopff, Fernand

276
168,

167,

170,

206, 244, 276; 22, i}7, i}8, i}9, 160, 266, 267, 293

209, 210, 211

15, 64, 123, 125, 140, 141, 147,

224,261,262,277

Maillol, Aristide 9, 11, 170, 211; 140, 163, 276

Majorelle, Louis 152, 154

191, 204, 244, 262, 271, 277; 14, 70, 71

Mallarm, Stphane

Kinsey, Alfred Charles 271

271

Ludwig 212

Kirchner, Ernst

Malraux, Andr

Haas, Charles 153

Klee.Paul 184
Klimt, Gustav 141, 148, 244, 246, 259; 2}8, 2}9
Klinger, Max 192, 193, 204, 209, 246; 192

Knox, Charles 188; 17}

Kok, J. Jurriaan 143
Kokoschka, Oskar 259; 297
Kpping, Karl 244
Korin, Ogata 84
Krafft-Ebing, Richard von 183

Marc, Franz 212

Haeckel, Ernst 193, 272

Hansen, Frida 207

Havemeyer, H. O. 276
Hay, Helen 10

10, 184, 191, 204,

261;

8,

308

Helwig, Werner 274

Hessen-Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of

Heymel, Alfred Walter

Laclos, Choderlos de

14, 21

And

Laeuger,

75
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 135

Max

16, 47
Manet, Edouard 73, 115
Mantegna, Andrea 174

Mares,

Hans von

192, 209, 210; 294

Matisse, Henri 168

Maus, Octave 12$

Meier-Graefe, Julius 138, 153, 183, 204, 208, 259,
3-77

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 211, 212

74

207

Millais, Sir

John Everett

Lalique, Ren 152; i}6, i}7, 268, 269

Millet, Jean-Franois

Larche, Raoul 162

La Rochefoucauld, Franois VI, Duc de 173

Milton, John 35
Milton, May 153

259; 12, 246, 2}3, 2}}, 307

Le Corbusier 86,212

Minne, Georges

Hofmann, Ludwig von

Ledoux, Claude Nicolas

Hodler, Ferdinand

Hoffmann, Josef

319

10, 11, 141, 208, 209,

244; 199

141, 170, 187, 208, 244, 245, 246,

208, 209, 210; 298

114, 115, 142, 154,

Michelangelo Buonarroti 47, 241

Midolle, Jean 33

193

245

Hiroshige,

15, 76,

Menzel, Adolph von 192

Kraus, Karl 276

Krupp von Bohlen

12,

Malory, Sir Thomas 138, 173, 183

Guys, Constantin 116

Heath, Ida 153

Heaton, Clement 104
Heine, Thomas Theodor

m, 269, 290

Maeterlinck, Maurice 12, 54, 140, 141, 142, 150, 153,

Greco, El (Domenico Theotocopuli) 47

Greenaway, Kate 98, 99, 102, 112, 126, 208; 93

Giiell,

103, 104,

2}i, 2}2, 297

Jeffrey, Francis 135

Gray, John 174

8,

2}7

Hugo von

240, 244, 259; 2}o, 2}i, 296

76, 86, 87, 88, 97, 102,

104, 137, 151, 174, 276; 79, 80, 81,

Gogh, Vincent van

87, 187, 244, 259; 2}}, 2}6,

Macdonald, Frances
Image, Selwyn 104, ill, 126; 1}
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 54, 116, 227; 287

Gilbert, Alfred 173, 189, 190, 271; 180, 26}

Goncourt,

1,

Loris see Hofmannsthal,

14

George, Stefan 15,206

Gilchrist,

204, 209

5 5

63,

10; 288,

290

138

10, 11, 125, 138, 140, 147, 184, 204,

210, 244, 277; 134, 140, 292

Rathenau, Walter 208

Shaw, Richard Norman

244.245,254:290

120

Redgrave, Richard 55; J7, }8

Redon, Odilon 1 16, 123, 125, 262; 120, 121, 266

Morgan, William de 104

Rgnier, Henri de 262

Siddal, Elizabeth 190

Morris, Jane 190

Rjane 170

Signac, Paul 125,141,150,204

Morris, William 11, 48, 64, 73, 76, 85, 97, 98, ioo,

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn 109

Solvay, Ernest 277

102, 103, 104, 109, 112, 125, 126, 137, 151, 152, 173,

Strauss, Richard 12

Moore, George 98
Moreau, Gustave

122, 123, 140, 141, 262;

15, 116,

104, 109, 151, 186, 188, 227,

Hi;

Shields, Frederick 104,

10

Speranza see Wilde, Lady Jane Francisca

174, 183, 188, 189, 192, 205, 206, 229; 94

Renoir, Pierre Auguste 53

Reynolds, Sir Joshua 109

Moser, Koloman 245, 246; 32, 256

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 210

Reynolds-Stephens, Sir William 189; 180, 181

Stravinsky, Igor 11,261,262

Ricketts, Charles

Steichen,

Munch, Edvard

172, 184, 185, 186, 261, 271, 276; //, 21, 64, 86, 112,

Strindberg, August 207, 208

147, i8f, 186, 271, 277

Riemerschmid, Richard 203, 206

Sullivan, Louis 11, 101, 126, 223, 227, 228; 20, 21,

io, 12, 124, 141, 173, 194, 207, 208,

271; 208, 268, 27}

Munthe, Gerhard 207, 244

Muthesius,

Hermann

10, 14, 31, 53, 64, 86, 112, 142, 148,

Nash, John 87
Nere tot Babberich, Karel de 148; 14s
Nicholson, William (Beggarstaff Brothers) 186; 179
Nietzsche, Friedrich 204, 207, 271

172; 16}

Sturge Moore, Thomas 53,185

ff.,

210; 200, 201

Maria 206, 246

Rimbaud, Arthur 277
Riquer, Alexandre de 223; 8j
Rilke, Rainer

109, 189

Edward

231, 233, 234, 23}, 238

Summerly, Felix
Sumner,

see Cole,

Heywood

Henry

104, 112, 126, 135, 172, 189, 262;

Roche, Pierre 162

104, 108

Rodin, Auguste 124, 125, 139, 140, 172, 194, 271;

122

Swinburne, Algernon Charles n, 85, no, 153, 190

Symons, Arthur 123

Roller, Alfred 260

Obrist,

Hermann

11, 98,

147,

154,

167,

192,

193,

Root, John Wellborn 228; 296

194, 203, 204, 20$, 244, 272; 19s, 202, 29s

Olbrich, Joseph Maria 104, 208, 211, 244, 245, 246;

Rossetti, Christina 63, 85

244, 2S4, 297

Rossetti,

Ovey, Richard }2

97> 99> I0 > >2, 104 i9> II0 >

J.

Talbert, Bruce J. 88

W. van 143

Rossem,

Dante Gabriel

Tatlin,

Vladimir E. 194

Tchaikowsky, Peter

8, io, 11, 62, 63, 64, 76, 85,

i.

!23. 126, 141,

142, 147, 148, 150, 152, 153, 184, 185, 189, 190, 209,

Ilyitch 261

Thorn Prikker, Johan 150; 14$

Tiffany, Louis Comfort 9, 10, 30,

31, 48, 54, 97, 98,

223, 224, 227, 229, 230, 276; 17, 19, 38, 44, 232, 236,

Palmer, John 51

240, 260, 262, 272, 276; 62, 63, 6f, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72,

237, 296

Palmer, Samuel $3; 49

Pankok, Bernhard 206

83, 100, 107, 288, 289

Toorop, Jan

Parmigianino, Francesco Mazzola 192

Rosso,

Pater, Walter 15,212

Rothschild,

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 10, 31, 115, 123, 124,

Rubens, Peter Paul 47, 109

Ruchet, Bcrthe 193

125, 138, 141, 153, 168, 169, 170, 174, 184, 186, 204,

277; 163, 164, 171

Pladan, Mrodack 271

Runge, Philipp Otto

Townsend, Charles Harrison

Perret, Auguste 9, 170, 187, 211, 259, 276; 166, 29J

Ruskin, John 64, 76, 98, 103, 137, 153, 212

Rysselberghe, Tho van 48, ijo, 191; 48

Paul,

Bruno

Rossetti,

21

Paxton, Sir Joseph

14,

273

Pevsner, Nikolaus 148, 203, 242

William Michael 109

10, 12, 47, 63, 125, 138, 141, 142, 147,

148, 150, 152, 191, 239, 240, 244, 261, 271; 108, 142,

Medardo 124
Max M. 227

144, 148, 149, 292

53, 54, 56, 101, 192; 98,

287

Picasso, Pablo 8, 168

188,

189,

244, 245;

294
Toyo, Kwanshosai 21
Tzara, Tristan 259

Pissarro, Camille 123

Sade, Donatien Alphonse Marquis de 174

Poe, Edgar Allan IJ4

Sawa, Alejandro 272

Scharvogel, Johann Julius 207; 294

Utamaro

Scheerbart, Paul 204

Vallance,

Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 54

Schlaf, Johannes 204

Vallotton, Flix 186; if 2, 168

Schollkopf, Xavier 167

Velde,

Schnberg, Arnold 12, 184

ioi, 125, 126, 135, 136, 137, 138, 150, 151, 153, 167,

Poirct, Paul

170, 184

Pontormo, Jacopo 192

Pope, Alexander 174
Powell, Harry

J.

17

Pougy, Liane de 170

Primaticcio, Francesco 47
Proust, Marcel 152, 153, 170

74, 86, 240

Aymer

Van Gogh

see

112, 173

Gogh, Vincent van

Henry van de

8,

11, 31, 32, 88, 97, 99, 100,

ff., 262, 276

Prouv, Victor 154
Pryde, James (BeggarstafT Brothers) 186; 179
Przybyszewski, Stanislaw 208

Schroder, Rudolf Alexander 211

170, 191, 204, 206, 208, 210, 211, 223, 229, 244, 259,

Schuffenecker, Emile 11 j

272, 273, 274; 16, 93, 132, 133, 137, 138, 139, 198,

Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre 116, 123, 174, 209, 246

Serrurier-Bovy, Gustave 88, 103, 126, 137, 138, 153,

Verkade, Jan 125

273; 291

Verlaine, Paul 262

Rfols, Jos F. 214

Srusier, Paul

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 47, 62

Seurat, Georges 125, 138, 141, 150, 168, 204

Schwob, Marcel 277

Scriabin, Alexander Nikolaievitch

200, 201, 29f

12,

271

ff.

124

Verhaeren, Emile 150

Viel-Griffin, Francis 261

Villar, Francesc

de Paula 227

320

Viollet-le-Duc,

Eugne-Emmanuel

61, 101, 135, 212;

61

Vogeler-Worpswede, Heinrich 184, 261

Vogue, Eugne Marie, Vicomte de 154
Voysey, Charles Annesley Francis 48, 85, 100, 103,
104, 126, 151, 172, 186, 187, 188, 189, 208, 239, 242,

244, 245; 94, 96, 179, 187, 188, 290, 294

Wagner, Otto 244, 245, 259

Wagner, Richard 11, 12, 173, 174, 183, 212, 261, 262,
Walton, George 92, 177

Warndorfer, Fritz 184, 259

Watteau, Jean- Antoine 53

Webb, Philip

64, 102, 103, 104, 151, 186, 188, 245;

68,69
Wedekind, Frank 272
Wegerif-Gravesteyn, Agatha 143
Weiss, Emil Rudolf 29, 30, 31, 204; 20, 191, 280
Werfel, Alma Mahler- see Mahler- Werfel-Gropius,

Alma
Whistler, James McNeill 10, 11, 12, 73, 74, 75, 76,
8$, 86, 87, 97, 104, 125, 147, 151, 153, 173, 174, 183,

184, 205, 261, 274, 276; ;, 7S, 76, 77, 78, 288, 289

Wdde, Constance Lloyd 87, 152, 173

Wilde, Lady Jane Francisca (Speranza) 276
Wilde, Oscar 12

ff.,

15, 16, 74, 75, 76, 86, 87, 103,

112, 114, 142, 152, 153, 173, 174, 183, 184, 185, 186,
190, 260, 261, 262, 271, 274, 276, 277

Wittgenstein 259
Woestijne, Karel van de 12

Wolf flin, Heinrich 15

Wolzogen, Ernst von 203
Wren, Sir Christopher 1 1
Yeats, William Butler
Young, Edward no

16, 103,

Zola, Emile 73, 174

Zuckerkandl, Berta 244

Zwollo, Frans

321

114

PICTURE CREDITS

found

Illustrations not

the following

in

list

have

been supplied by the author or by the publishers.

Numbers
numbers

when

in

roman numerals

in arabic

refer to the colorplates;

numerals to the plate numbers or,

on which the

specified, to the pages

illustration

Hedrich-Blessing, Chicago 237

Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

Lucien Herv, Paris 175, 260, 263

Karl Holste, Berlin-Zehlendorf V, VI

328; page 212

Thomas Howarth, Toronto (from: Charles Rennie

Mackintosh and the Modern Movement. London,

appears.

1952) 248,333,339

A. C.L., Brussels ij, 137, 191

Museum, Otterlo 148, 150, 304

Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich 11, 18, 19, 36, 96,

am Main

126,

Hermann Stickelmann, Bremen 121; page 169

Dr. Franz Stoedtner, Dusseldorf 23, 127, 136, 151,
198, 208, 261, 299, 302, 320, 322, 327

John Szarkowski, Ashland, Wisconsin (from: The

Idea of Louis Sullivan, University of Minnesota

Kroller-Miiller

London 42
Jean Alliman, Nancy 34c
Archivo Amigos de Gaudi (photo by Aleu)

Aerofilms,

13, 16,

&

Annan

&

Glasgow 244, 340

The Architectural Press, London (photo by Eric de
Mare) 192, 193
The Architectural Review, London 48
The Art Institute of Chicago 173
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 40, 55, 109, 286
Association Henry van de Velde, Brussels Endpapers
R.

100,

118, 119, 139, 141, 147, 152, 153, 154, 157, 159, 161,

The Tate Gallery, London

169, 177, 187, 195, 196, 197, 207, 212, 213, 249, 256,

182, 254, 287, 288, 293, 321, 337

54, 57, 61, 65, 68, 69,

1 1

1,

266, 271, 275, 276, 310, 315, 324, 329, 341

216, 332

T.

Press, 1956) 7, 229, 234, 243

Sons,

Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich 64

Bibliothque Royale de Belgique, Brussels 307; pages

Kunstmuseum, Winterthur 272

O. Vaering, Oslo XII

Victoria and Albert

Museum, London (Crown Copy-

Landesgewerbeamt Baden-Wiirttemberg, Stuttgart

right Reserved) 2, 6, 22, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 56,

259. 284, 348

62, 67, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 84, 85, 89, 90, 91, 92,

The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

page

93 98, 99. 102. 170 176, 180, 183, 186, 188, 189, 245,

229
D. S. Lyon, London 278

246, 247, 251, 252, 255, 279, 295, 296; pages 185,

Eric de Mare, London 190, 194, 204, 269

Andr Martin, Paris 156, 164, 274

A. Zerkowitz, Barcelona 225, 268

MAS,

186 (2)

Zingher, Brussels 133, 134

Barcelona 217, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 232,

16, 137, 138, 140

Bijtebier, Brussels

Bildarchiv Foto

235. 331

144

Marburg

95, 143, 199, 200, 203, 206,

215,257,258
The British Museum, London 250
F. Catal

Roca, Barcelona

17,

New York

James

L. Dillon

51, 86, 162,

&

273

of Japan.
1955.

New

3, 4, 14,

135, 230, 231

The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Museum

240

New York

fur

Percy Lund, Humphries

1,

83,

&

Co.,

London (from: The

Penrose Annual) VII

Verlag Georg D.

W. Callwey, Munich (from: Jean

Cassou; Emil Langui; Nikolaus Pevsner, Durchbruch

zum

20.

Jahrhundert, Munich, 1962)

XI

Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt am Main

78, 79, 209, 277

Museum

und Gewerbe, Hamburg

fur Kunst

81, 201, 211, 291, 313, 323, 326, 346;

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

9,

76,

page 245

New York 160,

New York),

(photo by George Barrows,

163, 165
166, 167,

172, 178, 179,210, 316

Company, Philadelphia 233

Dotreville, Brussels 12, 129, 130, 132, 305

Arthur Drexler,

New York

120, 174, 241, 242

Bernhard Moosbrugger, Zurich 155, 158, 168
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 128

Chevojon, Paris 317

Chicago Heritage Committee, Chicago 336
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham 32, 34
The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration,

Colorplates for the following supplied by

Paul Mayen,

National Buildings Record, London

New

York (from: The Architecture

York, The Museum of Modern Art,

52, 58, 59, 71,

298

National Museum, Stockholm 31

Photo by Sutemi Horiguchi) 294

George Eastman House, Rochester,

Grete Eckert, Munich VIII

book was typeset by the Universitatsbuch& Sohn, Munich. The text was

This
Usterreichische Galerie des

New York

285

derts,

XIX. und XX. Jahrhun-

Vienna 265

Osterreichisches

set in

Museum

Vienna (photo by Anton

angewandte

fiir

Fesl)

5,

Kunst,

262

The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 125

druckerei Dr. C. Wolf

Bernard Pfriem, Paris 218

Garamond Antiqua.

The black-and-white plates were made by the Graphische Kunstanstalt Brend'Amour, Simhart & Co.,
Munich. The colorplates were executed by Klischeeanstalt

Helmut Brullmann KG,

Stuttgart.

The endpapers were printed by Offsetdruckerei Fricke

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

117,

145,

146,

149,

Jacques Seligmann

&

Company,

New York

124

&

Co., Stuttgart-Feuerbach.

308, 309, 312

Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art,

The binding was executed by the firm of Franz

Photo-Atelier Gerlach, Vienna 264

Washington, D. C. 70
Former Staatliche Museen,

Spiegel

Joaquin Gomis and Joan Prats, Barcelona IX, X,

219, 220, 221, 267, 330

(photo by Karl H. Paulmann)

Berlin
I,

205

(Art

Library)

The

KG, Ulm/Donau.

entire

book was printed and bound

in

West

Germany.

322

ipr

\\1