Week 6: The End And The Beginning, European Art Nouveau

MacMillan, A. (1993). The End and The Beginning. In Europe Beginning and End (pp.14-21). Japan Art and Culture Association.

This Chapter on Art Nouveau looks into the historical influences and the philosophical under-pinning's of  Art Nouveau. MacMillan looks closely at Ruskin, his writings on nature and design and his own idea's on the moral disdain of industrialisation. Ruskin's ideas were the basis behind the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that evolved in England around the same period that Art Nouveau swept continental Europe. And his ideas also played a key role in the philosophy of Art Nouveau. MacMillan begins the chapter with a great description of the style of Art Nouveau

          "spatially fluent it drew on nature for its shapes favouring the stem over the bud, the bizarre over the common place, rich surfaces over plain: there is an echo of a Celtic past." (pg. 14)

MacMillan provides great descriptive language to set out exactly what constitutes Art Nouveau. The two movements Art Nouveau and the arts and crafts movement had a philosophical difference between the historic Classicism that lay before. And this difference was that now items from every day life were designed and crafted with regard to materials and methods used. Therefore making everyday objects works of art. Both the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau had influences from Japan and Celtic Europe however Art Nouveau embraced  industrialisation and the Arts and Crafts were opposed to the Industrial revolution and MacMillan goes into a lot of detail discussing these differences. MacMillan in his article discusses the artists that influenced Art Nouveau like Galle, Hoffman, Wagner and Horta. However he does devote quite a bit of space in the paper talking about the Scottish architect/designer Charles R Mackintosh, and I wonder if this piece had of been written by someone other than a Professor at Glasgow University whether the same treatment would have been given to him. I have also noted that MacMillan's piece failed to mention the role Alphonse Mucha played in the influence of this new style.  Mucha in 1895 produced a poster in Paris as an advertisement for the play Gismonda featuring Sarah Bernhardt. According to Dr Bell in her week 6 lecture and many other sources I have read this poster marked a key point in the popularisation of this new style.
This was a good article on the history of Art Nouveau and was a great artcle to start with for any student of design.