Art Nouveau

Alphonse Mucha
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/mucha/muchabio.html

He was a prolific Moravian painter of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and a key figure in the Art Nouveau movement. His style of painting influenced an entire generation of painters, graphic artists, draughtsmen and designers and in the minds of many, his work epitomizes the Art Nouveau. He himself came to resent his fame as an artist of the utilitarian, believing that true art should be elevated and epic.
In 1892, the painter designed his first advertising poster. Finding this line of work profitable, he began taking regular commissions and, in 1894, he designed a poster for the show " Gismonda" of the highly popular stage actress Sarah Bernhardt. The poster was revolutionary, bringing unheard of innovations to the art of poster-printing, which had hitherto consisted of large amounts of text with a few simple illustrations, usually in just one or two colors. The Gismonda poster (1892) employed a radically new vertical format -- a legacy of which we can see in posters today -- and an unheard-of amount of colors and detail. Although the painter thought of his Art Nouveau work as scarcely more than a means of earning money to enable him to pursue more serious things, critics thought differently. In 1897, the painter had his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie La Bodiniere. Later that year, a second, much larger exhibition was held at the Salon de Cent, and proceeded to tour Europe.

I know I have already done an entry on him but I have really enjoyed finding more information about him. Plus I decided that if I was going to do a whole section dedicated to art nouveau that it wouldn't be right to not add him here again. I have been looking at a few of his images and getting ideas for what I might possibly be able to use for my own projects. I really like all the patterns and all the small details that make up one poster.

Victor Horta
http://www.senses-artnouveau.com/biography.php?artist=HOR

Victor Horta was one of the leading architect and designer of Art Nouveau and his style inspired many modernist artists all over Europe. He also influenced the aesthetic ideals the avant-garde group of artists in Belgium, such as "Les Vingt" and "La Libre Esthétique". After studying drawing, textiles and architecture at the Fine Arts Academy in Gent, he established his own practice in Brussels and in 1893 he built the first Art Nouveau building, Tassel House. In the late 1890s, he was commissioned by the Belgian Socialist movement to build the Maison du Peuple. In 1898, he built his own house and workshop, now the famous Horta Museum. Inspired by nature, his style was swirling and linear, like the stems of plants. Tending towards unity, every material, surface, ornament, inside or outside, was harmoniously assembled with great fluidity and highly detailed by innovative shapes and lines. The houses are especially significant for their interior architecture: the irregularly shaped rooms open freely onto one another at different levels; the natural design of an iron balustrade is echoed in the curving decorative motifs of the mosaic floors or plaster walls.

I really like the fact that art nouveau is not just about posters, but can be seen every where you look. I didn't even think about the fact that there are a lot buildings that can be categorized in this movement. After I looked at some of the buildings that he inspired I noticed that I am drawn to them. In fact some of my furniture in my room looks like it has been inspired by such things as his door knob above. I guess its true that you cant help but to be drawn to the things that you like.


Louis Comfort Tiffany
http://www.senses-artnouveau.com/biography.php?artist=TIF

1882 he began designing glasswork of remarkable beauty in typical Art Nouveau Style. In 1902, he became art director of his father's legendary company, Tiffany & Co. in New York. He designed for the firm colored glass table lamps and lampshades, which were made in more than one edition. It was Thomas Edison who urged him to focus on electric light production after their collaboration on the design of the first Moving Picture Theater. Tiffany also designed and produced glass vases, tiles, mosaics and stained-glass-windows. In 1895, his glassware was exhibited in Samuel Bing's Gallery "L'Art Nouveau" in Paris. Tiffany wanted to elevate decorative arts to the level of fine arts, available to a wide audience. His work was influenced by Japanese and Northern-Africa aesthetics and colors; the pieces he produced between the 1890s and 1918 were magnificent, exotic and of the highest quality. His unique style became a driving force behind the emergent Art Nouveau Style. His jewel-like Tiffany lamps feature decorations inspired by organic naturalistic themes, such as flowers, butterflies or dragonflies amongst foliage. The shades are made in multi-colored, iridescent glass, set in leaded framework and their beautifully crafted bronze bases, are often decorated by tree-like motifs, or by incorporated tilework or mosaic work.

I had never thought about Tiffany lamps as part of the movement. However after looking up the lamps and stain glass panes that they use to make it is clear that they were very much apart of the movement. What I think is cool is that he made the art not just something that you hung up on your walls but something that became apart of every day life, such as a table lamp. The other part of these lamps and jewels that just makes it all more fascinating is the fact that they are so widely known and I don't know anyone that doesn't like them.

Margaret Macdonald
http://www.antique-marks.com/art-nouveau-artists.html

 Margaret and her sister, Frances MacDonald, enrolled as students at the Glasgow School of Art. There she worked in a variety of media, including metalwork, embroiery, and textiles. She was first a collaborator with her sister, and later with her husband, thearchitect and designerCharles Rennie Mackintosh. Together with Mackintosh, her sister, Frances, and Charles's friend Herbert MacNair (who married Frances in 1899), formed the group known as 'The Four', who worked in close association and were pioneers of the so-called Glasgow Style. Her watercolours were influential in Mackintosh's own creative development, and she collaborated with him on many of his decorative and architectural projects. After her marriage Margaret Macdonald's work changed and she began to concentrate on decorative gesso panels.

Though I am not as big of a fan of her work I can see how she can be categorized in the art nouveau movement. I think that she was more concentrated on the line movement of the style and the fluid movement of the nature that is present in other works. The one part that I didn't like was that she didn't have as much detail and the figures were not as pronounced or detailed.


Jules Cheret
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/jules-cheret.htm

He was the first artist to make his reputation in the medium of poster art. An apprentice lithographer who went on to develop a cheaper type of colour lithography and, in the process, the lithographic advertising poster. Moreover, he enhanced the aesthetic nature of the poster, endowing it with graceful designs and transforming it into an independent decorative art form. Known as the "father of the Belle Epoque poster", he inspired other painters to explore the genre, and later produced a special book entitled Masters of the Poster, to promote the best designers. A key figure in the history of poster art, Cheret produced more than 1,000 posters, beginning with his 1867 advertisement for Sarah Bernardt, and in 1889 he received a major solo exhibition and a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Paris. He was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1890, and in 1928 the French government honoured his achievements in graphic art with the opening of the Cheret Museum in Nice.

It was easy to see that he was producing posters during the art nouveau movement. I would defiantly say that it is a bit more modern than the above artist. I can see why he would have a major influence in poster art though. The above image defiantly looks like something that would catch your eye and draw you in. Which is good specially if you are trying to sell some product.

Gustave Klimt

http://www.iklimt.com/

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, whether formal portraits or indolent nudes invariably display highly sensitized eroticism of the fin de siècle elegance. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Gustav was enrolled, at 14, in the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, and received training as an architectural decorator. Hebegan his professional career painting interior murals in large public buildings on the Ringstraße. In 1888 he received the Golden order of Merit from Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria for his contributions to art. He also became an honorary member of the University of Munich and the University of Vienna. Gustav Klimt's style is highly ornamental. The Art Nouveau movement favored organic lines and contours. Klimt used a lot of gold and silver colors in his art work - certainly an heritage from his father's profession as a gold and silver engraver.

What I liked most is the fact that his work has a photo quality to it. However I am not as much of a fan of his style in the background, you can clearly see that he is looking at nature for his inspiration like other but he has simplified it and has not made it realistic. Some of his stuff is a little more on the dark side, like the above image. The woman appears to be holding a male head. Did she kill him? I think what would have made it feel more art nouveau to me is if it had some borders and maybe some more pattern or nature like movement to them. However this is the difference in the areas that they were done. The images will be different when they are being done in different parts of the world.

Daniela Uhlig

 http://www.du-artwork.de/about.html

http://www.templates.com/blog/inspiring-illustrations-style-alphonse-mucha/

I could not find any information about this graphic designer other than the fact that she works for a small company doing designs and illustrations. However when you view her website she has a wide range of image to look at. I really like her stuff, you can tell that some of them she was looking at someones work and others she has her own style to them. The above image is one in which I really like since I am thinking of doing something similar to her work. I think she did a good job of capturing the movement of the figure and then adding a background that has some pattern and nice detail. I also love the border and the circle. I hope that I can get my work to come out looking like this. 


Eden Celeste
http://www.edenceleste.com/

She has painted portraits ever since she could get a brush in her hands. For most of her career her art has focused on fantasy and sci-fi , but within the last decade she has grown to discover that er real talent and desire is in portrait art. She has a broad range of portrait interests, from the traditional style of the old masters to more of a whimisical mixture of traditional and fantasy art. For the most part she has focused on the human form, but recently she discovered that some objects also have a personality and interest as well.
Her latest series, which she calls "Artist's Cellar" is based upon her love of good wines. Each one uses a mixture of mediums including canvas or box laminated with multi-colored paper and a bottle of a favorite wine and glass painted upon it. They are sized mostly at 8"x16", which she has found to be a perfect size to display in a kitchen, dining rom or other household spot where you would typically enjoy a nice glass of vino.

There was not much info on this artist but again I can tell that she has looked at the style. However she says that she loves wines, I would have exspected there to be a lot more vine work and maybe some more stylized movement around the figure.

Toulouse Lautrec
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/toulouse-lautrec/
http://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Toulouse-Lautrec-Henri-de.html

In 1882, encouraged by his first teachers—the animal painters René Princeteau and John Lewis Brown—Toulouse-Lautrec decided to devote himself to painting, and that year he left for Paris. Enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts, he entered the studio of Fernand Cormon. In 1884 Toulouse-Lautrec settled in Montmartre, an area in north Paris, where he stayed from then on, except for short visits to Spain,

where he admired the works of El Greco (1541–1614) and Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). In England he visited celebrated writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and painter James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). At one point Toulouse-Lautrec lived near painter Edgar Degas (1834–1917), whom he valued above all other contemporary artists (artists from his time) and by whom he was influenced. From 1887 his studio was on the rue Caulaincourt next to the Goupil printshop, where he could see examples of the Japanese prints of which he was so fond. The two most direct influences on Toulouse-Lautrec's art were the Japanese print, as seen in his slanted angles and flattened forms, and Degas, from whom he derived the tilted perspective, cutting of figures, and use of a railing to separate the spectator from the painted scene, as in At the Moulin Rouge. But the genuine feel of a world of wickedness and the harsh, artificial colors used to create it were Toulouse-Lautrec's own. Toulouse-Lautrec broadened the range of lithography (the process of printing on metal) by treating the tone more freely. His strokes became more summary (executed quickly) and the planes more unified. Sometimes the ink was speckled on the surface to bring about a great textural richness. In his posters he combined flat images (again the influence of the Japanese print) with type. He realized that if the posters were to be successful their message had to make an immediate and forceful impact on the passerby. He designed them with that in mind. Toulouse-Lautrec's posters of the 1890s established him as the father of the modern large-scale poster. His best posters were those advertising the appearance of various performers at the Montmartre cabarets, such as the singer May Belfort, the female clown Cha-U-Kao, and Loïe Fuller of the Folies-Bergère.

I really like dhis work. I thought that his poster style was really insperational. I think that he helped to lay some of the ground work for what we see today. I also can see why they said that he did such a wonderful job at advertising, like the above poster. That poster does a great job of showing what the club was about and what one was likely to feel while there. I think that you can also see in the above poster that he was doing the quick strokes. The figures are not exact but you can get a sense of the movement. I also think that the quick drwing helps to give the posters viwers that at easy feeling of what is to come as they enter through the doors. I am not sure that I see to much of the japanese influence in this one. None the less I was really drawn to this image.


Louis Majorelle
http://www.antique-marks.com/louis-majorelle.html

He was one of the outstanding designers of furniture in the Art Nouveau style, and after 1901 formally served as one of the vice-presidents of the École de Nancy. In the 1880s Majorelle turned out pastiches of Louis XV furniture styles, which he exhibited in 1894 at the Exposition d'Art Décoratif et Industriel in Nancy, but the influence of the glass and furniture maker Emile Galle inspired him to take his production in new directions.  In the 1890s, Majorelle's furniture, embellished with inlays, took their inspiration from nature: stems of plants, waterlily leaves, tendrils, dragonflies. Before 1900 he added a metalworking atelier to his workshops, to produce drawerpulls and mounts in keeping with the fluid lines of his woodwork. His studio was responsible for the ironwork of balconies, staircase railings, and exterior details on many buildings in Nancy at the turn of the twentieth century. Often collaborating on lamp designs with the Daum Frères glassworks of Nancy, he helped make the city one of the European centers of Art Nouveau. 

I can see in the above vase the style represented nicely. There are a lot of poster by Mucha that have the same line work that break up the peice. Which he has done here with metal work. I like that he kept it simple and symetrical. The vase can be bent in half vertical and you would get the same pattern on both sides. I also like that the glass has some dark spots on it. It reminds me of some of the backgrounds in the posters and paintings.

William H. Bradley
http://www.willbradley.com/biography/

William Henry Bradley was largely self-taught as an artist. He began working in a printer's shop at the age of twelve in Ishpeming, Michigan, where his mother had moved in 1874 after the death of his father. His work at the print shop would be important in introducing him to the many issues of typesetting, advertisements, and layout that would occupy him in the years to come. Bradley executed a number of designs to promote The Chap-Book, a short-lived but important publication based in Chicago. His 1894 design for Chap-Book, titled The Twins, has been called the first American Art Nouveau poster; this and other posters for the magazine brought him widespread recognition and popularity. In 1895 Bradley founded the Wayside Press in Springfield, Massachusetts, and published a monthly arts periodical, Bradley: His Book. He remained an active and important member of the graphic arts world for the rest of his long life. Bradley was well acquainted with the stylistic innovations of his European counterparts. Like many French artists, he borrowed stylistic elements from Japanese prints, working in flat, broad color planes and cropped forms. He appropriated the whiplash curves of the Art Nouveau movement so dominant in Europe at the turn of the century and was influenced by the work of the English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. In 1954, Bradley was awarded a gold medal by the American Institute of Graphic Arts.


I think one of the things that really makes me stop and look is the fact that he uses a limited color scheme on his designs. There is not a lot of different colors to distract you and the colors all seems to be kind of dull and dark. However the colors that he uses deffinatly draw you in. Like the above image. He uses the red and black. These two colors are so strong. They can sometimes fight one another but here they work nicely to move ones eye around the page. What I also like about having only two colors is the fact that it balances out the image nicely.