art nouveau design

February 26, 2010

Art Nouveau Fragments of Design

Art Nouveau is more than just a style.
Translated from French to English it means New Art .
In fact that is what the Art Nouveau movement was all about.
Unlike some styles, Art nouveau incorporated glass,silver,
stained glass,posters,furniture,jewellery,Art,Metalwork,Pottery ,bronze and other sculpture and textiles.

It was more a way of thinking and designing than slavish copies of a common theme.
naturalistic themes were common but even these were transformed into
dream-like pieces with an air of fantasy and other-worldliness.
Some of the motive forces behind the movement were the leaders in their fields.
Alphonse Mucha for his Art and Posters, Klimt for his gorgeously rich
works of Art, Rene Lalique for his fantastical jewelry and exquisite glassware.
All of these are now household names and highly collectable.
Potters joined in with amazing designs as did silversmiths with curved and flowing jewelry.
RIng,Necklaces and bracelets in Art Nouveau designs became the highly desired pieces of jewelry
that any fashionable lady of the turn of the 19h Century needed to stay in fashion.
Actresses and Royalty took up the style and this filtered down to almost every European and American woman
The main difference was exactly that the designs were SO very different - very strange
and picking up hints of fairyland,mermaid,niads or nymphs were incorporated.
Before all of theses fields were very traditional and mainly unchanged for many years before.
It was the genius of these designers that altered the perception that everyday objects and Jewels did not have to be exactly as nature designed them.