What are Liberty Style and Art Nouveau

Generating enthusiasts of the decorative and graphic arts and architecture across Europe and beyond, Art Nouveau appeared in a wide variety of strands and, consequently, it is known by various names, such as lo Liberty style or, in the German-speaking world, Jugendstil.

Art Nouveau aimed to modernize design, seeking to escape the historical eclectic styles that had previously been popular. The artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric shapes, developing elegant designs that combined fluid, natural shapes reminiscent of plant stems and flowers. The emphasis on linear outlines took precedence over color, which was usually depicted in shades such as soft greens, browns, yellows, and blues. The movement was committed to abolish the traditional hierarchy of the arts, which considered the so-called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture, superior to the craft-based decorative arts. The style fell out of fashion for the most part long before World War I, paving the way for the development of Art Deco in the 20s, but experienced a popular revival in the 60s, and is now seen as an important predecessor – if not an integral component – ​​of modernism.

Architecture

Art Nouveau architecture was one of the great ubiquitous cultural impulses, appearing virtually throughout Europe and Scandinavia, and even in America.

A very vigorous variety developed in Belgium, where Henri van de Velde (1863-1937) reduced the conventions of art and architecture in favor of a rather rigid floral style (his house in Uccle, 1895), while Victor Horta (1861-1947) seems to have bypassed the rules through a labyrinth of botanical facts (the Hotel Tassel, 1892-3, and the Maison du Peuple, 1896-9 in Brussels ). Horta was widely admired for his willingness to reconsider basic design problems and for the fluidity of his adaptations of the organic principle.

For the house, Tassel opened the center into a sort of winter garden space in which the exposed cast iron supports are themselves stylized plants. And the Maison du Peuple built around a sinuous iron structure, each decorative element of which was born from the containment of stress. It was said that “he follows the secret law that vegetation follows, which grows in immutable and always harmonious forms, but he obliges himself never to draw a pattern, nor to describe a solitary curve that could be seen as a pastiche of natural form”.

In France, nineteenth-century Art Nouveau architecture had the state seal of approval when projects Guimard for Paris Metro stations they were accepted, and elaborate arrangements of iron and glass resembling large bean sprouts and pods sprouted above the subways. Hector Guimard (1867-1942) had appreciated Horta's work in Brussels and hoped to expand and continue in his radical disruption of reluctance to expected architectural rules.

But the most spectacular results of the decision to rethink design from scratch, so to speak, are found in Spain. Antoni Gaudi conceived a series of architectural extravaganzas for Barcelona, ​​apparently pervaded by thoughts of nature in its less attractive manifestations: the rabbit maze or termite hill, the anatomy of reptiles, the raging weeds. The Palacio Guell (1885-9) already possesses the characteristics of constant flow, the rhythmic asymmetry of his mature efforts, but is still relatively urban.

Casa Mila -by Antoni Gaudi

The Casa Mila (1905-07) is a riotous mass of crumbled stone and twisted iron, with a plan that ignores the right angle altogether. And the Church of the Sagrada Familia (1884, unfinished) amazes the visitor, with its four monster-like towers: overall it seems like a vegetable garden in the grip of some virus that freely changes its shapes and distorts them. Meanwhile, in America, the gigantic office buildings of Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) reveal in their facades, their honeycomb interiors and the strips and panels that divide the cells a multitude of plant ornaments.

Arts

Few styles can claim to be represented in almost all forms of visual and material media as thoroughly as Art Nouveau. In addition to those who worked mainly in graphics, architecture and design, Art Nouveau has some prominent representatives in painting, such as the Viennese secessionist Gustav Klimt and Victor Prouvé in France.

But Art Nouveau painters were few and far between: Klimt had virtually no students or followers (Egon Schiele went in the direction of Expressionism), and Prouvé is known equally well as a sculptor and furniture designer. Instead, Art Nouveau was probably responsible, more than any style in history, for narrowing the gap between the decorative or applied arts (to utilitarian objects) and the fine or purely ornamental arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which they had traditionally been considered more important and purer expressions of artistic talent and skill.

Furniture and Interior Design

Art Nouveau was as intimately associated with interior decoration as it appeared on exterior facades. Also the Art Nouveau interiors sought to create a harmonious environment and consistent that it left no surface untouched. The design of Art Nouveau furniture has been the center of attention in this regard, particularly in the production of carved wood that featured sharp, irregular outlines, often made by hand but occasionally made by machines. Furniture makers produced pieces for every use imaginable: beds, chaise longues, dining tables and chairs, wardrobes, sideboards and lamp stands. The sinuous curves of the designs often fed on the natural grain of the woods and were often installed permanently as wainscoting and moldings.

An Art Nouveau staircase

In France, leading Art Nouveau designers included Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Eugène Vallin, all based in Nancy; and Tony Selmersheim, Édouard Colonna and Eugène Gaillard, who worked in Paris – the latter two specifically for Siegfried Bing's shop called L'Art Nouveau (which later gave the entire movement its more common name).

Many of these designers moved freely between the various arts, often making them difficult to classify: Majorelle, for example, produced his own wooden furniture designs and opened an iron-working foundry, which produced the frames for the works in glass by the Daum brothers.

Graphic Arts

The ubiquity of Art Nouveau at the end of the 19th century must be explained in part by many artists' use of popular and easily reproducible forms, found in the graphic arts. In Germany, Jugendstil artists such as Peter Behrens and Hermann Obrist printed their work on book covers and exhibition catalogues, magazine advertisements and posters. But this trend was by no means limited to Germany. English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, perhaps the most controversial Art Nouveau figure for his combination of the erotic and the macabre, created a series of posters in his short career that used graceful, rhythmic lines.

Beardsley's highly decorative prints, such as The Peacock Skirt (1894), were both decadent and simple and represent the most direct link we can identify between Art Nouveau and Japanese/Ukiyo-e prints.

The Peakcock Skirt - of Aubrey Beardsley

In France, the posters and graphic output of Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Victor Prouvé, Théophile Steinlen, and a handful of others popularized the lavish and decadent lifestyle of the belle époque (roughly l era between 1890 and 1914), usually associated with the seedy cabaret district of Montmartre in northern Paris. Their graphic works used new chromolithographic techniques to promote everything from new technologies such as telephones and electric lights to bars, restaurants, nightclubs and even individual artists, evoking the energy and vitality of modern life. In the process, they soon elevated the poster from the ranks of pedestrian advertising to high, considered art.

The Art Nouveau style in Italy

In Italy the Art Nouveau style influenced architecture, figurative arts and applied arts. His name referred to Arthur Liberty and to his company and the birth of this style was connected to Milan in Northern Italy where the most important headquarters of this company was located. The movement appeared during the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin, in 1902.

After the Turin International Exhibition of 1902 “The Liberty Style Architecture” became a symbol of what will be called Italian Art Nouveau. It was born in contrast with mass production and the standardization of goods, made with poor quality materials. The movement favored craftsmanship and artists felt the need to express their creativity.

The most important characteristics of Italian Art Nouveau were the ornamental style, the sinuous and continuous lines, the movement, the aesthetic refinement and the attention to detail, both in architecture and in design.

The Liberty style in Italy developed thanks to many important figures such as Giuseppe Sommaruga, Giuseppe Cominetti, Benvenuto Benvenuti, Ernesto Basile, Carlo Bugatti. In particular, these last two names marked the transition to the new art in a distinctive way.

Ernesto Basile was a famous Sicilian architect, he was one of the main designers of the Liberty style. Its elegantly essential Art Nouveau architecture is perhaps best represented by Villino Florio and Casa Utveggio in Palermo. He also designed the Villino Basile and the Villino Fassini, both in Palermo. One of his best-known projects was the expansion of Bernini's Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome. After the 1914-18 war his architecture changed with more classical elements.

Carlo Bugatti was one of the most important and disruptive Italian designers. Typical of the first phase of his style, he used heavy, ebonized wood, decorated with copper, brass, ivory or other precious materials decorated with animal or insect motifs. Influenced by Moorish, Japanese and primitive art, his furniture was unique, almost theatrical.