Art History: Impressionism to Early Modernism (AHIS 206- Winter) Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 Instructor, Danielle Hogan

Primitivism

Source: Oxford University Press Term used with reference to art that celebrates certain values or forms regarded as primal, ancestral, fertile and regenerative. While the term ‘primitive’ was used at one time to include the arts of all of Africa, Asia and Pre-Columbian America, it was later used mostly in relation to art from Africa and the Pacific Islands. By the late 20th century it had lost most of its currency: this was in part due to the fact that the interest that Western artists had taken in ethnic arts, particularly from c to c. 1935, had itself led to the beginning of a more formalized study of this subject by both anthropologists and art historians; scholars’ research in this field allowed non-Western arts to be seen and appreciated more easily within their own context, rather than in secondary relation to the arts of the West or as ‘primitive’. Roger Cardinal From Grove Art Online © 2009 Oxford University Press

Art Nouveau

Themes of Art Nouveau: -Nature -Metamorphosis (the fusion of human, animal and plant forms) -Whiplash curves

The impressive grand entrance to Paris’ World Fair Exhibition, 1900

Nature was the single most important source for Art Nouveau artists and designers. As they adapted motifs from the natural world, nature and modernity came to mean almost the same thing. After the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), artists and designers began to explore the idea that humankind was no longer above nature, but inextricably part of it. The idea that people belonged to an ever-evolving nature led to the wide use of the theme of metamorphosis, or the fusion of human, animal, and plant forms. René Lalique often combined flowers, insects, or female figures in his intricate jewelry. Some designers copied nature in a realistic manner, often in order to convey a sense of spiritual or pantheistic affinity with the natural world. Others conventionalized natural forms, creating abstract curvilinear patterns, such as the whiplash curve, or geometric and linear designs. Architect Victor Horta’s Hotel Tassel located in Brussels (1892-3) demonstrated one of the first pieces of architecture that introduced Art Nouveau to architecure from the decorative arts.

L'ART NOUVEAU Siegfried ("Samuel") Bing ( ) 22 Chauchat Street, Paris Openned December 1895

Aubrey Beardsley ( )

The Stomach Dance, 1893 Aubrey Beardsley

Salome Aubrey Beardsley

Alphonse Mucha

F. Champenois Imprimeur-Editeur 1897 Alphonse Mucha

Dance 1898 Alphonse Mucha

Carriage Dealers, poster 1902 Alphonse Mucha

Sarah Bernhardt

The cloisonné process

Dragonfly Lady brooch cloisonné René Lalique

Tiara cloissonee René Lalique

Paris Metro stations Designed by Hector Guimard

Antoni Gaudi ( )

The Casa Batlló, already built in 1877, was remodelled in the Barcelona manifestation of Art Nouveau, modernisme Antoni Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol during 1904–1906

The Casa Batlló Barcelona, Spain Antoni Gaudí

The Casa Batlló, roof top Barcelona, Spain Antony Gaudi

The Casa Batlló, front balconies Barcelona, Spain Antony Gaudi

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família Antoni Gaudí

Detail of the roof in the nave. Gaudi designed the columns to mirror trees and branches, which were in his eyes God's creation Tortoise at the base of column The Glory façade in scaffolding

The interior of the Vitebsk Railway Station in St. Petersburg

But how might we think of the Art Nouveau aesthetic fitting into the pluralist narrative of art history? As an art style, Art Nouveau has affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolist styles, and artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha, Edward Burne-Jones, Gustav Klimt and Jan Toorop could be classed in more than one of these styles. Unlike Symbolist painting, however, Art Nouveau has a distinctive appearance; and, unlike the artisan-oriented Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau artists readily used new materials, machined surfaces, and abstraction in the service of pure design. Art Nouveau did not negate machines, as the Arts and Crafts Movement did. For sculpture, the principal materials employed were glass and wrought iron, resulting in sculptural qualities even in architecture. Ceramics were also employed in creating editions of sculptures by artists such as Auguste Rodin. Art Nouveau architecture made use of many technological innovations of the late 19th century, especially the use of exposed iron and large, irregularly shaped pieces of glass for architecture. By the start of World War I, however, the stylised nature of Art Nouveau design—which was expensive to produce—began to be disused in favour of more streamlined, rectilinear modernism, which was cheaper and thought to be more faithful to the plainer industrial aesthetic that became Art Deco.