ART NOUVEAU

(http://theartist.me/art-movement/indian-art/)

Art Nouveau was a style which emerged in the early 1890s in all the visual arts:  painting, sculpture,
architecture, interior design, graphic arts, posters, jewelry, clothing, and furniture.  It was a decorative style
which was intended to suffuse all activities of life with art.  The traditional borders between the arts were to be
broken down, and the borders between life and art also.  The leading sources for Art Nouveau were Japanese art,
and the British Aesthetic Movement, strongly identified with Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and James McNeill
Whistler, as well as the British Arts and Crafts Movement, and particularly the design philosophies of William
Morris and Walter Crane.

  These movements sought to break down the barriers between art and life, if possible to make one's life a work
of art.  There was thus an important psychological dimension to Art Nouveau.

 In the decorative arts, energy was a primary characteristic, as organic shapes and curvilinear lines expressed a
new dynamism.  Art Nouveau was modernist and experimental.  The movement broke the hold of historicism,
and in architecture there was a great deal of experimentation with new materials, especially iron and glass. 
There was a Utopian and optimistic quality about the Art Nouveau designers' intention to bring art into every
dimension of real life.  The new art and the new world were predicated on extreme individualism, however.  

The Art Nouveau movement came into being as designers bored of the Neoclassic and Historicism and wanted
to move the modern era in a direction of modern design. They looked at design as more than a mere application
of aesthetics, and strove to meld functionality, aesthetics, and design into a harmonious whole. This idea was
dubbed New Art, or Art Nouveau. This new title was given to art across all medium that applied the principle
from painting to architecture to what were previously known only as crafts. Art Nouveau discouraged the idea
that crafts were not art and embraced them as part of the movement.

HOW DID SYMBOLISM CONTRIBUTE TO ART NOUVEAU?

Symbolism in art, in particular, is seen as a mystical outgrowth of Romanticism [or subset thereof],
using dreams, allegories, mythology, morbid themes of death and transfiguration. Art Nouveau, which
came slightly afterward, is described as a 'Total Art' movement, meaning it extends from High Art to
decorative art, architecture, furniture, indeed a complete lifestyle. Interestingly these artists or
craftsmen/women broke down the barriers of art to bring it into the commonplace -- doorways, Metro
stations, silverware. Highly stylized organic, often floral themes abound. It is the stylization,
streamlining and naturalistic fantasy aesthetics that seem to be the most direct outgrowth of
Symbolism and its shadowy, stylized, chiaroscuro compositions. The example everyone gravitates to is
Gustav Klimt, whose figures and use of shadow are highly suggestive of Symbolism -- but his use of
mosaic and florid, often gold-leaf-effect decoration, as well as his ties to the Secessionists, implicate
him in the larger Nouveau movement which extends into the decorative and architectural.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
 Art Nouveau disliked the art community’s rejection of craft as non-art, and sought to remedy it. This
ultimately led to art nouveau becoming more of a craft based form, being ousted by Art Deco not long
after.
 Art Nouveau was heavily influenced Japanese woodblock prints and as such, mimicked their flat planes,
contrasting voids, and simple color schemes.
 Mass produced graphics coincided with Art Nouveau in a convenient way. Art Nouveau’s simple colors
and two dimensional depth worked well with modern printing equipment.
 The symbols of symbolism are secretive and ambiguous rather than being obvious familiar icons.

As opposed to Impressionism, in which the emphasis was on the reality of

the created paint surface itself, Symbolism was both an artistic and a
literary movement that suggested ideas through symbols and emphasized
the meaning behind the forms, lines, shapes, and colors. The works of
some its proponents exemplify the ending of the tradition of
representational art coming from Classical times. Symbolism can also be
seen as being at the forefront of modernism, in that it developed new and
often abstract means to express psychological truth and the idea that
behind the physical world lay a spiritual reality. Symbolists could take the
ineffable, such as dreams and visions, and give it form.

Key Ideas

What unites the various artists and styles associated with Symbolism is the
emphasis on emotions, feelings, ideas, and subjectivity rather than realism.
Their works are personal and express their own ideologies, particularly the
belief in the artist's power to reveal truth.
In terms of specific subject matter, the Symbolists combined religious
mysticism, the perverse, the erotic, and the decadent. Symbolist subject
matter is typically characterized by an interest in the occult, the morbid, the
dream world, melancholy, evil, and death.
Instead of the one-to-one, direct-relationship symbolism found in earlier
forms of mainstream iconography, the Symbolist artists aimed more for
nuance and suggestion in the personal, half-stated, and obscure
references called for by their literary and musical counterparts.
Symbolism provided a transition from Romanticism in the early part of the
nineteenth century to modernism in the early part of the twentieth century.
In addition, the internationalism of Symbolism challenges the commonly
held historical trajectory of modern art developed in France
from Impressionism through Cubism.

"In this art, scenes from nature, human activities,

and all other real world phenomena will not be
described for their own sake; here, they are
perceptible surfaces created to represent their
esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals."

The Symbolism of Gustav Klimt

In Austria, Symbolism is best represented by the work of Gustav Klimt (who

was also associated with Art Nouveau), the progressive artist who entered
the international Symbolist arena in 1897 by founding the Viennese
Secession group. This move entailed a rejection of the salon system and
other academic organizations in order to further the modern, more abstract
direction, which also entailed more controversial content that mirrored
Freud's recent findings. In fact, many historians have commented upon the
rapid internationalization of the Art Nouveau style as helping to supplant
that of the Symbolists. In view of the eclecticism of his multiple sources, his
work has been described as the "last fruits of the Symbolist harvest." His
contribution to Symbolism was that many of his works, though Symbolist in
subject matter, aimed to unite the arts and crafts in a way similar to that of
the Art Nouveau aesthetic, but different from the other Symbolist artists
who were more interested in "art for art's sake."

The Tree of life is an important symbol used by many theologies, philosophies and
mythologies. It signifies the connection between heaven and earth and the
underworld, and the same concept is illustrated by Gustav Klimt's famous mural, The
Tree of Life. For Klimt's admirers, the mural also has another significance, being the
only landscape created by the artist during his golden period. Klimt used oil painting
techniques with gold paint, to create luxurious art pieces, during that time. 

The concept of the tree of life is illustrated by Gustav Klimt's painting, in a bold and
original manner. The swirling branches create mythical symbolism, suggesting the
perpetuity of life. The branches twist, twirl, turn, spiral and undulate, creating a tangle
of strong branches, long vines and fragile threads, an expression of life's complexity.
With its branches reaching for the sky, the tree of life roots into the earth beneath,
creating the connection between heaven and earth, a concept often used to explain
the concept of the tree of life, in many cultures, religions and ideologies. The tree of
life illustrated by Klimt also creates another connection, with the underworld,
signifying the final determinism governing over any living thing, that is born, grows,
and then returns back into the earth. 
While many talk about the symbol of unity in Gustav Klimt' The Tree of Life, there are
others that consider it an expression of masculine and feminine. The feminine
expressed in the painting symbolizes sustenance, care and growth, while the
masculine is expressed through the use of phallic representations. From this
different union, life is born, and the tree of life, as well. 

Others say that the painting symbolizes the union between man's greatest virtues,
which are strength, wisdom and beauty. The tree reaching for the sky is a symbol of
man's perpetual yearning for becoming more, yet his roots are still bound to the
earth. 

One of the important qualities of The Tree of Life is that it challenges the viewer to
spend more time admiring the painting, while gauging all its meanings. While the
artist uses a richness of symbols, gold for paint and other luxurious techniques to
illustrate a magical world, the presence of a single black bird draws the viewer
towards the central part of the painting. The black bird is a reminder that everything
that has a beginning also has an end, as black birds have been used as a symbol of
death by many cultures. 

Between 1908 and 1914, Redon was repeatedly drawn to represent

the mythic beauties Venus, Andromeda, and Pandora. Here, he
depicts Pandora—the exquisite woman fashioned from clay by the
god Vulcan and sent to earth by Jupiter—as a graceful nude amid a
profusion of flowers. Her innocence still intact, Pandora cradles in
her arms the box that, when opened, will unleash all the evils
destined to plague mankind, thereby bringing to an end the
legendary Golden Age of humanity.
Synopsis

Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was Vienna's most renowned advocator of Art
Nouveau, or, as the style was known in Germany, Jugendstil ("youth style").
He is remembered as one of the greatest decorative painters of the
twentieth century, and he also produced one of the century's most
significant bodies of erotic art. Initially successful as a conventional
academic painter, his encounter with more modern trends in European art
encouraged him to develop his own eclectic and often fantastic style. His
position as the co-founder and first president of the Vienna Secession also
ensured that this style would become widely influential - though Klimt's
direct influence on other artists was limited. He never courted scandal, but
it dogged his career, and although he never married, he is said to have
fathered fourteen children.