ART NOUVEAU

ART NOUVEAU

Art Nouveau followed the Arts and Crafts movement in rejecting the styles of the old order but not its linking of atr to social consciousness and nationalism.

It didn't look back to some medieval gothic ideal but forward to the new industrial wealth.

The free-form curve became its hallmark, lilies, sunflowers, the roots, swans and peacocks; anything which symbolized purity and freedom.

The purest Art Nouveau architecture can be found in the works of Gaudi in Barcellona where the whole building became a fusion of organic base form and structure, like a piece of sculpture.

Art Nouveau explores a new style in the visual art and architecture that developed in Europe and North America at the end of 19^th century. It wanted to create an international style based on decoration.

Art Nouveau designers also believed that all the arts should work in harmony to create a "total work of arts": buildings, furniture, textiles, clothes, jewellery.

The term Art Nouveau is a French Belgium name, but it had several names in each country.

In France it was style Guimard, in Germany Jugendstil, in Italy stile liberty and modernism in Spain.