Symbolism & Art Nouveau

"A picture, before being a warhorse, a female nude, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours in a particular order."

Maurice Denis, 1890

- The Post-Impressionists show the artificiality of art and so the canvas becomes its own reality. 

Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1905, Philadelphia Museum of Art

- Cézanne's art is a meditation on space, composition and perspective. It reveals the artificiality of painting; these ideas will lead to Cubism. 

- Expression was very important to the Post-Impressionists. Expressionist painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Munch, Egon Schiele, are all expressing themselves.

Gauguin, Still Life with Fruit and Lemons, c.1880, Museum Langmatt

- This Gauguin painting is one of his earlier works, very much influenced by Cézanne. In his later paintings he was interested in freeing the colour from it's representational role - blue trees, yellow horses, etc.

Gauguin, The Yellow Christ (Le Christ Jaune), 1889, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Medieval Stained-Glass Window and French Folk Print

- In Gauguin's The Yellow Christ he depicts the women at Christ's feet in traditional dress. He wanted to find an honest, purer and more spiritual way of life. He uses dark, thick outlines, this technique is very different to that of the Impressionists. It is however similar in composition to Japanese prints. Gauguin shows a complete disregard for true colours and perspective. He juxtaposed strong colours to make an impact. Medieval stained glass was a big inspiration for him. He was always in search for new tools of expression. Like Courbet, he was also influenced by folk prints, popular prints and wood cuts - of simplification, in a way. 

- Gauguin left the competition and critics of Paris in search for inspiration elsewhere, to a place that was not spoiled by modernity and modern life. He was in search of a lost paradise where people still lived in a golden age of the Middle Ages. Although he lived outside of Paris, he sent all this paintings there and had a huge impact on contemporary artists.

Gauguin, Areaea - Joyousness, 1891, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

- Colour becomes autonomous for Gauguin. The viewer has to make an effort to perceive depth, his paintings recess in planes. He juxtaposes primary and secondary colours, using colour in a symbolic way. 

Gauguin, The White Horse, 1898, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

- Gauguin uses an interesting, cropped composition which owes a lot of Japanese prints. This experimentation became immensely popular in Paris, artists were highly interested in symbolism and how art can express a personal vision of the world. 

Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, 1888, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

- This painting by Sérusier has an obscure title and leaves a lot to interpretation. A river reflecting trees onto the water. By 1888 there was a complete disregard for academic painting. 

- Gauguin had a lot of followers, Les Nabis were just one of the groups that followed him. Their paintings, like Gauguin's, used symbolic colours and had a flat quality to them. 

- Pierre Bonnard was part of Les Nabis. He was influenced by flatness and patterns. Fine art and Decorative art were becoming the same. Again with these works, the influence of Japanese prints is clear. It is really about colour and how it can be used to create perspective.

Matisse, The Dessert, Harmony in Red, 1908, Hermitage, St. Petersburg

- All of these artists had a huge impact on Matisse - obsessed with colour and patterns. He was inspired by the freedom of colour and of expression, all introduced by the Post-Impressionists. 

Symbolism.

- All artists were trying to cope with two essential factors:

1. Finding new forms of expression that were completely different to the academy.
2. Embrace or rebel against modernity. 

Gustave Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, Met Museum, NYC

Gustave Moreau, Jupiter and Semele, 1894, Moreau Museum, Paris

- Symbolists were obsessed not with reality, but with the sphere of dreams, association with religion, and many going back to Greek mythology. Many were traditional iconographical subjects, but treated in a new way. The technique of the symbolists was traditional compared to that of the Post-Impressionists. Their aesthetic is more focused on the subject and how to represent the realm of dreams. 

Arnold Böcklin, The Island of the Dead, 1880, Basel

- This painting by Böcklin is traditional in terms of forms, but completely un-academic in subject. It was in a way like a new form of Romanticism, with themes of death, dreams and the sublime - all as a way of escaping modernity.

- Odilon Redon was a famous engraver, whose work was focused around dreams and dream-like states, with symbolic associations, rather than real, rational associations. 

- All of these works will have a great impact on the Surrealists. The theme of dreams appealed enormously to the Surrealists, especially after Freud. 

- This was also a period of eclecticism and age of historicism, an age of revivalism. 

Charles Garnier, Opéra, 1861, Paris

Charles Garnier, Interior - Opéra, 1861, Paris

- Charles Garnier's Opéra is a great example of Eclecticism, as there are lots of different sources for the architecture. It is completely academic and not modern. There is a lot going on in terms of visual experimentation in painting, but architecture is looking back to the past. The official Neo-Baroque of the Second Empire. Inside the Opéra there is a lot of gilding, very un-modern.

Eiffel Tower and the grounds of the 1889 Exposition Universalle

- The Eiffel Tower was built to mark the entrance to the Exposition Universalle and was intended to be a temporary structure. The Parisians hated it.

Victor Horta, Stairwell of the Tassel House, Brussels, 1892-93

- The 1880s saw in a new form of architecture. Architects were trying to combine materials of modernity (cast iron, glass, industrially produced stone etc.) with aesthetic value. These aesthetics look back to nature as opposed to artificiality and redundant aesthetics of the past. They created new, modern, young natural interiors - as if the architectural decor is an expression of nature.

Hector Guimard, Metro Station, Paris, 1900

Hector Guimard, Metro Station decoration, Paris, 1900

- Art Nouveau embraces the ethos of the Arts and Crafts Movement, but also new materials. It is a paradox in a way; in many ways it is one of the last attempts to fins something that isn't modern. Guimard's Art Nouveau Metro signs use glass and cast iron, but take the shape of natural forms.

- Hector Guimard also designed Art Nouveau furniture. One of the most fundamental concepts from Art Nouveau to Bauhaus, was to create a new kind of interior, that the architecture had control of everything, not only the buildings, but the interiors: the furniture, the cutlery, everything.

Anton Gaudí, Casa Batló, 1904-06, Barcelona

Gaudí, Rooftop, Barcelona

Gaudí, Staircase, Barcelona

- Gaudí reshaped Barcelona at the end of the 19th century with his own personal vision of Art Nouveau. It was unusual to create facades in Art Nouveau. He used modern materials to create organic looking forms. He was obsessed with natural forms. He was in search of a new language of architecture. Very, very expensive. He failed to create a language that could spread to the working classes.

René Lalique, Jewellery, 1897-98

- Art Nouveau marks an era, covering everything in design, including jewellery. Everything that was produced embraced the new style. Lalique was one of the most famous jewellery makers of the Art Nouveau period. He pieces catered for the taste of the exotic.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow School of Art, 1897-1909

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow School of Art, 1897-1909

- Charles Rennie Mackintosh had a completely different interpretation of Art Nouveau and use of traditional and modern materials. His style is much more rectilinear, geometric and regimented. It is almost unrecognisable as Art Nouveau.

- Mackintosh was very important in the development of modernism. His designs were very functional and had a machine-like aesthetic. He also had a great impact on art Nouveau in Vienna.

Joseph Maria Olbrich, Secession Building, 1897, Vienna

Joseph Maria Olbrich, Detail - Secession Building, 1897, Vienna

- Art Nouveau in Vienna is known as Secession. They too rebelled against the academy of art and created an avant-garde interested in symbolism. The style was very rectangular and more classical in their architectural approach. The secession building was used as a pavilion for exhibiting these works, the facade is adorned with laurel leaves - the leaves of poetry. Organic, youth and nature were all essential elements.

Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, 1902, Secession Palace, Vienna 

Klimt, Beethoven Frieze - Right Wall, 1902, Secession Palace, Vienna

Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-08, Österreicheische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

- Inside the Secession building there is a frieze by Gustav Klimt, the decorative nature of his art looks back to the great achievement of the Post-Impressionists. He too was obsessed with flatness, the decorative principles of linearity and ornament comes from the avant-gardes in Paris. The Kiss, has no perspective at all, and is the symbol of the Secession.

- Graphic design in Vienna was revolutionary. Koloman Moser designed posters that developed the organic forms of the Art Nouveau style. Vienna is famous for very elegant graphic design. Lots of paychedelic graphic design was inspired by graphic design from Vienna. They were obsessed with patterns, union of patterns, figures and text.

- Audrey Beardsley was a friend of Oscar Wilde's and illustrated for him. These illustrations are very Art Nouveau, with formal tendencies that are very easy to determine.