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Art Nouveau to many is characterised by natural organic forms with curvilinear shapes & contours of rhythmic content. Sinuous plant like forms with languid female figures veiled in allegory and sensuality and illustrated by symbols.  Asymmetrical shapes, ethereal figures, tall plant like growth and whiplash curves.

Today Art Nouveau is regarded as the name of an International decorative style that broke away from previous historic academic styles in favour of originality. However at the period 1880 –1914[1] it was known in different countries nationally by different names and was not a single style term at all, but a Movement. In Germany it was called ‘Jugendstil’, ‘Stile Liberty’ in Italy, ‘Sezessionstil’ in Austria & ‘Modern Style’ in France.

It had a brief & spectacular reign bursting its influence on every kind of domestic furnishing, decorative art & in architecture too. Perhaps though, it was most appealing to the general public in the jewellery & glass of the applied arts and most seen in the printed and published  field of advertising.

The list of exponents is endless, but included, Rene Lalique, Emile Galle, Daum Freres & Louis Comfort Tiffany. Muchas’ posters of Sarah Bernhardt, Victor Hortas' organic design, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s interiors of spatial elegance and Arthur Lasenby Libertys’[2] Store introducing the designs to his customers.

The development of the style is possibly as complicated as its content, but to mention John Ruskin[3] & designer William Morris’s[4] abandonment of machine made articles in favour of hand made craftsmanship & simplicity in design is perhaps a critical starting point. Both men had challenged Victorian aesthetic values and provided a climate for the coming style by changing expectation.

 The Medieval inspired Arts & Crafts Movements search for new aesthetics, in all probability, also allowed for the later eventual development of Art Nouveau.

The name Art Nouveau was derived from Siegfried Bings' shop in Paris[5] ‘La Maison de L’ Art Nouveau’. He had for many years bought the art of Japan and China to France. He had also become friendly with a group of artists from the school of thought known as the Nabis[6]. In 1895 a new gallery to promote contemporary, applied and fine arts was opened & in 1900 Bing took an extensive pavilion at Exposition Universelle in Paris.   He called his pavilion “l’Art Nouveau Bing”. An amalgam of styles and influences ensued, collectively from Japanese imagery, Symbolist idealism and idiom and was shown to great effect at the ‘Expo’.

In the forerunner to this period a trade treaty between the U.S. and Japan in 1854, sanctioned Japanese Art to become available after almost 200 years of isolation. Their use of nature as a primary source, flat perspectives & block colouring was a revelation to Western artists. Aesthetic values came to the fore. Art Nouveau absorbed all these influences through the use of the motifs and naturalistic designs of birds and insects as well as botanical studies of plant life. 

Ancient mythology also provided models for ‘femme fatale’.[7] The Enamel and Silver Brooch by Ernest Dabault depicts the temptation of Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. This led to her taking the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and to mankind’s expulsion from paradise into a world of sin and toil.

The symbolic Art Nouveau alluded to the epitome of weakness and vulnerability, temptation and degeneracy. The narrative of Art Nouveau design concept contains a complex range of symbolic matter.  Mystical aspects were acquired from many sources, but particularly by contact with the French Symbolist Movement. 

Art Historian Maurice Rheims wrote, “Art Nouveau arose out of symbolism and its sources are as diverse & bewildering as those of the parent stream.” 

Maeterlinck and Mallorme inspired in their writings that artists should concentrate on provoking emotional reaction to their work as opposed to traditional dictates of naturalism & realism.

The female from was increasingly used as a symbol of eroticism & decadence. Art Nouveau artists portrayed woman as an ethereal, spiritual creature frequently combining her with motifs of dragonflies, butterflies and flowers in an attempt to convey sensual & melancholic undertones running deeply through the concept of nature. It was overt in its use of erotic forms of imagery and its symbolic use of myth and religion played a part in the development and formulation of the ‘New Art’ style.

The use of nature as a primary decorative source was also one of the principals of the School of Nancy in France. The rejection of stiff rigid floral sprays or motionless birds complimented the deeper naturalistic themes that were being nurtured. Galle[8] befriended Japanese artist Takashima and learned his botanical brushwork techniques. He employed these skills to use as decoration on his vases and cameo work. He utilised many symbolist botanical specimens, including the Thistle, a motif of the region of Lorraine for political meaning. He particularly wanted to denote and record his distain and rejection of the German political annexation of Alsace Lorraine for instance.

The symbolist writers promoted prose of birth, growth, decay & death. Galle, for instance, frequently inscribed lines of verse from symbolists on to his vases & bowls. These symbolically represented the never-ending chain or cycle of birth, life, death & decay. Shortly before his death he produced a fine symbolist vase with applied cabochons[9] over silver foil, wheel –carved with a large flying bat,[10] the reverse was carved with the sun about to rise over a sleepy village. It illustrates the slightly sinister world of twilight that bats abound in, possibly only seen symbolically by ghouls and ghosts although also a chinese symbol of longevity.

As icons or symbols, flowers have always been very popular and with their previous long history of symbolism were given to a whole range of erotic meanings in the ‘fin de siecle’[11]. They were used to denote the boundaries and extremes of maleficent evil to the virginal purity. Language had also reinforced floral symbolism[12] with the so-called “deflowering” of a girl being a common theme to be found in art with the use of lilies, iris’s, sunflowers and poppies.

New Symbols were also created in an artificial subversion of nature itself. Almost a rebellion of form, colour and texture to illustrate a code or significance of meaning. The green carnation, for instance, to symbolise Oscar Wilde’s alternative sexuality. The supreme erotic flower though, was to become the orchid. Its exotic & suggestive fleshy forms made it the most decadent of flowers, suggesting the vulva & other regions of the female anatomy. Galle described the orchid as having richness, inconceivably strong of form, whims, voluptuousness & unsettling mysteries.

Woman’s enigmatic expression with eyes closed to conceal her inner world was symbolistic of  conjuring up images of death, hidden chimeras, sorcery and cults for hallucinatory drug taking. Art Nouveau woman represented a symbolist offshoot of this theme. Gone was the femme fatale and in her place was the tousled enchantress in an allegorical & symbolic role, personifying ideals like truth, justice, progress and faith.

In the guise of progress she was shown brandishing aloft a torch and became the Fairy- Electricity. Symbolising the invention of the electric bulb by projection of triumph of science over mechanics and new century over old. Light and Sculpture was personified by the American dancer, Loie Fuller, in Paris in 1892, at the Follies Bergere in her spectacular success with lights and mirrors. Loie became the inspiration for numerous sculptors including Raoul Larche who modelled the Gilt bronze Lamp in her honour. However this new symbolism was mixed with the previous theme of libidinous, dangerous and lustful femme fatale as expressed in vampire imagery.  Loie Fullers’ metamorphosis on stage from bat to woman. Sarah Bernhardt as a half bat did the same thing &  Edvard Munchs’ paintings and lithographs of the female vampire abounded. Loie certainly had caught the imagination, she even had a Theatre named after her at the Paris Expo of 1900 and Oscar Wilde had remarked, “She is the idol of Symbolists”.

The English Aesthetes Movement & the Pre-Raphaelites [13]had originally inspired symbolists. Their distain for realism was founded on the ‘Baudelairean’[14] ideal “be beautiful & sad” as in Rosettis' “Beatrice.” The PRB. imagery of woman as mystical visions in which the sensual had been held in check by the spiritual was ideal to Symbolists’ hypothesis. The decadent aesthetic movement was perceived to suggest wickedness and horror, which was also an ideal concept for them.

It is said that the idea of decoration was pushed to a point in which it became the vehicle for communal spiritual expression via symbolism. Ornamentation became as much a secular religion as a means of changing the look of things.

The femme fatale had been most popularised by images of Medusa & Salome, both being linked by the destructive power of the gaze. Oscar Wilde had made it explicit in his play “Salome” of 1891, which had been symbolised by Aubrey Beardsleys' depictions. Salome stares into the dead eyes of the severed head, as arabesques of blood gather in a pool underneath. Salome, a female preditor & perhaps regarded as the symbolic incarnation of undying lust.

It can be seen that Beardleys’ style contributed to Art Nouveau expressions, by his use of the subject matter underlining the importance of the Symbolism in it. He produced 350 designs for a book  “Le Mort d’ Arthur” in the illustrations his Knights changed from Pre-Raphaelite heroes to mischievous “fin de siecle” dandies.

French artists too were drawing on the inspiration of decadent sensuality in the work of Symbolists. The impact of their art was best seen at the Paris Expo of 1900 in Bings’ Pavilion. Eugene Gaillard designed the furniture[15] and Georges de Feure provided the paintings and decoration for the exterior of the pavilion. The decorative Feure painting of “The Daughter of Leda” is drawn from the Greek myth of the rape of Leda by Zeus (transformed into a swan). It illustrates most succinctly the close ties between Symbolism and Art Nouveau and exemplifies the link between the ‘new art’, the aesthetic and the spirit of Symbolism. He had executed this work in 1896 whilst exhibiting at the Salon of the “Rose + Croix” which represented a wide range of symbolist activity.

Josephin Peladon, a passionate follower of the English Romantics, ran the salon and admired the languid mysticism of the Pre-Raphaelitism[16].

Just as Gauguin[17] was regarded the supreme influence of the Nabis, the artist Odilon Redon was the chief patron of the ‘Rose’. His work joined literary Symbolism with the occult to produce disturbing dream-like imagery. Much of the PRB. early influence can be judged in the poster image produced by Carlos Schabe in1892 to publicise the Rose + Croix. The thought that the artist is suggesting here might simply be a romantic ideal. On the other hand, the modern symbolic iconography depicted, gave reason to provoke consideration to the presentation that a receptive individual might accept the idea of intuitive emotion or spirituality by this symbolism.[18] In this idea, the images may suggest, the presence of degenerate women taking up the theme as predatory lesbians placed within unrestrained realms of nature and naturalism.

On a lighter note, but equally important in the Symbolism that was used in Art Nouveau, is the crucial development at the advent of the 20th. century of Art used as a mass advertising medium. It was realised that advertising sold an idea of lifestyle and sex sold the products. The eroticism of Art Nouveau was perfect as a vehicle using symbolism to convey the message to the public. Muchas’ posters used the image of erotic woman to carry the message that made them the definitive symbol of the modern era. His tousled-haired beauties presented every commodity and idea from cigarettes and tobacco to beer and cars. The eroticism of the advertising varied but the symbol remained the same, woman were the premier symbol used to sell the product.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, a Finnish artist produced his “Bil altie Bol” advertisement for a local car dealer in a truly naked erotic style. The promise of sexual fulfilment is explicit; the strong adaptation of a traditional Finnish country folk story, as a naked woman is snatched in a car and.……. …restrained! Symbolically the driver emphasises power, strength, control and above all fulfilment of desire. It is amazing to consider that this theme is still used in a symbolic way today, nearly 100 years later, to sell the same product.

In concluding this discussion it may be apt to draw attention to the fact that there appeared to be a fashionable visual language of International Symbolism in the Art Nouveau Movement. There is evidence of stylisation in all disciplines of the design concept. For instance in Mackintosh’s’ architectural work he loaded the elements with the raw material of Celtic mysticism associated with the rural areas of Glasgow. He combined vernacular and symbolist elements in the north front above the doorway of the School of Art.[19] He used symbolist colour coding relating to masculine and feminine characteristics.

 These ideas of conception were being used in a totally different perception in other parts of Europe but with the same inspiration of utilising symbolism with ingenuity in the “New Style”. The advocates were Horta in Belgium, Guimard in Paris, Gaudi in Barcelona, Lechner in Budapest, Polivka & others in Prague, d’Aronco in Turin, Olbrich and Behrens in Darmstadt.

In applied and decorative Arts can be seen a “similar-fact” theme. As example, Edvard Munchs’ “Dance of Life” features a country-dance in Norway. It could indeed be any country; the subject of the idea is the same, through the symbolism of sexual psychology and spirituality. The picture conveys three ages of woman as a virginal young female dressed in white, a flame like woman in red symbolising carnal knowledge and an old “bitter” looking woman in black.

The power and use of symbols in Art Nouveau were taken to the extremes of decadence in exploitation of eroticism and may have contributed to its downfall just prior to the outbreak of hostilities in World War I. These factors were recognised as a destabilising factor right across ideological spectrum. Socialist modernism on the one hand and conservative historicism on the other, ignored exploration of sexuality and pushed it to the periphery of art and design. However at the end of the terrible conflict in 1918, new design concepts of modernism began to emerge and Art Deco [20]was born in the second decade of the 20th Century.

Although the interest in Art Nouveau declined for about 60 years, its influence still remained, albeit in relatively obscure form. In the 20th century style became more and more associated with utility and technology. 

It is surprising still, therefore, to find in that Art Deco “bastion” city of New York[21], upon the outside “citadel” wall of the Art Deco inspired Radio City, a surprising revelation in three enamelled and metal cast decorative plaques. The designs certainly metaphorically leap-out and say here are the symbolism, the radiance and the technique of a style that allegedly became benign in about 1914.  Perhaps it never actually went into full decline, but was only “sleeping” for a while. Its influence transcended other styles in a quiet way, as in this case, by enveloping Art Deco. This style Movement would later in its history become very sought after and known as International Art Nouveau

Mike W. Bucknole, May 2001. For Acknowledgements see Bibliography All written rights protected. With grateful thanks for her infectious enthusiasm to Anne Anderson, Senior Lecturer, Southampton Institute, BA (Hons) Fine Art Valuation/Antiques (History & Collecting) Degrees.