CREATOR(S)Victor Horta TITLEChairDATEc.

1901 MEDIUMmahogany with modern upholstery MEASUREMENTS H: 37 5/8 x W: 18 7/8 x D: 21 7/8 inches (H: 96 x W: 48 x D: 56 cm) CREDITDecorative Arts Purchase Fund ACCESSION NUMBER 84.80.1 LOCATIONCurrently not on view

Side Chair
Victor Horta (Belgian, 18611947)
Date: Medium: ca. 1902 Mahogany

Dimensions:

H.38, W.19, D.17 inches (96.5 x 48.3 x 43.2 cm.) Seat H. 18-1/4 inches (46.5 cm.) Woodwork-Furniture Purchase, Peter Palumbo Gift, 1987

Classification: Credit Line:

Description
In 1902 the Belgian architect Victor Horta showed this dining room in the Belgian pavilion at the influential International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin, Italy. His furniture, while sharing many of the characteristics of that of his French contemporaries, tends to be less effusive, more masculine.

Art nouveau

The style we call Art Nouveau, was a shared enthusiasm among young artist-craftsmen during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Feeding on other European arts and crafts influenced groups, and adding a taste for all things oriental, a group established in the mid 1890s was centred on the work of glass artist and furniture designer mile Gall. Together with painter portraitist and sculptor Victor Prouv, metalawork and furniture designer Louis Majorelle, glass designer and maker Antonin Daum (18641931) as well as furniture maker and designer Eugne Vallin, they founded the Ecole de Nancy at Nancy, Alscae-Lorraine in France.

The name Art Nouveau was a reflection of the newness of their designs and was taken from an influential Parisian shop of the time, which had been established by German born Siegried Bing (1838-1905). He sold pieces from Germany and England in addition to French pieces. The style was characterized by fluid, curvaceous lines, which were inspired by nature and included loose tendrils, flower and leaf motifs. It is still considered the very best of all Art Nouveau interiors were produced at Paris, where the unity of art and life was the declared aim of this new style whose sensuous and sinuous lines were more eloquent than words. Purists today still prefer to apply the term art nouveau only to the largely nature inspired curvilinear French pieces made at Paris and Nancy, although the influence was widespread. In Europe, England, America and Australia builders, designers, artists and craftspeople all responded to the asymmetry and stylish sensuality of lart nouveau.

Magnolia Vase by mile Gall

Plum Vase by mile Gall

The natural world was a major stimulus to lEcole de Nancy, Emile Galles group. The outlines and details of furniture depicted the sinuosity of plant growth patterns and the style was also well suited to the multi-layered beautiful antique Roman cameo-cut glass technique, which was made contemporary, fresh and new by mile Gall. His work was like a mysterious temple that no one entered without displaying the emotions of awe and bewilderment. Grace and beauty are its outer clothing. In its depths shines the flame of the spirit. said art critic and historian Roger Marx. Gall exceptionally blended poetry and philosophy with the physical material, rendering works in glass, ceramics and also in wood.

The brothers Auguste and Antonin Daum had taken over their fathers workshop. Their stand was a popular and innovative draw card at the great 1900 Paris Exhibition showcasing the new style. Glass was a medium that responded well to Art Nouveaus sinuous and seductive lines. Vases were created in monochrome or graded coloration, devoid of ornament, relying purely on surface effects. Forms were simple, unpretentious, eccentric creations of sophisticated elegance. A friend of art critic, social thinker poet and artist John Ruskin, architect and designer Arthur H. Mackmurdo (1851-1942) was the first in England to produce the characteristic vocabulary of Art Nouveau. In England it provided inspiration for providing new interiors for the also newly designed, and misnamed Queen Anne House. MackMurdo took his inspiration from nature, particularly the plant world, flowers, stems and leaves, which were all chosen for their curvaceous silhouettes.

Daum Vase

His sensational chair with a writhing wrought iron thistle design was a commission for the Century Guild (London, 1882-88) and it was made by Collinson & Lock, London around 1883. The natural forms of arts and crafts designer William Morris and his pre-Raphealite artist friends also inspired Mackmurdo to develop his shapes into elongated, increasingly elegant patterns.

Chair with thistle design, which is the emblem of Nancy, Lorraine. It was esigned by Englishman A.H. MackMurdo

Lamp with Dragonflies by Louis Comfort Tiffany

At the turn of the century at London Arthur Libertys new department store, Liberty and Co, displayed goods in the style lart nouveau including lamps by Tiffany. One of the strengths of Liberty of London lay in the fact that within one large shop it was possible to buy all the components necessary for a successfully artistic mode of life, and to be sure of there being acceptable to other aesthetically like minded people. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) led a band of artists at New York. Anyone who was anybody in America by the turn of the twentieth century would have endeavoured to have a Tiffany window, a lamp or mosaic in their home. Or, otherwise they would have had one donated to their local church, bank or college. Louis was the son and heir of the founder of the famous American jewellery store. He had his own exotic studio on the top floor of his fathers mansion. Stained glass had undergone a revolution in both technique and design during the 1890s and it was being used not only in windows but also inset into doors, furniture, lamps and at railway stations. In America John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany used layers of opalescent glass to create sumptuous richly colored windows with designs of flowers, exotic birds or shimmering skies, which could not have been more different from the medieval style windows made in England only 30 to 40 years before.

Europe was inspired by the sensuality of the style Art Nouveau as artists and architects all sought freedom of expression producing more than tendrils in time. At Riga, the capital of Latvia in the old city many of its buildings display a combination of straight geometry and carefully controlled organic curves, as everywhere artists inspired by the group at Nancy sought variety by embracing both shared ideas and ideals. The result was that an entire host of artistic media became caught up in an a glorious arabesque of literature, poetry music, fine and applied art that were part of art nouveaus expression. Artist Vincent Van Gough, novelist, critic and essayist Marcel Proust Composers such as Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss were all part of a dizzy climate of sensual, dramatic and poetic masterpieces. Tension between the senses and sexes were stimulated by plant and animal symbols and sensuality was accepted in all the famous salons. Back to nature was a pretext for grasping and handling the concept of the body, particularly the female form with manes of hair swirling and swimming in complex waves and curls of smoke, imprisoned and surrendering.

At Riga - Jugenstidl, 'young style'

Brooch with Female with tendrils and flowing hair

Orchid Desk by Louis Majorelle

Progressive furniture in the Art Nouveau style was produced from 1880 to 1910. Of impeccable craftsmanship the style at its best was exuberant and joyful. French decorator and designer Louis Majorelle 1859-1926, a cabinetmaker by trade, gave sensual and sinuous form to his furniture, which was richly ornamented. After 1901 he became a Vice President of theEcole de Nancy and worked to expand his fathers business that was tragically destroyed by fire in 1916, consuming all his original sketches, moulds, equipment and archives. His renowned orchid desk of 1905 is a testimony to his mastery of the style as is his dining room suite of c1902, now in a corporate Museum in America. Within the art community at Vienna at the turn of the 20th century the hoped for marriage of art and industry had not happened and small communal workshops were thought the best way to remedy the situation.

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss 1907-1908

Art Nouveau artist, Gustav Klimt, whose brilliant individualism dominated the era, led a group of primarily young Viennese artists, painters, sculptors and architects who seceded from the prestigious Kunsterhaus (Artists House) and set up the Society of Austrian Artists the Vienna Secession They staged their first exhibition in March 1898. They enjoyed considerable success in their early years. To each century its art, to art its Freedom was its credo. It was an act of youthful idealism in the spirit of sacrifice and with a willingness to work hard, the 19, started have today become seventy and they plunged into leading Vienna into the age of Modernism. Their aims were purely aesthetic; concerned only as they were with finding the form, the material being already at hand. The secession was founded in coffeehouse culture and decorative arts magazines, such as The Studio, were devoured in the capitals cafes. English fashion, sport and astonishingly food, was debated endlessly. The attractiveness of the handicraft items issuing from Vienna was demonstrated at the World Exposition in Paris of 1900. Michael Thonet designed the Viennese coffeehouse chair, which is still manufactured today, selling over 100 million. The secret of its enduring success lies in its social as well as technical serviceability, its low production costs and its competitive price. Thonet chairs have since become indelibly identified as classics of modern design and his remarkable bentwood furniture continues to turn heads more than a century later. While the history of bentwood furniture dates back two centuries, it was Michael who propelled the notion of bending woods and subsequently tubular metal into the twentieth century. His original designs were delicate and lightweight and he established a patent in 1842 for his process. The pliant and pleasing styles practiced by artists were a veritable box office hitwith

handicraft liberated from its confines and allowed to form a synthesis with interior design and the liberal arts; bringing with it a sense of liberated living for those who embraced the style lart nouveau.

Staircase by Victor Horta

In Belgium Victor Horta became a leading exponent of the style making use of painting as a supplement to the building materials in order to extend the sense of movement in his iron components. Much more was made of iron as a building material when combined with glass and superb examples married colour and geometry. Bold use was made of contrast, embracing the whole spectrum of color from violet to turquoise, dissolving into checkerboard patterns and little squares George Jensen (1866-1935) became Scandinavias most famous silversmith. He began as a ceramicist producing everyday utensils in powerful art nouveau forms, exhibiting his work to great acclaim using semiprecious stones and enamel to embellish them. In Scotland Charles Rennie Mackintosh was greatly influenced, particularly through Celtic art. His style was much more puritanical and simple and in turn did much to heavily influence industrial design.

At this level however, it would be a Belgian Henry Van de Velde, who would prove to be an influential link between the Arts and Craft, Art Nouveau movements and industrial design. In Barcelona the Catalan architect come artist Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926) was also inspired by natures organic forms. He asserted that virtually everything could be produced from brick and stone. His controversial works still challenge the mind both structurally and aesthetically. Gaudi loved Christian symbols, classical and oriental mythology and his imagination transferred and translated into structures that cannot be forced into stylistic pigeonholes or, historical periods but are perhaps a lesson in painterly and sculptural architectural composition combining honesty with spirituality.

Gaudi, flowing sinuous lines

Art is beauty and beauty the radiance of truth Gaudi said, without which there is no art, new or otherwise.

At Nancy in north-eastern France today theEcole de Nancy Museum offers a testimony of the diversity of creative techniques practiced by the artists of this school, with a fine display of furniture, objets dart, glassware, stained-glass, leather, ceramics, textiles, etc. from the period. The motto of the city is Non inultus premor, Latin for No one touches me with impunity a reference to the thistle a symbol of Lorraine. As a style Art Nouveau expired, a casualty of the first World War 1914-18