The unruly Continental offspring, Art
Nouveau (the new art) became the first popular 20th-century style, an effete
successor to the more rustic Arts
and Crafts. Inheriting the great traditions of French color and form, fed
further by Europe's craze for Japonisme,
this turn-of-the-century style replaced a dependency on historical design formulae
with organic form derived
largely from nature. Familiar motifs
included curvilinear elements,
sinuous contours of tendrils and floral arabesques, whiplash lines, and later,
exaggerated embellishment. Art Nouveau responded well to inlaid wood veneers,
wrought iron and glass. The name derives from a Paris
gallery, L'Art Nouveau, opened in 1895 by Siegfried Bing. In Italy it was
called Stile Liberty or Stile Floreale; in Germany, Jugendstil (youth style).
It reached its highpoint in the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. While it tried
nobly to reconcile art and industry, it was essentially an artist's style and
failed to satisfy the demands of mass production.
