Summary 3

CHAPTER 11: ART NOUVEAU:

·         Late 19^th century: Increased trade and communication between Asian and European countries= cultural collision.

·         East and West experienced change = reciprocal influences.

·         Asian art provided European and North American Artists and designers with new approaches: space, colour, drawing conventions and subject matter which were different to Western traditions.

·         19^th century: Revitalization of graphic design during last decade.

THE INFLUENCE OF UKIYO-E:

·         Ukiyo-e= pictures of the floating world.

·         Art movement of Japan’s Tokugawa period. (1603-1867).

·         Economic expansion, internal stability, and a time to flourish cultural arts.

·         Shogun= samurai code of ethics, or the military governor whose power exceeded emperor’s. 3 decrees were handed out in 1630s. Foreigners were not included. The official policy of national seclusion was put in place.

·         The Japanese people were not allowed to travel overseas or to return from abroad.

·         There were restrictions on foreign trade: approval for Dutch and Chinese traders at Nagasaki Airport.

·         Ukiyo-e blended realistic narratives, emaki= traditional picture scrolls.

·         Influences from decorative arts.

·         Earliest Ukiyo-e works = screen paintings: entertainment districts, the floating world of EDO= Modern Tokyo, including other cities.

·         Scenes and actors from Kabuki theatrical plays, renowned courtesans, prostitutes and erotica= early subjects.

·         UKIYO-E ARTIST: WOODBLOCK PRINT: HISHIKAWA MORONOBU   (1618-94). First master of Ukiyo-e print.  He first started doing designs for embroidery.  Middle of 17^th century: became book illustrator. He used Chinese woodcut techniques. His work included the everyday life of the ordinary people, crowds on streets and peddlers. Urban life.

·         Japanese woodblock prints: careful collaboration between publisher, artist, block cutter and printer.

·         Publisher financed production of print and coordinated work of the 3 other partners.

·         Artist supplied separate drawing for each colour. Drawings were to be pasted onto the woodblocks. The negative / white areas were cut away and the original was destroyed in process.

·         After all bocks were cut, printing could begin.

·         Water based inks and subtle blends were used. Great skill and speed by printers was needed.

·         OKUMURA MASANOBU (1686-1764): Moved from hand-colouring single- colour woodcuts to 2- colour printing.

·         SUZUKI HARUNOBU (C. 1725-70): Full- colour prints from a lot of blocks. Every block was printed in different colours. 1765.

·         KITAGAWA UTAMARO (c. 1753- 1806). Unrivaled artist. Portraying beautiful women. The supreme poet. He had observation from nature and human expression which had outcomes of prints of insects, birds, flowers and women possessing great beauty and tenderness.  He conveyed his subject’s feelings which were from observation of physical expressions, gestures and emotional states. Warm yellow and tan backgrounds emphasized delicate and lighter toned skin.

·         KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760- 1849): RENOWNED AND PROLIFIC UKIYO-E ARTIST. THE OLD MAN MAD WITH PAINTING. He made about 35000 works during 7 decades. Album prints , genre scenes , historical events, illustrations for novels, landscape series, views of rivers, mountains, waterfalls, bridges, nature studies of flowers, birds, shells and fish, paintings on silk, sketchbooks and privately commissioned prints for special occasions= SURIMONO. Yellow-backs, cheap novelettes, named for the colour of the covers. HOKUSAI GASHIKI: Hokusai’s drawing style. HOKUSAI SOGA: Hokusai’s rough sketches. 1820. Made in black and white and three colours. Kinetic rhythm of book, scale, density, texture and dramatic action which achieved dynamic sequence of visuals.  Single – leaf polychrome prints = summit of ukiyo-e art. Mount Fuji: very special in the Japanese culture, sun worshipers, and volcano. Depict external appearances of nature and they symbolically interpret vital energy forces found in sea, wind, clouds.

·         ANDO HIROSHIGE (1797- 1858): Last great master of Japanese woodcut. He was an inspiration to European impressionists/ brilliant spatial composition and captured transient moments of landscape. He also observed and captured poetic splendour of nature but related it to lives of ordinary people.

·         JAPONISME: late 19^th century Western Mania for all things Japanese.

·         Ukiyo-e practitioners = mere artisans. They captured European artists. They drew inspiration from calligraphic line drawing, abstraction and simplification of natural appearances. Flat colour, silhouettes, unconventional use of bold black shapes, decorative patterns. Subjects became emblematic symbols, reduced to graphic interpretations conveying essence. Landscape and interior environments frequently presented as suggestive impressions and not detailed depictions.

ART NOUVEAU:

·         Art nouveau = international decorative style.

·          Thrived during 2 decades. (c. 1890- 1910).

·         Encompassed design arts: architecture, furniture, product design, fashion, graphics, embraced posters, packages and advertisements, teapots, dishes, spoons, chairs, door frames, staircases, factories, subway entrances and houses.

·         Visual quality= organic, plant like line.

·         Freed from roots and gravity, can undulate with whiplash energy or flow with elegant grace and define, modulate and decorate space.

·         Vine tendrils, flowers, roses and lily, birds, peacocks, and human female form = frequent motifs that fluid line adapted.

·          SAMUEL BING: Paris gallery. Opened in 1895. Salon de I’ Art Nouveau. Japanese art, new art by Europeans and Americans.

·         NIKOLAUS PEVSNER: book Pioneers of Modern Design, 1936, 1949, 1960. This was the 1^st to give art nouveau significant position in development of 20^th century art and architecture.

·         Art nouveau = transitional style evolved from historicism and dominated design, most of 19^th century.

·         Seminal genius of movement = BELGIAN ARCHITECT, BARON VICTOR HORTA (1861- 1947). 1892, townhouse for Emile Tassel was unified by tendrilious curvilinear networks.

·         FRENCH SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE: 1880S AND 1890S. Rejection of realism. Favour of metaphysical and sensuous.

·         Spiritual rejuvenation: birth, life, growth, death and decay= symbolic subject matter.

·         WILLIAM BLAKE: book of illustration, Celtic ornament, rococo style, arts and crafts movement, pre-Raphaelite painting, Japanese decorative design, and ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

·         VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853- 90): swirling forms.

·         PAUL GAUGUIN (1848 – 1903): Flat colour and stylized organic contour.

·         Work of Nabis Group: young artists.

·         Nabis: explored symbolic colour, decorative patterns and concluded that a painting was an arrangement of colour in 2D patterns.

CHERET AND GRASSET:

·         Transition from Victorian graphics, gothic, architecture etc. to art nouveau style was gradual one.

·         Two artists worked in Paris.

·         JULES CHERET (1836- 1933): Father of modern poster. Son of indigent typesetter. he was convinced that pictorial lithographic posters would replace typographic letterpress posters that filled urban environment.  At 22, he made poster Orphee aux Enfers = Orpheus in Hades. Blue and brown poster. He masters the more English colour lithography. Monochromatic design for theatrical production la biche au bois = the doe in the woods , which starred Sarah Berhardt. His influences: idealized beauty and carefree lifestyle painted by Watteau and Fragonard, luminous colour of Turner, winding movement of Tiepolo whose figures expressed energy and movement through twisting torsos and extended limbs. He worked directly on stone. 1880s: he used black line with primary collars (red, yellow and blue), graphic vitality with bright colours. Subtle over printing, stipple and crosshatch, soft water- colour like washes, bold calligraphic chunks of colour, scratching, scraping and splattering. Central figure/s in animated gesture, surrounded by swirls of colour, secondary figures or props, bold lettering, echoes shapes and gestures of figure. He did production for music halls, theatre, beverages and medicine, household products, entertainers and publications. He created beautiful young women, archetypes, for a generation of French women who used dress and apparent lifestyle as inspiration.

·         EUGENE GRASSET (1841- 1917): Swiss born. First illustrator/designer to rival Cheret in public popularity. His influences were medieval art, exotic oriental art, reflected in his designs for furniture, stained glass textiles and books. 1883: histoire des quatre fils Amyon ( History of four young men and Amyon). It was printed in aquatint- grain/ colour- photo relief process from plates made by CHARLES GILLOT.  Grasset was known for his illustrations. Format and typography was also very important. Spatial segmentation in page layout. Illustrations were integrated with text into a unit, typography was printed over skies. Colouring book style: thick black contour drawing, locking forms into flat areas of colour, similar to medieval stained – glass windows. Figures echo Botticelli, wear medieval clothing, stylized, flat cloud patterns reflect knowledge of Japanese woodblocks. Formal composition, muted colour. Flowing line, subjective colour, ever present flora motifs pointed toward French Art Nouveau.  Oeuvre included wallpaper and fabric design, stained glass windows, typefaces and printed ornaments.

·         1881: French law concerning freedom of the press lifted many censorship restrictions. Allowed posters anywhere except on churches, at polls, or areas designated for official notices.  Booming poster industry employed designers, printers and afficheaurs.

·         Streets became art gallery.

ENGLISH ART NOUVEAU:

·         Primarily concerned with graphic design and illustration rather than architectural and product design.

·         Sources were: gothic art, and Victorian painting.

·         AUBREY BEARDSLEY (1872- 98). Enfant terrible of art nouveau. Striking pen line, vibrant black and white work, shockingly exotic imagery and strange cult figure.

·         The black spot= compositions based on dominant black form.

·         Celebration of evil. Flat patterns and dynamic curves yielded to naturalistic tonal quality and dotted contours softened decisive line.

·         WALTER CRANE (Early innovator in application of Japanese ornamental pattern and eastern interpretations of nature to design of surface pattern, furniture and textiles for Liberty and Company store.

·         CHARLES SHANNON (1863- 1931)

·         CHARLES RICKETTS: wood engraver, compositor, print production. Book = total entity, harmony of parts, binding, end sheets, title page, typography, ornaments and illustrations (frequently commissioned from Shannon). Page layouts = lighter. Ornaments and bindings= open and geometric. Designs have vivid luminosity. Complex, intertwining ornament of Celtic design, flat stylized figures painted on Greek vases which he studied in British Museum = major inspirations.

·         Vale Press Books.

THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH ART NOUVEAU:

·         1880s GRASSET was a regular at Rodolphe Salis’s Le Chat Noir nightclub= gathering place for artists and writers in 1881. He shared enthusiasm for colour printing with others.

·         GEORGES ARIOL (1863- 1939)

·         HENRI DE TOULOUSE- LAUTREC (1864- 1901) : Poster design of dynamic pattern, flat planes, black spectator’s silhouettes, yellow ovals for lamps, stark white undergarments, notorious cancan dancer, performed with transparent/ slit underwear, move horizontally across centre of poster. In front of profile of dancer, Valentine, the boneless one = flexibility.  Simplified symbolic shapes and dynamic spatial relationships form expressive and communicative images.  Master in Draftsmen, printmaker and painter.  Japanese art, impressionism, Degas’s design, contour, Paris cabarets, bordellos, watching, drawing and developing journalistic illustrative style captured night life of la belle époque (the beautiful era). = glittering late 19^th century Paris. Splatter technique, tonal effects, drew directly on lithographic stone and often worked from memory.

·         SWISS ARTIST THEOPHILE- ALEXANDRE STEINLEN (1859- 1923): cat drawings, prolific illustrator, 1880’s and 1890s, radical political views, socialist affiliations, and anticlerical stance, social realism depicting poverty, exploitation and working class. Black and white lithographs colour printed by stencil process. Magazine covers, interior illustrations, music covers, illustration assignments, and large posters.

·         CZECH ARTIST ALPHONSE MUCHA: (1860- 1939). Remarkable drawing ability.  He used Grasset’s poster for Bernhardt in Joan of arc, he elongated Grasset’s format, used Byzantine-inspired mosaics as background motifs. Bottom of poster was unfinished.  Central female fih=gure, surrounded by stylized forms, plants and flowers, Moravian Folk Art, Byzantine Mosaics, magic and the occult. Archetypal sense of reality= women. Exotic, sensuous, maiden like, they don’t express age or nationality or historical period. New art = Jugendstil. Jugend= youth.  Comic book illustration. Designed furniture, carpets, tained glass windows, and manufactured objects. Pattern books : combinaisons ornementales (ornamental combinations) made in collaboration with : MAURICE VERNEUIL (1869 -1934) AND GEORGES AURIOL        (1863- c. 1938). This spread art nouveau.

·         Numerous Dutch books provided instructive patterns in art nouveau styles.

·         Resource in France: light and fanciful flowing curves 18^th century, French rococo.

·         SAMUEL BING opened up gallery.

·         HENRI CLEMENS VAN DE VELDE (1863- 1957): design interiors and exhibited painting, sculpture, glasswork, jewellery and posters by international artists.

·         EMMANUAL ORAZI (1860- 1934): Poster designer, 1884, he designed poster for Sarah Bernhardt. Posters had static style, influenced by Cheret and Grasset. His la Maison Moderne poster: Sophisticated young lady, Egyptian profile, posed before counter bearing objects from gallery. Logo centred in window typifies many applications of art nouveau letterforms to trademark design. 1890s = trademarks for art nouveau origin.

ART NOUVEAU COMES TO AMERICA:

·         British and French graphic art soon joined forces to invade America.

·         Eugene Grasset.

·         British born- LOUIS RHEAD (1857- 1962): prolific flow of posters, magazine covers and illustrations. He adopted French poster as his model.

·         WILLIAM H BRADLEY (1868- 1962): One of the two major American practitioners of art nouveau inspired graphic design and illustration. He was inspired by English sources.  ChapBooks: COLLECTION OF SMALL, CRUDELY PRINTED BOOKS FROM NEW ENGLAND.  INSPIRED BY KELMSCOTT PRESS HE ESTABISHED WAYSIDE PRESS.

·         Caslon types, wide letter spacing , mix of roman, italic, and all capital type, sturdy woodcuts, and plain rules, inspired beginnings of new direction in graphic arts became known as chapbook style.

·         ETHEL REED (b. 1876) = first American woman to achieve national prominence as graphic designer and illustrator. Book illustrator and poster designer.

·         EDWARD PENFIELD (1866- 1925) enjoyed reputation rivaling Bradley’s and Rhead’s.  Watercolour, mature style of contour drawing with flat planes of colour. Eliminated background, forced viewer to focus on figure and lettering. STIPPLE TECHNIQUE.

·         WILLIAM CARQUEVILLE (1871- 1946): created similar posters Lippinscott magazine.

·         MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870- 1966): expressed romantic and idealized view of the world. rejected as a student by Howard Pyle.

INNOVATION IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS:

·         Belgium beginnings of creative ferment- 1880s. Cercle des XX (Group of 20). Formed to show progressive art ignored by salon establishment.

·         Georges Lemmen (1865-1916): did cover design. 

·         Mid 1890’s – Belgian art nouveau, significant force. BARON VICTOR HORTA, ARCHITECT AND HENRI VAN DE VELDE: architect, painter, designer, educator, innovator, synthesised sources like Japanese print, French art nouveau, English arts and crafts movement and Glasgow school into unified style. INFLUENCING DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE.

·         PRIVAT LIVEMONT (1861- 1936) did posters and was inspired by Mucha’s idealized women, tendrilious hair and lavish ornament.

·         GISBERT COMBAZ (1869- 1941): ARTIST AND HISTORIAN specialized in Far East.

·         NIEUWE KUNST: playful and diverse. Influences from Dutch east indies (Indonesia).

·         1895: mathematics seen as creative source.

·         Batik-making: traditional craft for women in Dutch East Indies. Lush and organic designs of Javanese batik greatly inspired artists like CHRIS LEBEAU AND JAN TOOROP: (1858- 1928) USE OF SILHOUETTE, LINEAR STYLE, and EXPRESSIONS AND HAIRSTYLES OF FEMALE FIGURES DERIVED FROM JAVANESE WAJAN SHADOW PUPPETS.

·         NIEUWE KUNST: NEW ART.

THE GERMAN JUGENDSTIL MOVEMENT:

·         When art nouveau arrived in Germany. = JUGENDSTIL= YOUTH STYLE. New magazine =JUGEND= Youth.  From Munich, spread to Berlin, Darmstadt and all around Germany.

·         German art had strong g=French and Britain influences.

·         Art nouveau ornaments and illustrations on every editorial page. Full double- page illustrations, horizontal illustrations across top of pg., decorative art nouveau designs brought rich variety to format that was about half visual material and half text.

·         HANS CHRISTIANSEN (1866- 1945) = LEADING ARTIST in JUGEND. Simple, san-serif letterforms drawn in constrained pale colours, images are contrasting planes of warm and cool colours. Large scale ornaments, ranged from PETER BEHRENS (1868- 1940). Abstract designs inspired by ancient Egyptian artefacts to stylized floral designs.

·         OTTO ECKMANN (1865- 1902): with BEHRENS was known for multi-colour woodblock prints inspired by French art nouveau and Japanese print.  Eckmann did 5 cover illustrations and numerous decorative borders for Jugend, jewellery, objects, furniture, women’s fashions and typeface Eckmannschrift.

·         He also worked for AEG.

·         Klingspor Foundry.

·         Eckmannschrift: COMBINATION OF MEDIEVAL AND ROMAN.

·         PETER BEHRENS experimented with ornaments and vignettes of abstract design through other publications.

·         Shift from swirling organic line and form to geometric ordering of space.

THE ITALIAN PICTORIAL TRADITION:

·         Sensuous exuberance and elegance rivaling = la belle époque, France.

·         Milan firm, Giulio Ricordi, published opera liberettos and produced most master pieces of Italian poster design.

·         Ricordi’s director, GERMAN BORN ADOLFO HOHENSTEIN (1854- 1928), like Cheret in France, he is seen as father of poster design in Italy.

·         LEOPOLDO METLICOVITZ (1868- 1944) AND GIOVANNI MATALONI (1869- 1944), MARCELLO DUDOVICH (1878- 1962): eclectic designer with unique colourful style. He was like HOHLWEIN, Germany, Preferred elegant subjects in flat areas of colour. , worked under him.

·         PLOSH BORN FRANZ LASKOFF (1869- 1918) AND LEONETTO CAPIELLO (1875- 1942): popular designer for fashionable Mele department store in Naples.