Art Nouveau Furniture

Art Nouveau is an artistic style that was popular at the turn of the 20th century. Between 1890 and 1905 the style was at its peak, although it continued past that date. Art Nouveau can be summed up as an art style that is focused around organic forms and flowing curvature. This includes floral designs and other plant life based designs and it works on making the creation itself part of the real world it’s from.

The style was extremely popular and widespread throughout Europe, including Russia, Germany, Spain, France and nearly everywhere else as well. The Art Nouveau style is important not just in and of itself and for its own merit, but also for being a bridge between Neoclassicism and modernism.

The Art Nouveau movement was especially profound in architecture, where famous artists such as Antoni Gaudi created imagery that to this day still fascinates and even polarizes the masses. That is sometimes the part of Art Nouveau, that it forces you to have an opinion, you may love it or hate it, but it’s so different and visibly apparent and compelling that you are forced to see it and take it in.

While Art Nouveau drew from many styles of art, all preconceptions were thrown out the window. The most important influence on Art Nouveau was not any previous style, but as mentioned, nature itself and its many inconsistencies, oddities and unique forms. The capabilities and defined uses for materials were discarded as all were twisted, shaped at will and used in a variety of ways.

Ornamentation was key in Art Nouveau furniture and nothing was simple or straightforward. Art Nouveau furniture was of course functional, but functionality was far from the most important element of a piece of Art Nouveau furniture.

It must be shaped in a way that is reminiscent of free flowing life. A chair would not be made for human comfort before being made to resemble perhaps a mangled free stump or bush in the earth.

Of course, not all Art Nouveau furniture was entirely based off nature as literally or was this “out there” . Art Nouveau can bring many different styles and forms into its wide umbrella, which sometimes makes it difficult trying to classify different pieces of furniture.

Above all else, Art Nouveau represented a clear change from the hard and fast rules of its predecessor styles and accompanied free thought and creativity with inspiration from nature.