A Week-End Wonderweb 26-02 (Art Nouveau)

Towards the end of the 19th century, at the peak of industrialisation in our Western societies, artists, designers and aesthetes turned to the natural world for inspiration and solace, and this is how the Art Nouveau movement came about, as an extension of William Morris's Arts & Crafts, feminine, voluptuous, foliate, adorned, with emphasis upon the curved and linear, while fauna, flora and nymphs became the focus of attention and desire, translated not only onto building façades, but also via illustrative forms (most famously Hector Guimard's signage for the Paris underground), and Applied Arts: interior design, furniture, glass and pottery ware.

Sources (top page down):

• 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' (1907), by Gustav Klimt, featured on Canvas Replicas
• Alpha Stamps, Art Nouveau collage sheets, Perfume Labels, by Gatochy via Flickr
• Vase (1893-96) designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, made by Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
•  Art Nouveau façade in the Northern French town of Douai

Further resources:

• Art Nouveau explained by The Artchive and ArtLex
• Art Nouveau architecture by Europa 1900.