May 18 2020 – Elisabeth Oas
Art Nouveau is an exquisite art form that was popularized in the late 1800s through the early 1900s, and it became so widespread that it literally swept across all parts of the world. Art Nouveau introduced luxury, long sweeping lines, color, and nature and flowers to the world. Artists like Klimt, Mucha, and Henri de Toulouse played the key part in the advancement of this genre of art.
The Austrian painter Gustav Klimt holds a special place in popularizing Art Nouveau. He is called the father of ‘Art Nouveau’ in Australia, even though the title is entirely subjective and depends on who you are talking to.
He is known for his significant body of artwork that focused on eroticism, the female form, and the use of color and gold leaf during the golden age.
Alphonse Mucha was a Czech born artist, who eventually found fame after moving to Paris. Even though he originally worked with theatre sets, his big break came when he was chosen to create a poster for a play starring Sarah Berhardt. It was this poster’s success that opened the doors of unlimited opportunities for him.
He had his own style, something so unique that it became known in Paris as “Art Nouveau.” The much-coveted ‘Mucha style’ was imitated by many others. Mucha used pastel colors, showed women dressed in beautiful dresses and robes with halos of flowers, and designed crowns made with details from Mother Nature. It was his inspiration from nature, and the use of long, striking lines that took the world by storm. Art Nouveau was not merely any art on canvas, poster, or mural but also architecture, furniture, and jewelry. It also inspired glass making in Paris at this time in the ever famous “Tiffany” lamps.
Perhaps one of the most famous artists and personalities in Paris during the late 1880s-early 1990s was Henri de Toulouse. A highly skilled artist, and also an aristocrat, Toulouse was known by everyone in the Parisian nightlife, especially those at the Moulin Rouge.
He was a very petite man who suffered from chronic health problems. He had a bone disease, which made his legs stop growing at a young age, and he walked with a cane. However, this never stopped him from living life to the fullest, and some might say he was in many ways a man before his time in terms of art, and in thinking. While much of his art is not Art Nouveau, it is his ad posters for the Moulin Rouge that stand out as being just ahead of the genre, certainly before Mucha. These posters gave him fantastic success. They also raised advertising for lithographs up to a new level for the artist.
We see the beginnings of the Art Nouveau movements in his works “The Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, and also the one called “Avril,” which was an advertisement for a major star at the time by the name of Jane Avril. In La Goulue, it is easy to see inspiration from where the Art Nouveau movement first got some of its starts in the stylings of Japanese art.
We can also see the strong lines and use of color so often spoken of. In the poster for starlet Jane “Avril”, again we see the feminine mystique at work.
Add a little Art Nouveau to your beauty routine.
Tagged: Art Nouveau
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