Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau[ˈnuvo]Art Nouveau, ornamental style of art that flourished between about 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States. Art Nouveau is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line and was employed most often in architecture, interior design, jewelry [ˈdʒuəlri] and glass design, posters, and illustration. It was a deliberate attempt to create a new style, free of the imitative historicism that dominated much of 19th-century art and design. Art Nouveau developed first in England and soon spread to the European continent, where it was called Jugendstil [ˈju:ɡənt-ʃti:l] in Germany, Sezessionstil[,zeitsesjəunˈʃti:l] in Austria, Stile Floreale (or Stile Liberty) in Italy, and Modernismo (or Modernista) in Spain. The term Art Nouveau was coined by a gallery in Paris that exhibited much of this work.the style’s immediate precursors [prɪˈkə:sɚ] were the Aestheticism of the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley(比亚兹莱), who depended heavily on the expressive quality of organic line, and the Arts and Crafts Movement of William Morris, whoestablished the importance of a vital style in the appliedcontinent, Art Nouveau was also influenced by experiments with expressive line by the painters Paul Gauguin( 保罗.高更)and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec(劳特雷克). The movement was also partly inspired by a vogue for the linear patterns of Japanese prints.The distinguishing ornamental Art Nouveau is its undulating [ˈʌndʒəˌleɪtɪŋ], asymmetrical [ˌeɪsɪˈmetrɪkl]line, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils [vaɪn ˈtɛndrəl], insect wings, and other delicate andsinuous [ˈsɪnjuəs] natural objects; the line may be elegant and graceful or infused with a powerfully rhythmic and wisplike ['wɪsplaɪk] force.Art Nouveau in architecture and interior design eschewed the eclectic revival styles of the 19th century. Though Art Nouveau designers selected and 'modernised' some of the more abstract elements of Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures, they also advocated the use of very stylised organic forms as a source of inspiration, expanding the 'natural' repertoire to use seaweed, grasses, and insects.the other plastic arts, the whole of the three-dimensional [dɪ'menʃənəl] form becomes engulfed [ɪn'ɡʌlf] in the organic, linear rhythm, creating a fusion [ˈfjuʒən]between structure and ornament. Architecture particularly shows this synthesis of ornament and structure; a liberal combination of materials—ironwork, glass, ceramic, and brickwork—was employed, for example, in the creation of unified interiors in which columns and beams became thick vines with spreading tendrils[ˈtɛndrəl] and windows became both openings for light and air and membranous [ˈmɛmˌbren] outgrowths of the organic whole. This approach was directly opposed to the traditional architectural values of reason and clarity of structure.[səˈbɔrdnɪt] all other pictorial [pɪkˈtɔriəl] elements—form, texture, space, and colour—to its own decorative effect.a medium in which the style found tremendous expression—for example, the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany in New York, Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, and émile Gallé and the Daum brothers in Nancy, France.style. Some of the more prominent were the Scottish（苏格兰）architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh（麦金托什）, who specialized in a predominantly geometric [ˌdʒiəˈmɛtrɪk] line and particularly influenced the Austrian Sezessionstil （奥地利分离画派的风格）; the Belgian（比利时）architects Henry van de Velde（威尔德）and Victor Horta（霍塔）, whose extremely sinuous[ˈsɪnjuəs] and delicate structures influenced the French architect Hector Guimard(赫克多·吉玛德), another important figure; the American glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany; the French furniture and ironwork designer Louis Majorelle(路易斯·梅杰列); the Czechoslovakian [ˈtʃekəusləuˈvækiən] graphic designer-artist Alphonse Mucha(阿尔丰斯·慕夏); the French glass and jewelry designer René Lalique(勒内·拉里克); the American architect Louis Henry Sullivan(路易斯·沙利文), who used plantlike Art Nouveau ironwork to decorate his traditionally structured buildings; and the Spanish architect and sculptor Antonio G audí（高迪）, perhaps the most original artist of the movement, who went beyond dependence on line to transform buildings into curving, bulbous, brightly coloured, organic constructions.After 1910 Art Nouveau appeared old-fashioned and limited and was generally abandoned as a distinct decorative style. It was important, however, in moving toward the 20th-century aesthetic of unity of design.。