Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was completely new and decorative style in art and design. It started at the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries and involved wide range of designs, such as furniture, lamps, jewellery, textiles, architecture, illustrations, poster design and painting. It developed mainly in Europe and had many different names - in England and France 'Modern Art', in Germany 'Jugendstil', in Italy 'Stile Liberty'. In some way, Art Nouveau was a reaction against the Industrial Revolution as most of the artists were not in fond of the machine-made goods. Art Nouveau was characterized by complex, swirly leaves, flowers or roots and curved forms, vines and lines.

One of the most recognizable Art Nouveau artists who had a great impact on its look was Alphonse Mucha. He was a Czech painter and designer and was most famous for his fantastic posters. One of his first, which appeared in 1895, gained huge popularity. It was a poster for a play called Gismonda. From the moment that people saw the poster they absolutely loved it and soon they called it Art Nouveau. In the following years Mucha was developing his style and created many beautiful posters, which now are iconic for Art Nouveau style. In my personal opinion the poster are just amazing and really like them. One of the things I am impressed by are the stunning ornaments around the characters. Also I really like how the artist created the characters - combining outlines with very nice shading, which gives quite amazing look.


Another amazing example of Art Nouveau that I was able to find is this doorway in Paris. What I like about are great curvy lines and fantastic ornament around it.


Personally, I think that Art Nouveau is very impressive. However, in my opinion, too much of it can look just too busy and you can be overwhelmed with amount of details in each piece.