Art Nouveau furniture
Art Nouveau furniture took the style named after Siegfried Bing's 1895 Paris gallery into the home. From the early 1890s to the First World War, cabinetmakers and architects designed pieces whose structure and decoration grow from nature: curling stems, water lilies, dragonflies, and the famous whiplash line, inlaid in contrasting woods and finished by hand. In Brussels, Victor Horta designed furniture integral to his houses; in Paris, Guimard, Gaillard, de Feure, and the Nancy workshops of Louis Majorelle produced luxury ensembles. Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and by Japanese design, the style remained largely handmade and expensive until the Vienna Secession and German Jugendstil simplified its curves into geometry that could be manufactured.
Defining characteristics
- Whiplash curves: long, whipping S-curves drawn from plant stems
- Natural motifs - vines, flowers, water lilies, dragonflies - carved or inlaid
- Asymmetry and flowing continuity between structure and ornament
- Polychromy through inlaid or veneered contrasting woods and gilded bronze mounts
- Handmade, finely polished surfaces in rare woods
Key figures
- Victor Horta (1861-1947) — Brussels architect whose Hôtel Tassel furniture fused object and architecture
- Hector Guimard (1867-1942) — Paris architect-designer of curvilinear furniture and apartment-house interiors
- Louis Majorelle (1859-1926) — Nancy cabinetmaker whose workshops made nature the collaborator of design
- Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) — Belgian designer of restrained curvilinear furniture, later a Werkbund pioneer
- Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) — Glasgow architect-designer whose sparser geometry heralded the style's later phase
Example works
- Hôtel Tassel interiors and furniture — Victor Horta (1893)
- Furniture for the Castel Béranger — Hector Guimard (1898)
- Writing desk and armchair — Henry van de Velde (1898-1899)
Sources
- Art Nouveau furniture - Wikipedia encyclopedia