Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4
ARTS AND CRAFTS,
ART NOUVEAU, AND
THE BEGINNING OF
EXPRESSIONISM

2. “A RETURN TO SIMPLICITY”: THE
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT AND
EXPERIMANTAL ARCHITECTURE
The Arts and Crafts movement emerged
during the late Victorian period in England.
Designers sought to establish standards of
decorative design, believed to have been
diminished by mechanization.
The Arts and Crafts movement did not
promote a particular style, but it instigated
a critique of modern machines that
replaced workers,
William Morris (1834–1896), believed that
industrialization created a dehumanizing
disconnect between the designer and
manufacturer.
William Moris, detail fo
Pimpernel Wallpaper, 1876

3. John Ruskin, the English art
critic, argued that the factory-
made had a negative effect on
both those who made them and
those who consumed them.
Ruskin and his followers
advocated a return to the
medieval guild model in which
artisans were responsible for
handcrafting their works from
beginning to end.
Morris and Webb designed the
Red House in a simplified
Tudor Gothic style, influenced
by Ruskin who saw the Gothic
as a time of perfection.
Philip Webb and the designer William
Morris, Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent,
England

4. Regarded as Mackintosh's most
complete interior design, Willow Tea
Rooms is the best surviving example
of a tea room designed by the
architect.
This is the only tea room where
Mackintosh was in control of the
exterior and the interior.
The building housing The Willow Tea
Rooms is in the middle of a block on
Sauchiehall Street, built in the 1860s,
with three floors above the
commercial premises on the ground
floor.
The Willow Tearooms at 217
Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland,
were designed by internationally
renowned architect Charles Rennie
Mackintosh, and opened for business
in October 1903.
EXPERIMENTS IN SYNTHESIS:
MODERNISM BESIDES THE
HEARTH

5. WITH BEAUTY AT THE REINS OF INDUSTRY:
AESTHETICISM AND ART NOUVEAU
The legend of Cupid and Psyche was extremely popular
with writers and artists in the second half of the 19th
Century.
The painting shows Psyche getting ready to bathe before
Cupid's arrival. Her being completely self-absorbed is
emphasized by her reflection on the smooth surface of the
water.
The exquisite draftsmanship clearly show the influence of
J.A.D. Ingres (1780-1867).
The composition emphasizes the painting’s verticality
through the Ionic columns and the flow of Psyche's
draperies.
Frederic, Lord
Leighton
The Bath of
Psyche, 1890.
Oil on canvas.

6. The Peacock Room was
designed as a dining room in
the townhouse located in the
neighborhood of Kensington
in London. It was owned by
the British shipping magnate
Frederick Richards Leyland,
who engaged the British
architect Richard Norman
Shaw to remodel and
redecorate his home. Shaw
hired Thomas Jeckyll, a
British architect experienced
in the Anglo-Japanese style
who conceived the dining
room as a Porsellanzimmer
(porcelain room).
James McNeill Whistler, The Peacock
Room, 1877. Oil paint and gold leaf on
canvas, leather, and wood. 166.0 in
× 241.5 in × 404.0 in.
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

7. NATURAL FORMS FOR THE MACHINE
AGE: THE ART NOVEAU AESTHETIC
In the 1890s Van de Velde used the, highly
stylized language of Art Nouveau to advertise
many mundane products. The late nineteenth
century witnessed a revolution in industrial-
food processing.
Such processed foods and their burgeoning
brand identities rapidly became integral to
modern living.Henry Clemens van de
Velde, Tropon, l'Aliment
Le Plus Concentré. Poster
advertising protein
extract) 1899.

8. As the co-founder and first president of
the Vienna Secession, Klimt ensured
that this movement would become
widely influential.
Klimt’s paintings share many formal
and thematic characteristics with the
Expressionists and Surrealists of the
interwar years.
Almost always, the extensive use of
patterns creates visual texture. Gustav Klimt. Detail of the
preparatory design by Gustav
Klimt for the mosaic friezes of
dining room of the Stoclet
Palace, Brussels.

9. This work, considered by many to be
Klimt's finest. This, is also his most famous
due to its central role in one of the most
notorious cases of Nazi art theft.
Of all the many women Klimt painted from
life, Adele Bloch-Bauer was one of his
favorites, sitting for two portraits and
serving as the model for several other
paintings.
The painting is principally concerned with
the dissolution of the real into pure
abstract form. Despite his move towards
modern abstraction, Klimt's work draws on
the Byzantine mosaics of the Basilica of
San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, which Klimt
visited.
Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-
Bauer I (1903-1907). Oil, gold,
and silver on canvas. Oil, gold
and silver leaf on canvas -
Neue Galerie, New York City

10. The Vienna Secession was part of a
wider Secession movement with
branches in Munich and Berlin.
The Vienna Secession was founded in
1897 by Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria
Olbrich, and Josef Hoffman.
The Secession Building is an
exhibition hall built in 1897 by Joseph
Maria Olbrich as an architectural
manifesto for the Vienna Secession.
The motto of the Secessionist
movement is written above the
entrance of the pavilion: "To every age
its art, to every art its freedom"
Joseph Maria Olbrich.
Secession Building. 1894-98.
Viena

11. ART NOUVEAU
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
The name, ‘Casa Milà’ comes from
the Milà family, who occupied the
main floor and rented out the other
apartments.
Antoni Gaudi’s most iconic work, ,
‘Casa Milà’, is due to both its
aesthetic and functional
innovations, as well as its
ornamental and decorative
solutions.
Antoni Gaudi. Casa Mila (1906-
1912). Commissioned by Pere
Milà and Roser Segimon.

12. The Sagrada Família is Gaudí's most
famous - and most controversial -
building.
The church is the tallest, if not one of the
largest, churches in the world.
Gaudí's The Sagrada Família church is
on of “the most extraordinary personal
interpretation of Gothic architecture
since the Middle Ages.
The church is today about 70% finished.
The last phase of work, consisting of the
six massive central spires, and
structure, is scheduled to be completed
in 2026..
Antoni Gaudi. La Sagrada
Familia. 1883-1926.
Barcelona.

13. Victor Horta was an early Art Nouveau
architect. Horta frequently utilized
plant-like forms in his architectural
designs.
Some of his most representative
designs include that of Hotel Tassel
and Hotel Solvay.
Horta used intricate wrought iron work
on the exteriors and interiors. The
emphasis on organic and natural
forms are all representative features of
Horta’s work. Horta was one of the few
architects of his time to be using iron
in a domestic setting.
Victor Horta, Tassel House,
1893-94. Brussels.

14. The house and garden were
completed in 1911. Their geometry
marked a turning point in Art
Nouveau, foreshadowing Art Deco
and the Modern Movement in
architecture.
Stoclet House features works by
Koloman Moser and Gustav Klimt,
embodying the aspiration of artistic
renewal in European architecture.
The house retains a high level of
integrity, both externally and
internally as it retains most of its
original fixtures and furnishings.
Josef Hoffmann , Palais Stoclet.
Brussels from 1905 to 1911

15. The term "Jugendstil" (in German
"Youth Style") refers to a movement
of 19th century German art that
emerged during the mid-1890s and
continued until the First World War.
Jugendstil developed in two phases:
a pre-1900 phase dominated by
floral motifs, influenced by English
Art Nouveau and Japanese art; and
a post-1900 phase, defined by a
move towards abstract art.
The most important legacy of the
Jugendstil in Germany was the
formation of the Bauhaus design
school under Walter Gropius (1883-
1969).
Toward Expressionism: Late Nineteen-Century Avant-Garde
Painting Beyond France
Edvard Munch. The Sick Child,
1885-86. Oil on canvas.
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

16. Edvard Munch’s painting, Sick Child, marked his
breakthrough as an artist. The painting depicts
the loss of his sister, Sophie, who died of
tuberculosis.
Christian Krohg, also lost a sister to it, and
depicted the event in a painting titled Sick Girl
(1880-1), a painting made five years before
Munch’s version.
Despite the almost identical subject matter, the
execution is very different: Krohg executes a,
meticulous rendering of pale flesh and cloth;
Munch’s painting depicts both, the deathbed
scene and the artist’s emotional response to it.
Munch was influenced by the Symbolism he had
seen in the French avant-garde art.
Christian Krohg's
Sick Girl, 1880-1. Oil
On Canvas. National
Gallery of Norway.
SCANDINAVIA

17. Edward Munch began his career painting scenes of the world around him in
an academic style. Later his work took on focused on subjectivity and an
active rejection of visible reality. He grappled with dark, unsettling themes
like sickness and death, depression and alienation.
Munch developed a simplified language of bold color and sinuous line to
express his view of human suffering. His unique style, which conveys mood,
emotion, or memory, influenced the course of twentieth-century art and in
particular, the development of Expressionism.
In the 1890s Munch dedicated himself to an ambitious multi-canvas series
called The Frieze of Life . Though the series was never completed, the
twenty-two canvases Munch did produce extended his obsessive exploration
of mortality.
Following a nervous breakdown in 1908 and subsequent rehabilitation,
Munch largely turned away from images of private despair and anguish and
created more colorful, optimistic paintings.

18. Munch's The Scream is an icon of
modern art, of our own age filled
with anxiety and uncertainty.
This painting of an ambiguous
creature, letting out a shriek of
horror, is the artistic interpretation
of an experience he had in his
youth, when he walked with two
friends at sunset.
He later described the experience
as the "air turned to blood" and
the "faces of my comrades
became a garish yellow-white."
Stuck in his memory was "a huge
endless scream course through
nature."
Edvard Munch. The Scream,
1893. Oil and tempera on board.
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

19. This painting is an one of
Munch’s illustrations of a
metaphor, which makes it more
difficult to interpret. In the case
of this painting the metaphor is
too vague to give much
indication of what is intended.
The picture, appears to be a
more complex and personalized
version of Woman in Three
Stages, with an innocent woman
in white on the left, a sensual
woman dancing with the man,
and an anguished woman in
black on the right.
Edward Munch
The Dance of Life. 1899-1900
Oil on canvas. 49 1/2 x 75 in. National
Gallery, Oslo.

20. In The Night, Ferdinand Hodler depicts himself frozen as he
is suddenly awakened by the figure of death. Around him
others are sleeping. The other figures are self-portraits
along with portraits of Augustine Dupain, the mother of his
son, and Bertha Stuckie, his wife from a brief marriage.
Hodler presents an autobiographical picture with meaning
that is universal because it is symbolic: it evokes the very
essence of night and death.
NORTHERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
Ferdinand
Hodler. Night,
1889-90. Oil on
Canvas. Kunst
Museum, Bern

21. James Ensor was born in Ostend, Belgium, in 1860. His life was full of
uncertainties. The family’s income came from the Ostend shop selling
china, taxidermic specimens and grotesque carnival masks.
Ensor began his artistic career as a portrait painter but soon became
involved with the avant-garde group Les XX (the Twenty), whose goal
was to promote new artistic developments throughout Europe.
Art critics treated the group harshly, and Les XX disbanded after a
decade. After the turn of the century, Ensor finally won acclaim and
respectability. He was knighted and given the title of Baron.
The 1908 publication of a book about his life and works confirmed his
standing and reputation. In later years, he wrote music, designed sets
for ballets, and continued to paint until his death at eighty-nine.

22. Ensor started including more masks
into his artwork after his father and
maternal grandmother passed.
For him self-portrait masks serve two
purposes: concealing people’s true
selves and revealing the truth about
people in general.
James Ensor, Portrait of the
Artist Surounded by Masks.
1899. Oil on canvas. Menard
Art Museum, Aichi, Japan.

23. Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, was Ensor's way of telling the public
what he thought of their ability to recognize a Messiah. Neither the crowd
nor the viewer pays much attention to Jesus on his donkey.
Ensor wasn't at all subtle about his contempt for the Belgian people who
seemed too busy drinking, and wallowing around in the muck, to recognize
it when it was right in front of their faces.
James Ensor.
Christ's Entry
into Brussels in
1889. Oil on
Canvas. J. Paul
Getty Museum,
Los Angeles.

24. Arnold Böcklin, Island
of the Dead, 1880. Oil
on wood. The
Metropolitan Museum,
NY.
The painting shows an illuminated island rising from the sea against a
gloomy night sky. Burial chambers have been carved into the cliffs, with
dark cypresses rising above them. A boat with a coffin, a figure dressed in
white, and an oarsman glides slowly across the water towards the island.
Beyond its evocation of life's transience, the Symbolism of this enigmatic
image remains up to the viewer's imagination.