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When Art and Life were One
by Eva Lake/Greenwich Village Gazette
It's very interesting to compare what was important in art at that time to what we've got to say now. There's one concern 1900 and 2000 have in common: a celebration of multiculturalism and diversity. Mind, such words were probably not used 100 years ago. And the people who made such art were probably for the most part a bunch of white men. But the outcome and far-reaching range of Art Nouveau penetrated society to a depth that contemporary art cannot touch. Outside of media and advertising, there is no art or style which connects us and hopefully, affects us all.
Whereas the theme of 100 years ago may have been a unity via nature, today boasts of fragmentation and deconstruction, man over nature at all costs. Technology is celebrated and may be the true unifying factor of the planet today. Maybe someday nature will make a comeback. The only problem with this scenario is that there may be very little nature left to celebrate when it does.
http://www.fund.daimlerchrysler.com/artnouveau
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he
National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has chosen the year 2000 as a
time to review the last turn of the century with the exhibition Art
Nouveau, 1890-1914. The exhibition is the largest ever of this movement,
which means literally "new art". While Art Nouveau may seem
sometimes overdone and antique now, it was actually the first modern art
movement and the first deliberate attempt to define modern culture on an
international scale.
This new art was
multicultural in its origins: it was derived from Celtic and Viking
forms (as in the metalwork and ornamentation of Louis Sullivan),
Japanese aesthetics (Frank Lloyd Wright, Toulouse-Lautrec), Rococo (Gaudi),
the romanticism and mysticism of Symbolism and the Pre-Raphaelites, The
Arts and Crafts movement and the art of Islam (Tiffany). Last but not
least, we had the cult of nature, which found it's way into all forms of
Art Nouveau. The exhibition takes us to various cities around the world,
from Chicago to Glasgow, where every manifestation had its own
expression but still was unified to an international theme, a triumph of
nature over industry.
Here indeed was the
goal and the magic of the ideas at the last turn of the century: that by
just living with great design and art and poetry, your own life could be
more poetic. Life and art were one. The artists and craftspeople of this
era believed that anyone from any class could participate in art and
reap its' benefits, just by living with it. Any object or piece of
furniture was fair game for creativity and beauty. This is a kind of
optimism not found anywhere today.
