Art Nouveau in France
(1880-1914)
History and Illustrations
Paris and Nancy
The new style became most firmly established in France where it retained its popularity the longest. As Rococo and Neo-Rococo achieved their culmination in France, it is only natural that the most important influence of Rococo on Art Nouveau occurred in this cultural area.
Two distinct centers developed in France, one in Paris around S. Bing and the other in Nancy under the aegis of Emile Gallé. The closest ties between Rococo and the new style occurred in Nancy, where in the 18th century the earliest Neo-Rococo furniture was made and flourished until it was supplanted by Napoleon III's Neo-Classicism in the 1860's. The artistic revival of the 1890's once again brought Rococo into the foreground, as Nancy's artists blended it with the new art.
Emile Gallé (1846-1904)
The undeniably important position held by France in Art Nouveau was chiefly won by Gallé and a host of other artists and designers. Gallé, whose reputation to a large extent is based on his work in glass, was the first great exponent of this style in France. He was one of the most interesting of all designers, as well as France's outstanding naturalist.
By around 1900 Gallé's workshop employed approximately three hundred workers, who were busy making glass and furniture. To a certain extent Gallé's designs for furniture were in the French stylistic traditions, such as Louis XIV, Louis XV or Louis XVI. In a word, the construction and design were traditional. Only the decoration, carving which he developed two-dimensionally and marquetry which was Gallé's specialty and varied from plant forms to verses, displayed dramatic tendencies.
Gallé believed that the function of furniture should find expression through decoration and not construction. Gallé's inscriptions gave a symbolical expression to the idea of his furniture; for example,
a work table inscribed "Travail est Joie" (Work is Joy). This class of furniture bearing inscriptions, which induced an aesthetic experience beyond what was innate in the piece of furniture itself, was much in fashion in France, where it was called "meubles parlants" (furniture that talks).
Louis Majorelle (1859-1926)
None of Gallé's furniture ever achieved the daring unconventionality of his contemporary Louis Majorelle, who may be assigned a position among Art Nouveau furniture designers which corresponds to that of Gallé in art glass. Shortly after Majorelle inherited his father's furniture business in 1879, he began to design furniture in the fashionable Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI styles. However, he worked mainly in the Louis XV style or Neo-Rococo, until around the end of the century, when, under Gallé's influence, he started to design in the Art Nouveau taste.
Less bound by tradition in construction and more plastic in conception than Gallé, the main characteristic of his
furniture is the graceful but powerful dynamic line. The plastic conception was so important to him that he worked in clay as a sculptor and molded his most important furniture forms, later translating the model into carved wood. No doubt his finest work ranks among the most perfected achievements of the Art Nouveau style.
Emile André (1871-1933)
Unlike Gallé and Majorelle the other Nancy furniture designers were architects. Among the outstanding members were Emile André who was Nancy's most important architect, Jacques Gruber and Eugène Vallin (1865-1925).
The furniture designs of the latter are more in the manner of Majorelle than any of the designers belonging to the Nancy school. Emile André adopted a similar sculptural and dynamic form language based on floral and Neo-Baroque inspiration.
Later, in the first few years of the 1900's, he, like Majorelle, discarded the floral elements in favor of a more
abstract decoration or no decoration at all, relying on the graceful flow of the structure to provide the decorative accent or element. This style with large and smooth surfaces was simple, sober and more international, and lasted to a certain extent until just about the beginning of the First World War. After Gallé's death in 1904 the Nancy school, devoid of his leadership and inspiration, faded from the limelight, as Nancy returned once again to the province's own enduring style, Louis XV.
Siegfried Bing (1838-1905)
In contrast to the Nancy school, Parisian furniture is less ponderous, more refined and restrained. The Nature-inspired decoration is more stylized, at times abstract and often restricted to small areas. Unlike the Nancy school, where the artists followed in Gallé's footsteps, the Parisian designers were completely individual personalities, each presenting his own form of the new style.
S. Bing, a native of Hamburg, art dealer and critic, opened his first shop, Maison de l'Art Nouveau, at 22 Rue de Provence, in December 1895. This was to become the focal point in Paris for the new style. Apart from the three most prominent who worked for Bing, Georges de Feure (1869-1928), Eugène Gaillard and Eugène Colonna, there were a number of other well-known representatives, such as Alexandre Charpentier (1856-1909) and Felix Aubert (b. 1866), Tony Selmersheim (b. 1871), and Hector Guimard (1867-1942). This group produced some of the finest examples of Art Nouveau furniture.
No doubt the leading architect was Guimard. The symbolical plant conception that clearly influenced the construction of his famed Metro stations in Paris is also evident in his furniture. Art Nouveau was frequently dubbed Style Metro by the general public.
Of all Bing's artists Georges de Feure appears the most conservative, for although his furniture is certainly Art Nouveau it assumes a traditional French character. Until 1900 the form language he uses for his constructive elements is always derived from plants and flowers with stalks, and is notable for its elegant and delicate execution.
In contrast to de Feure, the work of Eugène Gaillard is more virile; at times ponderous. His plastics and dynamic approach
conveys a quality of forceful and powerful movement that relates to Majorelle. One of his important and striking pieces at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 was a tall cupboard with completely abstract and plastic ornament.
As a furniture designer Eugène Colonna may be placed midway between the two. He can be either elegant or dynamic, as well as being more austere, more severe in his decoration than either one of them.
End of Art Nouveau in France
After the Paris Exhibition of 1900 when the Parisian artists were faced with the exaggerations of the style, they retreated and made a subtle return to a quiet, restrained form of Art Nouveau, which with its inventive and graceful elegance was more in accord with the true traditions of French period furniture. It was a return to a simplified and modernized Classicism, especially in the direction of Directoire and Empire.
Also see Art Nouveau:
More Antique furniture styles:
