Jugendstil
In the late nineteenth century a new European movement emerged in art, architecture and craft, known in English by the French term Art Nouveau, and in German speaking countries known as Jugendstil. From about 1890 until the outbreak of the first world war in 2014, the movement sought to break the barriers between formal fine art and craft and design by turning to nature rather than history, and proved hugely influential, particularly in interior decoration and design. Works by Gustav Klimt and Aubrey Beardsley, and buildings by Gaudi, are internationally known to this day, and this historical period is often called the Belle Epoque, marking a European period of relative peace and prosperity for those not being colonised by the competing European powers.
While the various manifestations of Art Nouveau all share an interest in sweeping curvy lines and arabesques, floral and plant forms, the female figure, asymmetry and new materials, the movement took intriguingly different names in different countries. In England it was also called The Modern Style, in Scotland at times The Glasgow Style after local designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, in Italy as Stile Liberty or Stile Floreale, and in German speaking countries as Jugendstil or later more specifically in Vienna as Secessionstil.
The German name arose as the founding ideas were initially popularised in a German language periodical called Die Jugend, meaning youth (or the youth or the young), and the word Stil means style in German, and the term is used in English but could be translated as young style. Different cities developed their own movements, and Vienna gave rise to its own Secession, or secession from the mainstream art bodies and their strictures and styles. The desire to combine multiple art forms into a single coherent and harmonious work played a role, and such a creation is known in German and now English as a Gesamtkunstwerk. The famous Vienna Secession Building is a living testament to this and its website secession.at calls it “the world’s oldest independent exhibition institution specifically dedicated to contemporary art”.
