The term refers to a set of artistic currents: (Jungenstyl in Germany, Austria, Secessionism, Freedom in Italy, Modern Style in England), which evolved from the end of '80 to the beginning of '90, various movements associated with Japanese art, neo-Gothic and even post-impressionism in order to create a new official language, linear and elegant for use in various fields, from decoration to architecture, from illustrations to furniture.
In Germany and Austria, artists organize themselves in the form of secessions, as opposed to academic art.
The Secession was founded in Vienna in 1897 on the model of similar initiatives, born in Munich (1892) and Berlin (1893): it is a heterogeneous group of artists and architects, united by the desire to renew the artistic life. The president of the department was Gustav Klimt, who attached great importance to his style.
The Vienna branch in 1897.
After Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) refused to work at the exhibition in 1897, he created the Artistic Association of Fine Arts - a group of young architects and artists who united under the name of "Secession". Until 1905 he was the most prominent figure of secession.
In the 1980s, Klimt devoted himself to decorative painting of large public spaces, achieving success in decorating the Burgtheater and the stairs of the Vienna Kunstinstorisch Museum. The symbolist tendencies and stylistic tendencies that characterised his artistic work in the following years are already present in these works. His language was increasingly guided by the linearism of great refinement, backed by a very high decorative taste and precious chromatism. In his works were presented paintings of pictorial value as "Nuda Veritas and Hugs".
Other important works include a 34-metre-long frieze by Beethoven on three walls, painted with mother-of-pearl and hard stones. Klimt founded Greek painting for Egyptian painting and is inspired by the Japanese Kokusai and Otamaro, who draw their inspiration from the strong Klimt sign. The Africa Sculpture invites him to draw masks.
Mycenae are spirals that are repeated around the figure of poetry. The knight, who accepts poetry, is the embodiment of the artist. In Vienna, the journey of modernity and interior and the birth of continuous ideas, quantum physics and Freud's psychoanalysis. Next to him, the material world develops and a complex concept of beauty is born, the image becomes thinner. The growing urban network, the noise of trams, electricity, telephone and typewriter and everything that changed in those years.
Other exhibits of Vienna's Secession: Hoffman, Kokoschka and Moser.
Art Nouveau - common features
It is in this context that the movement known as Art Nouveau in French-speaking countries, Modern Style in England, Modernism in Spain and Freedom in Italy spread throughout Europe. The terms used generally express the meaning of novelty, youth and modernity, and they all imply an existing attitude. Art Nouveau is widely used throughout Europe without special characteristics related to different local cultures. Symbolism is an indispensable prerequisite for this in France, while in England it is a study by William Morris of the nineteenth century.
The first Italian definition refers to the Englishman Arthur Liberty, who founded a company in London that trades in high quality furniture, but at the same time is intended for a large number of buyers. This is one of the key characteristics of the current: to make aesthetically sound those public facilities that are distributed by industries, to protect them from the trivialization of mass production. Creativity of artists and architects is practically revealed, the design of which, being in the hands of industrially developed masters, becomes a product that is accessible to many, but indicates a refined taste. The master hired by the factory as a designer then disappears.
The soft curved line, the arrangement of color for spaces with non-existent effects, floral decorativeness as an end in itself are common to architecture and painting, sculpture, as well as to basic arts such as glass art, jeweler, furniture, etc.
Thus, schools specializing in decorative activities have always been formed with the aim of enriching the beauty of the form of the public object. For the same purpose, individual masters, such as Tiffany in America, France and René Lalique, who dedicated himself to the technique of printing glass, with the help of which he produced table sets, work everywhere.