Art nouveau furniture is ornate and curvy.
According to the National Gallery of Art, Art Nouveau rose up in Europe and America at the end of the 19th century. The movement, which lasted from 1890 to 1914, was a rejection of classic Victorian solid forms and lines drawn from historic architecture. Art Nouveau celebrates curves, the female form, insect and plant life in everything from stained glass to building facades and home accessories like silverware and candelabras. It was eventually supplanted by Art Deco's clean forms, simplicity and feeling of industrial power and speed. Though Art Nouveau lasted only a short time, the movement left us with several styles of furniture that are still collectible today.
American Art Nouveau
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright were key American artists in the Art Nouveau movement. Both designed furniture, though Tiffany was famous for stained glass and Wright for architecture. Tiffany produced one-of-a-kind furniture on commission, incorporating natural forms using glass, wood and metal, singly and together, to enhance a client's home. Wright, who came along toward the end of the movement, designed furniture to fit his architecture, mostly made of wood. His chairs, tables, desks, beds and benches bear his trademark straight lines, and though they are highly prized, they are not forgiving to the curves of the human body.
Jugendstil, or German Art Nouveau
Henry van der Velde and Victor Horta were leading German artists who created the Jugendstil style of Art Nouveau. Furniture designed by van der Velde is unmistakable for its use of organic forms in an abstract way. His chairs, sofas and tables have simple, spare, extremely elegant curves. Victor Horta used steel, iron and wood to achieve his own effect, and was among the first architects of the movement to design furniture specifically for his buildings. Buffets and tables usually had square straight lines break into a fantasy of curves and complicated inlaid woods in Horta's hands.
French Art Nouveau
Hector Guimard, Louis Majorelle and Rene Lalique were major figures in French Art Nouveau design. Lalique, though perhaps best known for glass, made stunning tables and chairs for every occasion, with tables having glass tops held up by fantastic curved bases that evoke the female form and species of plant life, from cacti to lotus. Guimard, also an architect, favored long, elegant lines in his high-backed chairs. His tables have impossibly thin and wildly curved wood that plays with negative space and supporting structure. Majorelle fills out the French contribution to Art Nouveau with his incredible tables and chairs that evoke plant and flower forms in metal worked into and onto wood.
