Art Nouveau Interior Design: Get The Style

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In my latest posts I talked a lot about Gaudi’s architecture, Jugendstil in Riga, Modern buildings in Baku. Perhaps you already understood that Art Nouveau is one of my favorite styles and in this post I will write about its use in Interior Design. The “New Art” appeared at the end of XIX century and became so popular that artists and designers started to apply it everywhere: in architecture, home decor, jewelry, arts. Today it got its second wind and many modern designers use it to decorate contemporary interiors:

Modern apartment in Moscow in Art Nouveau style

If you like this style as much as me, perhaps, one day you will decide to use it to decorate your own house. In order to do it, you will need to know what makes Art Nouveau different from other styles. I have prepared this comprehensive guide through Art Nouveau main features and to illustrate it I have included photos from my recent trips to Moscow, Riga and Barcelona. I have done the difficult part, you get the skinny – after reading this post you will be able to recognize Art Nouveau from a glance.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

1) Flowing lines. This is the hallmark of Art Nouveau. Designers stepped away from strict and boring geometry and got inspired by natural organic forms. Practically every detail of Art Nouveau interior had curved lines: door openings, windows, furniture:

2) Inspiration from nature. Nature has become the main muse for all artists. Not only they used flora and fauna creations as decorative ornaments but also learned how to extract natural shapes and forms and use them in decorative arts.

2) Wrought iron. This material was very popular even before, but in Art Nouveau metal acquired airiness and lightness. The first architect and designer who started to apply it widely was Gaudi – many other artists took inspiration from his works. Wrought iron was a wonderful decoration and designers started to use it in interiors very often: as staircase railings, bars on windows, furniture and decorative objects.

3) Stained glass. This is perhaps one of the most recognizable element of Art Nouveau. It became extremely popular and was used for window decorations, wall decor, furniture. Ornaments have curved lines and fluid forms:

POPULAR PATTERNS AND ORNAMENTS

1) Flowers – were used practically everywhere. The most popular were lily, irises, orchids (it is explained by growing interest in everything exotic in the beginning of XX century) and some local flowers as well (this was connected to the desire of artists to sing the beauty of their homelands).

2) Beautiful women with long curly hair. I was already talking about growing impact of feminism movement during Art Nouveau period. Women were fighting for their rights, cut their hair, smoked cigarettes, wore trendy hats. This was the time when the world just got over the World War I and many traditional things lost their values. Artists and designers wanted to run from reality into imaginary world with beautiful women with long curly hair, elegant and luxury things, bright, vivid colors. On the other hand, image of “femme fatale” was also very popular and often used.

3) Insects. Artists were inspired by beauty of nature and used most of its creations as inspiration for their work. I must say that never before insects were so often utilized as decorative motif: you can see grasshoppers, dragonflies, colourful bugs, etc. Look at this bra in the House of Shehtel in Moscow, the artist made it in the shape of glowworm:

4) Birds. Paradise birds, peacocks, parrots – artists were always looking for exotic and colourful creatures.

5) Whiplash curve – a hallmark of Art Nouveau movement, created by German sculptor Hermann Obrist. It was a part of the artist’s most famous work: wall hanging called “Cyclamen”. Later on it became one of the most popular decorative motifs of Art Nouveau.

RECREATE THE LOOK

If you want to recreate the look of Art Nouveau style use the following techniques for decorating interiors:

1) Walls. Paint them in pastel colours or apply wallpaper. You can add some decorative ornaments, for example a strip with flowers close to the ceiling.

2) Ceiling. Usually ceiling is painted in white and decorated with stucco and paintings. Decorative ornaments can be very different: thus in Latvia were mainly flowers and plants, Shehtel took inspiration from underwater world, while Gaudi used abstract convex shapes.

3) Floor. Use parquet and oriental rugs:

4) Stairs. During Art Nouveau period common staircase in dwellings has transformed from dark and dull place to the beautiful and brightly decorated piece of interior decor. Innovation of that period that architects started to put windows on every floor which provided a lot of natural light (before that staircase was in the closed area with no windows). The walls were decorated with bright ornaments and stairs had wrought iron railings:

5) Furniture. Furniture was mainly wooden. The surface was decorated with floral ornaments and stained glass. Headboards, wardrobes, chair backs very often had curved forms. The shape of the head board here, for example, resembles butterfly wings:

6) Accessories. The most popular accessories of Art Nouveau were decorative objects made from stained glass. Among them Tiffany lamps became especially famous. If you want to add some vintage flavor to the room, you can place a gramophone – it was very fashionable in the beginning of XX century and was considered as a sign of prosperity.