Word: artes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...quaint language of this citation graces the first of the 1750 Harvard honorary degrees awarded since the days of President Increase Mather. Since 1692, the College has given special awards--M.A., S.T.D., LL.D., M.D., D.M.D., S.D., Art D Litt. D., Mus. D., and D.H.L.--to outstanding men and, since 1955, to women also. The honorary degree thus ranks as one of Harvard's longest-standing traditions--one that arouses the most national interest of any Commencement exercise in the country...
Lautrec's decorative patterns have almost unlimited visual interest because he carefully avoids any sort of systematic stylization, a method all too frequently employed by the Art Nouveau. The lack of any one obvious decorative pattern and the subtle coloring of his poster for Le Divon Japonais produces a composition whose complexity would not have pleased the Art Nouveau. Moreover, as if to prevent decorativism, curved lines that might become stylish are suddenly straightened if the picture requires. The faces in the Divon poster, if anything, are distorted with a vengeance--no pretty picture this. These harsh qualities are precisely...
...eclecticism of Beardsley and his follower, Charles Ricketts, can be seen to derive from the Art Nouveau habit of overstatement and slickness. Likewise, the Nouveau penchant for vegetal forms led to the functionless fantasies in glass of Louis Tiffany, America's gifted designer. The most interesting forms of his stylized works, such as the flower vase in this show, are impractical and, consequently, must be looked at as sculptures in glass. Unfortunately, Tiffany's garish color schemes lessen their value as works of art...
...best things in this exhibit, as could be expected, are the Munch and Lautrec prince Comparing the precosity and decadence of many of the Nouveau's minor works, such as the Ricketts drawings, however, to the profundity of the masters' graphics, one sees that the influence of Art Nouveau on their style was only slight and, as regards content, the decorative school had no significant impact on either Munch or Lautrec. In short, there is no real ponit for their being exhibited...
...Art Nouveau is just beginning its vogue. New York's Musum of Modern Art plans an enormous exhibit of the school this summer and similar shows elsewhere will surely follow. Aside from the pleasant but confusing inclusion of Munch and Lautrec, the Busch-Reisinger's well-chosen exhibit gives one a full picture of the Art Nouveau--its frequent failures as well as its undeniable successes...