Word: nouveau
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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...
Sentimentality often prevails in the characteristic Art Nouveau simplification of natural forms. The handle of an American silver mirror, done under this style's influence, depicts the body of a young girl clad in what seems to and turning along the border. Though she may be swirling reeds; her glamorized face appears on the mirror's back, her luxuriant hair twisting sound sensuous, she merely looks affected, coy and thoroughly uninviting...
These dangers of Nouveau decoration, unessential detail and "beautification," can be found throughout the works of the minor artists who derived their inspiration directly from the decorative school. Not only is Peter Behren's The Kiss a shamelessly mawkish print, but almost the entire picture surface is covered by the grotesque stylized tresses of the lovers' hair...
...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...
...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...