Art Nouveau

[johnb]

Liberty & Co is a well known department store in London and has always been synonymous with luxury and great design. Arthur Liberty opened the store in 1875 selling ornaments, fabric and objet d'art from the East.

His intuitive vision and pioneering spirit led him to travel the world and particularly Japan looking for individual pieces to inspire and excite his discerning clientele.

 

Liberty’s is also well known for promoting Art Nouveau, a style of decorative arts that came to prominence in Europe around the mid 1890’s. And this was some 20 years after the store opened and began selling Japanese objet d’art,

 

I have always found intriguing the similarity of Art Nouveau and Japanese design, and the huge influence that Japanese art had on its origins.

 

In fact, it took the Europeans a few hundred years to emulate what the Japanese had been doing 300 or 400 years earlier.

 

With regard to the origins of Art Nouveau I have attached some pics. I'm sure there are much better examples.

 

JohnB

[Curran]

Yep.

Japonisme -> Art Nouveau

Good Bushu-Ito tsuba and such right over to Western interpretations.

 

You have a non Japanese tsuba in that group of photos. I assume this was on purpose. Why?

[Marius]

 

You have a non Japanese tsuba in that group of photos. I assume this was on purpose. Why?

 

Curran,

 

I would disagree. Which one do you think is non-Japanese?

[Thierry BERNARD]

I would disagree. Which one do you think is non-Japanese?

 

the first one!

[Marius]

 

the first one!

 

Low-res picture makes it a bit hard, but I should say it is a Late Edo piece. Never mounted, it seems, but WHY not Japanese?

[Lorenzo]

 

Agreed.. iaito mass produced to me [EDIT]... and searching for that, got it on Tozando website, see here

 

I hope the intresting topic doesn't go off topic even before starting though :?

[Ford Hallam]

I know that actually reading real books to learn new stuff is probably considered a bit old-fashioned by some but for those fuddie duddies who are interested the best book I've encountered on this subject is "Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art Since 1858" by Siegfried Wichmann. It's on Amazon here.

 

This book was something of a bible (along with "The unknown craftsman") when I was an apprentice and first discovering Japanese art.

[johnb]

Yep.

Japonisme -> Art Nouveau

Good Bushu-Ito tsuba and such right over to Western interpretations.

 

You have a non Japanese tsuba in that group of photos. I assume this was on purpose. Why?

Actually, I wasn't aware that it was a non Japanese tsuba. I quickly pulled some shots of the internet simply as examples. So, no, no machiavellian intent. :D

 

John B

[george trotter]

Hey Ford, any running horses looking backwards in those books?

 

John, I still have some silver "Tudor" spoons and other silverware my grandmother bought at Liberty in 1901-1902. Still a nice shop.

[Ford Hallam]

Hi George,

 

dozens of them! :D What this book does illustrate is how extensive Japanese art's influence was and continues to be. In many respects a significant amount of what the untutored Western eye takes to be modern or Western came about as a direct result of this exposure to Japanese aesthetics. But you don't get to appreciate that simply from looking at pictures or browsing the net

 

regards,

 

Ford

[Curran]

Is the Wichamm book that much more significant than the Lambourne book?

As tight on space as the apartment is, that is one of the large books I refuse to give up.

 

We're old fuddy duddies in that we still believe in having silverware and have an Art Nouveau pattern. In addition to Nihonto, the only things we collect are Durgin Iris pieces. It took us years to assemble a serviceable set without spending a Juyo worth of money. It is great to eat with Artwork nearly every day.

[Ford Hallam]

The Wichmann books was written first and is pretty exhaustive, it's also nearly twice the size of the later book. It is far more specific in terms of examples and literally overflowing with illustrations and in this way more useful for artists. Lambourne's book is probably more than enough to gain a fairly good broad art historical overview.