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San Marino, CA 91108
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Rare Books
Aesthetic and social interpretation of the history, development and meaning of the art movement which flourished at the turn of the century.
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Rare Books
"Late in the 19th century artists and designers were searching for an alternative to the ponderous Victorian style which then predominated. William Morris with his Arts and Crafts Movement was the first to strike out on his own, and he was followed by three mildly dissimilar men who were to have a strong influence on the whole of European art: the Scottish architect-designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the English artist Aubrey Beardsley, and the eccentric Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi. The new style was based on graceful plant-forms, and the distinctive sinuous shapes appeared everywhere, from the entrances of the Paris Metro to the strangely elegant glass and furniture. The delicacy of the lines gives a feminine air to most Art Nouveau design, a feeling echoed by such artists as Mucha, Maillol and Klimt, who often portrayed women. The essence of the style is shown in the superb illustrations while Renató Barilli's text tells the absorbing story of the most distinctive and the most cosmopolitan of movements in modern art"--Front flap of original dust jacket.
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Rare Books
"Art Nouveau is a term which has become widely used in the last few years but, as the author shows, it should strictly be applied only to the decorative style which was fashionable in France at the end of the nineteenth century."--Excerpt from book jacket.
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Rare Books
Art Nouveau was a world-wide artistic fashion that deeply affected the whole spectrum of the arts in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early years of this century. It sought to finalise the break with the academicism of traditional art, to raise the status of design and to place art within the realm of daily life. In doing so it provided many of the prototypes for the art of an industrial society, and it was the springboard for some of the most important artistic movements in the twentieth century, such as Expressionism, Futurism and the International Style in architecture.--From dust jacket.
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