Influences no.5~Art Nouveau

Another of my influences is Art Nouveau. I really love the flowing nature of the forms, the elegant lines and curves, the way flowers and wings are incorporated into the designs and the whole mystical, almost mythical feel to the whole thing.

Tiffany

The Art Nouveau movement began in 1890 with artists and designers in Paris, Brussels and London. Each place had its own interpretation of the ideas and themes behind it, the Austrian name being the Secession, Germany referring to it as Jugendstil and there was also the Glasgow School. The design differed even further when designers in Italy, Spain, Russia and the USA became involved.

Tiffany

The movement lasted until the First World War but had a revival in the 1960s when the look became popular again with the event of the Counter Culture.

Alphonse Mucha

Some of the most prominent examples of the design are Tiffany Glass, book designs by Aubrey Beardsley and posters by Alphonse Mucha.

There are also the textile and furniture designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, and, among the others who followed the style was Arthur Rackham

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

The sinuous lines of Art Nouveau were based on forms in the natural world, one of the iconic symbols being the 'whiplash' line which curls back on itself and seems alive, wanting to 'whip' off the design. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum it is a metaphor; it
    'displays in graphic form the radical drive to break away from the constraints of tradition.' 

Tiffany

This was one of the main ideas behind the Art Nouveau movement: to do away with tradition, as up until then, art had been dominated by historical influences. The artists and designers were influenced by medieval art and also by Celtic art with its intertwining lines, but they wanted to make it modern. Instead of producing work with the traditional, old fashioned styles, they wanted to be original and innovative, taking their influences and making them new with modern looks.

Alphonse Mucha

As Art Nouveau was the movement which straddled the turn of the century, with the old and new combining as new technologies and industries came about, it combined those ideas of old and new, tradition and modernism, playing with the tension that combination created.

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh

Aubrey Beardsley

Until the advent of Art Nouveau, art had been seen as superior to craft but the designers wanted to challenge this and bring them to an equal level. Alongside this, one of their principles was that the product should be well crafted and not produced on an industrial level. They wanted beautiful, individual items. Craft was seen as superior to industrial production - something we are finding out again in the 21st Century with the rise of handmade products and their value against mass produced items which can easily be discarded to add to the environmental problems we face.

Alphonse Mucha

Art Nouveau spread quickly through Europe and was applied to a number of different disciplines including architecture, jewellery, furniture, textiles, posters, book covers, glass and ceramics.

Aubrey Beardsley

Another influence of Art Nouveau was the Pre-Raphaelites who shared their love and portrayal of nature. Flowers were one of the main features of the designs, along with tendrils, leaves, wings, feathers and seedpods. However, geometric shapes were used alongside them providing a contrast, particularly in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Women were a prominent feature of Art Nouveau as well, portrayed in a stylised way rather than natural, but they seem to be surrounded by, if not part of, nature, sometimes even the personification of the seasons. This prominence of the natural world seems to be a portrayal of our relationship with and place in nature, an exploration of where we fit in: part of it or have we separated ourselves? Either way, nature was brought indoors with the furniture and decorative objects which the designers and craftsmen made. Perhaps they were trying to influence people to see the beauty in nature again, to reconnect with it after the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

Privat Livemont

Symbolism was another thing the artist and designers incorporated into their work and another theme they shared with the Pre-Raphaelites. The Victorian era was obsessed by all things spiritual and mystical of course and symbols were combined with art to portray mythical or spiritual themes, which the artist wanted the viewer to understand. For example, poppies, lilies and roses were symbols of love and death. The art was meant to say something, not to just be an object of beauty to be looked at and nothing else. 

Victor Horta

When the Art Nouveau movement ended with the First World War, the Modernist ideas within it carried on but within other movements which took its place. Art Deco and the Bauhaus were two of the artistic styles which came in its wake and its influence is still felt today as many look to it for inspiration, so Art Nouveau is still has a strong identity.

You can find more on Art Nouveau by clicking these links: The Art Story 
                                                                                V&A 
                                                                                The Tate

There's also much more on Art Nouveau in this interesting article on Artsy


 

Influences no. 3 ~ the Pre~Raphaelites

Another of the influences on my work is the art of the Pre~Raphaelite Brotherhood. I just love their paintings.I love the colours, the symbology, linking back to what I was saying about the symbology of flowers in my post http://rustyandboots.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/maybeltane-and-herald-of-spring.html

The themes they used included medieval culture, Arthurian legend and the works of poets such as Keats, Shelley, Dante and Thackery and the plays of Shakespeare, as in the painting below, Ferdinand Lured by Ariel, 1849, John Everett Millais. I also have an interest in medieval things, Arthurian legend and anything mythical, so their work is perfect for me. 

Ferdinand Lured by Ariel, 1849, John Everett Millais

The Pre~Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) was founded in 1848. Its three original members were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. They had an intense dislike of the art that was fashionable at the time, the way it was taught at the Royal Academy. It had to be dark in tone and portray an image of the ideal and the PRB thought the subject matter was too grand and trivial. They wanted to revolt against that and go back to the kind of art that was done before the Renaissance, bringing in brighter colours, painting what was in front of them rather than an imagined ideal image, observing nature, painting it accurately and portraying simple subjects with seriousness and sincerity.

Autumn Leaves, 1856, John Everett Millais

This was their philosophy, as recorded by William Michael Rossetti:

1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art,  to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
4. And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

 The PRB was a secret society to begin with, wanting to create works of art which could change minds and inspire people. Their art was all about a truthfulness to nature; they painted outside to accurately reflect the trees, flowers and landscape as they were and tackled the social problems of the time, something other artists were ignoring.

Attention to detail was an important thing for them, as John Ruskin wrote:

"go to nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing."

 

Ophelia, 1851-52, John Everett Millais

One of the most popular Pre~Raphaelite works is Ophelia by John Everett Millais (above) although other versions of Ophelia have been painted by Arthur Hughes in 1852 and John William Waterhouse in 1894. This of course, is from Hamlet by Shakespeare, portraying Ophelia drowning after Hamlet has killed her father. Again, everything in the painting is symbolic; the flowers all either mentioned in the play or chosen for their meaning, for example, the weeping willow = forsaken love; the nettles = pain; the daisies = innocence; the roses = youth, love and beauty; the poppy = sleep, death, remembrance and the forgetmenots are obvious. 

The bank and flowers around it were painted by a river in Ewell. Ophelia was painted from a model, Lizzie Siddal, in a bath. From what I remember when I was studying art in collage, the water in the bath was warm to begin with, but chilled after a while, so Lizzie Siddal was laying there freezing and caught a cold. She married Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1860 but unfortunately died in 1862 due to an overdose of laudanum. 

 

Midsummer Eve, c.1908, Edward Robert Hughes

The art of the PRB was not an immediate success. It went against everything the Royal Academy taught and people hated it. However, the leading art critic John Ruskin was persuaded to intervene and wrote two letters to The Times giving his support to the Pre~Raphaelites. After that (surprise, surprise) the art world and the public accepted the Pre~Raphaelite art and it went from strength to strength, becoming a huge part of Victorian culture (which just shows that those in 'authority' aren't always right, if someone doesn't like your art, someone else will and sometimes what's 'fashionable' can hinge on the opinion of just one person).

 

The Knight of the Sun, 1860, Arthur Hughes

The PRB gained a huge following with many artists taking on their ideas and ethics and they changed art forever, but due to the members beginning to go in different directions, the Brotherhood broke up. There was a second phase of Pre~Raphaelitism with their followers though, the original members meeting new artists and influencing them, joining with them to go down a new route using similar principles. 

 

Flaming June, c.1895, Frederic, Lord Leighton

The Pre~Raphaelites influenced much of the art that came after them and although their work went out of fashion after the First World War due to the beautiful images being so opposite to the realities of war and the hardships people faced at that time, it had a revival in the 1960s. I'm so glad it did.

 

The Lady of Chalot, 1888, John William Waterhouse

Night, c.1880-85, Edward Robert Hughes

One of my absolute favourite paintings is Mariana, painted by John Everett Millais in 1851 (below). I love the deep colours, the red of her stool and in the window, the deep midnight blue of her dress, then the candle hanging up on the right, a point of light surrounded by shadow, the browning leaves scattered around.

 

Mariana, 1851, John Everett Millais

It was inspired by the poem Mariana by Tennyson, which in turn was inspired by the character Mariana in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Her dowry was lost in a shipwreck and she was rejected by her fiance Angelo. She still loves him and longs to be with him but the withered leaves suggest time is moving on and she is getting older. She is separated from the world outside and alone in her house. It is beautiful in its sense of melancholy and wistfulness.

When I discovered the Pre~Raphaelites, the colour, imagery and subjects were like a revelation, as all I'd seen before were the Renaissance type art works and, to be honest, they seemed a little dull and high-brow at the time. The Pre~Raphaelites depicted things I had an interest in and created works that I could look at for ages. I like their rebellious nature ~ making the art they wanted to create, not what those in 'authority' said they should be doing. They created their own path and that, for me, is a hugely inspiring thing.


You can see more about the Pre~Raphaelites at: The Tate , victorianweb.org , preraphaelitesisterhood.com
 

May/Beltane and the Herald of Spring

May is here already. Where has this year gone? One minute we're eating Easter eggs, the next we're dancing round maypoles. No, I don't really do that. :o)

May day is traditionally a celebration of spring and the coming summer, known as Calan Mai in Welsh. It is also called Beltane, a name which goes back thousands of years. The native British Celts celebrated the beginning of summer with bonfires symbolising the sun and its growing strength. There were various rituals involved, including one where they would build two fires and drive their animals between them in a cleansing ritual. They saw fire as a purifier.

So, to celebrate this time of year, here are some of my photos and drawings of tulips, as tulips are the first flowers, along with daffodils, to appear. This has lead to them being called the Heralds of Spring. Anyone who saw my Twitter posts this time last year might remember that I had a bit of an obsession with the tulips growing in my garden. :o)

I'd planted loads of bulbs the previous year, so it was wonderful to see them springing up and providing lots of colour along with pollen for bees. Here is one with raindrops on it. I don't know what it is about droplets on flowers but I think they look beautiful.

 

When I was a child, I used to trail behind my parents at garden centres saying, "Can we go now?" My mother would reply with "In a minute." That minute seemed to stretch out for ages.  :o)
It was one quite a boring thing for me at the time, though having said that, I did enjoy helping my parents in the garden when they were planting flowers. Now, I actually like going to garden centres to see all the plants on display and choose ones I like, particularly if they're good for bees and butterflies.

 

 

I love these tulips with the red streaks. They remind me of raspberry ripple ice cream.  :o)

There is a lot of symbolism with flowers. Tulips mean perfect love, fame, eternal life, opportunity, adjustment, advancement and aspiration. As they grow back every year, they are symbolic of resurrection and determination and they also represent attainment of spiritual awareness.

The colours of tulips vary their meaning, for example, red means love; pink means affection; yellow: cheerful thoughts or unrequited love, depending on where you look. Purple is symbolic of royalty; cream means 'I will love you forever'; white is symbolic of heaven and purity. The variegated ones are meant to mean 'You have beautiful eyes'.

You can find more on flower meanings by clicking HERE, HERE and HERE 

My mother bought some cream tulips to put in a vase a while ago and I ended up drawing them. I think the lovely thing about them is that they're not fussy, they have a simple shape and elegant form that let the colour do the talking.

I've begun painting tulips too. This is my first test painting.

 

I'm really interested in the symbolic nature of flowers because it brings more meaning to the art work they're in. It's not just a flower or plant that's represented, it's an emotion or message. The Pre~Raphaelites used symbolism in their paintings, such as the ivy in the image below, which adds to the story they were telling in each picture, showing the situation of the figures involved. Ivy is symbolic of the eternal. 

 

 'April Love' 1855~56 by Arthur Hughes

May this season be a good one for you.