I've gone through most of the Art Nouveau collections that we offer at DoverPictura, and selected a few that exemplify the energetic use of curvilinear marks that I was going on about in the previous post. As stated there, to my eye, this is probably the signature characteristic of the movement.
In Art Nouveau Floral and Animal Designs (0486996212) we see the hand of one of the great masters at work – Maurice Pillard Verneuil. He apprenticed under Eugene Grasset (mentioned in a previous, birthday post); as a designer his work is the exemplar of 'whiplash' curvilinear drawing. Below are two samples from this collection; both are beautifully executed, and with a little Photoshop skill applied could be used as fine continuous borders.
In
Art Nouveau: Second Series (0486990265) you can see exquisite manifestations of this same line in many of the the zoomorphic images. Here, the 'cat' proves highly amenable to the application of the 'whiplash'.
Dragons, Birds and Incredible Sea Creatures (0486484475), which is in essence a reprint of Anton Seder's Das Thier in der Decorativen Kunst, the curve wins out! It feels as if there is not a straight line in the collection. Don't be misled by the title into thinking that this is simply a collection of fantastical creatures – there are scores of stylized sea animals and fantastic birds, in addition to some great dragon illustrations.
Art Nouveau (0486996395) is in some ways more focused on other formal attributes of the Art Nouveau movement. However, there are some very sophisticated examples of 'whiplash' drawing within this collection. As the iconography moves away from the botanical and toward the human form, the curve becomes less explicit, and more implied. Note in the bottom image that the flow and tension of the 'whiplash' are conveyed beautifully in the bodies of the rowers.
If this aspect of Art Nouveau is interesting or appealing to your eye, try exploring other Art Nouveau collections at DoverPictura.com. Within each you will find very aggressive examples, and subtler manifestations.
'Til next time.
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