Stephen Smith TV - Archibald Knox’s Gravestone - Salvador Dali - H R Giger - Mackintosh: Glasgow’s Neglected Genius TV - John McCarthy TV -
As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close a luxurious new style was taking Europe by storm. Stephen Smith, Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau I, BBC 2012
It was fixated with Nature, sensuality and sex. ibid.
The World Fair was France’s manifesto for the twentieth century. ibid.
It seemed like an antidote to the ugliness of the modern age. ibid.
Bernhardt: The public went wild for the poster – as quickly as Gismonda was put up, she was taken down again. ibid.
Lalique changed all that: he was probably better known today for his glass designs, but he trained as a goldsmith. ibid.
Lalique created dramatic jewellery about women for women ... His jewellery was lavish and dramatic. ibid.
Maxim’s – it is incredible isn’t it with its mirrors and its gilt and its spiral staircase. ibid.
Emile Gallé was the troubled genius of Art Nouveau. He was creative and innovator and entrepreneur. He was also a passionate believer and campaigner for social justice – that in the end would cost him dearly. ibid.
With his master-craftsmen Gallé created stunning prototypes while on the workshop floor designs were mass produced for a hungry market across France. Art and industry went hand in hand. ibid.
His exhibition pieces go way beyond the merely decorative. ibid.
It’s the heart of [Hector] Guimard’s masterplan for convivial urban living ... Paris was his oyster. ibid.
Guimard was asked to design the Metro entrances. ibid.
Guimard brought Nature and Art into the very heart of the modern city. ibid.
Art Nouveau became a victim of its own success. ibid.
Home to the Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau, one of the largest and finest private collections in Europe. Stephen Smith, Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau II
I’m in England where the decadence of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley scandalised the nation. ibid.
A wholly unique moment in design ... brand names such as Liberty’s went global. ibid.
Japan was forced to open her borders to trade and Japanese goods started flooding into Britain. ibid.
A new cult of beauty was born ... The Aesthetic Movement. ibid.
Aubrey Beardsley was the first exponent of Art Nouveau in Britain. ibid.
Beardsley was commissioned to illustrate the first English edition of Salome in 1894. ibid.
Beardsley’s mischief and subversion plays out. ibid.
The whiplash curl: a style of Art Nouveau that was uniquely British. ibid.
William Morris, craftsman, poet, publisher, designer, Socialist, all round Victorian visionary, he was the driving forces behind Arts and Crafts. ibid.
Morris invoked the power of Nature and our medieval past. ibid.
The very name Liberty had become a byword for the style. ibid.
The painter and teacher Archibald Knox ... ibid.
Silver Apples of the Moon: Margaret MacDonald. ibid.
Her most famous husband, the Art Nouveau architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. ibid.
The Glasgow School of Art – Mackintosh’s masterpiece. ibid.
The golden boy of Viennese Art Nouveau – Gustav Klimt. ibid.
The story of Viennese Art Nouveau is a story of beauty. Stephen Smith, Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau III
There’s so much more than Klimt. ibid.
Vienna’s artists were the last to arrive at the Art Nouveau ball. ibid.
Klimt didn’t care; he was up for the fight and agreed to become president of the Secessionists. ibid.
YugenStyle was sexual ... There were no rules or dictats. ibid.
Above the door in big gold letters it reads: Der Zeit Ihre Kunst Der Kunst Ihre Freiheit: To the Age Its Art; To the Art Its Freedom. ibid.
The Viennese art revolution coincided with a social revolution in the city. ibid.
Otto Wagner designed these spectacular stations of the Viennese underground. ibid.
Koloman Moser: the great all-rounder. ibid.
They were creating the first Art Nouveau buildings here in 1893. ibid.
Brussel’s Art Nouveau star was Victor Horta. ibid.
The sheer decadence of Art Nouveau made it ripe for criticism. ibid.
The enfant terrible of Viennese art – Egon Schiele. ibid.
Art Nouveau suddenly felt archaic. ibid.
Art Nouveau is as much the last artistic flourish of the nineteenth as it is the first of the twentieth century. ibid.
Archibald Knox. Artist. Humbled Servant of God in the Ministry of the Beautiful. Archibald Knox’s gravestone
The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture. Salvador Dali
I like elegance. I like Art Nouveau; a stretched line or curve. These things are very much in the foreground of my work. H R Giger
Art is a fragile thing. On 23rd May 2014 the Glasgow School of Art was grievously damaged by fire. The building was the inspired creation of the Scottish artist and architect Charles Rene Mackintosh. His library, one of the most beautiful rooms ever designed, was lost to the flames, savaged, cremated, gone. Four years later, unbelievably, the fire returned. Mackintosh: Glasgow’s Neglected Genius, BBC 2018
One of the most important buildings in the world. ibid.
In the 1960s his work festered in derelict buildings. ibid.
There was something about the design madness that everyday Glasgow loved. ibid.
The Mackintosh look, the emerging Glasgow style, found favour with a rebellious group of artists on the other side of Europe – they were called the Secessionists. ibid.
An uncompromising genius – a man who could be a nightmare to work with. ibid.
Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue Paris: Completed in 1913 the synagogue was designed by Hector Guimard, one of the principle architects associated with the style known as Art Nouveau. John McCarthy, The Art of Faith: Judaism, Sky Arts 2008