We all love revivals. From leggings to New Romantics, classics just keep being reinvented (which begs the frightening question: can you hack the return of the perm?). Art and design may have their inherent qualities but they also succumb to the tides of fashion, as demonstrated by the Musée d’Orsay’s current design exhibition, “Art Nouveau Revival”. An atypical show, it avoids trying to define the nebulous character of the Art Nouveau movement, which was both geographically and conceptually disparate (no manifesto was ever drawn up between the likes of Antoni Gaudi, William Morris, Alfons Mucha, Rennie Mackintosh), and reevaluates reincarnations of the style throughout the 20th century, from the practical (chair design) to the ridiculous (paper dresses).
An example of Hector Guimard's designs for the Paris metro
Salvador Dali wrote an essay in 1933, “on the terrifying and comestible beauty of the modern’style architecture”, referring to Gaudi’s “Casa Batlló” and “Casa Milà” in Barcelona. The essay was published in “Le Minotaure” and illustrated with photographs by Man Ray and Brassai, which are on display with an amusing photo of Dali posing at one of Hector Guimard’s metro entrances for the gossip magazine Paris Match. The title reads “Salvador Dali emerging from the basement of the subconscious with a romantic anteater on a lead”. The connection between the Surrealists and Art Nouveau style was built up by the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, “Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism”, in 1936, which, as well as provoking criticism, included elements of Art Nouveau architecture.
While Dali’s praise of the style didn’t go beyond architecture, subsequent artists and designers revived everything from furniture design to graphics and prints. A large room of different chair designs intersperses pieces from the 1900s with later designs from the 50s, 60s and 70s. In some cases the aesthetic similarities are uncanny, while in others (particularly Allen Jones‘ fetishized woman furniture) the connection with the formal qualities of Art Nouveau style is more loosely interpreted. Design classics such as Verner Panton’s streamlined Panton Chair and Carlo Bugatti’s Snail Chair are displayed alongside blown up photographs, juxtaposing Gaudi interiors with Panton’s “Phantasy Landscapes” from the 1960s and Bugatti’s “Snail Room” at the 1902 Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna in Turin.
Verner Panton's Panton Chair. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Art Nouveau found a particular reincarnation in 1960s graphic design. A room devoted almost entirely to record sleeves draws the comparison with psychedelic design, with Joni Mitchell (Song to a Seagull), the Beatles (Revolver) and Grateful Dead (most albums) hopping on the revival band wagon. While the original Art Nouveau wanted to escape fin de siècle modernity, psychedelia wanted to escape to an alternative plane of consciousness. The musical rather than rational forms of Art Nouveau, especially the organic typographies, reflect the free-form music (and drug) -induced utopia.
Psychedelia also draws on the mystical side of Art Nouveau. A painting by little-known artist Paul Ranson, “La Baignade” (Bathing), which is part of the museum’s permanent collection, is shown with the album sleeves. It depicts a couple of women bathing in the starkly stylized water in a clearing of what looks like a magical, tropical landscape. The unrealistically bright hues and decorative plants in the foreground lend the composition a dreamy unreal ambiance. It could be an album covers from the 60s, but it was painted circa 1906.
Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Shirt. Source Wikimedia Commons
The trend for a psychedelic interpretation of Art Nouveau took on a more upbeat, swinging sixties vibe in London, encouraged by a blockbuster exhibition of Aubrey Beardsley at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This show of one of Art Nouveau’s more controversial artists gave rise to reproductions, stylized comic strips, film posters and fashion, including the bizarre (and largely unexplained) trend for wildly patterned “paper dresses”. The brand Paperdelic claims “They’re practical - They’re pretty - They’re Paper”. Not the most enduring influence to come out of an Art Nouveau revival.
The last room is dedicated to French designers Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, whose organic designs were well represented in the collection of the late Yves Saint Laurent. François Xavier’s “La Mouche” is an amusing take on one of the original Art Nouveau concepts: art changing everyday life. The huge stylized fly is not just a sculpture but also a toilet, lifting up the creature’s abdomen reveals the bowl while its mouth dispenses tissue paper like a papery tongue.
“Art Nouveau Revival” is on at the Musée d’Orsay until February 4.
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