Visiting the Art Nouveau Museum in Nancy, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Nancy, France’s Art Nouveau museum, named Le Musée de L’École de Nancy, houses a highly selective collection of masterpieces from this art movement that began in the 1880s and lasted until the First World War started in 1914.
The
masterpiece among masterpieces of this collection is Émile Gallé’s Aube et Crépuscule (Dawn and Twilight)
bed from 1904. The bed’s headboard is
gently curved to enhance the symmetrical wing span of a nighttime
butterfly. Precious wood inlays define
the butterfly’s wings with mother of pearl defining the diaphanous lower wings.
The foot of
the ebony bed features two butterflies in profile sharing a common glass body
that protrudes from the bed and shimmers even in low lighting. Mother of pearl dominates in defining the
wings of these daytime butterflies.
Gallé’s Aube et
Crépuscule bed reflects two of the main sources of Art Nouveau: nature as
subject matter and the wood craftsmanship that was promoted by the Arts and
Crafts movement. Both of these
influences were reactions against the rise of industry across Europe,
particularly in Lorraine where Nancy is located.
Louis
Majorelle (1859 – 1926) is the other great furniture designer of Nancy’s Art
Nouveau school. One of the period rooms
in the Museum is dedicated to Majorelle’s Ensemble
aux Nénuphars (Water Lily Furniture) (1900 – 1902). Majorelle uses the structure of a water lily
plant to create legs and back supports for his furniture. By making these
elements slightly flair outward as they rise, Majorelle made the furniture appear
to sway as if in water and created the effect of floating on top of water,
especially for the table in the shape of a water lily.
Plants
provided subject matter for decorative artist of the Art Nouveau movement. Before there was the world renowned Daum
Crystal of Nancy, there were the Daum brothers Antonin (1864 – 1930) and
Auguste (1853 – 1909), who were superb workers in glass. Their Prunelles
(Small Prunes) vase has branches and leaves blown into the irregularly
shaped white glass body with violet glass beans applied as plums. The irregularly shaped vase gives the
impression that the branches are climbing as they twirl around the vase’s body.
A love for
all of nature’s plants makes the Aubergine
(Eggplant) vase comprehensible. An
Asian, not Italian, eggplant sits upright with a gold leaf vase at its
base. This seemingly simple, ceramic
vase took three artists to create it:
Victor Prouvé (1858 – 1943), Joseph Mougin (1876 – 1961), and Pierre
Mougin (1880 – 1995). The slender
eggplant gracefully swells in the center and thins as it tapers towards the
top. The shape of this vase recalls that
of East Asia’s celadon vases and reminds viewers that Europe has had a long
fascination with East Asian art.
Another
source of Art Nouveau was japonisme,
or love of Japanese art and subject matter.
The decorative composition of Japanese art was highly prized for its
two-dimensional perspective, known as flat perspective, as compared to the
three-dimensional perspective that then reigned in Western art.
This
decorative scheme was applied to objects that had no parallel in Japan even
when the subject matter was Japanese such as Camille Martin (1861 – 1898) and
René Wiener’s (1855 – 1939) leather book binding for L’Art Japonais, Tome 11 (Japanese art, Volume 11) written by Louis
Gonse. A kimono-clad woman encounters a
swirling dragon and is surrounded by swirling lines meeting at angles. The scene is cut off as in Japanese art to draw
viewers into the scene and danger.
This new
approach to art along with Japanese art’s sensitivity to nature made Japanese
art just as important as the Arts and Crafts movement as a source of Art
Nouveau.
Seventy Art
Nouveau objects such as these are on permanent exhibit at the Musée de L’École de Nancy. The Museum is located outside of downtown Nancy
and parking is hard to find, but it merits a visit to see this exquisite
collection.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
 |
| Ruth Paget Selfie |
