Art Nouveau. Російський aesthetic

Rarely has a subject been served by a book of this stature. Five years in the making, it covers all aspects of Art Nouveau in France in 624 authoritative pages and 740 illustrations, mostly in colour. Arwas traces the evolution of the movement as it developed, primarily in Nancy and Paris, with the help of carefully chosen illustrations, many never published before. Ranging from the 1900 Paris Exhibition to Paintings, Graphics and Posters and such collecting fields as Furniture, Jewellery, Glass, Ceramics, Book Bindings and Sculpture, the informative, witty text ranges over Architecture, Haute Couture, and the role of Women in Art Nouveau with a particular look at such Theatrical Ikons as Sarah Bernhardt, Loïe Fuller and the Grandes Horizontales. Art Nouveau achieved its national and international diffusion when it reached Paris, taking its name from the Parisian gallery of Siegfried Bing. The Metro entrances and buildings of Hector Guimard are still witness to its brief but extraordinary heyday in the capital, where the concentrated vituperation with which it was greeted helped propagate it as critics, aesthetes and the purchasing public took opposing sides. Reproduced here are rare examples of the great glass of Gallée and Daum; the stunning jewellery of Lalique, Vever and Fouquet; breathtakingly beautiful bronzes; complex polychrome ceramics; magnificent posters, decorative panels and paintings by Mucha, Berthon and Grasset; and book bindings, silver, pewter, walking sticks, and many other collectible objects that bring to life one of the most creative and exciting periods in the history of design. Destined to become the standard book on the subject, both content and design will appeal widely to the connoisseur, the specialist and the collector as well as to the novice who will be introduced to the magical wonders of the style. Detailed biographies of the artists featured, translations of contemporary texts and the bibliography lead to a full understanding of the period.