{art nouveau} – Page 18 – { feuilleton }

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #12

Continuing the delve into back numbers of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. Volume 12 covers the period from April 1903 to September 1903, and this edition opens with a feature on the French Art Nouveau artist and designer George de Feure. This is followed by more from sculptor Franz Metzner including some of his designs for Germany’s many Bismarck monuments. Earlier volumes of DK&D have featured similar Bismarck designs by other architects but they tend to be as ponderous as you’d expect, the kind of thing which nationalists of the time would have found grand but which to our eyes look either pompous or—at their worst—quasi-fascist. Another feature on artist Paul Bürck finishes the edition. As before, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail is advised to download the entire volume at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

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The Ursulines’ winter garden

Another winter garden, this addition to the Institute of the Ursulines, a Catholic school in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver, Belgium, is a lot smaller than previous examples but is celebrated for its beautiful Art Nouveau-styled stained glass canopy. The winter garden was added to the main building in 1900 and—surprisingly—no one seems to know who the architect was. The photo above is by Eddy Van 3000 from Wikimedia Commons, while the one below is from the same photographer’s Flickr set showing many other views of a building which is only open to the public one day a year.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hothouse panoramas
• Ludwig’s Winter Garden
• The Schönbrunn Palm House
• The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #11

Continuing the delve into back numbers of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. Volume 11 covers the period from October 1902 to March 1903, and is almost solely devoted to the many design exhibits from the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna, a major exposition held in Turin in the summer of 1902. As with the Secession work in the previous edition, many of the featured pieces here are familiar from books about the art and design of the period but DK&D shows them in greater detail. Peter Behrens’ vestibule (above) is one of these, a very advanced design which looks ahead to the stylisations of Art Deco. As before, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail is advised to download the entire volume at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

The vestibule ceiling panel.

Another Behrens design which would have still looked modern twenty years later.

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Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #10: Turin and Vienna

Turin exposition poster by Leonardo Bistolfi.

Part two of a two-part skate through the contents of volume 10 of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. In addition to the Heinrich Vogeler feature which was the subject of yesterday’s post, this edition includes articles on the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna in Turin—another international showcase for the Art Nouveau style—and a feature on the Viennese Secession exhibition of the same year. This latter piece was especially fascinating when seeing such a notable event reported for the first time. There’s more about that below. This volume also includes a piece on the Glasgow Arts and Crafts movement but the photos for that piece are poor quality. As before, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail is advised to download the entire volume at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

A feature on dress design shows some rare examples of Art Nouveau style being applied to clothing.

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The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

The Winter Garden, photo by William Helsen.

My arcades fetish has been aired here a few times to which one might add a complementary fetish for iron-and-glass structures in general, especially railway stations, palm houses and winter gardens. The Royal Greenhouses at Laeken, Brussels, are an impressive example of the latter, even if they happen to owe their existence to King Leopold II whose barbaric exploitation of the Congo is recounted in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Alphonse Balat was the architect of the central Winter Garden built between 1874 and 1876, and reading up on him it turns out that the celebrated Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta was one of Balat’s apprentices. Horta never had the opportunity to create anything this extravagant, unfortunately, but if he had the results may have resembled one of the structures created by François Schuiten for his greenhouse city of Calvani (below), a metropolis of the Obscure World. Schuiten is a resident of Brussels and we’re told that one of the earthly “Passages” to the Obscure World can be found at the Royal Greenhouses. The building is only open to the public during April and May each year, however, so anyone looking for a route to Schuiten’s world may be better off searching elsewhere.

• The Royal Greenhouses at Wikimedia Commons
• The Royal Greenhouses at Flickr

Calvani by Schuiten.

The Winter Garden dome, photo by Jean-Pol Grandmont.

Photo by Roman Bonnefoy.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arcades panoramas
• Arcades
• The art of François Schuiten
• Passage des Panoramas
• Passages 2
• Passages