II.

Britain

Art nouveau in Britain evolved out of the already established arts and crafts movement. Founded in 1861 by English designer William Morris, the arts and crafts movement emphasized the importance of handcrafted work. Morris’s devotion to handmade articles was a reaction against shoddy machine-made products that were flooding the English marketplace as the industrial revolution expanded. The arts and crafts movement also promoted a totally designed environment in which everything from wallpaper to silverware is made according to a unified design. British art nouveau designers of the 1890s shared Morris’s dedication to hand-crafted work and integrated designs. To these principles they added new forms and materials, establishing the aesthetic of the art nouveau style. 

One of the earliest examples of art nouveau in England is a chair designed in 1882 by British architect Arthur Mackmurdo, which exhibits the curving lines associated with the style. Likewise, the fabric designs of Arthur Lasenby Liberty, who opened a shop called Liberty & Co. in 1875, also illustrate an interest in organic forms and curving, decorative patterns. 

In 1888 British designer Charles Ashbee established a workshop and school for artisans in London. Ashbee’s furniture and metalwork designs reflect the more rectilinear (straight-lined or right-angled) version of art nouveau style. In the graphic arts, Aubrey Beardsley drew illustrations for periodicals such as The Yellow Book (1894-1895), and for an edition of the play Salomé (1894) by Irish-born writer Oscar Wilde. Beardsley’s vigorous use of line and distinctive double-curves known as whiplash lines have become equated with British art nouveau in the popular imagination. 

In Glasgow, Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh also developed a rectilinear version of art nouveau, which he employed in numerous buildings and their furnishings. In the Glasgow School of Art, completed in two phases (eastern section 1897-1899, western section 1906-1909), he used contemporary materials in an elegant, angular style. The simple shapes of the brick and stone exterior clearly indicate the division of space within the building, while large expanses of glass provide a strong visual connection between the interior spaces and the outside world. Window mullions (dividers between panes of glass), doors, and fences use ironwork in an elegant linear or geometric manner. This seemingly simple design offers a strong contrast to the ornate architecture based on past styles that was typical of the time.