If you love nature, then Art Nouveau is the style for you! This design style is all about the natural elements from plants and flowers to the flowing curvilinear line of trees. Popular at the turn of the 20th century (1890-1910) tied in with America’s obsession with European culture. Art Nouveau dominated everything from textiles and lighting, architecture and interiors, to graphic design, art and advertising.
To get the look:
The prominent focus of Art Nouveau are the curvaceous lines. Incorporating a few of these into your home will give a strong feeling of this design style.
“Floors – are parquet and should be stained and varnished. (Mosaic tiles in fluid shapes also work very well to convey the Art Nouveau concept.)
[Color] schemes – are quite muted and [somber] and became known as ‘greenery yallery’ – mustard, sage green, olive green, and brown. Team these with lilac, violet and purple, peacock blue. Mackintosh experimented with all-white interiors. Walls – can either be painted in one of the [colors] of the palette or off-white, or papered. Wallpaper – designs are highly [stylized] flowers, particularly poppies, water lilies and wisteria; branches, tendrils, leaves, stems, thistles, pomegranates; peacock feathers, birds and dragonflies.
Tiles – use in panels and intersperse patterned ones with white. A technique called tube lining was used to make the design stand out from the surface – think of piping icing on a cake.
Furniture – Mackintosh is renowned for extremely high-backed chairs in glossy black lacquer. If that’s not your style go for curvy shapes upholstered in a [stylized] floral fabric.
Stained glass – panels went in doors as well as furniture – wardrobe doors, cabinets, mirrors etc, with curved leading for the stalks and leaves, ending in a flower made from pearly enamels or semi-precious stones such as amethysts.
Lighting – you’ve got to have a Tiffany lamp – the beautiful umbrella-shape rainbow of favrile glass with bronze and metal latticework. Original ones cost the earth but most of the high streets stores produce very good imitations.”Source
Have a great weekend and happy designing ~Andrea
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