Toward a Redefinition of Tradition in French Design, 1895 to 1914

Abstract

3) Seigfried Bing, The Craftsman (1903); reprinted in Artistic America, Tiffany Glass and Art Noveau (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970), 227. The phenomenon of Art Nouveau has generally been defined as an international style characterized by long, flowing lines that gained prominence around 1900. Twenty-five years ago, John Jacobus already observed that Art Nouveau is thought of primarily as a 'style' movment: conventionally its history is sketched with emphasis upon furniture and the decorative arts, architecture following in second place and painting relegated to a minor position.1 If, however, the focus is turned from scholarly criticism to original sources of the period, a very different image emerges. Siegfried Bing, whose L'Art Nouveau gallery provided a focus for the art of the period as well as the name for the style by which it eventually came to be characterized, emphatically stated that originally no definite style was prescribed by his enterprise. Bing wrote, Nouveau, at the time of its creation, did not aspire in any way to the honor of becoming a generic term. It was simply the name of an establishment opened as a meeting ground for all ardent young spirits anxious to manifest the modernness of their tendencies. ... Indeed, Bing suggested that the aim of his gallery would be indicated more clearly if the name of an establishment could be extended to a phrase by the denomination: Le Renouveau dans l'Art, the Revival of Art. 2 In arguing repeatedly that 'L'Art Nouveau' is the name of a movement, not of a style,3 and in characterizing its aim as one of renewel or revival, Bing touched upon a complex of issues that are fundamental to an understanding of fin-de-siecle Art Nouveau and of subsequent developments in the field of French design during the early years of the twentieth century. For Bing was but the first of many to suggest that decades of eclectic historicism had corrupted not only the products of design, but also the very function of style in relation to history. The situation that was confronted can be described in the most general terms. During the course of the nineteenth century, a succession of early historical styles were revived and, at the same time, machines were introduced into the design production process, very often with the intention of reproducing the effects of handwork. As a result, the average person found it difficult to distinguish between antique objects fashioned by hand and modern objects made with the aid