Belgian Art Nouveau
“It is not the flower that I like to use as a decorative element, but the stem.”
Victor Horta
In the 1850s, Brussels was in the midst of a cultural and artistic upheaval. As the capital of a new country with a very liberal constitution, it welcomed political and artistic exiles and became the crucible of the first avant-garde movements. At the same time, the industrial revolution gave rise to a new, enriched social class that wanted to show its success. Nevertheless, inequalities were glaring and social movements were rumbling.
Around 1880, a new generation of artists, mostly from the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts, wanted to take part in the debate. They campaigned for a total reform of education, the production of art objects and the wide dissemination of ‘beauty’.
In this sense, they fully integrated the teaching of the Arts and Crafts, a socially critical, progressive and aesthetic movement born in England, which aspired to universal beauty in everyday life.
These actors, whether painters, sculptors or architects, turned the minor arts into a field of ornamental experimentation which, by a pendulum movement, revolutionized architecture, which in turn absorbed them. Salons such as those of the Libre Esthétique were an opportunity to experiment with their ideals. The way was paved for the emergence of total artworks for the first time.
The Art Nouveau line is not that of a flower but of a life force drawn from nature. Victor Horta expressed it in the form of a whiplash. What about the others? How do these protagonists intend to reform the arts? Are they agents of change or do they respond to the growing demand?
It was in this dense and complex context in Belgium that the “Modern Style”, now called Art Nouveau, was born. It aroused the interest of the whole of Europe, as never before had it reached such heights. The architect Victor Horta, with the Tassel Hotel, was the first to venture into this field in 1893. Do we remember that Paul Hankar produced another manifesto in the same year, building his own house just a few metres away? That Henry van de Velde was one of its protagonists or that Serrurier-Bovy’s work was distributed throughout the world?
This first exhibition aims to provide an overview of the artists who, through their commitment, laid the foundations for what the 20th century would call ‘design’.
