Paul Greenhalgh's exquisite Art Nouveau 1890-1914, accompanying a glittering retrospective at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, examines the labyrinthine coils of this decadent epoch and culture and all its manifestations--architecture, painting, textiles, jewellery, sculpture, poster design--placing each firmly in the context of a variety of vibrant urban centres which include Helsinki, Munich , Moscow, and Glasgow. Art Nouveau grew--in profusion--out of the late Victorian period, a social, cultural and political time of transition, which has been summed up as an era of "spiritual anxiety". It reeked of languid, indolent sexuality at every turn, from the posters of Alphonse Mucha, the paintings of Gustav Klimt and the jewellery of Lalique and was embraced by the leading figures of the period--Antoni Gaudi, Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The astonishing array of material produced so feverishly from the 1890s onward is rendered in superb visual reproduction in Greenhalgh's book, and it is a fitting companion to the largest exhibition of this flamboyant movement ever to have been shown in the UK. --Catherine Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis
Looking at Art Nouveau from an international perspective, this text examines its origins and meaning within an art-historical, literary and social context. It covers all the major designers of the period and the environment in which they worked, describing the variation in forms and ideas expressed in key schools of thought. An important section of the book is devoted to architecture and interior design, and features cities such as Paris and Brussels, New York and Moscow, through the work of architects and designers whose names have become inextricably linked with their turn-of-the century flowering.