Art Nouveau rejected historic styles

Throughout the history of art and design, there have been many different styles, all championed by different characters – my favourite is the Art Nouveau style.

Art Nouveau describes a style used in architecture and the arts from the last decade of the 19th Century and into the early years of the 20th Century and it had essentially two main aims.

One was a rejection of the historical retrospective styles so prominent in the latter half of the 19th Century.

Art Nouveau was of the here and now and the future, not an imitation of past styles.

However, the style did at times use ideas and motifs of medieval origin.

The other aim was a rejection of another trend, that of naturalism, which was basically an imitation, or copy of the natural world and everyday life.

Art Nouveau did embrace nature, but not in the form of imitation.