How did the art nouveau movement develop

It is hard to believe that art as apparently innocuous as that which characterised the Art Nouveau movement met shocking reactions.In England the work of Aubrey Beardsley scandalised the established Victorian art world.

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Aubrey Beardsely's work

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Why

They has just about got used to the Arts and Crafts movement in which William Morris was a leading light.

This occurred around the middle of the nineteenth century and was�a reaction to the industrial revolution, which Morris and his followers believed separated humans from their own creativity. The Arts and Crafts movement revered those cottage industrial skills that were being lost to the great leaps forward in mechanisation and mass production. But it concentrated on things that were made; textiles, wallpaper, stained glass, books.

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When Aubrey Beardsley came along and produced huge black and white drawings of bare-breasted women with monkeys, and pictures of Salome with the head of John the Baptist dripping from a plate, Victorian society, which�had been stupefied�by painted works from the safety of the Neo-Classical and Neo-Baroque school, were outraged.

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What was the reaction in Europe

In Europe, meanwhile, Gustav Klimt, a leading Art Nouveau artist, was having a similarly rocky time with his paintings, mostly of women, often naked, because their meaning was unclear, full as they were of ambiguity and symbolism.

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Because he refused to tone down his work and respond to his critics he lost all his important government commissions and even returned the money for some. He then formed the Secession movement over whose headquarters portal it read, 'To Every Age its Art, To Art its Freedom.'

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Did Art Deco develop from Art Nouveau

Interestingly, Art Deco, which had its heyday in the 1920s, revived some the of interest in neo-classical themes. Many Art Deco table lamps were supported by bronze Greek goddesses or horse drawn chariots.

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Art Deco also fed off the Arts and Crafts revival of interest in creating by hand. It was a great time for pottery, the work of Clarice Cliff being the most notable, and now highly sought after and collectable.