The second significant Belgian Art Nouveau practitioner was Henry van de Velde .He was born in 1863. He studied painting from 1881 to 1884 and was influenced by such artists as Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh. In 1980s , he became one of the most successful Jugendenstil designers in Germany. At first he was a printer. Then he became a decor designer after spending sometime like a fine artists . "Van de Velde's turn from painting to applied art and architecture symptomised the new attempts to democratize art" (Howard,1997,34).The first thing he did when he joined the Art Nouveau is designing three rooms for Siegfried Bing's new gallery. Henry and Paul Ranson designed a model of dining room for Bing's gallery. It's shows the fundamental tents of Art Nouveau.He was responsible for bringing the Art Nouveau style to Paris. He was know as the first Art Nouveau artists to work in an abstract style and developed the concept of the union of form and function.
Art Nouveau was an international movement spreading from european countries like France, Belgium, Britin, Germany and Austria . This cultural movement included decorative , architecture,and painting from1890 to 1905.Photographic images of paintings, prints, architecture, interior design, and decorative works were displayed as photographic images in Art Nouveau publications. These magazines, including “Art Nouveau” magazine, were distributed around Europe due to advances in printing.
The print manifestations of Art Nouveau are important for understanding the movement. Henry designed his first commission that gave him a chance to practice his skills as an artist is designing an advertisement Poster for the Tropon food company. The poster shows the distinct color choices of an Art Nouveau print with orche,green and orange . Combined with letters of Tropon .It was among the first to be used in different versions in multiple European countries. It's the only poster he ever created in his career. He somehow abstracted the whole idea of concentrate food into these amazing egg. This simple composition combines a new style of color choices with curvy lines .
Henry van de velde is primarily known as an architect. He was also a versatile designer: he designed carpets, furniture, silver objects and ceramics.But he was also a book designer. He considered books to be suppliers of a daily dose of culture, but also monuments for the mind. This is reflected in his designs, which seamlessly combine simplicity and monumentality. His designs span 50 years. in this time his work develops from 'ornament' to 'line'. From Art Nouveau to new objectivity.
Henry had a good relationship with Nitetzsche .He designed for him more than one cover page for his books. And he also wasreading his books .Reading Nietzche's books was the starting point for Henry van de Velde in his artistic work in the 1880s. His changeover to the applied arts and architecture and subsequent appointment to the court of Weimar in 1901 coincided with a substantial series of works dedicated to Nietzsche's thought on the aesthetic writing of van de Veldes can be traced from the first publications in 1893 with intensification after the turn of the century and it stays virulent until the unfinished memoirs written in post war Switzerland.
Here some examples of his designs :
Henry van de Velde, Also Sprach Zarathustra, 1908
Van Velde was successful designer .He moved to Berlin in 1989 , " followed by another to the small German city of Weimar in 1902 "( Eskilson,2007,100).He produced there one of his most esteemed graphic works . Book cover page for the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche . It's called Also Sparch Zarathustra.It's represent the theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art, on a small scale .He used three colors dark red , beige and brownish yellow . he used geometric shape for the borders.In the middle we can see all the decorative some of the shape he repeated them more than one time .If we flip the paper in the middle we will see all the shapes in the left is the same in the right.
Title page from the first edition of Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, published in 1908
Ecce Homo is the title of the last original book written by Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche before his final years of insanity that spanned until his death in 1900.It was written in 1888 and was not published until 1908.Henry Van de Velde is the one who designed the cover page of the book.He used curved lines in an abstract style.This style is basically the definition of art Nouveau.He used the same technique in the Toropon poster.His Art Nouveau designs , always bent with dynamic curves.What is especially important about van de velde is that he was the first designer to use curved lines in an abstract style.He also did the same thing he did in the last cover page of Nietzche's book.He repeated the design two times.It's like he copied and pasted the design in the two pages.This time he just used one color , dark red.
book design for Friedrich Nietzsche “Dionysos Dithyramben” (Leipzig, 1914)
In 1926 he returned to Belgium, and the following year he became head of the newly-founded Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs in Brussels. He taught there for the next 20 years and in this period received many state commissions, including the Belgian pavilions at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1937 and the New York World's Fair in 1939. In 1947 he retired to Switzerland. In addition to his highly varied artistic output, he wrote several books on his ideas and also an autobiography,Geschichte meines Lebens, On October , 15 1957 Henry died in Zurich .
Bibliography
Art Nouveau:Henry van de Velde.(n.d.). Retrieved on March 9,2011 from http://artsmarts4kids.blogspot.com/2008/01/art-nouveau-henry-van-de-velde.html
Arwas,V.(2002).Art Nouveau: the French aesthetic.U.K: Papadakis Publisher.
Eskilson, S. (2007). Graphic Design A New History. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Henry vand de Velde.(n.d.).Retrived on March 10,2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_de_Velde
Howard,J.(1996). Art Nouveau: International and national styles in Europe. U.K: Manchester University Press.
Pile,J.(2005). A history of intrior design. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Sembach,J.(2002). Art Nouveau.Germany: Taschen.
The book art of Henry van de Velde – Design museum Gent.(n.d.).Retrived on March 10,2011 from http://eaobjets.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-book-art-of-henry-van-de-velde/
Tschudi,S.(2002). The Art Nouveau Style:a comperehenesive guide with 264 illustrations. USA: Covier Dover Publications.
