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Nouveau Style:
The impetus in industrialization was partly English, but in design the French dominated Europe until the 1860's. The stifling historicism of 19th century manufacturing was overcome at the end of the century by the arts and crafts movement in England, which emphasized the importance of handcrafting, and by the art nouveau style, which introduced flowing motifs—often inspired by plant forms—and used bold decorations of enamel and semiprecious stones.Published in 1868, it was republished in a number of pirated editions in the United States between 1870 and 1880. Other volumes describing later European furniture styles, plus native ingenuity and, finally, public interest aroused by Gustav Stickley in his craftsman architecture and mission furniture, resulted in six more style periods for American furniture. These and the approximate dates of duration are : Later Victorian, 1865-1875; Eastlake, 1870-1880; Art Nouveau, 1880-1895; Mission, 1895-1910; Adapted Colonial, 1910-1925, and Modern, after 1925.
Architect-designer Victor Horta (1861-1947), leader of the Art Nouveau movement, pioneered Modernism in Belgium (notably Maison du Peuple building, 1896-99), designing every detail down to flower-shaped light-fittings. Bauhaus design (founder Walter Gropius, Germany, 1919) bonded design with industrial technique; its style was strictly economical, impersonal and geometric, refining line and shape from close study of materials. Charleston Farmhouse, the Bloomsbury Group's country retreat (1913), was designed by Omega Workshops (Roger Fry, art critic; Duncan Grant andVanessa Bell, artists), painting furniture and printing Matisse-inspired textiles. Post-modern interior design,spearheaded in the US by Robert Venturi and inspired by mass culture, self-consciously manipulated past styles. The post-modern Memphis group (1981), led by Sottsass, included Bellini and Columbo.
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