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Art Nouveau Origins: Brussels | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
Mar
31
7:30 PM19:30
Art History Lecture

Art Nouveau Origins: Brussels | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Monday, March 31, 2025
7:30 PM

Meet Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Henri van de Velde who originated the Art Nouveau style in Brussels. The movement elevated “craft” to an “art” and unified all art forms. In using modern materials and construction techniques, it eliminated historicism while emphasizing nature and movement through use of the whiplash line. Open floor plans and expansive use of glass, mirrors, and electricity brought transparency and spatial fluidity to once dark and constricted interiors. 

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Art Nouveau, 1890–1915 | Art History Lecture Series Presented by Diane Kane
Mar
31
7:30 PM19:30
Art History Series

Art Nouveau, 1890–1915 | Art History Lecture Series Presented by Diane Kane

Monday, March 31, April 7, 14 & 21, 2025
7:30 PM

The international art movement known as Art Nouveau flourished from the early 1890s to 1914. Rejecting historical references and traditional geometric forms, it featured florid vegetation, sinuous lines, and asymmetry. Although the design approach encompassed all visual art forms, it was most prevalent in architecture and the decorative arts. Furniture, mirrors, metalwork, art glass, carved plaster, and intricate paneling all featured the signature “whiplash” lines of Art Nouveau. Originating in Brussels, and highlighted in the Exposition Universelle of 1900 (better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition), the style is strongly associated with the wealthy and fashionable.

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The Belle Époque: Paris | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
Apr
7
7:30 PM19:30
Art History Lecture

The Belle Époque: Paris | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Monday, April 7, 2025
7:30 PM

The style gained popularity through exposure at the Paris Exposition. French architects Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte, and Frantz Jourdain experimented with optics, transparency, motion, and point of view. Decorative artists, like Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Georges de Feure, contributed furniture, glass, and metalwork that integrated into the overall design, while jewelry, paintings, and poster design continued to use Art Nouveau techniques independent of architecture. 

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Austrian Art Nouveau: Vienna | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
Apr
14
7:30 PM19:30
Art History Lecture

Austrian Art Nouveau: Vienna | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Monday, April 14, 2025
7:30 PM

The waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire coincided with a flourishing of Belle Époque artistic expressions in Eastern Europe. By the mid-1890s, the experimental Vienna Secession advocated for integrated design, while the “Wagner School” (named after Otto Koloman Wagner) supported a modern architecture where form followed function. Rebuilding, due to modernization, of Vienna led to entire sections of the city built in the Art Nouveau style.  Artisans of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops) influenced the later Bauhaus, American Art Deco, Scandinavian Modernism, and Italian Craft and Design.

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Catalan Gothic Art Nouveau: Barcelona | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
Apr
21
7:30 PM19:30
Art History Lecture

Catalan Gothic Art Nouveau: Barcelona | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Monday, April 21, 2025
7:30 PM

Architect Antonio Gaudí was the greatest exponent of Catalan modernism. Influenced by neo-Gothic techniques and orientalism, he forged a unique organic style inspired by the complex geometry of natural forms. Although his very long career predates and postdates Art Nouveau’s heyday, his most original works coincide with the 1890–1915 period of this lecture series. His experimental work with hyperboloid and paraboloid arches influenced mid-century modernism, High Tech, postmodernism, and Deconstructivism.

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