mortiz004

When art nouveau arrived in Germany it was also called Jugendstil (Youth Style) after a new magazine, Jugend (Youth). German Art nouveau had strong British and French influences and retained strong links to traditional academic art as well. The Germans had interest in medieval letterforms and it was continued side by side with art nouveau motifs. During the Jugend’s first year its circulation climbed to 30 000 copies per week and the magazine soon attracted the readership of 200 000 per week. Art nouveau ornaments and illustrations were virtually on every editorial page. Full double page illustrations, horizontal illustrations across the top page and decorative art nouveau designs brought rich variety to a format that was about half visual material and half text. One unprecedented editorial policy was to allow each weeks cover designer to design a masthead to go with the cover design. Peter Behrens’s along with Otto Eckmann became widely known for large multicolor wood block prints in...

British and French graphic art soon joined forces to invade America. In 1889, and again in 1891 and 1892 Harper’s Magazine commissioned covers from Eugene Grasset. These first presentations of a new approach to graphic design were literally imported, for Grasset’s designs were printed in Paris and shipped by boat to New York. The visual poster was adopted by the American publishing industry and colorful placards began to appear at newsstands advertising new books and major magazines, including Harpers, Scribner’s and Century . Louis Rhead studied in England and Paris before immigrating to America in 1883. After eight years in New York as an illustrator, he returned to Europe for 3 years and adopted Grasset’s style. Upon his return to America, a prolific flow of posters, magazine covers and illustrations enabled him to join the self- taught American William H. Bradley as one of the two major American practitioners of art nouveau inspired graphic design and illustration. While Rhead ad...

In England, the art nouveau movement was more concerned with graphic design and illustration rather than architecture and product design like in France. Its additional sources of inspiration were the Gothic art and the Victorian painting. The April 1893 introductory issue of The Studio was a strong momentum towards an international style as this issue reproduced the work of Aubrey Beardsley. An early issue of The Studio also included work by Walter Crane and furniture and textiles produced by the Liberty and Company store. Walter Crane was a very early innovator in the application of Japanese ornamental pattern and Eastern interpretations to the design of surface pattern. But when he first attempted to bring the style to life, it was too early for it to take flight and so the movement only ignited a decade later. Aubrey Beardsley, first cover for The Studio, 1893. Beardsley’s career was launched when editor C. Lewis Hine featured  his work on this cover and reproduced...