Aubrey Beardsley
Design for the Frontispiece to John Davidson’s Plays
(1894)
Tate
This complex international style in architecture and design was parallel to symbolism in fine art. Developed through the 1890s it was brought to a wider audience by the 1900 Exposition Universelle.
In Britain, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s designs exemplify the style, but in his work its characteristic flowing lines and organic shapes are seen within severe but eccentric geometry. Key examples of Art Nouveau are Paris Metro station entrances by Guimard; Tiffany glass; chair designs by Charles Rennie Mackinstish and his Glasgow School of Art; and the book designs of Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Ricketts and followers such as Arthur Rackham.
Art nouveau flourished in the first decades of the twentieth century but was killed off by the First World War.
