Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style

Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989. Hardcover. VG/VG+. Tan cloth; Color illus. dj.; 415 pp.; 15 color plates; 73 bw figures. Examines the rise of art nouveau in France as part of a reform led by the Central Union of the Decorative Arts--but also discusses its links to French neuropsychiatry, which influenced the thinking of art nouveau artists. Library Journal review: This is a dense and closely argued study of the intellectual background of "art nouveau," a term that underwent a total change in meaning between the Paris expositions of 1889 and 1900. Silverman traces the roots of the new style by examining rococo revivalism and the renewed interest in the 18th century, also considering the complex world of hu-man psychology first explored by Freud's teacher Charcot in explicating the shift from a new art of heroic iron and glass in 1889 to an art focused on the domestic and intellectual in less than a decade.... Contents as follows: Introduction : The transformation of Art Nouveau, 1889-1900 -- Part I. The Goncourt's legacy : The Brothers de Goncourt between history and the psyche -- Part II. Fluctual nec Mergitur: Belle Epoque and fin-de-siècle : Aristocratic ralliement and social solidarité -- The abdication of technology and the elevation of the crafts -- Amazone, femme nouvelle, and the threat to the bourgeois family -- Psychologie nouvelle -- Part III. Rococo revival and craft modernism: Third Republic Art Nouveau : The Central Union of the Decorative Arts -- Esprit nouveau: politicians, amateurs, and artisans -- The Third Republic and the Rococo as national patrimony -- Rococo revival and the Franco-Russian alliance -- Art Nouveau: craft modernism in the state -- Art Nouveau: organicizing and feminizing the crafts in the Central Union of the Decorative Arts -- Art Nouveau in the salon, I.: international reform and craft champions -- Art Nouveau in the salon, II.: Psychologie nouvelle in the works of Emile Gallé and Auguste Rodin -- National initiative to international awakening: the Maison de l'Art Nouveau Bing -- Conclusion : The 1900 Paris Exhibition.