Art Nouveau vs Art Deco – the difference

Art Nouveau, in Swedish jugend, was the style around 1900, with undulating lines, plants, insects and asymmetry. Art Deco took over in the 1920s and 1930s with geometric forms, symmetry, zigzags, sunbursts and gleaming materials such as chrome and lacquer. One took its forms from nature, the other from the machine and the modern city.

Facts

Two styles, two eras

Art Nouveau emerged in the early 1890s as a revolt against Historicism's copies of old styles. Artists and designers wanted to create something entirely new from the forms of nature. The style culminated at the Paris World's Fair of 1900 and had largely ebbed away before the First World War.

Art Deco came after the war and reflected a different world: cars, aeroplanes, skyscrapers, jazz and cinemas. The name comes from the great exhibition of decorative and industrial arts in Paris in 1925, but the term Art Deco itself became common only in the 1960s. The style was as popular in New York as in Paris.

Art Nouveau: nature as the model

Art Nouveau is recognised by long, undulating whiplash lines, twining stems, lilies, poppies, dragonflies, peacocks and women with flowing hair. Forms are often asymmetrical and seem to grow. In Nancy Émile Gallé made multi-layered glass vases with etched plants, such as the cameo glass vase, and in New York Louis Comfort Tiffany made his lamps with shades of coloured glass.

In 1894 Alphonse Mucha made the poster Gismonda for the actress Sarah Bernhardt, with a long, slender figure framed by ornament. René Lalique created jewellery in gold, enamel and glass, such as his dragonfly brooch. Read more about the style in architecture in the guide to Art Nouveau architecture.

Art Deco: the machine and luxury

Art Deco is geometric and symmetrical, with zigzags, stepped forms, fans, sunbursts and streamlines. Inspiration came from Cubism, from the colours of the Ballets Russes, from the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 and from the gleaming surfaces of machines. The materials were exclusive: lacquer, ivory, shagreen, exotic woods, chrome and mirror glass.

Lalique switched from jewellery to pressed glass and made vases such as Bacchantes. The poster artist Cassandre advertised the ocean liner Normandie with the ship's bow as a huge geometric wall. Cartier's wristwatch Tank, introduced in 1917, with its straight lines, is also usually seen as a forerunner.

The transition: Vienna and Glasgow

The way from Art Nouveau to Art Deco went through the more austere variants of the style. In Glasgow Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed furniture with tall, straight backs, such as the chair for the Hill House, and in Vienna Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903, where grids and squares replaced the tendrils.

That is why it can sometimes be difficult to decide whether an object from the 1910s should be called late Art Nouveau or early Art Deco. Look at the lines: are they curved and organic, or straight and geometric? Read more about the movements under Wiener Werkstätte.

In Sweden: Jugend and Swedish Grace

In Sweden Art Nouveau can be seen in ceramics from Rörstrand and Gustavsberg, such as Alf Wallander's vases with flowers in relief, and in the doorways and stairwells of apartment buildings. The Swedish counterpart to Art Deco is often called Swedish Grace and was a lighter, more classical variant, shown at the Paris exhibition of 1925 in glass from Orrefors and in silver.

If you want to learn to tell the styles apart, compare the glass of Gallé and Tiffany with Lalique's later vases, or Mucha's posters with Cassandre's. More objects can be found under the movements Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

How to tell them apart

Exercise

Which event gave Art Deco its name?