Galileo Chini House Museum in Lido di Camaiore
HOW TO DECORATE YOUR HOME IN ART NOUVEAU STYLE: THE UNMISSABLE OBJECTS
How to decorate your home in Art Nouveau style with few objects
Over the last few months many of you have asked me to give some more space to design and also to objects that can give a dash of beauty to our homes and our everyday life.
So, here is the first of a series of posts containing some advice about making your home an old-time place.
In this post you’ll find some objects to decorate your home in Art Nouveau style.
How to decorate your home in Art Nouveau style: the unmissable objects
The Art Nouveau style consists of sinuous and curved lines with floral elements and female figures of outstanding beauty.
Flourished between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, Art Nouveau transformed in a short time the houses of the bourgeoisie all over Europe.
The approach of this style is deliberate, and the intention is to create something new for the eyes. The expressive quality of organic lines brought to life many beautiful pieces from artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt, and Alphonse Mucha. If you wish to display their works in canvas prints, you may have them printed, framed, and placed in your study or receiving area so your guests can marvel at their beauty and uniqueness.
One of the most famous art nouveau artworks that has inspired modern film is the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It depicts the famous cancan dancer La Goulue and her artistic and quite flexible partner Valentine le Desosse.
If you are an antiques lover, you can find original Art Nouveau objects in flea markets or certainly at the Mercanteinfiera in Parma, the most important fair of antiques and vintage objects in Europe.
If, instead, you want to decorate your home in Art Nouveau style without antiques, here are the objects you can’t do without.
DECORATING YOUR HOME IN ART NOUVEAU STYLE: THE UNMISSABLE OBJECTS
Tiffany Lamp – In 1895 Louis Comfort Tiffany created the famous glass lamp shade which would enter all houses in the early 20th century. You could admire the Tiffany Lamp on a desk, a piece of furniture or a console table and today is reproduced in infinite models.
But to be a real Art Nouveau lamp it must have coloured glasses joined by tin or a material able to reproduce it.
The Tiffany lamp is dubbed as the poster child of art nouveau. In the past, rare lamps like this were auctioned and reached bids of more than USD$1 million. The most expensive one went to a descending lamp adorned with amber-jewelled-eyed dragonflies set in a royal blue background.
Bieye L30025 – Tiffany Style table lamp- https://amzn.to/2RaJWtU
Screen – With a screen in your bedroom you feel like you go back to the time of ribbons and laces.
Today the screen is very useful to divide a room into separated areas, and contemporary designers put it in bedrooms as well as living rooms.
Screens are a remembrance of an era long forgotten. Old homes in Paris would have this item to separate beds in a tight space. Today, you can have a custom-made screen decorated with vintage or antique Victorian art in your home and instantly feel like you’re in old-world Paris.
Hogar y Mas White screen, gold coating in natural wood – https://amzn.to/2RGtOW0
Wrought-iron bed – Sinuous lines which can be created with wrought iron make immediately Art Nouveau style and make a bedroom unique.
The decorative style of Art Nouveau allowed the birth of a series of artisan shops which between the 19th century and the 20th century made amazing wrought-iron creations, from parapets for small terraces to beds for bedrooms of the bourgeois houses up to gates reproducing imaginary vegetation.
Wrought-iron double bed – https://amzn.to/2B0p2Z6
Art Nouveau Prints – Prints can’t be missing if you want to decorate your home in Art Nouveau style. From works by Alfons Mucha to paintings by Gustav Klimt up to first advertising posters, born right in the Art Nouveau period.
Alphonse Mucha – Dance, 1898 Poster Print – https://amzn.to/2T7KXVh
The Kiss by Klimt
Gustav Klimt – The Kiss Print on Canvas (120 x 80cm) – https://amzn.to/2AXky5w
READ ALSO- Where you can admire the Kiss by Klimt and what it portrays.
Uh, no, I can’t get the wrought-iron bed because it seems to be available only in Italy. . . .
I really love art nouveau, but I can’t afford antiques. Apparently it isn’t in high demand because no one makes things in the style anymore.
At least, not that I can find.
Many have asked me how to reproduce the Liberty / Art Nouveau style with less expensive objects.
I’m preparing a special post with a series of affordable items 🙂
I don’t see the post. Did you ever publish it? I love this style. I just visited a home in Corolla NC with the most beautiful doors and lamps in this style.