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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, Pavillon bleu Restaurant at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Photograph. Private collection.

History has selected England, Belgium and France as the undisputed primary sources of Art Nouveau’s development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but contemporaries were unaware of this supremacy. In its section devoted to the decorative arts, the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris, which called for the construction of both the Grand and Petit Palais, among other buildings, offered a sampling that gave a taste of the real flavour of the period. For example, Gaudí, now inseparable from Spanish Art Nouveau and a major architect who gave us the image of Barcelona we know today, was the Exposition’s major no-show: he failed to participate in the construction of the pavilions and none of his plans were shown. At the same time, countries such as Russia, Hungary and Romania, long since forgotten in the history of Art Nouveau, were well represented alongside other countries that history wrongly seems to barely remember.

The French Pavilion

France showed great artistic merit in bijouterie, joaillerie, ceramics and glassware – all magical arts of fire – as well as in sculpture and medallions. The triumph of France in all these arts was unmistakable.

In the enchanting art of glass, one of the world’s oldest arts, and one that seemed to have exhausted every conceivable combination of line and colour, every quest for a perfect union between stones, precious metals and enamel, between chasing and the gluing of precious stones and pearls, Lalique was a genius who could surprise, dazzle and delight the eye with new and truly exquisite colourations in all his creations, with the fantasy and the charm of his imagination with which he animated them, and with his bold and inexhaustible creativity. Like a philosopher grading stones on their artistic value alone, sometimes elevating the most humble to highest honours and drawing unfamiliar effects from the most familiar, and like a magician who can pull something out of thin air, Lalique was a tireless and perpetual inventor of new forms and beauties, who truly created an art form in his own style, which now and forever bears his name.

As is the prerogative of genius, Lalique steered his art into unchartered territory and others followed whatever direction he took. There was joy and pride at the triumphant manifestation of French taste in its plateresque palace, thanks to the masters of French bijouterie, joaillerie, and silver, such as Lalique, Alexis Falize, Henri Vever, Fernand Thesmar, and many others,[6] all relatively prestigious, and thanks to the masters of glass and ceramics, such as the still unrivalled Gallé, the Daum brothers, and the artists of the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, and Albert Dammouse, Auguste Delaherche, Pierre Adrien Dalpeyrat and Lesbros among others.

Manuel Orazi, Palais de la danse.

Colour lithograph.

Poster for the official dance theater at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Victor and Gretha Arwas collection.

Mathilde Augé and Ely Vial, Hand Mirror.

Bronze and polychromed enamel.

Robert Zehil collection.

Henri Vever, Sylvia Pendant, 1900.

Gold, agate, rubies, diamonds and pink diamonds.

Exhibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris.

René Lalique, Pair of Earrings.

Enameled gold.

Robert Zehil Collection.

Georges Fouquet, Orchid Brooch, 1900.

Gold, enamel, rubies and pearls.

Anderson collection.

Hector Guimard, Vase.

Patinated bronze and ceramic.

Robert Zehil collection.

It was a splendid victory for Art Nouveau as a new decorative art movement, given what Lalique and the other French masters set out to accomplish. They had endeavoured to free themselves from imitation, from the eternal copy, from the old clichés and plaster casts that were always being recycled and had already been seen and were now overly familiar and worn-out. Their work was new, even to them. These masters on the Esplanade des Invalides therefore deserve our utmost gratitude, because in this exhibition they made certain that France’s artistic supremacy would be revealed once and for all. The French exhibitors included the artists of the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, whose revitalised works of perfect beauty may have saved the life and the honour of French manufacturers; other masters of the applied arts; and no doubt a few practitioners of the fine arts, whose work did not always display the same quality as the work of the minor artists they were so contemptuous of. But whatever one’s opinion of the new decorative art, similar victories were henceforth more and more difficult to win, as France’s steady rivals made even greater strides.

The English Pavilion

Art Nouveau was already brilliantly represented in England by 1878, especially in furniture. The movement was in its early stages, but England and Belgium, for various reasons, were underrepresented at the 1900 Exposition in Paris.

Keller and Guérin, Artichoke Vase.

Stoneware.

Exibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Robert Zehil collection.

Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, Vase from Bourges.

French pâte nouvelle porcelain.

Exhibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Robert Zehil collection.

Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, Vase from Montchanin.

Porcelain.

Exhibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Robert Zehil collection.

English furniture was only prominently displayed by Mr Waring and Robert Gillow and by Ambrose Heal.

For every few well-conceived pieces displaying an elegance that was truly new, there were countless others that were overly contorted and ornate, in ugly colours and poorly adapted to function, or designed with such excessive simplicity and pretense that English furniture was seriously compromised in the eyes of critiques – and everyone else. One could grope and search about, but with a few exceptions, the furniture was too often imperfectly designed – without logic and serious purpose, a structural frame or even comfort in mind. These criticisms, however were perhaps best directed less at England and Belgium than to other foreign countries.

England failed to show anything really new or exceptional that year. And yet there was one perfect example of its highly developed artistic mastery: the little pavilion that housed the miniature fleet of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, a supremely elegant piece owing to the collaboration of Collcutt (architect), Moira (wall decoration) and Jenkins (sculptures).[7]

Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, The Peacock and Juno.

Exhibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Robert Zehil collection.

Emile Gallé, Floral Lamp.

Etched and enameled cameo glass and bronze.

Private collection, Japan.

Daum, Vase.

Wheel carved cameo glass and wood.

Private collection.

Edouard Colonna, Music Cabinet.

Marquetry.

Made for the Art Nouveau pavilion at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Macklowe Gallery, New York.

Tiffany & Co., Wisteria Lamp.

Bronze and glass.

Private collection.

The American Pavilion

Tiffany & Co., Set of four glasses and spoons in an Art Nouveau box.

Favrile glass and silver gilt.

Macklowe Gallery, New York.

The decorative arts owe much to the United States, at least to the admirable New York artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, who truly revived the art of glass, as did Gallé in France but with different techniques. Like the brilliant artist from Nancy, Tiffany was not satisfied with being a prestigious glass artist: he was also a silversmith and ornamentalist. Above all he was a great poet, in the sense that he was continually inventing and creating beauty. For his young country, bursting with energy and brimming with wealth, Tiffany seems to have dreamed of an art of unprecedented sumptuousness, only comparable to the luxurious art of Byzantium in its combination of gravitas and bedazzlement. Tiffany has provided us with much joy. One senses his desire to revive lost grandeur and to create new splendours such as had never been seen before. He meant for his mosaics to create a sense of wonder when they decorated stairways and adorned residences. Such homes would be illuminated by day with dazzling and opalescent Tiffany windows and by night with Tiffany lamps and chandeliers, splendid and calm like mysterious stars; in such settings, Tiffany glass would emit sparkling beams as if shot from precious stones or would filter in the tender, milky, lunar gleam of the light of dawn or of dusk. Tiffany was among the biggest winners of this Exposition, along with certain French masters, the Danes and the Japanese.

The Belgian Pavilion

Belgium was entitled to a large space at the exposition, due to the respect and interest it attracted on account of its traditions, its history and its connection with Art Nouveau issues, pursuits, and curiosities, indeed on account of all its artistic and industrial labour, which was great for such a small nation.

Unfortunately, Belgium exhibited little; even the exhibit at the Grand Palais failed to include the worthy Belgian school of sculpture. This was a lively and passionate school with many excellent artists that are honoured today, the foremost being Constantin Meunier, a moving master of noble simplicity and a poet of stoic and heroic human labour (like his counterpart Millet in France) and a master of human compassion (like his counterparts Jozef Israels and Fritz von Uhde). At least Belgium’s undeniable and major influence on Art Nouveau made itself felt throughout the Exposition. But Serrurier-Bovy, Théo Van Rysselbergh, Armand Rassenfosse and many others, and especially Horta, Hankar and Georges Hobé generated a lot of comment by their absence in the Palais des Invalides and the Palais des Beaux-Arts.

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In joaillerie, the following should also be mentioned: Lucien Gaillard, Georges Fouquet, René Foy and Eugène Feuillâtre.

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The exemplary William Morris’s tapestries, based on the cartoons of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, should also be included among the refined works that inspired Art Nouveau in England. Burne-Jones’s compositions were pure and severe, like noble and solemn music. Among his many talents, Burne-Jones had a profound feeling for decoration: one part of his work is completely decorative.