The Model of Art Nouveau: La Loïe Fuller

Long, billowing sleeves and genius, technical innovation

Affiche Publicitaire de Loïe Fuller, Raymond Tournon, 1901

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Growing up as a ballet dancer, I never had a chance to explore other dance genres. Why? Well...I haven't got a clue. In all honesty, I was the one to refuse to take any other dance class besides ballet for ten years. But, jeez, do I regret it. After seeing the wonderful dancing of Loïe Fuller, I wish I could turn back time and explore with a more modernist approach.

Who is Loïe Fuller? If her name does not sound familiar, I'm sure her image will resonate with some deep forgotten memory. Take a look at the artwork below:

(First, Left) Affiche:Folies Berger: La Loïe Fuller, Jules Chèret, 1893

(Second, Right) Serpentinentänzerin, Koloman Moser, 1902, Pencil and Watercolor on Paper, 28.8 × 45.3 cm, Albertine Collection

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Loïe Fuller, born Marie Louise Fuller, was born in Hinsdale, Illinois (formally the Chicago suburb of Fullersburg during her time) in 1862. She began her career as a child actress and then moved onto burlesque, vaudeville, and shows in the circus. Fuller utilized the free dance movement to escape from the rigid conformity of ballet, described as being a dance of natural movements and improvisation. Experimental and innovative, she began to deviate from the established dance styles of the day and developed her own styles, particularly in light effects.

Her first encounter with special effects was in her skirt dance numbers. Skirt dances originated in London and mostly performed in burlesque or vaudeville stages. A dancer uses a large, layered skirt as part of her routine - one notable skirt dance is the Can-Can. These skirts could go into extreme lengths, some garments reaching up to 100 yards in fabric.

Fuller utilized this dance genre to showcase a new height of modernity. You see, in the mid-1880s, electric lighting was slowly being introduced to theaters and stage productions. However, no one really ventured into using lights as a new art form except for Fuller. She used long skirts and lighting to play with its reflective properties and emphasize the form in shadows. This soon developed further into her signature style by 1891, mixing flowing silk costumes and colored lighting later called the Serpentine Dance.

Unfortunately, she had quite a bit of trouble finding a theater to produce her work but soon was hired to perform between numbers in the comedy, Uncle Celestine. And this was a big hit. All roads to greatness are never easily received, she began to have massive imitators taking up her name and riding on her artistic coattails. This is when she decided to move to Europe in 1892.

Paris embraced her with incredible warmth and applause, being the famous home of the avant-garde in the 19th century. Fuller would be hired as a regular performer at the Folies Bergère and create memorable pieces like Fire Dance. As her costumes became more and more daring, increasing to astronomical lengths, Parisian visual artists considered Loïe Fuller as a muse and the epitome of the Art Nouveau movement. Sweeping lines, soft coloring, dramatic yet natural flare - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Auguste Rodin, Jules Chèret, and others amongst their ranks used her form as a basis of their pieces.

And she continues to be a legend even till today. Did you know that she has several U.S. patents for her stage lighting? In order to create the colored stage lighting that defined her iconic choreography, Fuller used color gels and chemical salts to illuminate her garments. She also attempted to patent her own dance style because of the huge amount of imitators but the US Copyright Office rejected her request, stating that the work had no clear narrative, therefore, it cannot be protected. Keep in mind, this was during the time where modern dances were seen as too abstract to the general public.

It is an incredible shame that Fuller was never a part of silent films. The video below, which illustrates what her dances would look like, is not her. However, it does illustrate her impact and influence in the modern dance world.

Title: Film from 1901, based on Loïe Fuller's dance

Author: Unknown author. Some copies have been stencil-colored in Segundo de Chomon's Barcelona workshop in 1902.

Date:1901

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To see a contemporary version of her dance (and what it would most likely have looked like back then), I would suggest hopping on YouTube and watching Jody Sperling. She is choregrapher based in NYC, specializing in vintage, "lost" dance styles with her company, Time Lapse Dance. Her work is breathtaking and she even choreographed for the film La Danseur, a French film based on Loïe Fuller's life.

I truly wish I could time travel to see Fuller's dancing! I can only imagine how magical it must have been to an audience who had never seen colored lighting before. I hope the art form continues to live and I get to see Jody Sperling and her troupe perform after lockdown.

And that's art.

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Afterthought

I will be examining how the effects of Fuller's dance is made possible with the various elements included in her choreography. This will be on our Instagram story but I will post screenshots on this blog post afterward. Stay tuned!

From our Instagram Story

Public Domain in the US

Weekly Art Talk: Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss"

Wonderfully intricate and dripping in gold

SCRIPT

Today, we are exploring Gustav Klimt’s wonderful and infamous painting, “The Kiss.” Created in 1907 and measured at 6 feet by 6 feet, it is truly eye-catching in its exquisite use of pattern and overabundance of gold leafing. During this time, Klimt was facing massive backlash due to his Faculty Painting series on the ceiling of the University of Vienna, depicting philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence. The public thought his work was borderline pornographic and reprehensible; labeling him as an enfant terrible.

“The Kiss” features a male and female figure, embracing each other in an act of tranquil passion. The man leans down, gently cupping the woman’s face and places a kiss on her cheek as one of her arms is delicately draped around his neck. Peacefully in bliss, their eyes are closed and kneeling against, what seems to be, a grassy landscape full of wildflowers. The work is almost entirely filled with gold, saturating the background, foreground, and figures with a robust and refined glimmer. Our eyes move in an erratic motion, attempting to take in every detail of the piece but never fully succeeding. Inspired by the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna, the unconventional and angled organization of Japanese prints, and earlier Impressionists artworks, The Kiss is Klimt’s signature Art Nouveau style.

This is the magic of Gustav’s “Golden Phase” masterpieces; though, in many of his works before this time, the central focus has always been on love. Klimt remained unmarried to the end of his life but he held such a prominent affection for intimacy whether that is between lovers or family – these are most notable in The Tree of Life, The Family, The Three Ages of Women, Girlfriends, Adam and Eve, and Love.

Despite the beauty of The Kiss, Klimt also faced a slew of criticism for this piece, claiming that it was “too raunchy” to be considered a serious art piece. Despite this, The Kiss was sold to the Austrian Government and its home in The Belvedere Museum of Vienna at a price of 25,000 crowns. This would be around $240,000 in American currency at our present time – quite a steal if you ask me. And now, it has become the pinnacle of Gustav Klimt’s artistic career and one of the most memorable paintings in art history.

And that’s art.

What is Art Nouveau?

Envious curves and rich details: a style ahead of its time

If you speak French or have a basic understanding of French, you would know that "Art Nouveau" literally just translates to "New Art." Though not new to our contemporary eyes, this movement was incredibly novel during the late 19th century with its approach to portraying the form and landscape.

The term came straight from an article in the Belgian journal L’Art Moderne in the 1880s. In this, the writer sought to create a name to explain the work of Les Vingt, a group of twenty artists seeking to reform the rigid art scene of the 19th century. The phrase was then popularized after a gallery in Paris opened in 1895 with the name Maison de l'Art Nouveau. It is important to note that this artistic term might be different in each country. For example, from personal research experience, Spain tends to call Art Nouveau: Modernisme.

Sensuous, flowing curves, an abundance of decorative motifs, and a muted color palette are a hallmark of Art Nouveau - gaining inspiration from Japanese woodblocks, Post-Impressionism, the Arts and Crafts movement, and, last but not least, nature itself. Though lasting only 20 years, from 1890 to 1910, this artistic style proliferated every aspect of life from two-dimensional art pieces to architecture and furniture.

During this time, Art Nouveau defined printmaking as an art form. With the popularization of advertising materials like posters and book covers, artists like Alphonse Mucha and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec could be considered the first to define and use graphic design. One cannot deny how their pieces have influenced today's marketing world, incorporating bold lettering and short catchphrases to their finished pieces - Mucha with his curvaceous women and Toulouse with his raunchy nightlife scenes.

Additionally, Art Nouveau sought to create harmony in a building's exterior and interior. Though highly decorative (I mean, have you seen Gustav Klimt's overabundance of gold foiling?), the movement aimed to unify a room with sets of matching furniture and accessories as opposed to the typical mish-mash of antiques and industrialized collections found in their markets. Gone were the days of bulky and overbearing tables or chairs, these artists preferred the light spirals of this new art movement. Exteriors experienced their own revamp as well with the introduction of ornamentation in a balcony's steel railing or a winding door opening with a soft pink finish. The architecture of Art Nouveau feels refreshingly feminine and delicate.

This style also erupted in an assortment of refreshing new twists: necklaces, fashion, stained-glass (everyone say hello to the Louis Comfort Tiffany), brooches, hairpins, glassware, combs, and everything in between. The influence of Art Nouveau seeped into every aspect of visual reality. The breadth of this style could only be comparable to the outreach of the Arts and Crafts movement but stops short at international appeal - in my opinion, Art Nouveau was far more popular with its appearance in so many countries, like Latvia! Take me as a fool but I did not know it was prevalent that far north!

Overall, Art Nouveau was short and sweet but with a lasting impact (much like today's blog post). Its twisted lines and organic forms eased the restrain of academic artwork to prepare for the introduction of the geometric and sharp Modernism and Art Deco periods. With names like Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, Émile Gallé, Aubrey Beardsley, and Egon Schiele, it is no wonder that Art Nouveau remains popular in its aesthetics even in our contemporary world.

And that's art.

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Sources

Art Nouveau - Overview - Goodbye-Art Academy. YouTube. Philinthecircle, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4luPnObQYo.

Widewalls Editorial. “Art Nouveau - History and Legacy.” Widewalls. 2016. https://www.widewalls.ch/art-nouveau-history-and-legacy/.