The Netherlands

Numerous firms adopted an Art Nouveau (Niewe Kunst in Dutch) design at the end of the 19th century. For instance the firm Rozenburg in the Hague that invented the eggshell porcelain  and  is well known for its floral designs (Figure right : Rozenburg Egg shell porcelain vases : 1913 Schellink and (2x) 1903 Van Rossum, Figure left : Rozenburg Egg shell porcelain diner sets by Schellink and Van Rossum in 1907-8 and 1903). Purmerend, Zuid Holland are also some famous Art Nouveau porcelain firms.

Like in other countries, Art Nouveau architecture integrated a global vision of all crafts contributing to the decoration of the house including the furniture work (Fig Left : Clock by JC Stoffels 1903-06). The most famous architect is H.P. Berlage, who designed the Amsterdam stock exchange in 1903. Some towns, despite the heavy destruction of the second world war, still keep a large contribution of Art Nouveau to their urban face. The Hague (Den Haag) and its sea side resort 's Scheveningen. But there are also significant Art Nouveau buildings in Utrecht and Leiden.

In the 1920ies, the Amsterdam school  kept some of the power of the Art Nouveau lines and expressionism.

The Art Nouveau style was applied to various crafts including silversmith and wood marketry. This silver coffee set by A. F. Gips in 1900, with a relatively traditional shape is decorated with a stylized dynamic shape, half animal (lizard) and half vegetal (alga). It was first designed for the Paris 1900 world fair. 

This rosewood, brass and ivory table marketry by C. A. Cachet in 1903 features a round made of 12 stylized lions. Each couple of lions have only one head. African animals (elephants, monkeys, ...) have large place into the Niewe Kunst patterns that is specific in the European Art Nouveau.

These Zuid Holland new porcelain vases painted with floral patterns (stylized and sun flower)

This poster by Jacques Zon in 1895-1900 shows an influence of Paris and particularly of Alfons Mucha : look at the woman hair curls. It is an advertisement for an life insurance company. The company is represented by an angel protecting a woman and her child against a dragon threat. In order to highlight this threat, the dragon is decorated with death's heads.

This carpet show that Art Nouveau wanted to address every object.

Shop in Leiden

Shop entrance in Leiden with a tile tableau with a floral design made by "Holland Utrecht", a firm in Utrecht that imitate the style of the well known firm Rozenburg in the Hague. The tile tableaus of Rozenburg and Holland Utrecht are very simillar, but Rozenburg is the firm that invented this eggshell Art Nouveau porcelain style.

The large area of glass of the shop window was made possible by the use of steel in the construction. This was a novelty in the Art Nouveau era and made the light and open character of the style possible.

De Stille Kracht

"De Stille Kracht" was written in 1900 by Louis Couperus. The cover is designed by Chris Lebeau, an important artist of Nieuwe Kunst. In this design two kinds of Art Nouveau existing in Holland are combined, the first being Nieuwe Kunst and the other the international curvilinear style of Art Nouveau.

The Nieuwe Kunst aspects of the design lie in the fact that the decoration emphasises the construction of the book: The lines on the back emphasize the yarn with which the book is bound and the decoration on the back and front are kept within rectangles, thus emphasising the rectangular blocks in which the characters are set. Though the decoration itself is abstract and constructed on a framework of chequers the overall appearance is curvilineair.

The cover is executed in the batik technique. Batik originally is an Indonesian technique for decorating textiles. The cloth is covered with wax at the places where no colour is wanted. After immersion in a bath with pigment the wax is removed. This proceure is repeated for every colour separately. Batik is one of the techniques which distinguishes Dutch Art Nouveau, although some German artists later also used it. Dutch batiks are different from Indonesian ones in the designs used, and dutch artists also used the technique on different materials than textile, like leather or wood.

In den Nevel

"In den Nevel" means "In the mist" or "In the nebulae". It is a periodical for students of the Delft University of Technology. Its cover was "drawn" by Jan Toorop in 1895. Originally, it was in fact carved as a woodcut and every year the cover was printed with a different color.

Psyche

Psyche is a book written by Louis Coupertus with a cover by Jan Toorop in 1898.

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©1993-2009 Frank Derville

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