Louis Majorelle and Daum Frères, Orchidée desk, c. 1903
Louis Majorelle was the undisputed leader among French art nouveau furniture designers. This desk epitomizes his use -- and transformation -- of rococo style. Like Émile Gallé, Majorelle was from Nancy, a city in eastern France noted for the rococo elegance of its fine central square, La Place Stanislas, and for a tradition of luxury crafts. When he first took over the family business in 1879, Majorelle designed furniture that was close to his eighteenth-century models. But he began, partly under the influence of Gallé, to abstract and exaggerate forms, and by the mid-1890s he was creating furniture in a fully art nouveau style. Compare Majorelle's Orchidée desk with a chest made by an eighteenth-century cabinetmaker. Both rely on graceful oval shapes, use gilded mounts, and are inlaid with marquetry, yet no one would mistake one for the other. Majorelle has elongated the ovals. The electric lamps -- the glass was supplied by the Nancy firm of Daum Frères -- are conceived as plant forms. Twining stems bow in support of these heavy flower heads. Here, organic forms are not mere decoration in the way floral motifs were applied to the earlier chest. Majorelle has made the orchid, exotic and voluptuous, an organizing principle. Such use of nature was as modern as the desk's electric lights. Learning ActivitiesArt • Describe how natural organic forms are used as a basis for the design of Majorelle's desk. • Design a desk using a building as basis for design. • Compare art nouveau furniture made by the Vienna Secession (Josef Hoffmann's adjustable armchair). |
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