Henry van de Velde, Candelabrum, 1898 - 1899
Josef Hoffmann, Fruit basket, 1904

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According to English arts and crafts artist Walter Crane, "Line is all important. Let the designer, therefore…lean upon the staff of line -- line determinative, line emphatic, line delicate, line expressive, line controlling and uniting." Art nouveau is an overwhelmingly linear style, but its line is surprisingly varied. In some places, Glasgow and Vienna, for example, it manifested itself in a rectilinear, geometric manner. Elsewhere, in France and Belgium particularly, it was flamboyantly curved. But it was always decorative in intent. Compare the type of line in these two metal works, a candle stand by Van de Velde and a silver fruit basket designed by Hoffmann for the Wiener Werkstätte.

The tensed energy of a whiplash -- the sinuous line curving back on itself -- is often the first image that our minds conjure up on hearing the words "art nouveau." This is the line that animates the candelabrum. "Line," Van de Velde said, "is a force." He believed it carried in it the energy that had created it. A line derived ultimately from nature is here abstracted into a controlled and decorative pattern.

At first Hoffmann's fruit basket appears altogether different. His constant use of squares and cubes earned him the nickname "Quadratl-Hoffmann" (little square Hoffmann). We might be tempted by the angles and neat lines to see this basket as a forerunner of the spare functional style that would predominate in the twentieth century. But rectilinear design is not an index of Bauhaus modernism, which demanded that "form follow function." Geometric simplicity was a decorative choice here, no different at its core than the more complex sinuous line of Van de Velde's candle stand. In fact Hoffmann's quadratlstil -- square style -- works against the functionality of the basket. It is far from practical for the soft round forms of fruit. Despite this, Hoffmann clearly did have an interest in function, which he once called "our first requirement." The back of his armchair, for example, adjusts.

Hoffmann's fruit basket is very much a handmade -- and so expensive -- piece. The hammered surface of the bowl even emphasizes the craftsman's presence and physical processes. Van de Velde's candlestick, on the other hand, is electroplated, a technology that allowed for industrial production and mass marketing to a wide -- and ever expanding -- buying public.

Learning Activities

Art

• Design a curvilinear fruit basket and a geometric candlestick.

• Research Van de Velde's role in the Deutsche Werkbund and relation to the Bauhaus.

Social Sciences

• Research current prices for fine handcrafts.

• Discuss what, if anything, separates craft from art. Research how prominent contemporary artisans have viewed this question.

Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) With the financial backing of a wealthy businessman, Hoffmann set up the Wiener Werkstätte in 1902. It was one of many similar organizations established in various countries on the model of earlier arts and crafts guilds in England. Like its predecessors, the Werkstätte brought together artists and craftspeople working in different media. It likewise sought the elevation of craft, honesty in construction, and the use of materials appropriate to their function. The Viennese group differed from its English models, however, in its open production of luxury goods for a progressive -- and rich -- clientele, while the ideal of the English guilds was to bring good design to working people. The arts and crafts movement had sought to produce "art for all" and believed with reforming zeal in the ability of the arts to uplift the common man. Yet their products were rarely affordable by many because of the artists' insistence on hand production.

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