Global Art Nouveau

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course explores the dynamic, international movement of Art Nouveau (new art), which flourished from the 1880s through the early 20th century. Characterized by organic motifs, Art Nouveau emerged as a modern style that sought to dissolve traditional boundaries-between art and life, fine arts and craft, and tradition and innovation. While the movement spread rapidly across Europe and the United States, each region adapted the style to articulate its own national identity through ornament and heritage. This paradox-of a style that is both international and deeply nationalistic-is further complicated by Art Nouveau's reliance on a wide array of global decorative traditions, many shaped by colonial encounters and orientalist frameworks. Centering on cross-cultural exchanges, this course reconsiders Art Nouveau through a global lens. How do its international references-from Japanese prints, Chinese ceramics, Indonesian textiles, Central African natural motifs, to Islamic ornament-challenge the idea of Art Nouveau as a purely Western or European phenomenon? Rather than framing Art Nouveau as a singular stylistic break, we will examine it as a complex network of artistic transmission, translation, and appropriation. In doing so, we'll ask: how do global influences reshape our understanding of this "modern" style? And how might a reframing through the lens of the global open broader questions about cultural exchange, power, and modernity in the late nineteenth century?