Luxurious and Sensual

This exhibition brings together approximately 120 of the finest art nouveau treasures from the uncommonly rich holdings of the Chrysler Museum of Art. The florid, languorous curves, natural motifs and refined elegance of art nouveau furniture, glass and other works have entranced generations of collectors and museumgoers since the apex of this brief but intense movement around the turn of the 20th century. An exuberant, radical style, art nouveau blithely trampled many of the Victorian Age’s orthodoxies of art and design, exploding age-old strictures with its fanciful approach to furniture, graphic arts, jewelry, architecture and more while embracing new technologies and incorporating foreign stylistic flourishes. It was also unabashedly luxurious and sensual.

“The Triumph of Nature” returns us vividly to this entrancing time in European decorative arts, from its beginnings in the Arts and Crafts movement and Japonisme, through to its evolution into Art Deco style — which incorporated geometrical and industrial motifs as well as more efficient (and frugal) systems of production. The exhibition introduces a new generation to art nouveau’s luminous innovations and artistic triumphs, enticing visitors once more into these lustrous, nature-inspired havens of ornate beauty — all orchestrated over a century ago by visionary designers.

“The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum of Art” is organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC.