The whiplash or whiplash line is a motif of decorative art and design that was particularly popular in Art Nouveau. It is an asymmetrical, sinuous line, often in an ornamental S curve, usually inspired by natural forms such as plants and flowers, which suggests dynamism and movement.[1] It took its name from a woven fabric panel called "Coup de Fouet" ("Whiplash") by the German artist Hermann Obrist (1895) which depicted the stems and roots of the cyclamen flower. The panel was later reproduced by the textile workshop of the Darmstadt Artists Colony.
In architecture, furniture, and other decorative arts, the decoration was entirely integrated with the structure. The whiplash lines were frequently interlaced and combined with twists and scrolls to inspire a poetic and romantic association. Femininity and romanticism were represented by the lines of long curling hair intertwined with flowers.[2]
Designers such as Henry van de Velde used the whiplash line to create a sense of tension and dynamism. He wrote: "A line is a force like other elementary forces. Several lines put together but opposed act like the presence of multiple forces.[3]
Noted designers who used the whiplash line included Aubrey Beardsley, Hector Guimard, Alphonse Mucha, and Victor Horta. In the Art Nouveau period, the whiplash line appeared frequently in furniture design, railings, and other ornamental iron work, floor tiles, posters, and jewelry. It became so common that critics of Art Nouveau ridiculed it as "the noodle style".[4]
Origins
The twisting and curving lines of the whiplash form have a long history. They are similar to the arabesque design, used particularly in Islamic art, such as the ceramic tiles of the mosque of Samarkand in Central Asia, They featured prominently in the lavish decoration of the rocaille or rococo style in the early 18th century. They were found in the Japanese prints of Katsushika Hokusai, which became popular in France just as the Art Nouveau movement was beginning, and which particularly inspired the paintings of flowers by Vincent van Gogh, such as The Irises (1890).[5]
Arabesque pattern on a tile from Samarkand (15th century)
The Belgian architect Victor Horta was among the first to introduce the whiplash curve into Art Nouveau architecture, particularly in the wrought iron stairways and complementary ceramic floors and painted walls of the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels (1892–93). The lines were inspired by the curving stems of plants and flowers. The French architect Hector Guimard also adapted the curving lines, particularly in the gateway, stairway, and interior decoration of the Castel Béranger in Paris (1894–98), and in the edicules over the entrances of the Paris Métro that he designed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900. Guimard also used the curving whiplash line on a large scale on the facade of the house he built for he ceramics manufacturer Coilliot in Lille (1898–1900).[6]
Another major figure using the whiplash form was the furniture designer Louis Majorelle, who incorporated the twisting whiplash line not only into his furniture, but also into cast iron staircase railings and stained glass windows.
The whiplash line in ceramics was also sometimes used for exterior decoration, for example under the peristyle in the courtyard of the Petit Palais in Paris, built for the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition. It also appears in the curving cast iron staircase and ceramic floors of the interior of the Petit Palais. The architect Jules Lavirotte covered the facade of several of houses in Paris, particularly the Lavirotte Building on Avenue Rapp, with curling ceramic whiplash designs made by the ceramics firm of Alexandre Bigot.
Floor of the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels, with the characteristic whiplash design (1892–93)
The use of wrought iron or cast iron in scrolling whiplash forms on doorways, balconies, and gratings became one of the prominent features of the Art Nouveau style. The architect Victor Horta, who had worked on the construction of iron and glass Royal Greenhouses of Laeken in Belgium, was one of the first to create Art Nouveau ironwork, followed quickly by Hector Guimard, whose iron edibles for the entrances of the Paris Métro became an emblem of the style.
Gate of La Hublotière, country house of Hector Guimard (1896)
The whiplash line was especially popular in posters and the graphic arts. In the posters of Alphonse Mucha and Koloman Moser, it was frequently used to depict women's hair, which became a central motif of the posters. After 1900 the whiplash lines tended to be more styled and abstract.
The line also appeared in decorative paintings, such as the series of wall paintings made by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh of the Glasgow School. Her paintings, particularly the White Rose and Red Rose decorative panels (1903), were exhibited at gallery Vienna Secession, where they may have influenced the decorative paintings of Gustav Klimt at the Stoclet Palace made the following year.
Preparatory design of The Embrace by Gustav Klimt (1904)
Furniture and ornament
Art Nouveau was a comprehensive form of decoration, in which all the elements; furniture, lamps, ironwork, carpets, murals, and glassware, had to be in the same style, or the harmony was broken. Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, Henry van de Velde and other Art Nouveau architects designed chairs, tables, lamps, carpets, tapestries ceramics, and other furnishings with similar curling whiplash lines. The whiplash line was intended to show the clear break from the eclectic historical styles that had dominated furniture and decoration for most of the 19th century. Henry Van de Velde and Horta in particular integrated the whiplash lines into their furniture, both in the shapes of desks and tables, the legs, in the brassware handles, and in railings and lamps, as well as in the chairs. Right angles were nearly banished from the works. [7]
An important furniture workshop was created in the French city of Nancy by Louis Majorelle. Many designs with the whiplash line inspired by water lilies and other natural forms were created by Majorelle's designers. In Belgium the most notable designer using the motif was Gustave Serrurier-Bovy After 1900, the whiplash lines became simpler and more stylized. In the Glasgow School in Scotland, the motif was used in furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and in highly-stylized glass and paintings by his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. [8]
Glass art was a medium in which Art Nouveau found new and varied ways of expression. Intense amount of experimentation went on to find new effects of transparency and opacity: in engraving with cameo, double layers, and acid engraving, a technique which permitted production in series. In ceramics and glass, the whiplash lines were mostly taken from floral and animal forms. After 1900, they kept the floral motifs but became simpler and more stylized.
Par une telle nuit cup by Émile Gallé, France (1894)
The ceramic Paris facades of architect Jules Lavirotte made lavish use of the whiplash lines
Porcelain and bronze vase by Otto Eckmann (1897–1899)
Jewelry
European jewelers were very quick to adapt the whiplash line to pendants and other ornaments. The Belgian designer Philippe Wolfers was one of the pioneers of the style. His drawings show how he carefully analysed the forms of flowers and plants and used them in his jewelry. His work often crossed the frontiers between sculpture and decorative art, inspired by the lines of forms ranging from dragonflies to bats to Grecian masks. He made not only jewelry, but also bronzes, lamps, vases, glassware, and other decorative objects, produced mostly for the Belgian glass factory of Val Saint Lambert.[9]
In Paris, the most prominent jewelry designers were René Lalique and Fouquet. Their designers made abundant use of the whiplash line to suggest natural forms, from waterfalls to iris flowers. Other artists, including Alphonse Mucha, contributed jewelry designs incorporating the whiplash line.
Fahr-Becker, Gabriele (2015). L'Art Nouveau (in French). H.F. Ullmann. ISBN978-3-8480-0857-5.
Ducher, Robert (2014). La charactéristique des styles (in French). Flammarion. ISBN978-2-0813-4383-2.
Renault, Christophe; Lazé, Christophe (2006). Les styles d'architecture et du mobilier (in French). Editions Jean-Paul Gisserot. ISBN978-2-8774-7465-8.
De Morant, Henry (1970). Histoire des arts décoratifs (in French). Librarie Hachette.
Related Research Articles
Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often given by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of modern materials, particularly iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to create unusual forms and larger open spaces. It was popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Époque period, and was a reaction against the academicism, eclecticism and historicism of 19th century architecture and decorative art.
Émile Gallé was a French artist and designer who worked in glass, and is considered to be one of the major innovators in the French Art Nouveau movement. He was noted for his designs of Art Nouveau glass art and Art Nouveau furniture, and was a founder of the École de Nancy or Nancy School, a movement of design in the city of Nancy, France.
Hector Guimard was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building in Paris, which was selected in an 1899 competition as one of the best new building facades in the city. He is best known for the glass and iron edicules or canopies, with ornamental Art Nouveau curves, which he designed to cover the entrances of the first stations of the Paris Metro.
Victor Pierre Horta was a Belgian architect and designer, and one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. He was a fervent admirer of the French architectural theorist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and his Hôtel Tassel in Brussels (1892–93), often considered the first Art Nouveau house, is based on the work of Viollet-le-Duc. The curving stylized vegetal forms that Horta used in turn influenced many others, including the French architect Hector Guimard, who used it in the first Art Nouveau apartment building he designed in Paris and in the entrances he designed for the Paris Metro. He is also considered a precursor of modern architecture for his open floor plans and his innovative use of iron, steel and glass.
Liberty style was the Italian variant of Art Nouveau, which flourished between about 1890 and 1914. It was also sometimes known as stile floreale, arte nuova, or stile moderno. It took its name from Arthur Lasenby Liberty and the store he founded in 1874 in London, Liberty Department Store, which specialized in importing ornaments, textiles and art objects from Japan and the Far East. Major Italian designers using the style included Ernesto Basile, Ettore De Maria Bergler, Vittorio Ducrot, Carlo Bugatti, Raimondo D'Aronco, Eugenio Quarti, and Galileo Chini.
Louis-Jean-Sylvestre Majorelle, usually known simply as Louis Majorelle, was a French decorator and furniture designer who manufactured his own designs, in the French tradition of the ébéniste. He was one of the outstanding designers of furniture in the Art Nouveau style, and after 1901 formally served as one of the vice-presidents of the École de Nancy.
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The Hôtel Tassel is a historic town house in Brussels, Belgium. It was designed by Victor Horta for the scientist and professor Emile Tassel, and built between 1892 and 1893, in Art Nouveau style. It is generally considered one of the first buildings in that style, along with the Hankar House by Paul Hankar, built at the same time, because of its highly innovative plan and its ground-breaking use of materials and decoration. It is located at 6, rue Paul-Emile Janson/Paul-Emile Jansonstraat, a few steps from the Avenue Louise/Louizalaan.
Jules Aimé Lavirotte was a French architect who is best known for the Art Nouveau buildings he created in the 7th arrondissement in Paris. His buildings were known for his imaginative and exuberant decoration, and particularly for his use of sculpture and glazed ceramic tiles on the facades, made in collaboration with leading sculptors and the ceramic manufacturer Alexandre Bigot. He was three times awarded prizes by the city of Paris for the most original facades, for the Lavirotte Building at 29 Avenue Rapp (1901), for the Ceramic hotel, 34 Avenue de Wagram (1904), and for the building at 23 avenue de Messine in 1907.
Henri Sauvage was a French architect and designer in the early 20th century. He was one of the most important architects in the French Art nouveau movement, Art Deco, and the beginning of architectural modernism. He was also a pioneer in the construction of public housing buildings in Paris. His major works include the art nouveau Villa Majorelle in Nancy, France and the art-deco building of the La Samaritaine department store in Paris.
Alexandre Bigot was a French ceramicist. He was primarily a ceramics manufacturer, producing the designs of many artists and architects of the French-Belgian Art Nouveau movement, including: Jules Lavirotte, Hector Guimard, Louis Majorelle, Henri Sauvage, Henry van de Velde, Auguste Perret, Andre Arfvidson, Anatole de Baudot and more.
École de Nancy, or the Nancy School, was a group of Art Nouveau artisans and designers working in Nancy, France between 1890 and 1914. Major figures included the furniture designer Louis Majorelle, ebonist and glass artist Jacques Grüber, the glass and furniture designer Émile Gallé, and the crystal manufactory of Daum. Their work was largely inspired by floral and vegetal forms found in the region. The goal of the group was to produce in series ordinary objects, such as furniture, glassware, and pottery, with fine craftsmanship and in original forms, making art objects available for people's homes.
The Villa Majorelle is a house located at 1 rue Louis-Majorielle in the city of Nancy, France, which was the home and studio of the furniture designer Louis Majorelle. It was designed and built by the architect Henri Sauvage in 1901-1902. The villa is one of the first and most influential examples of the Art Nouveau architectural style in France. It served as a showcase for Majorelle's furniture and the work of other noted decorative artists of the period, including ceramist Alexandre Bigot and stained glass artist Jacques Gruber. It is now owned by the city of Nancy, and is open to the public certain days for tours by reservation.
Furniture created in the Art Nouveau style was prominent from the beginning of the 1890s to the beginning of the First World War in 1914. It characteristically used forms based on nature, such as vines, flowers and water lilies, and featured curving and undulating lines, sometimes known as the whiplash line, both in the form and the decoration. Other common characteristics were asymmetry and polychromy, achieved by inlaying different colored woods.
The architecture of Paris created during the Belle Époque, between 1871 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914, was notable for its variety of different styles, from neo-Byzantine and neo-Gothic to classicism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. It was also known for its lavish decoration and its imaginative use of both new and traditional materials, including iron, plate glass, colored tile and reinforced concrete. Notable buildings and structures of the period include the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Gare de Lyon, the Bon Marché department store, and the entries of the stations of the Paris Metro designed by Hector Guimard.
The Castel Béranger is a residential building with thirty-six apartments located at 14 rue de la Fontaine in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed by the architect Hector Guimard, and built between 1895 and 1898. It was the first residence in Paris built in the style known as Art Nouveau.
The Lavirotte Building, an apartment building at 29 Avenue Rapp in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, was designed by the architect Jules Lavirotte and built between 1899 and 1901. The building is one of the best-known surviving examples of Art Nouveau architecture in Paris. The facade is lavishly decorated with sculpture and ceramic tiles made by the ceramics manufacturer Alexandre Bigot. Lavirotte was awarded the prize for the most original new facade in the 7th arrondissement in 1901.
The Art Nouveau movement of architecture and design first appeared in Brussels, Belgium, in the early 1890s, and quickly spread to France and to the rest of Europe. It began as a reaction against the formal vocabulary of European academic art, eclecticism and historicism of the 19th century, and was based upon an innovative use of new materials, such as iron and glass, to open larger interior spaces and provide maximum light; curving lines such as the whiplash line; and other designs inspired by plants and other natural forms.
The Art Nouveau movement of architecture and design flourished in Paris from about 1895 to 1914, reaching its high point at the 1900 Paris International Exposition. with the Art Nouveau metro stations designed by Hector Guimard. It was characterized by a rejection of historicism and traditional architectural forms, and a flamboyant use of floral and vegetal designs, sinuous curving lines such as the whiplash line, and asymmetry. It was most prominent in architecture, appearing in department stores, apartment buildings, and churches; and in the decorative arts, particularly glassware, furniture, and jewelry. Besides Guimard, major artists included René Lalique in glassware, Louis Majorelle in furniture, and Alphonse Mucha in graphic arts, It spread quickly to other countries, but lost favor after 1910 and came to an end with the First World War.
Art Nouveau glass is fine glass in the Art Nouveau style. Typically the forms are undulating, sinuous and colorful art, usually inspired by natural forms. Pieces are generally larger than drinking glasses, and decorative rather than practical, other than for use as vases and lighting fittings; there is little tableware. Prominently makers, from the 1890s onwards, are in France René Lalique, Emile Gallé and the Daum brothers, the American Louis Comfort Tiffany, Christopher Dresser in Scotland and England, and Friedrich Zitzman, Karl Koepping and Max Ritter von Spaun in Germany. Art Nouveau glass included decorative objects, vases, lamps, and stained glass windows. It was usually made by hand, and was usually colored with metal oxides while in a molten state in a furnace.
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