Illustration: Felix Aubert. Fervenches printed velvet design, 1897.
These five textile patterns were designed by the French designer Felix Aubert at the height of the European Art Nouveau movement. All were produced between about 1897 and 1899 and have elements that are typical of the period. However, Aubert's work seems apparantly more subdued than is perhaps typical of the French Art Nouveau work produced during this period.
Aubert worked in a number of disciplines including wallpaper, lace and printed and woven textile design. The designer is often separated and indeed sometimes even isolated by various critics, from the mainstream French Art Nouveau movement along with its various designers. This is usually because of the defined style of Aubert which rarely fits into the mainstream perception that the movement, particularly within its French incarnation, engenders.
Illustration: Felix Aubert. Iris d'eau printed velvet design, 1897.
Aubert's individual style can in some ways be seen to fall into a number of decorative schools, which added to both his appeal and his broad skill. While there was a definite mainstream European feel to much of his decoration and pattern work, it seems somewhat more sympathetic perhaps to the more pattern based Germanic approach to Art Nouveau, rather than necessarily the flamboyant French. This does not imply that Aubert was altogether outside of the French theme of the movement, but there were a number of particular and individual approaches that he took towards decoration and pattern that are perhaps less usual for a French designer of this period.
Another interesting influence that seems to run, at least partially through Aubert's work, is that of a strain that seems to represent a decidedly English approach to decoration. This can be seen particularly within some of the forced formality design work, which uses the tools of symmetry and structural guidance to frame the sometimes overly flamboyant and self-conscious aspects that are typical of French Art Nouveau.
Illustration: Felix Aubert. Genoese velvet design, 1899.
These five textile designs from a two year period at the very end of the nineteenth century, give us some idea as to the breadth of design and pattern work that was popular during this period. It is perhaps just as well to note that although the Art Nouveau movement dominated European decorative arts across most disciplines, this does not necessarily imply that design, decoration and pattern work were universally defined and encased within the movement's fairly narrow remit. Any decorative style or movement usually had to work alongside both older more established styles, and also those that were seen as perhaps an alternative to the leading fashion of the day.
Aubert's work perhaps gives at least a passing indication as to the temperament of the general buying public, which in reality has always been that of a multi-faceted market of consumers. There had always been a fairly extensive range of styles, budgets and approaches to the decorative arts that would suit all age groups, social classes and inclinations. Although many designers feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon of the next and latest fashionable style, manufacturers and retailers tend to be more cautious, knowing intrinsically the broad aspects of their customer base.
Illustration: Felix Aubert. Watered damask design, 1899.
Although genuinely broad in aspect, Aubert still belonged to the movement that is defined as Art Nouveau. However, by taking the genuine motifs, guidelines and indeed temperament of the new movement, he was able to structure and reuse the fashionable movement in order to both appeal to a wider audience and also to give a much more flexible choice to the general public, not all of whom were truly enamoured with the exuberant excesses of Art Nouveau.
While many may see Aubert's work as that of a watering down of the movements most important aspects and tenets, it would be just as easy and probably more realistic to say that Aubert was emphasising the broader aspects of the decorative art world of Europe during this period, one that had seen many decorative style come and ago, and was to many more do the same across the twentieth century which lay just ahead of these five textile designs.
Illustration: Felix Aubert. Woven fabric design, 1899.
Further reading links:
Treasury of Art Nouveau Design & Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
422 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau (The World of Art)
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau: Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Taschen's 25th Anniversary Special Editions Series)
300 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Miller's Buyer's Guide: Art Nouveau & Art Deco
Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from "The Studio" (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau 1890-1914
A Guide to Art Nouveau Style
The Origins of L'art Nouveau: The Bing Empire
Art Nouveau (DK Collector's Guides)
Art Nouveau Style
