An exhibition on 1900 art is being held until June 26th 2000 at the Grand Palais in Paris coinciding with a similar show taking place at the Royal Academy in London until April 3rd. The Grand Palais was in fact built in 1900 for the Universal Exhibition in Paris and this place surely seems the most suitable to exhibit pieces of furniture, glass works and other objects of art produced during that period by many European craftsmen and artists.
There are over 400 pieces produced between 1895 and 1905 shown there and evoking new 1900 trends in Europe and demonstrating that these, except for Vienna and its Secession movement, were developed in provincial cities such as Glasgow, Barcelona, Nancy or Darmstadt.
Art Nouveau had nothing to do with modern art but was an adaptation of Symbolism combined with nature and Rococo style, which induced many changes in most domains, architecture, fashion and decorative arts, over a short period.
Impressionist artists showed little concern for Art Nouveau which represented in fact a kind of bridge leading to modernism, which found its acceleration during World War One
The 1900 exhibition held in London has been focussing on painting, sculpture and fine arts regarding all European schools and even those of America and Japan including works produced within movements that had little to do with Art Nouveau.
Such exhibition has thus given a particular overall insight on art produced between 1895 and 1905 proving that many currents could co-exist together to satisfy various tastes at that time. Let us not forget that the European society felt much attached to Academic styles while Impressionist works were only selling well in the U.S and Russia before meeting success in France after 1914. Once again it was the war which induced deep changes in mentalities though a majority of people lived in classical settings.
U.S modernism and intellectual life in Europe helped boost new movements, such as Cubism, in the early 1920's while Art Nouveau represented a transitional period at the turn of the century.
There was an obvious change under way in 1900 as the London exhibition has tended to suggest with artists showing a progressively disintegrating world that was entering into an industrial era while the working masses became conscious of an urgent need for reforms. These artists expressed a kind of uneasiness as well as some fear about the future, meaning that they had no illusions about the fate of mankind. The much solitary Gauguin was willingly drowning in his dreams, Van Gogh knew too well that he was waging a lost battle whereas Munch was shouting his despair at the same time. A few years later Picasso was intensely fighting to survive while trying to determine new messages and the Fauves were giving bloody tones to their works.
The overall impression in Paris has been quite different because the exhibition has been focussing on Art Nouveau mainly, a movement which only lived during a decade. Still it incurred deep changes in many fields and represented an important step toward modernity.
Now, after seeing the works of various schools visitors at the Royal Academy have come out with the clear idea that in 1905 the world was on the verge of facing a major art revolution whereas those who went to the Grand Palais had the strange feeling of having been confronted to an ephemeral movement that somewhat left its mark, however difficult to assess except for specialists.
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