Art Nouveau's Brief Brilliance

World War One made Art Nouveau's organic luxury seem obscenely irrelevant. The style that had promised to beautify every aspect of daily life suddenly appeared frivolous against a backdrop of industrial slaughter. Modernist architects like Le Corbusier explicitly rejected its decorative approach as dishonest and wasteful.

Yet Art Nouveau's core idea — that good design should permeate every aspect of life — survived its aesthetic rejection. The Bauhaus, despite despising Art Nouveau's ornamental excess, inherited its ambition to unify art, craft, and industrial production.