Educational Media Reviews Online

Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau is a three-part discussion of how the Art Nouveau style swept across Europe and then all but vanished a short time later. Each part focuses on a particular area: Paris, Vienna, and cities in Britain. Narrator Stephen Smith takes us first on a tour of late 19th century Paris, where Art Nouveau was the “guest of honor” at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. He discusses the cultural climate that led to the style flourishing, and tells stories of the pioneers of Art Nouveau, such as Alfons Mucha and his poster of actress Sarah Bernhardt, Rene Lalique’s revolutionary jewelry design, Emile Galle’s glass design and social activism, and Hector Guimard’s Metro stations.

In part two, we move on to Vienna, the city with the most intense development of the style, after a royal scandal forced the Viennese to reexamine their social values. Here Smith examines works such as Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”, and the buildings of Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Josef Maria Olbrich. He discusses the artistic freedom of the Secession Movement, how the artists considered craft and graphic art as important as painting and sculpture.

The last episode moves to Britain, where Japanese exports inspired natural, sensual designs of motifs like sunflowers, peacocks and cranes, alongside the Celtic influences of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. The Arts & Crafts era fused with Art Nouveau to achieve something unique and British. In addition to the well-known designers such as William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the film celebrates two unsung heroines of Art Nouveau design: Mary Watts, who designed the Gothic Revival Watts Mortuary Chapel, and Margaret Macdonald, Mackintosh’s wife and member of the Glasgow Four.

Focusing on individual regions allows the series to delve deeper into the different applications of Art Nouveau and to show how deep its influence penetrated before it all but disappeared with the rise of Modernism. The spry tone and pace of the film don’t allow it to linger on specific points, but it covers more ground as a result. With picturesque photography, interviews with historians and descendants of the artists, effective text overlays and excellent music choice, Sex and Sensibility is an absorbing and illuminating exploration into the first truly international style.