SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

with the concept of Art Nouveau. Unappreciated in the past has been the fact that
figurative paintings influenced by academic salon art were popular in interiors
during this period of time.
• Architecture in Rīga during the late period of Art Nouveau saw an
increase in rationalistic tendencies. This affected the functional aspects of
buildings, but it also meant changes in façade décor. Innovations in architecture,
as always, did not emerge in a vacuum. There were ongoing links with German
and Viennese architecture, and around 1905, there was also increased interest in
Finnish architecture. The amplitude of external impressions created a foundation
for a wide range of interpretative techniques. Décor, in terms of style, offered
elements of National Romanticism, Domestic Revival and Neo-Classicism, as well
as Neo-Rococo and “proto Art Déco” motifs, often in synthesis with Art Nouveau.
A lack of criteria in the selection of motifs for décor makes it particularly difficult
to specify the boundaries of Art Nouveau décor, because in stylistic and
iconographic terms alike, décor often strayed beyond the boundaries of Art
Nouveau.
• During the late period of Art Nouveau, plastically emphasised and
applicative plasticity became less important, and there were fewer decorative and
anthropomorphic round sculptures. The rhythmic repetition of a single motif
became more common in décor. There were many different types of finishes on
facades, with various tonal and relief ornamental solutions, as well as the so-called
scratched ornaments which were a version of sgrafito. Geometric motifs were
often used in décor. This perhaps signalled the influence of the traditions of
vernacular art, or, equally, it might have demonstrated a link to heraldry. Unlike in
the early period of Art Nouveau, there were more efforts to make use of ideas that
were ethical, patriarchal and didactic, or in the style of National Romanticism.
Story-telling reliefs appeared in décor as a result of this.
• It is not possible to claim that so-called National Romanticism really
helped Latvian identity to emerge more specifically than was the case with other
forms of architecture during the period that is in question here. Latvian architects
at the time were discussing the classical heritage as a possible paradigm for
national art. The forms and language of National Romanticism, not least in the
area of décor, were based on various elements and traditions from the Latvian
ethnos. This is most clearly seen in the stylisation of ethnographic ornaments and
motifs. If the question is whether this type of décor should be identified as
“Latvian National Romanticism,” then there is the matter of differentiating the
style as a broader concept.
• Motifs which can be said to be in line with the style of Neo-
Classicism increasingly appeared in the décor of buildings in Rīga during the early
20 th century. Building ornaments in architecture presented a few manifestations of
Neo-Classicism during the very first years of the new century, which allows one to
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