SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

VI. DECORATIVE INTERIOR DESIGN DURING THE EARLY PERIOD
AND GOLDEN AGE OF ART NOUVEAU
VI.1. A general description
As was the case with façades, decorative solutions sought out for interior
design maintained some retrospection until as late as 1903. At the beginning of the
period, this was completely true in the interiors of public buildings. In flats, by
contrast, the conventional approach to décor was inherited from the style of
Historicism, in which different rooms in a single flat were decorated in various
styles, with ornamental saturation and colourful solutions. At the turn of the 19 th
and 20 th centuries, however, democratisation in society led to a change in the way
in which rooms in flats were arranged. At the beginning of the 20 th century,
wealthier people began to divide rooms up not on the basis of salon-type rooms
and rooms for everyday use, but rather on the basis of function – dining rooms,
bedrooms, home offices, and the like. This by no means indicated any
democratisation of aesthetic views, however. Representatives of the civil society
sought to compare themselves to the aristocracy, often choosing decorations that
had once been typical of the interiors of baronial estates or castles.
At the same time, the search for new techniques created a cornerstone for
the use of certain iconographic motifs of the Art Nouveau style. It also meant that
there was special interest in that part of the heritage of historical styles in which
proximity to the ideas of Art Nouveau could be identified. Up until the end of the
early period of the style, the spectrum of Art Nouveau forms expanded, and the
influence of neo-styles was preserved, particularly in interiors of public functions.
At the same time, however, this influence lost its primacy, and decorators were free
to offer liberal interpretations of materials used in private interiors, particularly in
terms of the Rococo style. During the golden age of Art Nouveau, there was an
overall change in tonality in a great many interiors – they became lighter. Bronze
remained popular, but tones of green and blue of various shades replaced tones of
red and brown. During the early years of the 20 th century, around 1903, there were
also attempts to get rid of dense ornamental saturation in design, with the principle
of amor vacui becoming increasingly popular. In many cases, there were attempts
to use the Art Nouveau style throughout an entire building.
Changes in interior design which reflected the fashion trends of the day
were, essentially, a pan-European process, one which had to do with the
development of psychology and medicine at that time. Ideas about the human
nervous system changed, and people began to understand that the system is a
delicate instrument, indeed. Debora L. Silverman, in writing about achievements
in this area in late-19 th century France, points to links among symbolists, interior
design in Paris at the end of the century, and the aforementioned concept of
pscyhologie nouvelle, emphasising that the dissemination of these theories had an
effect both on elite and on mass culture. Many magazines devoted to design and
the arts published articles based on the ideas of Jean-Martin Charcot about the
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