Scala Group Livres

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century the Art Nouveau movement introduced a vital spirit of artistic and cultural renewal to virtually every aspect of artistic production: from paintings and graphics to advertising posters, finding its most remarkable expression in architecture, interior design, and the decorative arts. Many of the interpreters of Art Nouveau - including Van de Velde, Tiffany, Klimt, Horta, Beardsley, Guimard and Mackintosh - were inspired by the sinuous, elegant, and dynamic shapes and lines of flowers, plants, and the female form, introducing these natural forms into their art.

The definition of the Baroque age is still subject to debate among critics and historians. In one of its most commonly accepted meanings, Baroque describes some aspects of 17th-century art, with sumptuous Roma at the center, that upset the proportions and static harmony of the Renaissance—already undermined by Mannerism during the previous century—through the use of curves, strange movements of forms, the daring optics of illusionism, and theatricality. Bernini, Borromini, da Cortona, and Rubens were, among others, decisive examples.