Jugendstil (Art Nouveau)
Jugendstil, or Art Nouveau (1890–1910), is the last jewellery epoch with a mourning symbolism of its own before the rupture of the First World War - defined by floral, organically curving forms, mystical symbolism and a tendency to soften the strict Victorian mourning codes into a poetic, naturalistic language of remembrance.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
Art Nouveau is the last great jewellery epoch before the rupture of the First World War, and at the same time the epoch in which the strict Victorian mourning codes (see The Victorian Era (1837–1901), The Middle Classes and Mourning Jewellery in the Nineteenth Century) are first systematically softened. Rather than a separate mourning genre, Art Nouveau develops a poetic, naturalistic language of remembrance that flows into personal jewellery - moonstone pendants, opal brooches with a teardrop motif, dragonfly and butterfly pendants (see Butterfly) as symbols of the soul, female figures with flowing hair as allegories of grief. In doing so, Art Nouveau bridges the Victorian mourning tradition and modern memorial culture.
Cultural and historical context
Art Nouveau emerges during a phase of far-reaching social change:
- High industrial modernity - mass production, urbanisation, technical invention (the motor car, the telephone, cinematography)
- Secularisation - the retreat of a strictly religious etiquette of mourning, above all in the educated urban middle class
- The new women's movement - the first campaigns for women's rights, new occupations open to women, a loosening of prescribed social roles
- Spiritualist and occult currents - the high point of spiritualism, Theosophy and Symbolist literature in the 1890s
- The Lebensreform movement - criticism of industrial modernity, a return to nature and to motifs drawn from it
In this setting the culture of mourning changes fundamentally. The ritualised social mourning toilette (black, crape, prescribed durations for each phase) comes to feel outdated and inauthentic. In its place comes a more private, more personal, often mystically and spiritualistically charged practice of grief - and the jewellery of that practice is Art Nouveau jewellery.
Materials and techniques
Art Nouveau brings a marked expansion of the jeweller's palette:
Enamel on gold. Where Victorian mourning jewellery was dominated by black enamel (see Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)), Art Nouveau expands the enamel palette dramatically. Plique-à-jour enamel (transparent glass-flux enamel without a metal backing, which reads like a stained-glass window) becomes René Lalique's speciality. Iridescent enamel (with a nacreous sheen) and basse-taille enamel (enamel over relief engraving) widen the expressive range further.
Moonstone. Becomes the preferred stone for poetic, melancholic pieces. Its bluish shimmer (adularescence) reads as mystical and suits a spiritually charged language of remembrance.
Opal. Previously shunned as a stone of ill luck (the Victorian prejudice), it is rediscovered in Art Nouveau. Its shifting play of colour is read as an allegory for the many layers of the soul.
Natural pearls (see The Pearl in Mourning Jewellery). Drop pearls and baroque pearls in particular are used in melancholic, asymmetrical compositions.
Semi-precious stones. Moonstone, aquamarine, amethyst, chrysoprase, carnelian, lapis lazuli - a broad palette compared with the Victorian concentration on diamond, garnet and black stones.
Horn. René Lalique develops carved natural horn (from cattle or water buffalo) into an Art Nouveau speciality - carving of the greatest delicacy, often combined with enamel accents.
Ivory (see Ivory). Remains present, above all for carved pendants of female figures; from 1900 onwards it slowly loses acceptance as awareness of the killing of elephants grows.
Motifs relevant to mourning
Several Art Nouveau motifs are of particular relevance in a mourning and memorial context:
Sleeping or grieving female figures. A characteristic Art Nouveau composition: a woman in profile or seen from behind, with flowing hair, closed eyes and a melancholic expression. These figures are read as allegories of remembrance - the woman stands either for the deceased or for the grief of those left behind. René Lalique created dozens of such pendants.
Butterflies and dragonflies. Both are used as symbols of the soul (see Butterfly). The dragonfly in particular is an Art Nouveau speciality - its translucent wings are executed in plique-à-jour enamel.
Swallows. A symbol of migration and return. In mourning contexts, a symbol of the soul that leaves life and (on a spiritualist reading) comes back.
Poppies. A symbol of sleep and forgetting - and therefore also of death. Poppy pendants form a small mourning genre of their own within Art Nouveau. Their red is rendered in plique-à-jour enamel.
Iris. A botanical symbol of mourning; the iris as messenger (in Greek myth the messenger of the gods) and as a plant of grief.
The weeping willow (see Weeping Willow). Still present in Art Nouveau, but more stylised and less naturalistic than in Victorian sentimental jewellery.
Crescent moons and stars. Moon and stars as symbols of night, grief and remembrance. Crescent brooches with a moonstone cabochon are a typical Art Nouveau mourning variant.
Serpents (the ouroboros). The serpent biting its own tail as a symbol of eternity and return. Serpent rings and pendants are frequent in Art Nouveau (see Serpent (Ouroboros)).
Regional schools
Art Nouveau develops several regionally distinct schools:
Paris (1890–1910). The most important school. René Lalique, Georges Fouquet, Henri Vever and Lucien Falize define French Art Nouveau jewellery. Characteristic: melancholic and mystical motifs, the highest standard of craft, naturalism charged with Symbolist meaning.
Vienna (1900–1910). The Vienna Secession (Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, the Wiener Werkstätte). Characteristic: reductionist, geometrically stylised lines, less naturalistic than Paris. Mourning pendants are reduced to a few clear lines.
Glasgow (1895–1910). The Glasgow School (Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald, Charles Robert Ashbee). Characteristic: elongated, stylised roses, linear geometry, an Arts and Crafts connection. Mourning pendants are very discreet and linear.
Darmstadt (1899–1914). The Mathildenhöhe artists' colony (Joseph Maria Olbrich, Peter Behrens). Characteristic: the German variant, with a stronger connection to the Lebensreform movement; hybrid geometric-organic forms.
Nancy (1890–1910). The École de Nancy (Émile Gallé, Louis Majorelle). Characteristic: a strong naturalist component, above all floral and vegetal motifs. Gallé is primarily a glass artist but also present in the jewellery market.
Munich (1896–1910). The circle around the magazine Jugend (Hermann Obrist, August Endell, Bernhard Pankok). Characteristic: a mystical, spiritual charge and flowing, organic lines.
Social change in the culture of mourning
Art Nouveau marks a fundamental change in the culture of mourning. Three shifts are especially relevant:
The privatisation of grief. The socially prescribed mourning dress code (see The Middle Classes and Mourning Jewellery in the Nineteenth Century) dissolves. Grief becomes a private matter that no longer has to be expressed in a standardised public form. Jewellery follows that shift: no longer "appropriate mourning jewellery" but a personal object of remembrance.
Aesthetic revaluation. In Art Nouveau, mourning jewellery is aesthetically revalued - it no longer has to be "heavy", "severe" or "dark" but may be beautiful, poetic and sensuously attractive. This shift opens the way to the modern memorial-jewellery genre, in which an ash pendant (see Ash Pendant) is worn as a piece of jewellery possessing a beauty of its own rather than merely marking grief.
A spiritualist charge. With the spiritualism and Theosophy of the turn of the century, memorial jewellery takes on a spiritual charge beyond classical Christianity. Moonstones, opals and butterflies become symbols of a conception of the soul that is no longer explicitly Christian yet not purely secular either.
Decline and transition
Art Nouveau ends abruptly with the First World War (1914). After the experience of industrialised mass death, its floral, organically curving aesthetic reads as out of step with the times. Art Deco takes its place (see Art Deco), with geometric, pared-back forms that can be read as an answer to mechanical modernity and to the loss of naturalist innocence.
In the context of memorial jewellery, Art Nouveau leaves one central achievement: the liberation of grief from ritualised social form and its transfer into a personal, intimate, aesthetically free space. That liberation shapes the whole subsequent history of mourning jewellery down to the present.
Art Nouveau jewellery today
In the current market, Art Nouveau pieces form a collecting field of their own with markedly rising prices:
- A simple Art Nouveau pendant (unattributed, butterfly or dragonfly motif): 800–3,000 €
- A pendant with a female figure (unattributed): 1,500–8,000 €
- Lalique pieces (signed): 15,000–500,000 €, depending on quality and provenance
- Wiener Werkstätte pieces (Hoffmann, Moser): 5,000–80,000 €
- Glasgow School pieces (Ashbee, Mackintosh): 8,000–150,000 €
For mourners looking for a memorial object with historical resonance, Art Nouveau pendants are an attractive option - they carry the iconographic charge of the early twentieth century while remaining aesthetically timeless. A few contemporary workshops make Art Nouveau-inspired memorial jewellery with an integrated ash capsule or fingerprint element - an unusual but stylistically interesting combination of historical form and modern personalisation.
Questions about this entry
- Did Art Nouveau have a mourning-jewellery tradition of its own?
Not in the strict sense of a separate genre. Art Nouveau rejected the rigid Victorian codification of mourning and replaced it with a poetic, naturalistic language of remembrance. Instead of explicitly black mourning jewellery with classical mourning iconography, pieces appeared with a melancholic, mystical charge: moonstone pendants, opal brooches with a teardrop motif, butterfly and dragonfly pendants as symbols of the soul, female figures with flowing hair as allegories of grief. These pieces were not sold as mourning jewellery, but mourners deliberately chose them as personal objects of remembrance.
- Which Art Nouveau artists matter for memorial jewellery?
Several leading figures. René Lalique (Paris, 1860–1945) - the most important Art Nouveau jeweller, who revolutionised the iconography of jewellery with melancholic, mystical female figures, butterflies and motifs drawn from nature. Georges Fouquet (Paris, 1862–1957) - court jeweller of the Parisian Belle Époque, with a distinctive line in mourning and sentimental jewellery. Henri Vever (Paris, 1854–1942) - jewellery historian and artist; designed memorial pendants with a strong melancholic charge. Charles Robert Ashbee (Glasgow, 1863–1942) - founder of the Guild of Handicraft; designed pared-back sentimental pieces in the Arts and Crafts idiom. Josef Hoffmann (Vienna, 1870–1956) - co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte; markedly reductionist mourning pendants.
- What distinguishes Art Nouveau mourning jewellery from Victorian?
Three essential differences. Choice of material: instead of jet, vulcanite and black enamel, the dominant materials are moonstone, opal, enamel on gold with motifs from nature, horn (an Art Nouveau speciality of René Lalique) and natural pearls. The palette becomes broader and softer. Iconography: instead of skulls, hourglasses and the explicit weeping willow, poetic and mystical motifs appear - sleeping female figures, dragonflies, swallows, crescent moons, and mourning flowers such as poppy and iris. Form: instead of symmetrical compositions come organically curving, asymmetrical designs with flowing lines. The mourning piece becomes visually softer, more personal and less socially codified.
Further reading
- Art Nouveau Jewellery - Vivienne Becker (1985)
- Jewels of the Art Nouveau - Henri Vever (1908)
- Mourning Dress - A Costume and Social History - Lou Taylor (1983)
Related entries
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Core conceptsMemorial Jewellery
Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.
- Core conceptsSentimental Jewellery
Sentimental jewellery is the jewellery of the age of sensibility between 1760 and 1840 - pieces in which love, friendship and grief share the same imagery, and in which hair, miniature painting and personal inscriptions first become the load-bearing form.
- PeriodsThe Victorian Era (1837–1901)
The Victorian era is the heyday of mourning jewellery - a period of more than sixty years in which court mourning codes, industrial mass production, new materials (jet, vulcanite, Berlin iron) and Queen Victoria's personal widowhood combined to produce a system of public and private mourning visibility without precedent in European history.
- PeriodsThe Edwardian Era (1901–1910/1914)
The Edwardian era is the brief transitional period between the Victorian system of mourning jewellery and its final collapse in the First World War - a time of loosening codes, of refinement in materials (platinum, diamond) and of the first decided *weakening* of formal mourning obligation.
- PeriodsArt Deco
Art Deco (1920–1939) is the first jewellery epoch without a ritualised canon of mourning - shaped by geometric rigour, machine aesthetics and a decisive rejection of the sentimental mourning fashions of the nineteenth century; memorial jewellery becomes private, understated and formally absorbed into the general jewellery line rather than set apart as its own genre.
- Symbols & motifsButterfly
The butterfly is the most important modern secular symbol of mourning - an ancient mythological metaphor for the soul (Greek *psyché* means both "butterfly" and "soul") that was marginal in the nineteenth century and has, since the late twentieth, become the dominant alternative symbol of remembrance alongside cross and heart.
- Symbols & motifsWeeping Willow
The weeping willow is the most formative botanical mourning symbol of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - born in the English landscape garden of the Enlightenment, adopted by sentimentalism as an image of silent sorrow, and become in Victorian mourning iconography the dominant mourning scene on pendants, miniatures and grave stelae.
- Symbols & motifsTear
The tear - as a shaped teardrop pendant, as a drop-shaped pearl or as a painted tear on a miniature portrait - is one of the most direct mourning symbols of all; it joins bodily reality (the drop actually wept) to symbolic condensation, and appears in jewellery from the Baroque memento mori to the modern teardrop ash pendant.
- MaterialsThe Pearl in Mourning Jewellery
The pearl is the most important white material in the mourning context - symbol of the tear, of purity and of innocence - and in the 19th century was the preferred gemstone substance above all in half-mourning and final mourning as well as in mourning jewellery for deceased children.
- MaterialsGold in Mourning Jewellery
Gold is historically the most dominant carrier material of mourning and memorial jewellery - usually in muted alloys, often contrasted with black enamel or as a restrained gold setting around a dark principal material such as jet, onyx or a plait of hair.
- Techniques & craftMicromosaic (Micromosaico)
The micromosaic is a mosaic technique perfected in Rome and Venice, in which tiny glass tesserae (often smaller than 1 mm) are assembled into detailed miniature pictures - in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a high-grade material for mourning and souvenir pendants bearing neoclassical mourning scenes, weeping willows, urns or memorial inscriptions.