Brussels has declared 2023 as the Year of Art Nouveau, and the city as the Capital of Art Nouveau.
What is Art Nouveau?
Art Nouveau is a late 19th and early 20th century aesthetic movement that produced a highly expressive style of architecture, interior design, furniture, décor, glasswork, jewellery, and visual arts.
Art Nouveau style is inspired by the natural world. Its key characteristics are sinuous, sculptural, organic shapes, arches, curving lines, and sensual ornamentation. Common motifs include stylized versions of leaves, flowers, vines, insects, animals, and other natural elements. Decorative elements found on the inside and outside of buildings include intricate mosaic work, stained and curved glass, and decorative wrought iron.
Why Brussels?
In 1893, Belgian architect Victor Horta put the finishing touches to Tassel House in Brussels. This building is considered to be the founding work of the Art Nouveau movement. It caused a stir, with its impressive modern façade and its sumptuous interiors in stained glass, mosaics and wrought iron. There are believed to be around Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels.
To mark the appearance of Art Nouveau 130 years ago, the City of Brussels is organizing a comprehensive programme of events to celebrate Art Nouveau in all its diversity and stake its claim as the capital of this international artistic movement.
What’s happening in Brussels in 2023?
A full programme will showcase major aspects of Art Nouveau through updated and enhanced museum programmes, numerous large-scale exhibitions, festive events, guided tours, and conferences.
Check out this site for the full program.
And this Google Art Nouveau map of Brussels shows you where all the key sites are.
What are some highlights?
- A new museum: the Hannon House
- An Art Nouveau information centre: the bureau Van Eetvelde: Built by Victor Horta, this exceptional building is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- The Bright Festival (16-19 February) and the Iris Festival (6-7 May) will be tinged with Art Nouveau for the occasion.
- Iconic buildings and collections will be accessible all year round. They include seven works of art by Victor Horta: the Horta Museum, the Hôtel Solvay, the Hôtel Van Eetvelde, the Autrique House, the Comics Art Museum, the Temple of Human Passions and the Wolfers Frères jewellery shop.
- Exhibitions include “Victor Horta and the Grammar of Art Nouveau” at BOZAR and “Victor Horta versus Art Nouveau. Horta’s vocabulary” at the Horta Museum.
- An interactive phygital experience around the stones on the façade of Hôtel Aubecq.
- Guided tours, conferences, workshops and publications.
- Initiatives aimed at specific audiences, such as schools, persons with a visual impairment and persons with reduced mobility.
- An Art Nouveau Pass will offer discounts for temporary exhibitions and guided tours dedicated to Art Nouveau.
So there’s plenty there to keep you busy for a few weekends in 2023!
Great. This provides inspiration for excursions.
Thanks Timothy.
Thank you Denzil. This is wonderful.
Glad you found it helpful Jane.
I love architecture, objects and illustrations in this style, although I think sometimes it passes from richness to over-ornamentation. But it’s wonderful to be in a building with curving, plant-inspired forms, especially after spending so much of our lives in and amongst concrete blocks, blank walls of glass and endless steel grids. Happy that this city is celebrating this.
I wonder if such ornate styles will ever come back Robert? And what would Horta have made of today’s frequently seen plain concrete cubes?
It seems like “organic,” nature-inspired designs might become popular again, and I think Horta et al. wouldn’t much like the concrete cubes.
Wonderful enticement to visit, Denzil.
Yes it would keep you busy for a few weekends.
What a beautiful building – i had no idea that’s where Art Nouveau originated.
Yes, I want to write something on Victor Horta soon, who started the whole movement.
How lovely! There will be plenty to enjoy this year. The building in which our Airbnb apartment was located had a definite Art Nouveau look about it. We had the tiniest balcony looking across to the Bourse.
Yes, there are so many buildings in Brussels that are either Art Nouveau or something very similar!
I hope to see more of Belgium someday – we stayed in Ghent in Spring 2019 for several days. We especially loved the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. I have no doubt that a year could be spent exploring Belgium and there would still be so much more to see. Thanks for stopping by my blog, Denzil, and prompting me to see yours.
Thanks for commenting. Glad you enjoyed Ghent. Belgium looks forward to welcoming you again!
I had no idea about that, either, and would have guessed Paris, Vienna or Prague as the places of origin. Which is a shame, as Art Nouveau is really my most favourite style of architecture.
Next to Art Deco, and on that, Belgium also blew me away! There are so many Art Deco churches, almost in every city. And then the cathedral in Koekelberg, WOW!
If folks are interested in Art Noveau, you gotta go to Eastern Europe one day, though. In the regions that were Austro-Hungarian until 1918, you still find plenty of Art Nouveau, Secessionist style, and sometimes in combination with local folk art. (Particular beautiful examples are Targu Mures in Romania or Subotica in Serbia.)
Thanks for your tips Andreas.