Flowers in Glass

Flowers in Glass

Stained glass may be considered an art of painting, but a painting with light. Its most unique effect is always the product of coloring, refracting, obscuring and fragmenting the light. Throughout its thousand-year history stained glass was almost exclusively used in church windows. Only in the 19th century it entered in private houses, finding its real breakthrough with the Art Nouveau architects who considered natural light one of their foremost interest in quality house building.

Rue Vanderschrick 25

The architect Ernest Blérot designed a splendid corner house in Art Nouveau style, nowadays used as a bar called "Porteuse d'Eau". Applying the new concept of light in the style en vogue he integrated into the building a profusion of stained glass windows and this stunning glass dome at its centre, sustained by a massive marble column. Green and blue glass represent the oversized flowers against a bright yellow background.

Dome in Rue Vanderschrick 25

Pure Art Nouveau lines can be devised in the design of these beautiful window frames in the same building "Porteuse d'Eau" by Ernest Blérot, in the popular quarter of St. Gilles. Thanks to its present function of  bar the building can be easily accessed for due admiration. Several of these windows light the ground floor of the establishment. Its lower parts are kept in transparent glass interrupted only by curvy wooden lines while the upper parts contain this elegant stylized flower motif composed with differently textured glass. Red petals in opalesque glass encircle a white flower on a creamy background in ripple glass.

Window in Rue Vanderschrick,25

Fanlight in Rue Charles V, 58

Surprisingly, this otherwise classic façade on Rue Charles V, 58 in the European quarter shows a huge two-floor staircase window with a precious Art Nouveau design. The image presented here is the small fanlight over the entrance. Stylized flowers in lively green and delicate mauve shades, cut from opalescent glass, are set against a squared backdrop in ripple glass. The round yellow pieces are cut from bottoms of bottles. This masterly handling of different glass qualities indicate great skill of the anonymous glass master making the window particularly attractive.  

Fanlight in Rue CharlesV,58

Maison Frison

Victor Horta, the prodigious Art Nouveau architect, created a highly innovative dwelling in Rue Lebeau 25, next to Sablon, in Brussels for the Frison family. The condition of a typical narrow but deep building site induced him to devise a plan with new sources of light. Here he connected the front of the house with the back garden by a curbed glass roof. An iron structure elaborated in beautiful curves, reminiscent of stylized trees, sustain the glassed roof.  Simple transparent glass squares are bordered by a highly attractive curvy design in bright yellow while the centre displays one single tree-like image with a roundish crown.  Most stained glass works are anonymous but this masterpiece has a signature: Raphael Evaldre. Maison Frison has been habilitated as Art Gallery and as such may provide a glimpse into the building’s interior. Horta's faculty of producing a total art work is evident also in other decorative details such as the beautiful stair landing in whiplash curves.

Galerie in Maison Frison

Rue Darwin, 15

One of the few houses where E. Blerot not only used decorative Art Nouveau elements but created an entire building according to the principles of the new style in all its concepts. A grand bow window on its lower floor decorates the façade. Its wooden frame  is marked by characteristic Art Nouveau curved lines. Transparent glass at its central section is surrounded by designs inspired in nature. Colorful lilies are sprouting from the blue of water while the upper part is dominated by a bird set against the blue sky.

Bow window in Rue Darwin 15

Maison Autrique

Victor Horta built his first house with clear ideas about the new style already in 1893, in Chaussee de Haecht 266. He opted for a relatively simple interior, due to financial restrictions of the owner, but applied already basic concepts of the new style like the harmonious combination of industrial and handmade materials or in nature inspired elements as the stair landing.
Two stained glass windows in the staircase flood the house with light. Their design show influences of japonism, a style emerging in Europe in the 19th century and very appreciated by Art Nouveau designers. The window presented here is the lower one of the two, facing the garden. Its subject is a stylized landscape with lys flowers and a fruit tree. The glass artist chose soft pastel colors for the design but enhanced the tree with a deep brown tonality. Opalesque glass with marble effect for the fruits complete this artistic panel.

Staircase window in Maison Autrique

                                                           

Features of Art Nouveau

Features of Art Nouveau

For Art Nouveau lovers as myself Bruxelles is a real paradise. Each town quarter  contains lovely buildings in this attractive style from around 1900. Its architecture is already widely treated in numerous books. Therefore, the subject I want to show here in these pages is the much less known but equally fascinating stained glass works. Windows, doors or cupolas as integral part of the building provide filtered light to the dwellings, a concept so dear to Art Nouveau architects, in a highly artistic way.

Window in Hotel Hannon

         In the period around 1900 emerged a new style in European Art and Architecture, the Art Nouveau style. Leaving behind Victorian sentimentality with its constant look to the past it meant a turning point in Western Art and Architecture by exploring a progressive and adventurous way of expression. Even if the newly created style was rather short-lived its importance lies in the application of new concepts in Art as well as in Architecture all over Europe and beyond. Its significance even goes beyond its creation by paving the way for future movements as Art Deco and Modernism. Taking conscience of the beauty of nature and incorporating it into art and architecture was a basic aim of Art Nouveau artists. Appreciated motives range from flowers and trees to insects, from waves to ondulating curves. The representation of these objects does not want to be an imitation but a highly stylized form of it. The Art Nouveau Style is distinguished by its elegance, sensuality and decorative effect. Flowing curves and double curves insinuating writhing plants, undulating lines as for instance Horta’s famous whiplash curve, flames and waves or the flowing hair of female figures are most characteristic expressions applied in both the structure and the decoration of the building. Although Art Nouveau often is boldly asymmetric it achieves great harmony. 

                                                        Horta's whiplash motif


       Contrasting with this highly sensuous style we find another nearly opposing tendency in Art Nouveau - the geometric line. Paul Hankar in Belgium was a defender of this trend, strongly influenced by the Viennese and the Scottish Art Nouveau. Geometric forms as circles, semi-circles or triangles play an eminent role pointing already to the future Art Deco. This geometric austerity in iron structures or sgraffiti as decorative elements made the houses affordable for a much wider public, being the "democratization" of house building another goal of Art Nouveau architects. The Ciamberlani house in Brussels is a perfect example for this style.

Hotel Ciamberlani by P. Hankar

The new concept of “Gesamtkunstwerk” or total art wanted to create a fusion between structure and ornament. Thus columns or beams became thick vines with spreading tendrils like that of a living organism, leaving behind previous efforts of hiding structural elements. Either in curvy stone work, in swirling iron balconies, in thematic sgraffiti or in stained glass windows, the architect sought the greatest possible harmony among the different elements. In order to obtain this goal of total art the Art Nouveau architect not only designed the building but every single element in it such as floor mosaics, stair landings, door handles and even furniture. 

Iron balcony by V. Horta

        One of the major assets of Art Nouveau construction is the use of natural light in planning a building with the intention of bathing its interiors in light, adding quality of life to its inhabitants. The use of stained glass panels fitted perfectly into the concept of a well lit dwelling. The typical long but narrow building plot of Brussels often became a site of experiment with innovative sources of light, as a glassed dome in the central section or stained glass doors for the otherwise central dark room. Stained glass windows looking out to the street, particularly on the ground floor, often shelter the inhabitants from outside-viewers while filtering soft light to the inside. 
In the next post I will enter fully the subject of stained glass with the presentation of some works with one of the dearest motifs to Art Nouveau architects and artists: flowers and plants.