Antropomorphic details

Anthropomorphic details enjoyed special popularity among decorative elements of the Art Nouveau period. Artists particularly developed a liking for depictions of women. Their images in full size may be found, e.g. on the facades of tenement houses inPoznań,Wrocław, and Chorzów. Female figures were sometimes depicted as caryatids, but in general artists limited their images by placing motifs of female heads, whose hair was styled with a wavy line - one of indicators of the new trend. This style was mostly noticeable in painting, including numerous posters, for which the Czech artist Alfons Mucha became particularly famous. This trend was also reflected in architecture.

In this chapter we shall present details starting with female silhouettes of both big size depictions decorating walls of low-rise tenement houses inWrocławand Chorzów, and examples of figures of a slightly smaller size found inPoznań. Among them one may recognize the art allegory and Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and among smaller details allegories of commerce, industry, justice, painting, and music were also identified.

Female heads were the most frequent decorative element. Some of them were crowned, decorated with garlands of roses or were placed in a clump of bay leaves, sunflowers or thistles. Winged female heads from one of theWrocławtenement houses constitute another interesting example.

Men were mainly depicted at work on the land or in the smithy, with a pickaxe or a sword, or with other attributes. Allegoric depictions of the god of commerce Mercury and such orientalising motifs as the image of a Chinese on the facade of a hotel inKatowiceare some of the details. Telamons supporting balconies and loggias or bays, among which 'Cracovians and Mountaineers' from aWarsawtenement house seem to be the most interesting, were a regularly used architectonic element. There happen to be also more realistic depictions, such as portraits of tenement house owners or their creators.Tombstonesculptures, which in this chapter are represented only by the image of the Łódź actor Janusz Orliński-Busiacki, constitute a separate category. Several further depictions of this type are presented in the final chapter.

Mascarons, whose numerousness and fancifulness may amaze, are presented in the final part of the chapter. (Several examples were mentioned in the earlier chapter – ‘Friezes and scenes'). Masks with ominous grimaces hidden in the leafage, on the verge of cartouches and in various woodcarving details as a part of door or gate decor, are shown here. Most of them fulfil only ornamental functions. Some of them, however, are also used in a pragmatic way, as cantilevers of the eaves over the entrance to the tenement house or as a part of fencing or starting posts of a stair balustrade as well as mail boxes.

Such ornaments placed mostly in the central spots of facades and, apart from symbolic or aesthetic values, emphasize the rhythmicity of the elevation surface division. Occasionally, they constitute elements of portals, and some other time - of balconies. Some of these details are hidden in entrance halls or gateways. Reliefs and, to a smaller extent, sculptures prevail on building facades, whereas painting decor is more often observed in staircases. However, the most interesting examples are to be found in the interiors.

Zoomorphic details

Zoomorphic details were typical ornamental elements in the Art Nouveau period and were willingly applied in building decor. Images of fantasy legendary dragons were one of the most frequently used motifs. Motifs of small animals, including squirrels, hares as well as cats were no less popular. These animals were often depicted among tree leaves or other plants.

Beasts of prey, such as the wolf from theOpolevilla or the fox from theToruńtenement house presented in the former chapter, were another decorative pattern. Though controversial, even mice and bats were used as decorative motifs. A spider with a big web, used as an element of the gable decor of one of the Cracovian tenement houses designed by Teodor Talowski, is one of the most original details.

Inspirations with the water element are visible among the variety of applied motifs. Sea animals, including seals and sea lions, as well as smaller animals, such as crayfish, crabs, and fish constituted one of the depicted motifs decorating tenement house facades, especially those which fulfilled functions connected with water such as the city baths. The motif of frogs was treated in a very interesting way, both by Talowski, the designer of the Cracovian Under the Singing Frog tenement house, and by Emanuel Rost junior, the designer of a tenement house in Bielsko-Biała, who dressed two frogs in tailcoats gave a mandolin to one of them and a pipe and a glass of wine to the other one in order to advertise the wine bar.

Among the zoomorphic ornaments birds deserve special attention. Several depictions of peacocks, which may be even regarded as the Art Nouveau symbols, are presented here. Owls depicted as birds symbolizing wisdom and also the night-time were a very popular motif. The motif of eagles with spread wings, which were a synonym of power, were often used.

Depictions of more common animals, such as roosters, hens with chicks, ducks, swans, pigeons and other smaller birds, e.g. woodpeckers, also occurred in tenement house ornaments. A turkey decorating Under the Spider Tenement House in Cracow designed by Talowski may also be discerned among motifs.

Even insects were among numerous ornamental elements inspired with the animal world. Although in case of architecture they were less impressive and harder to discover, one may find depictions of dragonflies, butterflies, and beetles. The dragonfly of a supernatural size visible in The Strange Garden painting by Józef Mehoffer is the most famous dragonfly in the history of art, whereas in case of architecture the dragonfly from the tenement house in Bielsko-Biała, which hovers over calamus spadix, presented in the following chapter, constitutes an interesting example. However, buildings were particularly willingly decorated with images of bees (some of them even with hives), which symbolized diligence.

Selected examples of zoomorphic details are presented in this chapter, but an attentive Reader shall also find them in the chapters dedicated to other motifs, where animals are hidden among plants or accompany a human.

Floral details

Floral details prevailed in the Art Nouveau period to such an extent that this style was often interchangeably referred to as the Floral Style in England or Stile Floreale in Italy. Country dwellers, who moved in the 19th and 20th centuries to cities, were interested in surroundings referring to nature. Artists searching for their own style willingly applied floral ornaments in their output, including architecture. The output of Antonio Gaudi, whose work of life, Sagrada Familia, referred structurally to the natural world, constitutes a remarkable example of such an approach.

In Poland tree motifs were willingly applied in architecture of this period. An interesting example is Kindermann's villa in Łódź, in which columns of the portico imitate apple tree trunks and relief trees cover window openings with roots and limbs, and a squirrel and other animals hide in the shade of their leaves, whereas a fox emerges from the roots. In Poznań the motif of an apple tree was used to create unique artistic metalwork decor spreading through three storeys of loggias. Trees were particularly willingly presented as a decorative element in Silesian tenement houses. Leaves, flowers, and fruit of a chestnut were a frequently used decorative motif. They were applied both on elevations of buildings and in their interiors. The motif of a chestnut was particularly successfully used by Stanisław Wyspiański in the extensive interior design of the Home of the Association of Physicians, whose example may be found not only in this chapter. Oaks symbolizing power, maples, bay leaves, and sometimes pines represent other trees and bushes, which were willingly applied for decorative purposes

However, flowers were the most charming decorative element. Plants emphasizing vertical divisions, namely those having high stems, e.g. sunflowers, callas, calamus, reeds and high grasses, ears of corn as well as irises, particularly willingly used in stained glass decor, were preferred. Favourite flowers included also lilies and water lilies. Rambling plants with wavy or curly twigs, such as bindweed, ivies, grapevines or rambling roses were a spectacular motif. They made it possible to create almost without any limits curvilinear abstract decorative patterns emphasizing not only horizontal, but also vertical schemes. Wild plants, such as camomiles, dandelions, and thistles were also implemented in the decor. Cyclamens from the balconies of the Wrocław tenement house, referring to the Cyclamen embroidery from 1895 by Hermann Obrist, constitute an interesting example of floral ornaments.

Floral ornaments are visible both on building facades in the form of a specific border or as the main ornamental element. They often surround window openings, enrich portals and decorate balconies, as stucco ornaments, as painting, and also as artistic metalwork ornaments.  In the interiors floral patterns were applied in painting ornaments, of which Wyspiański's work from the church of Cracovian Franciscans, where lilies, pansies, roses, nasturtiums and other flowers were used as decorative elements, is the most impressive. Floral patterns were also used in ceramic facing, mainly of staircases but also of external surfaces. They were particularly willingly applied in Silesia, where ceramic facing with the rose motif in the working class housing estate in Katowice as well as floral ornaments from glazed brick in Bytom, presented in the next chapter, serve as interesting examples. Floral motifs were also most frequently applied in stained glass works.

An accurate image of nature, as well as its freely abstract transformations, including geometrization stylizations, are visible in ornaments with floral motifs. They were often combined with folk elements, just as interiors of the Cracovian Globe House designed by Józef Mehoffer and also with the Zakopane style represented by Stanisław Witkiewicz.

Geometric details

Following the new trend in art, architects tried to give new asymmetric shapes to erected buildings and enhance their functionality. In most cases the new style was accentuated only in facades, limiting to the new decorative elevation form. Various materials were used for this purpose, combining them taking into consideration the colour and texture, and often gaining interesting results.

Apart from ornaments indicated in the previous chapter which were created using bent curvilinear shapes enriched with various details, artists equally willingly referred to geometric schemes. Such ornaments often emphasized vertical divisions. Geometric ornamental forms, implemented in the art of the 19th century in Scotland by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, inspired the environment of Viennese artists, which developed and extensively popularized this trend gaining lots of followers. With passing of the time this elegant and softened style received its own name and was referred to as ‘Viennese secession’.

Patterns of geometric ornaments most frequently used in the Polish land reflected forms developed in the Viennese environment. Among them the prevailing one was Josef Olbrich's favourite motif of a circle with three vertical lines and the central strip protruding outermost, although different schemes, such as the one on the Jelenia Góra Theatre façade, also occurred. The motif of a square, the decorative element most frequently used by Josef Hoffmann, was also popular. The square was used in various ways, including the form of a chequer board consisting of small squares. Geometric ornaments were usually simple and affected the viewer through the texture or colour. Sometimes, however, they were enriched with floral elements, just as in case of the Jelenia Góra tenement houses, where artists tried to reconcile both decorative trends found in the Art Nouveau art.

Geometry has always occurred in architecture, at least for structural reasons. Rectangular windows and door openings were most frequently delineated according to its principles. However, in the Art Nouveau period there was a tendency to diversify them by implementing bar divisions, as well as new shapes, including circles. Arch window closings, especially in case of shop windows, constituted another geometric element. Some of the numerous examples of geometric patterns are presented just in the chapter dedicated to windows.

Apart from pure geometric forms mentioned above and puzzles of triangles, like the one in a  tenement house in Chełmno, floral patterns also underwent geometrization. Ornaments of this type are most frequently visible in artistic metalwork works, i.e. balcony balustrades and stairs, and rarely as relief ornamental elements of facades.