Art Nouveau: The World's Most Beautiful Buildings from Guimard to Gaudi

Following his most recent book, Art Deco City, author/photographer Arnold Schwartzman focuses his attention on the Art Nouveau style around the world, from Paris to Barcelona and beyond.

This richly illustrated book of over 200 photographs offers a fascinating guide to the Art Nouveau movement. The style known as Art Nouveau emerged at the close of the 19th century, a period known as the fin de siècle. It was a time of new ideas and inventions, such as the flying machine, automobile, Cinématographe, telephone, and the talking machine.

The term Art Nouveau is derived from La Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a shop opened by dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris in 1896. Its aesthetic was established by the British Arts and Crafts movement founded by William Morris in 1861 as a handcraft reaction to the mass-production ethos of the Industrial Revolution. Art Nouveau is based on plant forms and fantasy shapes, and embraces all forms of art and design including architecture, metal work, tiles, furniture, graphics, textiles and jewellery. The style soon became popular throughout Europe as well as the United States.