italian liberty style
Every era generates a style that represents what is “modern”. In the decade at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this style could be seen in what came to be known in Italy as “lo Stile Liberty”, a style that was manifested not so much in the country’s architecture as in the decorative arts, a style whose luxuriance and remarkable imaginativeness graced furniture and furnishings, ceramic design, lettering, posters and other printed ephemera. The posters that were hung along the streets played an especially important role in the introduction of this new language to the urban landscape, as this meant it could more easily be absorbed by all the social classes. The word Liberty itself conjures up sinuous, undulating lines, a taste for asymmetry, and the female figure, flowers, plants and animals as decorative motifs. The use of the name “Liberty”, after the great London department store owned by Arthur Lasenby Liberty, was also successful because it sounded so much like
the Italian word for freedom, that is, “libertà”. Italian interior decorators, upholsterers and furniture makers purchased from Liberty & Co. the fabric and wallpaper designed by William Morris, pioneer of the aesthetic movement that spread like wildfire throughout Europe and the Americas under the guise of different physiognomies and labels: Modern Style, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Modernismo, Secession. What all these movements had in common was their rejection of the dominant eclecticism, and the yearning to free themselves from the muddled imitation of past styles that forced them to always look behind them. The need for a new style was felt universally, fostered by the inexorable market laws: the emerging, wealthy middle class had finally earned itself elevated purchasing power and demanded that it be represented in an original way. After its political unification in the late nineteenth century, Italy opened museums and schools for the decorative arts. It began to
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