{Artist} Emile Gallé

Happy Friday petals and butterflies...I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I wanted to share today one of my most favourite artists. Many of you will know by now through my Twitter and my Facebook page, that I am besotted with the Art Nouveau period, it's my favourite time of Art history besides the Egyptian & Gothic/Medieval times.  Emile had a stunning talent & I'd be over the moon to have one of his original pieces. His life was fascinating, yet heartbreaking. I hope you enjoy, I tried to make it as short as possible and included pictures too, so don't feel bad if you look more than read.

Have a wonderful weekend Starlets!

♥

A Dainty History Lesson

Emile Gallé {Nancy. France. 8 May, 1846- 23 September 1904} Was a key figure in the Art Nouveau era. A man of his time. He was a dreamer, a botanist, had a strong political agenda, industrialist. An Artist finding his medium in glass. He built a substantial glass and furniture empire from the family business. Creating stunning prototypes and then giving them to his team to be massed produced across France. Art and Industry went hand in hand. He was quite clever with experimenting with various techniques to texture the glass. Using acids while layering and cutting. The pieces he made were of a complexity never seen or achieved in that time. The exhibition pieces went far beyond the decorative nature, they were engraved with quotations. He had a magical, poetic quality which went on to become his signature. He invoked nature and the cycle of life. The pieces drew you in and engulfed your senses, so that you became lost in it. He was a true artist. Gallé's view of nature was a true and honest one, he also appreciated what was decaying, rank and dying. He was trying to find a new way of expressing the realities of modern life and death. 

At the end of the 19th century, Nancy became the power house for Art Nouveau, in 1901 an association of local designers grouped and formed. Gallé of course was the visionary. One of the pieces exhibited at the 1900 world fair, was called 'The dark men'. This piece was cry out for the injustice that threatened to destabilise the government & the country's fragile peace. All for a man named Alfred Dreyfuss, a Jewish Army officer who was sentenced to life in prison on the basis of documents that had been faked. He was humiliated and had his rank badges torn from him and his sword broke in half. The anti semitism that exploded in France after this split the country. Artists stood up for Dreyfuss and eventually paid the price. After the World Fair,  Gallé's business suffered, he was ostracised because he defended an innocent. Customers slowed to a hault and he worried for his family and factory. He also found out he was dieing (Leukaemia). He began pouring sadness and melancholy into his work. The very last piece he made before his death was a bed - 'Lit Aube et Crépuscule' (Dawn and Twilight bed). A beautiful piece that many feel symbolises life & death. The moth lifts up to the sun living and breathing, then falling at night dying and stopping. Sadly he didn't get to see Dreyfuss exonerated in 1906. He died two years earlier. But, in the last years of his life he created some of the most moving and powerful pieces ever.

His wife Henriette Gallé chose to keep the plants and continue his work with the help of employees, designers, sculptors and engravers, under the guidance of Victor Prouvé, her husband's faithful collaborator. She gathered up collected writings and published them in ''Writings for Art'' in 1908, which was used to help raise awareness of the genius that he was. Pieces created after his death have a special marking after his name, so you know it was made after and not before.

{Les Hommes noirs (The Dark Men). Emile Galle (French, 1846‒1904) and Victor Prouve (French, 1858‒1943). France, 1900. Blown and cased glass, cut, acid-etched, engraved, polished, applied silver stain. H: 38.1 cm, Diam (max): 32.1 cm. Collection of The Corning Museum of Glass (2011.3.1}

{'Lit Aube et Crépuscule' (Dawn and Twilight bed), 1904, Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy.}

{Emile Gallé in 1892. painted by Victor Prouvé. ©Coll. Hand.}

Major works were from 1989 to 1904:

Glass vases and lamps, with cameo or wheel-carved Gallé signature, etched to depict landscape scenes, flowers, butterflies or birds amongst foliage, in double or triple overlaid and etched glass; internally decorated, overlaid, wheel-carved glass; cameo glass; flashed, engraved, chased and enamelled glass.

Here are just a small few of creations. Many more beautiful ones out there to discover.

{All images found via the Internet. none are mine}