112 THE MODERN STYLE

MODERN INTERIOR DECORATION

European Developments. During the first century of machine
fabrication the articles produced were generally copies of hand-
made things. They were often highly decorated with imitations
of handwork. The ugliness of nineteenth-century machine prod-
ucts was so pronounced that an artist, William Morris, and a group
of reformers in England tried to revive medieval handicrafts to
take the place of machine-made things, Naturally their project
failed for handwork can play only a small part in a Machine Age.

Traditional forms and decorative patterns were in general use
before 1900. At that time a Paris exposition introduced to the
world the Art Nouveau movement, which had developed in Bel-
gium and consisted mostly of new and elaborate surface decoration.

In 1925 Paris again held an international exposition of Modem
decorative art. The products exhibited were Modern in form but
were usually highly ornamented. The influence of this exhibition
spread over Europe and to America.

Austria produced the Viennese Secession movement, a novel
decorative fashion, brought to New York by Joseph Urban.

Sweden exhibited outstanding Modern work at the Paris exhibi-
tion of 1925. She not only has produced artistic, functional, and
inexpensive articles, but also has taught her people to appreciate
and buy them. For an account of this achievement read "Why
Sweden Leads in Design" by Anna Rutt in the American Magazine
of Art, April, 1933.

Norway, Denmark, and Finland have made contributions to the
development of Modern architecture, glassware, ceramics, silver,
textiles, rugs, and furniture. Some outstanding Scandinavian archi-
tects and craftsmen have now located in America.

Germany made an important contribution to the Modern move-
ment through the Bauhaus, which was established at Weimar. The
Bauhaus was a school where architecture, home furnishings, sculp-
ture, and painting were unified in design, so that a house and its
furnishings constituted a unit. This work was coldly intellectual
and basically sound, for it was founded on science, art, and life.
Hitler disapproved of the Bauhaus; therefore in 1933 it was trans-
ferred from Germany to the United States. Among its leaders wa$
Walter Gropius, a teacher of architecture at Harvard University,