Jewelry dazzles in MFA exhibit

July 25, 2008|Sebastian Smee, Globe Staff

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But the restlessness you can feel in Art Nouveau design - its famous "whiplash" line and proliferating tendrils - was not just a response to the sanguine energies of nature. It was also an outgrowth of the weird, unsettling riptides convulsing fin de siècle Europe. Drug use, morbidity, an intensely rarefied aestheticism, and highly charged, violently contradictory conceptions of women were all part of the mix.

Women, in the world of Art Nouveau, were either dreamy and pliant or sexually malevolent. They were never a civilizing force or agents of their own fate as they came to be conceived of by the designers of Art Deco. (Art Deco, of course, is usually seen as "masculine" and streamlined in opposition to Art Nouveau's softer, more "feminine" aesthetic; but in truth, it was the Art Deco period, after the slaughter of millions of young men in the Great War, that allowed women to come into their own.)

At any rate, the darker, creepy side of Art Nouveau can be seen here in pieces like Lucien Gaillard's bulky "Beetle Necklace," with its dark, patinated silver, and Maurice-Philippe Fourain's "Pendant Necklace with Two Intertwined Serpents." Both are wildly imagined ornaments that warn off as much as seduce.

There are aspects of Art Nouveau jewelry - the curves, the color, the almost febrile intensity of the designs - that I love. But there are things that strike me, as I'm sure they'll strike many, as too much. I can admire, for instance, the intensity of the dragonfly brooches by designers like Wolfers and Louis Aucoc. But I would tend to steer clear of any woman who actually wore one.

Still, the beauty of this show is that, even if you recoil from some aspects of the aesthetic, you can become absorbed by the technical wizardry of the designs. The attention to detail (engraved decorations on hidden parts, natty removable armatures and so on) is one thing. But even better are the ingenious uses of cheap materials, and the elaborate treatment of surfaces to achieve finishes of unparalleled subtlety.

Read the short but excellent catalog, or better still, an article by Markowitz and her colleague Susan Ward in the July issue of The Magazine Antiques, if you want to learn more about these techniques. Failing that, just look. You will be richly rewarded.

Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com