(EN): While Art Nouveau blossoms in the 1890s, Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), a Parisian actress, reaches the peak of her career. As a wealthy celebrity and art lover, she requests various Art Nouveau young artists to create for her plays:...
more(EN): While Art Nouveau blossoms in the 1890s, Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), a Parisian actress, reaches the peak of her career. As a wealthy celebrity and art lover, she requests various Art Nouveau young artists to create for her plays: communication medium, jewelry, sets, or other accessories. She helps spreading the new aesthetics in France and abroad, as an icon of the movement. However, more than being a supporter and lending her image to Art Nouveau, she embodies, with her physiognomy, her clothes and her gesture, one of the most significant characteristics of the new style: the curve. Her appearance and her strong personality inspire the best playwrights for their new plays, and a revolution takes place in stage direction: Art Nouveau aesthetics' elements are introduced on stage, as analyzed in Victorien Sardou's drama, Gismonda (1894). Finally, the movement also influences the style of her own creations. In all aspects of her life, Sarah Bernhardt is a remarkable and memorable figure of the style, as a celebrity, as a muse, as an artist, and as a woman.
