Art Nouveau Mobile

For my main project I will be creating a Mobile in the Art Nouveau Aesthetic. My main inspiration for this project is the work of Alexander Calder, who pioneered the mobile as a form of kinetic sculpture. His work The S-Shaped Vine is shown as the featured image of this post, this is one of my personal favorites of his, and is what inspired me that this style of sculpture could hopefully be adapted to the Art Nouveau aesthetic. I was encouraged by his use of both sinuous curves and flower motifs in this piece, both of which are common to the Art Nouveau aesthetic.

Alexander Calder and the Mobile

“Alexander Calder is perhaps best known for his large, colorful sculpture, which incorporates elements of performance and chance as well as moments of humor into unique, dynamic structures” (National Gallery of Art). “Alexander Calder is known for inventing wire sculptures and the mobile, a type of kinetic art which relied on careful weighting to achieve balance and suspension in the air. Initially Calder used motors to make his works move, but soon abandoned this method and began using air currents alone” (TATE). These mobile sculptures are my main inspiration for this project, and I have shown a few key examples below.

 

This first example Black Disk With Flags is archetypal example of one of Calder’s mobile’s. The weight of the piece is intricately balanced to allow for the kinetic movement of the sculpture, contrast with the visual asymmetry of the counter weights. This creates an intriguing effect of airiness to the piece. The heavy use of curves and natural shapes, along with primary colors is a common motif in Calder’s work. 

This second piece Plain Wood does an excellent job showing the range of Calder’s work, and how the mobile as a sculptural form can be made in varying aesthetics. Here we see a prolific use of wood, and seemingly random pieces as the counterweight. Even using different materials, this is still clearly a Calder mobile. I will be expanding on this idea in my own work, creating a Calder-esque mobile in the art deco aesthetic.

This third piece Lobster Trap and Fish Tail is an excellent example of the use of natural curves in Calder’s work. From the actual shapes of the weights, to the natural curve the whole piece creates, this piece is another inspiring example for me, and I am planning on using some of these elements to further annunciate the art deco aesthetic in my own work.

Looking at all three examples here, we can see that there are a few key elements required to make a successful mobile. The first is the interconnecting elements, the arms and joints which they rotate about. Alexander Calder preferred to use wire in his sculpture, and this use of wire is a defining element of his art, Calder himself even saying “I think best in wire” (TATE). We can see in the examples above how he used wire exclusively to build the skeletons of these mobiles, this use of wire both creates visual movement in the painting, guiding the eye, while allowing for the ornamentation of the piece to remain the focal point. These pieces are interconnected by rotating joints, either string or connected loops of wire that allow the sections of the mobile to move, but with some constraint, so that at equilibrium the sculpture will return to the same state. The final building blocks of Calder’s work are the ornaments used as weights and counterweights in the mobile. While Calder seems to prefer bold shapes in primary colors, we can also see in the second example above Plain Wood that he used a variety of material to create these weights, allowing for a wide degree of creative freedom. For my own project I will be using these same building blocks, wire, rotating joints, and ornaments to create a mobile in the Art Nouveau aesthetic. 

The Art Nouveau Aesthetic

From the 1880s until the First World War, western Europe and the United States witnessed the development of Art Nouveau (“New Art”). Taking inspiration from the unruly aspects of the natural world, Art Nouveau influenced art and architecture especially in the applied arts, graphic work, and illustration” (Gontar). In order to successfully create a mobile in the Art Nouveau aesthetic there are two main elements that I would like to focus on. 

The first is the “Whiplash Motif” “[this] decorative motif that has come to define much of Art Nouveau is the seemingly innocuous gesture of the whiplash. An ornamental S-curve that writhes and coils, the whiplash is a force of energy that drove the art world into a new Modern era. Derived from studies of the natural world, including deep-sea organisms and botanical gardens, it may seem nothing more than a flowing line, but the whiplash marked a break from the constraints of old-world traditional art forms and heralded the coming of modern design” (Victoria and Albert Museum). The examples below show several iterations of this motif. We can see the whiplash curve in the handrail of the staircase in the leftmost image. In the middle we see the motif used ornamentally on a dresser. And finally, one of Calder’s mobiles Untitled (The McCausland Mobile), that evokes the form of the whiplash. 

[4],[5],[6]

The second element is the prolific use of highly stylized floral motifs. I really enjoy how these motifs look and will be incorporating these elements into my mobile as weights. I especially like how the Tiffany lamp shown is able to create floral patterns using glass that I would like to replicate. The photo on the right is an excellent example of this theme done in metal, that I would like to try and replicate with bent wire in my Mobile.

[7],[8]

Prototyping and Fabrication

To construct my final artifact I am planning on using a combination of a few materials. The first and most used will be wire, I am planning on using commonly available baling wire that I will source from Murdoch’s Ranch and Home Supply. Using this along with various pilers I will be able to form the skeleton of my mobile. Further below is a smaller prototype that I have made using paper clips to see how bending wire works to create this skeleton. For the actual joints of the piece, I am planning on using fishing line. Through working on my prototype, I learned that using wire rings significantly limits the movement of the sculpture, so I will ties the various armatures of the skeleton together using fishing wire to allow for more movement while still creating a resting position.

Prototype Mobile, Own Work

The final element I will be able to leverage to express the Art Nouveau aesthetic will be the counterweights. These will be more customizable, and I am planning to explore a variety of options to create these weights. Some will be made with the same wire as the skeleton, others may be painted cards with added weight. I would also like to use glass or plastic sheets to add translucent elements that may be evocative of a Tiffany Lamp.

 

Sources:

Wikipedia contributors. “Alexander Calder.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 Jan. 2025. Web. 18 Mar. 2025.

Wikipedia contributors. “Tiffany lamp.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Oct. 2024. Web. 18 Mar. 2025.

Wikipedia contributors. “Art Nouveau.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Mar. 2025. Web. 18 Mar. 2025.

Wikipedia contributors. “Whiplash (decorative art).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Oct. 2024. Web. 18 Mar. 2025.

Wikipedia contributors. “Mobile (sculpture).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Feb. 2025. Web. 18 Mar. 2025.

Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/. Accessed 12 March 2025.

Gontar, Cybele. “Art Nouveau.” Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 October 2006, https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/art-nouveau. Accessed 16 March 2025.

Guggenheim New York. “Alexander Calder.” https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/alexander-calder. Accessed 11 March 2025.

National Gallery of Art. “Alexander Calder, Biography.” National Gallery of Art, https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2047.html#biography. Accessed 11 March 2025.

Seattle Art Museum. “Selections from the Shirley Family Calder Collection.” https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/whats-on/exhibitions/the-shirley-family-calder-collection. Accessed 11 March 2025.

TATE. “Who is Alexander Calder?” TATE, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alexander-calder-848/who-is-alexander-calder. Accessed 11 March 2025.

Victoria and Albert Museum. “The Whiplash.” V&A, https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-whiplash. Accessed 11 March 2025.

Images (In Order of Appearance)

[0] The S-Shaped Vine, Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/.

[1] Black Disk With Flags, Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/.

[2] Plain Wood , Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/.

[3] Lobster Trap and Fish Tail , Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/.

[4] By Henry Townsend – Self-photographed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3846745

[5] By Foto: Martin Adam, Berlin – © Bröhan-Museum Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78306250

[6] Untitled (The McCausland Mobile) Calder Foundation. “Archive.” Calder Foundation, https://calder.org/archive/all/works/.

[7[ By Wikipedia Loves Art participant “the_adverse_possessors” – Uploaded from the Wikipedia Loves Art photo pool on Flickr, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8884349

[8] By Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France – Balcon de l’hôtel Guimard (Paris), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24670713