See ‘The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum’ at the Dayton Art Institute

Art and nature have long been intertwined, be it painters translating the beauty of spring flowers to their canvas or photographers immortalizing majestic-but-fleeting sunsets on film. Visitors to the Dayton Art Institute this season can explore this connection through a collection of more than 120 artworks.

The traveling exhibition “The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum” opened Oct. 18 and runs through Jan. 11, and showcasing works by notable names such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley an others.

Tiffany Furnaces, Gooseneck Sprinkler © Tiffany Furnaces; image courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art, photograph by Edward Pollard

The traveling exhibition is composed of works from the internationally recognized collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. The themes of nature can be seen across the works in motifs such as vines, flowers and human forms. Their works presented together highlight the beauty of the natural world, while also allowing a look into a style of the past that was popular during the time that World War I was changing the world.

“Artists were inspired by artwork coming out of Japan in the late nineteenth century, especially Japanese woodblock prints, as well as by nature, particularly the unruly aspects of nature,” Smith said in the press release. “Their designs in glasswork, furniture, ceramics and printmaking are rich in ornamentation and detail, featuring sinuous lines and whiplash curves. Our guests will see how Art Nouveau shaped modern design and decorative arts as we know them today.”

A series of educational programs accompany the exhibition’s run at the Dayton Art Institute, and guided tours are available on select Saturdays through Dec. 27, allowing a deeper look into the work of the exhibit. On Nov. 13 and 20, the museum will also host Jess McMillan, founder of the Mosaic Institute of Dayton, for a two-session Making Mosaics workshop during which participants will create their own Art Nouveau-style mosaic coasters.  

For more information on the exhibition and the special events accompanying it, visit daytonartinstitute.org.

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