Images of women-flowers, women-butterflies in the artistic experience of the art of Italy and France in the Art Nouveau Age

Abstract

The flower and butterfly motifs, reflected in the images of beautiful women of the Art Nouveau age, have symbolic meaning, embodying an understanding of the beauty aesthetics in Italy and France in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In the images of the “Beautiful Era” women, Italian artists use the technique when the arms of the models, as in the dance of Loie Fuler, are raised up like the wings of butterflies. The article analyzes theorists of French art in the Art Nouveau age, such as Marcel Proust, Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Helleu, whose influence was significant for creating artistic images of women-flowers and women-butterflies in Italy and France at the turn of the 19^th–20^th centuries. The article discusses the history of the creation of the “serpentine” dance, which inspired the creation of the art images of women-flowers and women-butterflies in Italy and France at the turn of the 19^th–20^th centuries. That is demonstrated in works by such artists as Camillo Innocenti, Giovanni Boldini, Gaetano Previatti, Pompeo Marianni, Federico Zandomeneghi, Joseph Engelhard and Leopoldo Melticovitz, Elizabeth Sonrel and Alphonce Mucha.