D. +L’ART NOUVEAU.+--Since 1896, and particularly since the Paris Exposition of 1900, a movement has manifested itself in France and Belgium, and spread to Germany and Austria and even measurably to England, looking towards a more personal and original style of decorative and architectural design, in which the traditions and historic styles of the past shall be ignored. This movement has received from its adherents and the public the name of “L’Art Nouveau,” or, according to some, “L’Art Moderne”; but this name must not be held to connote either a really new style or a fundamentally new principle in art. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any clearly-defined body of principles whatever underlies the movement, or would be acknowledged equally by all its adherents. It appears to be a reaction against a too slavish adherence to traditional forms and methods of design (see pp. 370, 375), a striving to ignore or forget the past rather than a reaching out after any well-understood, positive end; as such, it possesses the negative strength of protest rather than the affirmative strength of a vital principle. Its lack of cohesion is seen in the division of its adherents into groups, some looking to nature for inspiration, while others decry this as a mistaken quest; some seeking to emphasize structural lines, and others to ignore them altogether. All, however, are united in the avoidance of commonplace forms and historic styles, and this preoccupation has developed an amazing amount of originality and individualism of style, frequently reaching the extreme of eccentricity. The results have therefore been, as might be expected, extremely varied in merit, ranging from the most refined and reserved in style to the most harshly bizarre and extravagant. As a rule, they have been most successful in small and semi-decorative objects--jewelry, silverware, vases, and small furniture; and one most desirable feature of the movement has been the stimulus it has given (especially in France and England), to the organization and activity of “arts-and-crafts” societies which occupy themselves with the encouragement of the decorative and industrial arts and the diffusion of an improved taste. In the field of the larger objects of design, in which the dominance of traditional form and of structural considerations is proportionally more imperious, the struggle to evade these restrictions becomes more difficult, and results usually in more obvious and disagreeable eccentricities, which the greater size and permanence of the object tend further to exaggerate. The least successful achievements of the movement have accordingly been in architecture. The buildings designed by its most fervent disciples (_e.g._ the Pavillon Bleu at the Exposition of 1900, the Castel Béranger, Paris, by _H. Guimard_, the houses of the artist colony at Darmstadt, and others) are for the most part characterized by extreme stiffness, eccentricity, or ugliness.