Henrik Bull : application of the ancient Nordic motifs in the ornamentation of the Historical Museum and their stylization according to Art Nouveau principles

Abstract

The use of the vernacular motifs in Art Nouveau architecture is recognized as a characteristic feature of national variants of the movement. Though the process of transformation of a historical motif – what particular manipulations the architect conducts over it – and its representation in Art Nouveau style is not given much consideration. This became the major sphere of my interest and research.

The main subject of the master thesis is the application by Henrik Bull of the ancient Nordic motifs in the ornamentation of the Historical Museum in Oslo. All art historians writing about Bull and one of his major projects – the Historical Museum, underline his talents of a form-giver and admit the fact of the use of the ancient Nordic motifs as sources for his ornamental designs. Little attention is given, however, to the process of creation of new patterns by Bull from the ancient Nordic motifs. The main objective of my thesis is not the identification of the sources the architect uses, but a hypothetical reconstruction of the process of the transformation of the original sources. The process of Bull’s work with the ornamentation in the Historical Museum is interpreted within the concept “decorative stylization” and its formal principles. As mythology I use the theory of stylization as a form-formation principle by Professor of St. Petersburg State University Victor G. Vlasov.

I consider that in the reference to the ancient Nordic motifs Bull applies the principles of decorative stylization. In order to define the field of research I outline the three hypothetical groups of sources and discuss the possibility of the reference to them by the architect. In order to investigate the form-formation principle of Bull’s work, I select a number of ornamental patterns from the Historical Museum and analyse what principles of decorative stylization the architect applies in the process of transformation of the motif from the hypothetical sources through transitional variants, represented either in Bull’s earlier works or in the unrealised drawings or sketches of the Historical Museum, to the final realised variants in the interiors of the Historical Museum. The analysis of the separate ornamental patterns proves the use by the architect of the ancient motifs as sources for inspiration; allows to speak about certain laws and principles in Bull’s method of work with the sources, as well as shows general inconsistence in his reference to the sources. In the master thesis I come to a conclusion that in stylizing the historical motifs Bull moves from naturalistic representation and quotation of the motifs in his early works to such principles of stylization as abstraction and geometrization realised in the Historical Museum. Bull’s method in the reference to the historical sources reflects the aesthetic ideas of the time, expressed in the thesis by the ideas of Christopher Dresser, proposing instead of imitation to render the motifs in their conventional forms which could be best represented through abstraction and geometrization.

Apart from the stylization of the motifs represented in different ornamental patterns, another question raised in the thesis is whether one can consider Historical Museum a building where the architect achieves integrity of the parts and the whole through the application of an integrated stylization. The use of similar motifs, forms, principles of stylizations both in the interiors and the exterior, as well as the use of similar forms in the ornamentation and architectural elements allows to speak about the integrated stylization of the Historical Museum building.

The analysis of the ornamental patterns in the Historical Museum and their comparison with similar works by representatives of the European Art Nouveau confirm that the principles, realised by Bull in the ornamentation of the Historical Museum, lie within the stylistic frames of Art Nouveau. Placed in a similar context, Bull’s work can be characterised as authentic, self-contained and independent. The stylized patterns in the Historical Museum as well as their integrity with each other and the whole building is a result of a skilful stylization which in its turn leads to a creation of a style – Art Nouveau.