Cyclamen 4 1896

Maurice Pillard Verneuil made this print, Cyclamen 4, using the stenciling technique known as pochoir. Verneuil was working in France at the height of the Art Nouveau movement, and he reflects the fashion for organic forms in this repeating design. The stylized cyclamen plant and sinuous lines are visual codes that signal his allegiance to that movement which swept across Europe from the 1890s to the First World War. But Art Nouveau also stood for a new conception of the role of design in everyday life, and Verneuil was one of many artists at this time who thought that industrial processes could be harnessed to improve the lives of ordinary people. Design schools and workshops emerged across Europe to explore this possibility. To understand the context of this image better, one might investigate the various design reform movements in France at the time and ask about their legacies today.