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Furniture glossary term of the Day:
ART DECO - Derived from an historic Paris exposition in 1925 that celebrated the marriage of art and industry in denunciation of Art Nouveau. It introduced simple, streamlined forms that were majestically interpreted in exotic woods and materials. American designers of the 1930s took this look further, using asymmetry, arcs, sleek lines, and geometric shapes not only in furniture, but also in architecture and a wide range of household objects.
ART NOUVEAU - Style based, literally, on the "new art" of Europe in about 1875. Flowing, nearly freeform shapes from nature were carved and painted on furniture. An elongated, slightly curved line that ends in a more abrupt, nearly whiplike second curve is its most characteristic design.
ARTS AND CRAFTS - Both a furniture style and a movement that emerged in England toward the end of the 19th century in reaction to the excesses of the Victorian era and the Gay Nineties. It glorified craftsmanship in deliberately simple shapes with exposed joinery and spare ornamentation. William Morris and John Ruskin were among its proponents in England. Based on their beliefs and designs, Gustav Stickley pioneered a similar movement in America, before it waned with the onset of World War I.