Henry Van de Velde

Henry Van de Velde was a Dutch painter, designer, and theoretician. After studying painting in Antwerp and later in Paris, Van de Velde returned to Antwerp in 1886 where he joined the avant-garde artists' association, Les XX. In Brussels, he became increasingly influenced by English Arts and Crafts pioneers John Ruskin and William Morris and abandoned painting to pursue the design of interiors, book graphics, jewelry, and metalwork. Like Morris, Van de Velde advocated the idea that all branches of art share a common language of form and are equally important to human existence. He saw ornament not as decoration but as a logical element of the total work and as the result of formal, structural considerations.... more.