Anyone writing about Art Nouveau here in Japan is expected to deferentially mention the strong Japanese influences on this late 19th-century art and design movement. Indeed, the exhibition now at Shibuya's Bunkamura of furniture and glassware from the important French Art Nouveau center of Nancy goes out of its way to draw attention to those influences, focusing on the marginal figure of Hokkai Takashima, a young, artistically inclined forestry student sent to Nancy by the Japanese government to study tree cultivation.

Of course, it's very pleasant for Japanese visitors to come to an exhibition like this and imagine Takashima as an important figure in a strongly Japanophile movement. Art Nouveau owes a lot to Japanese style, especially in 2-D art: The clarity of line, spaciousness of composition, boldness and flatness of color found in ukiyo-e are clearly present in the posters on display, which advertise expos of the decorative arts held in the eastern French town.

The defining characteristic of Art Nouveau, however, wasn't its Japaneseness, but its love of nature. This is clear in the beautiful "Magnolia Lamp" made by Louis Majorelle with the help of the Daum brothers. Naturalistic clusters of petals made from opalescent glass house the light sources on top of an elegant design of curved bronze stems. The topmost of the three flowers in the design is open wider than the other two, creating the illusion of something alive and blooming.