Modern Movement II

The move to modernism was not only a shift in styles but also the killing off of others. The art nouveau style, infiltrating furniture, architecture, and fine arts, was planted to grow into a revolutionary movement. Although debatably it did revolutionize design. It never reach its full maturity in growth as it was cut down.
Although it can’t be pinpointed, the short life of art nouveau has been attributed to competition from antique dealers and cheap departments stores. Leading to a deprivation of the exclusive audience wanting and consuming modern style.
In the beginning stages of the art moderne development there was a balance between representing classical and other styles in a more abstract way, often constrained by principles that the style holds. (Abstracted forms, symmetry, and lines) There started to form an appreciation for the function of items and the best form to show that. This was often done by stripping styles down to some basic elements and principles.
That is show well in Henri Matisse’s quote,
“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and tranquility, devoid of troubling subject matter, an art which could be, for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as for the man of letters, for example, a soothing balm, a mental calmative, something akin to a good armchair which eases his physical fatigue…”
This brings me to my discussion of conformability and modernism/art moderne/deconstructivism. Is modern design comfortable? That is the overall question I ask. Is the stripping of furniture, for example, to a bare form going to be more comfortable because it eases your fatigue through tranquil, simplified design? Have we sacrificed out comfort for design? To what extent have we or have we not? What fields of design? Examples could include cars, transportation, furniture, and space.