Jugendstil (German pronunciation: [ˈjuːɡn̩tˌstiːl] ⓘ; "Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910.

Important figures of the movement included the Swiss graphic artist Hermann Obrist, Otto Eckmann, and the Belgian architect and decorator Henry van de Velde.

[1] The movement had its origins in Munich with the founding of an association of visual artists in 1892, which broke away from the more formal historical and academic styles of the Academy.

The leading figures of this movement, including Peter Behrens, Bernhard Pankok, and Richard Riemerschmid, as well as the majority of the founding members of the Munich Secession, all provided illustrations to Jugend.

Jugendstil combined floral decoration and sinuous curves with more geometric lines, and soon was used for covers of novels, advertisements, and exhibition posters.

The Swiss artist Hermann Obrist, living in Munich, made designs with sinuous double curves, modeled after plants and flowers, which were a prominent motif of the early style.

The Darmstadt Artists' Colony is a remarkable collection of Jugendstil buildings created beginning in 1899 by Ernest Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, a grandson of Queen Victoria, to promote both commerce and the arts.

[6] The importance of Weimar as a cultural center of the Jugendstil was ended in 1906, when its main patron, Count Harry Kessler, commissioned Rodin to make a nude statue for the Grand Duke.

The Weimar school of design lost its importance until 1919, when it returned as the Bauhaus under Walter Gropius, and played a major part in the emergence of modern architecture.

In 1907, Behrens and a group of other notable Jugendstil artists, including (Hermann Muthesius, Theodor Fischer, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Bruno Paul, Richard Riemerschmid, and Fritz Schumacher, created the Deutscher Werkbund.

Modeled after the Arts and Crafts movement in England, its goal was to improve and modernize the design of industrial products and everyday objects.

Another important German graphic artist was Josef Rudolf Witzel (1867–1925), who produced many early covers for Jugend, with curving, floral forms which helped shape the style.

The magazine Simplicissimus, published in Munich, was also noted for its Jugendstil graphics, as well as for the modern writers it presented, including Thomas Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke.