Victor Horta was a Belgian architect and interior designer, one of the icons of the so-called “art nouveau” movement, see
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Horta. Horta lived from 1861 until 1947 and designed many houses and buildings, especially in Brussels, some of which have, rather miraculously, survived. I visited one of these houses last week-end and once again noticed how his “sinuous lines and flowing organic shapes” were inspired by plant forms (
https://www.designartmagazine.com/2018/04/master-of-light-victor-horta-in-brussels.html. Indeed Horta was fascinated by the stems of plants and the way they grow upwards seemingly ‘extending into infinity' (here is a link to a site with a few more pictures:
https://www.visit.brussels/en/visitors/what-to-do/10-must-visit-art-nouveau-houses-and-mansions-in-brussels).
And then… I remembered reading about Father Spencer (a generation older than Horta, but his script enjoyed fame during Horta’s lifetime) taking inspiration from nature forms in designing his script (
https://www.paperseahorse.com/blogs/news/the-story-of-spencerian-script and
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/cursive-writing-spencerian-palmer-method). Horta’s most productive period as an architect was between 1892 and the Second World War, i.e. during a period when Spencerian (including its ornamental version) enjoyed widespread fame, although that was primarily the case in the U.S. I can’t help but think that, had Horta seen Spencerian calligraphy, he would have said that it represented the handwritten version of his drawings.
