viennese modernism & the gesamtkunstwerk | ch. 4

• vienna seccession is part of jugendstil

-return to celebrating craft (which greenburg opposes regarding relation to modernism)

• art nouveau= jugendstil (german)

-early 1890s-1906
-debt to william morris's arts & crafts movement

characteristics:
-increasing interest in decorative values
-attenuated curvilinear ornament
-expressive novelty
-daring artistic theory
-artifice & escapism of romantic decadence
-sinuous curving lines
-interest in decoration
-organic, plant forms

• henry van de velde = spokesman & chief theorist of art nouveau

-theorectical contribution: abstract ornament & structure doesn't have to conflict
-bridge gap btwn the romantic play btwn line & form & an artistic style that met needs of modern technological age
-natural scene into expressive linear rhythms & bold abstract design

art nouveau- belgium



paris had a competition to design metro system entrances
guimard won w art nouveau design
cast iron & modern, industrial pressed glass

• vienna secession: austrian artists splitting off of conventional austrian artists

characteristics:

-blending of different art forms
-integrated symbolism & art nouveau
-gold leaf, stones
-sensual, volumetric
-encased in glittering, abstract, flat gold
-celebration of pattern & visual rhythm
-all about surface (kind of modernistic but rejects modernism as purity)
-tactility of surface
-interest in alternative pasts other than greco-roman
-influenced by medieval, late renaissance/mannerism, & decorative art
-form communicates emotional & spiritual message

vienna secession exhibition building
joseph maria olbrich 1897

klimt:

adele bloch bauer I- gustav klimt
1907

• klimt asked to do faculty paintings for university of vienna but artwork never put up bc erotic & explicit
• goes against modernism w medium specificity (destroyed by germans bc degenerative art)

medicine- klimt
1900-7
romantic
erotic
play w abstraction bc bodies play a role in background

the faculty paintings- klimt
jurisprudence
romantic
erotic
play w abstraction bc bodies play a role in background

the kiss- klimt

______________________________

nude self-portrait in gray w open mouth- egon schiele
1910
elongated lines

portrait of the architect adolf loos- oskar kokoschka
1909
transition btwn symbolism & expressionism
exploring states of psychological

• modernism- tendency to seek out other realms (primitivism, dreams, unconscious) 

• sigmund freud (1856-1939) founder of psychoanalysis

-the interpretation of dreams published in 1900
-researches psychic oppression
-develops "talking cure"

adolf loos: 
-architect

-book: ornament & crime

  published 1913

  ornament = crime

  architecture style becomes international modernism- simplicity

  form & function

villa muller, prague- adolf loos
1930

• beethoven exhibition at the vienna secession (1902)

marble & bronze sculpture of beethoven

beethoven frieze: a kiss to the whole world- klimt:

-wraps around wall of whole room

-paint, jewels, gold leaf, mother of pearl encrusted
-based on beethoven's song

genies yearning --> introduction of the knight/hero (signifying ambition & compassion)

suffering of humanity (monster figure- typhus, gorgan daughters= vices,
figures representing death, forces of evil, lust, gluttony)

knight vanquishes monster, genie returns, singing, kiss for the whole world
implication that chorus rises up to infinity
woman holds a symbol- the music has symbols

richard wagner & the gesamtkunstwerk:

-reading: artwork of the future

-artwork that contains all different art works in it (gesamtkunstwerk- the total work of art)

-arguing for unification of the arts

-opera: unifying art: music, singing, poetry, set painting, set building (sculpture), dancers of ballet

-unite every branch of art into common artwork- free

-all-embracing, drama- every art form at it's best unites to become even greater expression