Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T14:30:27.634Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Aesthetics and Modernity: Art and the Amelioration of Change in Fin-De-Siècle Austria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

James Shedel
Affiliation:
Georgetown University

Extract

Austria at the turn of the century was a country in which change was more commonly tolerated than encouraged. Its late economic growth coming at the end of the 1880s signalled the transition from an agrarian to a more industrially based society. This type of change after a long period of semi-depression dating from the crash of 1873 was looked upon with favor and encouraged by the state, banks, and entrepreneurs. It obviously meant increased prosperity and fit in well with the progressivistic attitude of the times, but less obviously meant the growth of urban blight and social disruption.

Type
Peoples and Culture
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Between 1890 and 1894 Hermann Bahr wrote a series of essay collections dealing with the theory and intentions of literary impressionism as both a European and Austrian phenomenon. The first of these appeared under the title Zur Kritik der Moderne (1890), which was followed by Die Überwindung des Naturalismus (1891), Der neue Stil (1893), Studien zur Kritik der Moderne (1894). The reader is referred to the works above for a more complete exposition of the goals involved in Jung Wien's conception of impressionism.

2 Bahr, Hermann, “Die Moderne,” in Zur Überwindung des Naturalismus, Wunberg, Gotthart, ed. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1968), p. 36.Google Scholar

3 Bahr, Hermann, Secession (Vienna: Wiener Verlag, 1900), pp. 2, 8.Google Scholar

4 Editorial Committee of Ver Sacrum, Weshalb wir eine Zeitschrift herausgeben,” Ver Sacrum, I (01 1898), 6.Google Scholar

5 From the Jahresberichte der Secession, I (1899), 19.Google Scholar

6 Engelhart, Josef, Ein Wiener Maler erzählt (Vienna: Wilhelm Andermann Verlag, 1943), p. 68.Google Scholar

7 Waissenberger, Robert, Die Wiener Secession: Eine Dokumentation (Vienna and Munich: Jugend und Volk, 1971), p. 36.Google Scholar

8 Ver Sacrum, I (01 1898), 6.Google Scholar

9 See Morris, William, The Political Writings of William Morris, Morton, A. I., ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1973).Google Scholar

10 Wagner, Otto, Moderne Architektur (Vienna: A. Schroll and Co., 1896), p. 3.Google Scholar

11 Hofmann, Werner, Gustav Klimt (New York: Graphics Society, 1971), p. 39.Google Scholar

12 Ver Sacrum, p. 6.

13 Neue Freie Presse, 17 April 1898, p, 9.

14 Arbeiter zeitung, 7 April 1898, p. 6. (From this point on the A. Z. was one of the Secession's most constant supporters.)

15 Bahr, Hermann, “Ein Brief an die Secession,” Ver Sacrum, IV (07 1901), 227228.Google Scholar

16 Nebahay, M., Gustav Klimt—Dokumentation (Vienna: Verlag der Galerie Christian M. Nebehay, 1969), p. 394.Google Scholar

17 The Secession considered itself part of an international movement in modern art, and its journal as well as the work of its more prominent members was known abroad. Its stylistic influence touched the spheres of painting, design, and architecture. The early careers of the expressionists Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, the work of the architect Adolf Loos, and the development of the “International School” in architecture were all influenced by the Secession movement.