The Viennese Secession. Victoria Charles
engraving techniques – which today are rather under-appreciated – from the 15th and 16th centuries. In a similar manner they studied the wood, copper and niello artwork of their contemporaries from the Munich school.
Despite using the art of the past as direct inspiration, the designers of the English Art Nouveau never copied it reverently, afraid of creating something new; quite the opposite, they enriched this art with the pure joy of new creation. One simply has to skim through old editions of The Studio Magazine, The Artist, or The Magazine of Art[1] and marvel at the designs for decorative book covers and various other ornamented media in order to see the immense creativity that animated the movement. It is quite fascinating to see how much young talent – among these talented artists were also quite a few girls and women – was unearthed in the art competitions that were organised by The Studio or South Kensington.[2] The new prints, fabrics and wallpapers which changed the traditional way of home décor, created by Crane, Morris and designer Charles Voysey (1857–1941), might have been inspired by patterns seen in nature itself but it also referenced the traditional Oriental and European principles of ornament taught by authentic decorators of the past.
William Morris or Edward Burne-Jones, Light and Darkness, Night and Day (detail from The Creation), 1861.
Stained glass window.
All Saints Church, Selsley, Gloucestershire.
William Morris or Edward Burne-Jones, Heaven, Earth and Water (detail from The Creation), 1861.
Stained glass window.
All Saints Church, Selsley, Gloucestershire.
The architecture in England was clearly dominated by the formal classicism based on Greek, Roman, and Italian models. With the Arts and Crafts movement, England finally rebelled against this conformism and rejuvenated English art. At the frontlines of this revolution were, first, architects like Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) who participated in creating the design of the Houses of Parliament and, later, a group of Pre-Raphaelite artists, who preferred their contemporary art more than the art of the 16th century and the classicism that was so foreign to the English tradition.
Architects were also responsible for reviving old English art by applying the simple, elegant workmanship of 16th and 17th century English architecture from the times of Queen Anne (1665–1714) to contemporary tastes. Old English art was not the only source of inspiration they sought. Given the similarity in climate, manners, and a certain degree of ethnic cousinship, it was only natural for them to use North European influences as well. From the colourful architecture of Flanders to the red brick buildings of Frisia, Denmark, and the north of Germany, they were given a multitude of inspiration.
The majority of these architects did not feel diminished to also work as interior decorators. Quite the opposite – they could not imagine it any other way. How else could it be possible to achieve perfect harmony between the outside and the inside of a house? In the interior they sought the same harmony that was apparent on the outside. With tapestries and furniture they composed an ensemble of shapes, patterns, and muted colours in which every single component was perfectly attuned to each other.[3]
Among the most notable architects were Richard Norman Shaw (1831–1912), Thomas Edward Collcutt (1840–1924), the members of Ernest George’s (1839–1922) office and Harold Ainsworth Peto (1854–1933). They brought back a notion that was missing in the movement: the subordination of all art under architecture. Without this idea it is impossible to develop a distinctive style. We have to thank them for the re-introduction of pastel-décor (from the 18th century), the re-discovery of architectonic ceramics (from the ancient Orient) and finally for brightening the predominantly grey- and brown-shaded colour palette with sea-green or peacock-blue.
The reformation of architecture and applied art in England was only a national phenomenon at first. It might not be immediately apparent in the work of William Morris but his main passion was English art and history. This passion resulted in a return to colours, shapes and patterns which no longer originated from Greek, Roman, or Italian art, therefore constituting a truly English and no longer classical art. Beside wallpapers and tapestries, England now had distinctively individual furniture which was new and modern; the interiors of its houses showcased the decorative composites and colours of the new movement.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, Design for Owl Wallpaper and Fabric, c. 1897.
Crayon and watercolour, 50.8 × 40 cm.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Aubrey Beardsley, Poster for The Studio, 1893.
Engraving. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Aubrey Beardsley, The Toilet of Salome, drawing from Oscar Wilde’s Salome, 1893.
Line block print, ink on paper.
Private collection.
Art on the Continent at the End of the Century
The movement did not remain exclusively in England. Soon, an exhibition, held in Brussels by the artistic society La Libre Esthétique in 1894, dedicated several rooms to decorative art. Later that year, the Maison d’Art Gallery, located in the former residence of famous Belgian lawyer and writer Edmond Picard (1836–1924), opened its doors to the public and showcased decorative art from all over Europe that was not only from the workshops of celebrated artists but also featured the artwork of relatively unknown artisans. Roughly at the same time, various groups of artists started to gather in other countries such as Germany, Denmark, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Netherlands.
The terms Art Nouveau and Jugendstil quickly became part of the contemporary vocabulary, but were at first not descriptive of any specific style or movment. Although most Secession-like movements came into being more or less simultaneously, with all of them revolting against the academic and established style in common, their social and artistic development still followed different paths, depending on the predominant taste and mentality in their cities or countries.
The Precursors of the Viennese Secession in Munich and Berlin
Hugo von Habermann, Reclining Nude, 1907.
Oil on canvas, 100.5 × 83 cm.
Bavarian State Painting Collection, Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
Munich
Until the 1860s, the Munich style of painting closely followed the ideal of the Viennese folk-inspired painting. The artists from Munich painted picturesque landscapes, farm scenes with livestock, magnificent horses, as well as epic battles, and thus also adopted the sympathetic yet slightly naïve perception of reality inherent to the Viennese style. Maybe the Munich painters were missing the certain pragmatic cosmopolitanism that the Viennese artists at least knew how to emulate, since their school of painting could present a wide range of influences, from the Dutch school of landscape painters to, later, the Barbizon school.
Strangely, this period of painting in Munich is closely connected to one of the most formal artists that ever practiced their art in the city, but yet was able to introduce the theatre-like elegance of the history- and costume-painting of Paul Delaroche (1797–1859) and, a contemporary of Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) and Jean Augustus Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), Carl Theodor von Piloty (1826–1886). Today almost but forgotten, Piloty became the most important historic painter of his time and was ennobled because of his work in 1860. The titles of his paintings, for example, Seni Standing Before the Corpse of Wallenstein
The Studio, The Magazine of Art,