Page 19 - Studio International - January 1971

The Vienna ['VIENNA SECESSION-ART NOUVEAU TO 1970' Poster for XVIth Secession exhibition, 1903
OPENS AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY, BURLINGTON Colour lithograph by Alfred Roller
189x 63.5 cm.
Secession and its HOUSE, LONDON ON JANUARY 9.'1

early relations

with

Great Britain

Horst-Herbert Kossatz

I
Viennese art at the turn of the century the thoughts of the people of Germany and
received its decisive impulses from Great England become like the thoughts of the
Britain. The ultimate cause lies in the Great people of America.
Exhibition held in London in 1851, and in the Ruskin's attitude to art was primarily that of
strong influence exerted by the English Arts a consumer, Morris's that of a creator; which
and Crafts movement on Viennese artists. In helps to explain the fact that Ruskin con-
addition, English art itself scored a number of cerned himself above all with the 'major' arts,
triumphant successes in Vienna at exactly this Morris with the 'minor'. In contrast with
period; this is partly explained by the fact that Ruskin, who believed that he could banish the
in England, and later in Austria, the evolution machine altogether from his imaginary king-
of art was characterized by 'the revival of dom, Morris hoped to find in the machine
drawing and craftsmanship' (Walter Crane). itself the realization of his ideal of re-enliven-
A movement of opinion, to which Thomas ing the lesser arts and producing art objects in
Carlyle, John Ruskin and William Morris all abundance for all mankind. As far as high art
made contributions, led to the elaboration of was concerned, there were after all few people
a socio-political theory of art and craftsman- capable of creating it, or of paying for it.
ship which had its source in the medieval Alongside these theoretical considerations
guild system. Carlyle influenced this develop- there were the practical consequences of
ment not only through his criticism of the Prince Albert's Great Exhibition. The reports
capitalist production system and its material on the 30th Class of the Exhibition are parti-
products, but also through his campaign, on cularly significant in this connection. The
moral grounds, for the idea of honest work- Report on Sculpture, Models and Plastic Art, pre-
manship—a particularly- fruitful one as far as sented in September 1851 by a jury which
art was concerned. Ruskin wrote, as early as included Panizzi, von Viebahn, Cockerell,
1857, on The Political Economy of Art. Art, he Laborde, Pugin, Redgrave and Waagen,
said was one of the most vital elements of the made the following proposal:
national wealth. Ostentation and slavery to The foundation of a permanent industrial
fashion were to be avoided; art should be Museum in the heart of the metropolis of
systematically promoted; and the work of the trade and industry, seems to the Jury the
artist should be carefully preserved and made logical and practical Consequence of this
available to the whole people. It was vain, he Exhibition. It is in the 'Crystal Palace' that
said, to concern oneself with the education of the great truth has been impressed upon us,
the artist, as long as the demand for his work that art and taste are henceforth to be con-
remained uncertain and irrational. The true sidered as elements of industry and trade,
pattern of a well-organized nation was a of scarcely less importance than the most
country estate in which the lord was a father powerful machinery.... While such a Mu-
and his servants his sons, and where all actions seum, on the one hand, would be a lasting
and services should be not only ennobled by depository of industry and of the arts, it
fraternal harmony but controlled by the exer- would, on the other, serve as the best and
cise of paternal power. Ruskin's conception easiest standard of comparison by which
of the return to nature had a markedly anti- human ingenuity might mark its progress,
democratic character. He wrote in Time and on the opening, ten years hence, of a new
Tide, p. 168: Great Exhibition; it would serve as a guide
If I had to choose, I would tenfold rather and as a beacon.
the tyranny of old Austria triumphant in A separate Report on Design, by Richard Red-
the old and new worlds, and trust the grave, dealt primarily with ornament and its
chance or rather the distant certainty of geometrical structure, and contained informa-
some day seeing a true Emperor born to its tion of great importance on designing for
throne, than with every privilege of thought mechanical production.
and act, run the most distant risk of seeing After the Exhibition closed, on October 11,