Page 33 - Studio International - January 1971

their author did, found it difficult to suppress his friends organized two exhibitions, one of which, in painting at least, fulfilled Wagner's
a passion for rich surfaces and intricate deco- mostly foreign art, the other mostly of Austrian demands by finding forms which 'expressed
rations which militated against the pure art, and both called Kunstschau. If the first the new conditions of our time'.
expression of function. Olbrich's design for the Secession exhibition had revealed little idea of These new conditions, an interpretation of
Secession's own building, in which the second advanced foreign art, the second Kunstschau life which is clearly modernist, were being
exhibition was held in 1899, is a good case in brought Vienna sharply up to date and formulated in Vienna and elsewhere at the
point. Although based on a simple cube, it was included work by Bonnard, Gauguin, Van same time. It was in Vienna that Freud wrote
surmounted by a golden dome and its façades Gogh, Matisse and Munch. More important most of his important books, among them the
were encrusted with reliefs in the Art Nouveau for the future ofAustrian art, however, was the Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1901, and
style and mosaics of semi-precious stones. participation in both exhibitions of two young it was in Vienna that scientists like Krafft-
Further evidence that the Secession style was artists working in Vienna: Egon Schiele and Ebbing, Forel and Weininger investigated, in
not as radical as its members hoped is pro- Oskar Kokoschka. Because of the later careers their various ways, the problems of the sub-
vided by the fact that Olbrich and Hoffmann of Schiele and Kokoschka it is much easier to conscious and of sexuality. Such investigations,
were chosen to design the Austrian pavilion see the two Kunstschau exhibitions as the first and the theories which resulted, forced a
at the Paris World's Fair of 1900. A mere three progressive events in Austrian art than it is to radical reappraisal of life and of the nature of
years after the group's foundation it had been trace the beginnings of Viennese modernism human beings which almost immediately
selected to execute the wishes of the Imperial in the activities of the Secession. found expression in art.
Government and represent the nation abroad, Both Kokoschka and Schiele owed a great Virginia Woolf once wrote that 'somewhere
and the 'Viennese room' designed by Olbrich deal to Klimt who was the first to recognize around 1910 human nature changed'. Cer-
for the same occasion shows how distant the their talent and to support them. Klimt had tainly around this time in Vienna literature,
architect often was from the ideals described been buying work from Schiele since 1907 music and painting radically departed form
by his teacher, Wagner. For the complex and when Schiele was only seventeen, and he also what had gone before. The difference in
intricate decoration of his Viennese room encouraged Kokoschka who studied at the mood, theme and style between, say, Strauss
Olbrich used rare woods, crystal, gold, silver, Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule until 1909. Koko- and Schoenberg, Schnitzler and Wedekind,
ivory, mother of pearl, silk and gobelins. schka publicly acknowledged his debt by Klimt and Kokoschka, is immediately clear
In spite of the wide divergence between the dedicating his illustrated fable, Die Traeum- and reinforces the view that the Secession was
Secession's declared aims and its actual enden Knaben (`The Dreaming Youths',. 1908) an end rather than a beginning. For the
achievements, however, progress was being to Klimt, and it is a book which in its highly appealing and attractive superficialities of
made. Illustrations for Ver Sacrum show a personal and obscure language anticipates the Klimt's style can be directly and without
development towards clarity of form and pre- literary style of Expressionism. Schiele ack- exaggeration compared with the style of life
cision of design and away from a narrow nowledged his debt in more visible ways. enjoyed by the aristocracy and middle classes
interest in the stylish portrayal of subjects with His early work is entirely under Klimt's spell; in Vienna at a time when, knowing that the
mythological or symbolic significance; the elements drawn from Klimt continue to world was about to collapse around their ears,
interiors designed by Hoffmann or Moser appear until just before Schiele's death and people cultivated their sensibilities and in-
become increasingly simple and geometric, a long after he had reached stylistic maturity. dulged themselves with the determination of
simplicity more obvious when such designs In 1909 both Schiele and Kokoschka were Cinderella before the stroke of midnight. They
are compared with the crowded and stifling very young men. But Klimt was forty-seven sensed that they were already part of the past,
rooms then favoured by most Europeans. and had entered his most successful and a glittering piece of history like a butterfly
But progress was not fast enough for Klimt original period. His portraits no longer rely caught under glass.
and the artists closest to him. In 1905 the on an interest in light and atmosphere for The preoccupations which emerge from
group around Klimt left the Secession, and their major effects. A feeling for colour and for Kokoschka's portraits, the obsessions revealed
their decision revealed that, in their view at intricate design is paramount and there is an in Schiele's disturbing drawings of nudes are,
least, there was something seriously wrong almost perfect synthesis between pattern- on the other hand, very much of the present.
with the association they had helped to found. making and the representation of faces, hands They ask more questions than they answer and
They believed that, for all the good the Seces- and feet. Most interesting are the landscapes bring us face to face with human beings who
sion had done in educating the Viennese Klimt painted on the Attersee, which, although no longer know what they are doing and are
public, it was no longer the arena for the sort revealing a certain debt to the Neo-Impression- no longer certain of the purpose of life.
of progressive activity they had in mind. It is ists, are among his most original pieces. In Schiele died in the same year as Klimt, in
a mark of how much the Secession owed to particular those works in which most of the 1918, and from the same influenza epidemic.
Klimt, Hoffmann and Moser, that it never canvas is taken up by reflections of light upon Kokoschka went away to the war, was
managed to repeat the successes of its first water demonstrate how far Klimt had come seriously wounded and, after 1918 went to
eight years after these members had resigned. since he left the Secession; in their daring use Germany where he never succeeded in regain-
And it is perhaps a mark of the conservative of a minimum of elements and in their mis- ing the intensity of his earlier work. Vienna
influence of the Secession that these artists leading simplicity, they recall the late Monet. was no longer in a position to contribute much
produced their best work after 1905; most With the exception of these landscapes Klimt's to the development of modernism, and
notably the Palais Stoclet in Brussels. work cannot be regarded as a radical depar- Austria's artists found themselves in a situa-
The departure of the Klimt group meant the ture towards true modernism. In spite of the tion very much like that which gave rise to
end of the Secession's significance as a force great qualities of his later portraits and alle- the Secession in 1897. The Secession helped to
for progress, however limited; the 'eternal gorical compositions, of his colour sense and create a new attitude towards art and design
spring', the Ver Sacrum which the Secession abilities as a designer, Klimt remains a figure and did much to prepare the way for modern-
hoped to create in Austrian Art would not of the past. His interest in archaic styles and in ism proper. Without it, Klimt could never
now be realized by Secession members. When exotic designs, his continuing use of allegory, have emerged as a major influence, and with-
the Klimt group appeared in public for the personal though it became, marks him as out it, an atmosphere could not have been
first time since their departure from the belonging to the nineteenth century. It was created in which Schiele and Kokoschka
association it became clear that the Secession those artists whose talent he recognized and might develop their truly radical styles. But it
was no longer the most advanced group of whom he encouraged, Schiele and Koko- was an end. The beginning was made by those
artists in Vienna. In 1908 and 1909 Klimt and schka, who succeeded in creating a style who came after.