Josef Hoffmann Vienna Workshops Poster, Textile Design, Hoffmann's decorative style passed through a number of disguises over the decades of the Werkstatte from strict geometric to organic florals. However, the work was often part of a larger approach to design and decoration that used the idea of a paired down simplicity. Although it could be said that a large element of Hoffmann's work was based on the natural world with an emphasis on floral and foliage motifs, these were often juxtaposed with either angular or geometric motifs or at least that of a simplistic evaluation of nature as motif.
Poster for the first exhibition of Kunstschau Art Show , The leaves appear much like the stylized crown of foliage at the top of a tree that seems as if breaking through the roof of the building - much like the Secessionists were themselves breaking free of the mold of the display spaces that literally contained and constrained art in Vienna - as also emphasized by their journal Ver Sacrum Sacred Spring , whose title appears to the left of the entrance and references the ancient Roman rituals of the founding of new communities from old ones.
Above the entrance read the German words "Der Zeit ihr Kunst - der Kunst ihr Freiheit" To the Age its Art; to Art its Freedom , a clear reference to the revolutionary nature of the Secession as an institution devoted to the aesthetic expression of the age, with the implication that for contemporary art, that expression will naturally change.
One can see the abstracted forms of the gold foliage, along with the thin trunks of trees also outlined in gold, around the facade, as if to evoke the idea of a protected glade for viewing the artistic work inside.
The use of gold on white arguably emphasizes the purity of the space as well as the precious nature of the art. Lit by skylights, the interior of the Secession Building functioned as a highly effective display space. Movable partitions maximized spatial flexibility for the frequent changes in exhibitions of the Secession and foreign artists.
One might thus see the building as a kind of temple for contemporary art - the only such space specifically and permanently dedicated to such a purpose at that time.
Its flexibility reflected the inherently changing and unpredictable nature of contemporary art itself, in virtually every respect, and thus privileged no individual style, movement, or trend over another. Ironically, however, it achieved such effectiveness by relying on a very old spatial layout, thereby suggesting the inability of contemporaneous artistic practice to completely break from established tropes.
Auchentaller joined the Secession at its inception, but, as one of Gustav Klimt's supporters, broke with the group over the search for a gallery space in This poster, from the year the Secession Building was built, demonstrates the way that Secessionists from the beginning exhibited links with foreign artists - in this case, the Art Nouveau graphics that were sweeping through Europe.
This advertising poster for hair coloring draws on French examples, particularly the techniques of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: the nearly-silhouetted figures in the background whose figures all seem to blend into each other; the flattened planes of color with minimal shapely articulation besides their well-defined outlines; the use of three colors, specifically black, golden yellow, and red; and the curvilinear typeface at the center.
It also demonstrates the use of color lithography on a large scale, another technological innovation of the era. Likewise, this piece also shows the way that Secessionists accepted the entry of the poster into the realm of fine art, something that Toulouse-Lautrec and other graphic artists in France like Jules Cheret, Alphonse Mucha, Pierre Bonnard, and Theophile Steinlen had achieved by The work of the Secessionists in large-scale graphic advertising and their reproduction in Ver Sacrum points to how in Vienna the gap in prestige was narrowing between graphic art and the traditional arts of painting and sculpture - at least in terms of talent if not in terms of monetary compensation - one of the primary goals of the Secession.
Auchentaller himself would go on to produce numerous other posters over the next decade. Here there is an interesting break with French posters, which tend to generally abstract all aspects of human figures in an almost cartoonish manner.
Auchentaller has instead decided to keep a highly plastic, naturalistic depiction of the faces in this poster, particularly the woman at the center, which has the effect of animating the movement of the figures overall. It also arguably makes the connection with the viewer more tangible, as if to show off the enhancement of the woman's natural glow from using the product advertised, beyond merely her hair.
In this respect, therefore, Auchentaller shows himself not as a derivative artist, but one sensitive to the demands and requirements of the individual commission. Though the Secessionists were known as a group that attempted to break with artistic traditions, their relationship with the past was more complex than a simple forward-looking mentality.
Klimt, along with many of his fellow painters and graphic artists, cultivated a keen understanding of the symbolic nature of mythical and allegorical figures and narratives from Greece and Rome and other ancient civilizations. With his soft colors and uncertain boundaries between elements, Klimt begins the dissolution of the figural to abstraction that would come to full force in the years after he left the Secession.
In the end they left to form a new group, the Klimtgruppe. Vienna Workshop Wiener Werkstatte. In , following a fact-finding mission to C.
Hoffmann defined their goals in the Workshop's program: Our aim is to create an island of tranquillity in our own country, which, amid the joyful hum of arts and crafts, would be welcome to anyone who professes faith in Ruskin and Morris. However, Hoffmann and Moser were not interested in the social reform aspects of the English Arts and Crafts workshops, nor in their German colleagues' attempts to produce inexpensive furniture.
They concentrated their energies on the reform of design: beautiful objects for a wealthy clientele. The Vienna Workshop soon enjoyed an international reputation for progressive design, which anticipated and influenced Art Deco. Hoffmann in particular favoured the use of cubes and rectangles in his designs, earning him the nickname of 'right-angle' Hoffmann.
Within two years, over a hundred craftsmen were employed by the Werkstatte, among them Oskar Kokoschka and the young Egon Schiele , who designed women's clothing for them. The Workshop continued to produce goods for the international luxury market until its closure in Palais Stoclet: Architecture, Interior Decoration. One of the Werkstatte's first commissions was for a private residence in Brussels, the Palais Stoclet , executed by Hoffmann.
Mackintosh's bold influence can be seen in the geometric architecture of the building, the stark linear design and restricted ornamentation. The mural painting for the dining hall, designed by Klimt and carried out in mosaic by other members of the Werkstatte, contain his most famous work, The Kiss.
Shimmering with the all-over gold abstract design, it is as erotically charged as any work by the artists described as Symbolists or Decadents. In spite of their critique of industrialization, they did not completely reject the classicism which had stifled its artists in the previous decades. Klimt turned to classic symbols a metaphor for the struggle against historicism and repression of the instinctual nature of man. In the first Secession poster, he uses the myth of Theseus and his slaying of the minotaur in order to liberate the youth of Athens, though here Athena is not a protector of the polis as Klimt had depicted her nine years earlier in his panel paintings of the Kunsthistoriches museum.
Now Klimt presents her as liberator of the arts, overseeing the conquest of historicism and inherited culture by the new generation of artists. In both cases, Klimt subversibly distorts the myth of Athena using it as a bridge between the past and the present.
Stylistically, the Secession has mistakenly been seen as synonymous with the Jugendstil movement, the German version of art nouveau. It is true that the Secessionists incorporated many of Jugendstil elements in its work such as the curvilinear lines that decorate the facade of the Secession building. The dominant form was the square and the recurring motifs were the grid and checkerboard.
In particular the work of William Asbhee and Charles Renee Mackintosh both of whom incorporated geometric design and floral-inspired decorative motifs, played a large part in forming the Secession-style. Mackintosh exhibition room at the 8th Secession exhibition. The influence of Japanese design cannot be understated in relation to the Secession.
Japonism had swept through Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and french artists like Cezanne and Van Gogh; both of whom were avid collectors of woodblock prints were quick to incorporate elements in their work.
When Japonism arrived in Austria, the Viennese were also not immune to its influence. The Vienna International Exposition of featured a Japanese display complete with a shinto shrine and Japanese garden and hundreds of art objects. Japanese design was quickly incorporated by the Secessionists for its restrained use of decoration, its preference for natural materials over artifice, the preference for handwork over machine-made, and its balance of negative and positive space.
So strong were these ties that they devoted the Secession exhibit of to Japanese art. Klimt, in particular, began to incorporate textile patterns into his work culminating from both his exposure to Japanese textile and the Byzantine Mosaics he studied in Ravenna, Italy in His model and long-time friend Emile Floge was a known collector of Japanese textile designs from which she drew inspiration for her own fashion line.
Perhaps the most important influence especially in the field of graphic design and painting came from Japanese woodblock prints. The emphasis on flat visual planes, strong colours, patterned surfaces, and linear outlines appealed to the secessionists and helped form a bridge between fine and graphic arts.
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