Wiener Secession

Wiener Secession
Thomas Ledl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Wiener Secession
Caption	Secession Building, Vienna
Founded	1897
Founders	Gustav Klimt; Koloman Moser; Joseph Maria Olbrich
Location	Vienna, Austria

Wiener Secession is a late 19th-century artistic movement and association founded in Vienna that championed avant-garde painting, architecture, and applied arts. It emerged from a fracture with established institutions and sought new aesthetics through exhibitions and publications, becoming central to Viennese cultural life around the fin de siècle. The group’s activities intersected with prominent European artists, architects, and intellectuals and influenced movements across Austria, Germany, France, Italy, and beyond.

History

The Secession was founded in 1897 following a split from the Vienna Künstlerhaus by artists including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, and Joseph Maria Olbrich who rejected conservative exhibition policies. Early meetings involved figures associated with the Austro-Hungarian Empire cultural scene and drew attention from patrons linked to the Vienna Court Opera, Burgtheater, and municipal institutions. The association published the journal Ver Sacrum, which featured contributions from writers and designers tied to Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Stefan Zweig. Organizational offices coordinated with printers like Friedrich Beck and ateliers connected to Wiener Werkstätte and designers who later collaborated with international firms in Munich, Prague, Budapest, and Paris.

Aims and Ideology

Members articulated an aesthetic program influenced by debates among proponents of Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and the broader European avant-garde. They sought unity between fine and applied arts, aligning with proponents such as Henry van de Velde and critics like Wassily Kandinsky who advocated reform in artistic production. The Secession emphasized Gesamtkunstwerk ideals articulated in dialogues with architects from Fin de siècle circles and theorists associated with Adolf Loos and material reformers in England and Belgium. Their exhibitions foregrounded craft revivalists from Italy and textile designers from Scandinavia, while polemics addressed conservative artists connected to the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Key Members and Artists

Leading painters included Gustav Klimt, whose portraits and friezes provoked debate involving jurists and municipal commissioners; Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka had later affiliations with Secession exhibitions. Designers such as Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann worked alongside architects like Joseph Maria Olbrich and Otto Wagner. Sculptors and painters featured contemporaries including Carl Moll, Anton Kolig, Heinrich Lefler, Max Kurzweil, Alfred Roller, and Richard Gerstl. International participants encompassed Paul Cézanne, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Klimt’s circle, and invited figures like Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt’s critics and admirers from Germany and France. Later affiliations and exhibiting artists included Max Klinger, Fernand Khnopff, Gustav Klimt’s students, and applied artists from Wiener Werkstätte workshops linked to Dagobert Peche and Michael Powolny.

Major Exhibitions and Works

The Secession organized annual exhibitions featuring international and local works, including a landmark 1898 showcase that presented Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, and Japanese prints associated with collectors of Ukiyo-e. The Secession mounted thematic exhibitions such as the 1902 Beethoven exhibition with a monumental Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt, which referenced myths treated by Richard Wagner and iconography familiar to audiences of the Vienna Philharmonic. Catalogues printed in Ver Sacrum reproduced works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Henri Matisse, and Vincent van Gogh when available, and invited sculptural contributions from Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso. Retrospectives and touring exhibitions later included art by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and early modernists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.

Architecture and the Secession Building

The Secession Building, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich and completed in 1898, became an architectural manifesto sited near the Karlsplatz and Stadtbahn structures associated with Otto Wagner. The yellow-golden dome of laurel leaves and the sculptural group by Hugo Haftmann signaled an aesthetic break with historicist façades near the Ringstraße. Interior programs referenced Wagnerian rationalism and the total-work ideals of Josef Hoffmann and harmonized graphic design from Koloman Moser and set designers who later worked with the Burgtheater and municipal festivals. The building’s exhibitions engaged with contemporary architecture debates involving figures like Adolf Loos, Peter Behrens, and Otto Wagner’s students.

Influence and Legacy

The Secession’s model influenced the founding of groups such as the Vienna Werkstätte (Wiener Werkstätte), which formalized collaborations among artists, and inspired secessionist movements in Munich, Berlin Secession, Prague, Zagreb, and Budapest. Its publications and exhibitions shaped discourse in art schools such as the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and contributed to curricula reforms influenced by Bauhaus debates and proponents like Walter Gropius and Wassily Kandinsky. The Secession’s iconography and exhibition strategies resonated in later modernist architecture by Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, and influenced museum practice in institutions such as the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Albertina, and Neue Galerie. Contemporary scholarship engages archives relating to collectors like Heinrich Thannhauser, scholars such as Arnold Hauser, and curators from MoMA and the Tate Modern who trace transnational networks linking Vienna to Paris, Berlin, Rome, and New York.

Category:Art movements Category:Austrian art