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A Matter of Professionalism: Marketing Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
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- Forum: New Views of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
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- Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1997
References
1 Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien; Inv. 96030/2.
2 For a more extensive discussion of these and the subsequent arguments of this paper, see Jensen, Robert, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton, N.J., 1994).Google Scholar
3 See the classic sociological study of these institutional changes and their effect on the behavior of French artists, White, Harrison C. and White, Cynthia A., Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (New York, 1965).Google Scholar
4 A11 the secessions attempted to include in their annual exhibitions works by Parisian modernists. In Vienna, the Secession held as its sixteenth exhibition in the winter of 1902–3 the first historical showing of the impressionists in Central Europe under the title Entwicklung des Impressionismus in Malerei und Plastik. The Berlin Secession surpassed even Vienna's in promoting French modernism, because of its close ties with the dealer Paul Cassirer. He acted as the Secession's business manager, while working in concert with Parisian galleries to sell French modernist art abroad. To get an appreciation of the significance of this relationship, see especially Feilchenfeldt, Walter, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cassirer: The Reception of van Gogh in Germany from 1901 to 1914, Cahier Vincent, vol. 2 (Zwolle, the Netherlands, 1988).Google Scholar
5 The most influential example of such histories is Meier-Graefe's, JuliusEntwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst (Stuttgart, 1904).Google Scholar Meier-Graefe systematically excluded from his “necessary” history of the development of modern art most of the heretofore famous artists of the nineteenth century, while installing the French impressionists as the standard by which he measured all other art.
6 Historians have often linked the institutional phenomenon of secessionism to the aesthetic of impressionism—embracing not only the French masters, but also their Central European variants. These artists, however, could be as diverse as Max Liebermann and Edvard Munch. The confusion stems from the fact that what was called impressionism in the 1890s was actually an international salon art. Its internationally celebrated representatives were not Monet and Degas, but Albert Besnard and Charles Cottet. There was very little impressionist painting either practiced or purchased in Central Europe until after 1900.
7 There is no better example of this than the career of the German art critic and entrepreneur Julius Meier-Graefe. Caught up in the enthusiasm for the decorative arts in the 1890s, Meier-Graefe opened a gallery in Paris devoted to leading examples of French and German Art Nouveau production, but in the process was exposed to French postimpressionism. In 1900 Meier-Graefe wrote eloquently on behalf of German Jugendstil, but by 1904, he became almost completely committed to modernist French painting, writing some of the earliest German-language criticism on its behalf; see Jensen, , Marketing Modernism, 235–63.Google Scholar
8 The resistance to French modernism was loudest in Germany and was deeply indebted to nationalist fervor. While there were pamphlets, newspaper articles, and, of course, the very public resistance of the kaiser to all signs of modernism, the most revealing perhaps was the anthology of essays Ein Protest deutscher Künstler, ed. Vinnen, Carl (Jena, 1911)Google Scholar, which denounced the acquisition of French modernist painting by German museums as a Jewish dealer-led conspiracy, and the reply, from many of French modernism's most ardent allies in Germany, published as Im Kampf um die Kunst. Die Antwort auf den Protest deutscher Künstler (Munich, 1911).Google Scholar
9 The identity crisis thesis has been most extensively argued by Jacques Le Rider in his Modernity and Crises of Identity: Culture and Society in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, trans. Morris, Rosemary (New York, 1993).Google Scholar
10 Schorske, Carl, “Cultural Hothouse,” New York Review of Books 12 11, 1975, 39–44, esp. 41.Google Scholar
11 In his underappreciated book on Klimt and the Secession, Werner Hofmann clearly lays out the differences between the 1908 and the 1909 Kunstschauen; see his Gustav Klimt, trans. Goodwin, Inge (London, 1972).Google Scholar
12 It was in just these terms that the second exhibition was brushed aside by the Vienna correspondent for Die Kunst für Alle 25, no. 1 (10 1, 1909): 20–22.Google Scholar These remarks are surprising for the journal that devoted considerable space to the various international exhibitions of contemporary art.
13 Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (New York, 1978), 330.Google Scholar
14 See, for example, Schorske's contribution to the catalog Vienne 1880–1938. L'Apocalypse Joyeuse (Paris, 1986), 72–81Google Scholar, in which he accepts the argument that Hoffmann's Stoclet palace was constructed for “homo psychologicus.”
15 A thorough reexamination of expressionism, outside the literature and mentality that supported it, still needs to be done. From a theoretical viewpoint, Hal Foster's two essays, “The Expressive Fallacy,” in Recodings (Seattle, 1985), 59–73Google Scholar, and “Primitive Scenes,” Critical Inquiry 20 (Autumn 1993): 69–102Google Scholar, provide a useful point of departure. See also Boorman, Helen, “Rethinking the Expressionist Era: Wilhelmine Cultural Debates and Prussian Elements in German Expressionism,” Oxford Art Journal 9, no. 2 (1986): 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Schorske, , “Cultural Hothouse,” 41.Google Scholar
17 Schorske, , Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, 214.Google Scholar
18 Burckhardt, Max, introduction to Ver Sacrum (01 1898): 1–2.Google Scholar
19 Schultze-Naumburg, Paul, “Die Internationale Ausstellung 1896 der Secession in München,” Die Kunst für Alle 11 (07 1, 1896): 289.Google Scholar
20 To take but one example, the secessions were far more likely to exclude women artists than were their older counterparts.
21 Liebermann, Max, “Rede zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung der Berliner Secession” (spring 1900)Google Scholar, reprinted in Die Phantasie in der Malerei, ed. Busch, G. (Frankfurt, 1978), 170–71.Google Scholar
22 The dissolution of the Secession in 1905 has never been properly studied. See, however, Hilger, Wolfgang, “Geschichte der Vereinigung bildender Künstler Österreichs. Secession 1897–1918,” in Die Wiener Secession. Die Vereinigung bildender Künstler 1897–1985 (Vienna, 1986), 48–50Google Scholar; and Nebehay, Christian, Gustav Klimt, Dokumentation (Vienna, 1969), 345–50.Google Scholar See also Jensen, , Marketing Modernism, 163–200.Google Scholar
23 Schorske, , Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, 117.Google Scholar
24 Virtually all the Central European secessions worked in close cooperation with local or regional or sometimes international galleries to bring at least a token display of French modernist art to their various exhibitions. The Berlin Secession, for example, was structured around its close relationship with Paul Cassirer, who was directly, sometimes contractually, connected to such Parisian firms as Durand-Ruel and Bernheim Jeune. And it was often through Berlin that other regional Central European exhibition societies received their collection of French art. The literature on these firms is growing. See especially the special issue, “Sammler der frühen Moderne in Berlin,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 42, no. 3 (1988)Google Scholar; Teeuwisse, Nicolaas, Vom Salon zur Secession (Berlin, 1986)Google Scholar; Kern, Josef, Impressionismus im Wilhelminischen Deutschland (Würzburg, 1989)Google Scholar; and Jensen, , Marketing Modernism.Google Scholar For a particularly illuminating account of the merchandising of one artist, see Feilchenfeldt, , Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cassirer.Google Scholar
25 Ludwig Hevesi once said of Moll that “his personal rôle in the modernising of the art life of Vienna consists in his restless energy in the service of a pet idea, and in the sociable, businesslike and diplomatic qualities which are requisite in the struggle to maintain these interests. He was the very leaven of the new movement, a Minister of Fine Arts without a portfolio”; see Hevesi, , “Modern Painting in Austria,”Google Scholar in The Art-Revival in Austria, special number of The Studio (Summer 1906), section A (i–xvi), esp. viii.Google Scholar
26 See Bertha Zuckerkandl's account of the breakup in “Die Spaltung der Wiener Sezession,” Die Kunst für Alle 20 (07 15, 1905): 486–88.Google Scholar
27 See Zuckerkandl's report on the character of the two sides in her review, “Die XXIII. Ausstellung der Wiener Sezession,” Die Kunst für Alle 20 (07 1, 1905): 441.Google Scholar She describes the disputing parties as “eine Stil-Gruppe und eine realistische Gruppe. Die einen betrachten ‘Kunst’ als Einheit, als großen dekorativen Zusammenhang architektonischer, bildnerischer und angewandter Gestaltungen, die anderen wollen von der Unterordnung, von der Harmoniesierung des Kunstwerkes mit dem Ganzen nichts wissen.” For a brief but useful discussion of the role of the newspaper critics on behalf of the Secession, see Schweiger, Werner J., Wiener Werkstätte (New York, 1984), 13–15.Google Scholar Vienna's art critics were as concentrated and as exclusive a group as the Secession itself.
28 Klimt was explicit about this state of affairs in the address he gave in conjunction with the opening of the 1908 Kunstschau. He complained that “we know full well that the exhibition is in no way the ideal form for making contact between the artist and the public. The carrying out of large-scale public art commissions, for example, would serve this purpose infinitely better for us.” He attributed the absence of such patronage to the government's obsession with political and social matters. Klimt's address is reprinted in Nebehay, , Klimt, Dokumentation, 394.Google Scholar
29 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trans. Polan, Dana (Minneapolis, 1986).Google Scholar
30 Arthur Roessler even had to warn Schiele in 1911 to abandon his penchant for self-promotion and for exaggerating his ties to Klimt, Wagner, and other Viennese luminaries: “I must restrict my dealings with you until you bring to your behaviour — which I hope will become more adult — as much consideration and cultivation as you devote to your art. You should be less anxious to make capital by hawking around details of your relationship with Klimt and also less keen to try architect Wagner's patience or tactlessly to damage well-meaning friendships. I'm not bluffing.” For the German original, see Nebehay, Christian, Egon Schiele, 1890–1918. Briefe, Dokumente, Gedichte (Salzburg, 1979), document 169, 163.Google Scholar This translation is from Whitford, Frank, Egon Schiele (New York, 1980), 95.Google Scholar
31 Still the best discussion of the early literature on expressionist art and its underlying appeals to German nationalism and the German Renaissance past is Perkins, Geoffrey, Contemporary Theory of Expressionism (Bern, 1974).Google Scholar
32 The photograph has been frequently reproduced. See Kallir, Jane, Egon Schiele (New York, 1994), 55.Google Scholar
33 The major monographs on Hoffmann do not treat this exhibition, a clear indication of how little regard modernist-informed sensibilities have had for such phenomena as “hunting exhibitions.”
34 The only document besides the drawing to take note of Schiele's participation in the exhibition is a letter from Erwin Graff, one of Schiele's patrons, in which he notes that there was a general lack of quality to the exhibits—implying, of course, that Schiele's stood above all the others; see Nebehay, , Egon Schiele, document 102, 131.Google Scholar
35 MacKenzie, J. M., The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation, and British Imperialism (Manchester, 1988).Google Scholar
36 Bertha Zuckerkandl, in a famous epithet, described Hoffmann as a leader in the “Aristo-kratisierung des Geschmacks, der Veredelung der Luxuswelt.” For a reading of Hoffmann as a “conservative” modern, who refused to polarize industrial culture with handmade goods, see. Gorsen, Peter, “Josef Hoffmann. Zur Modernität eines konservativen Baumeisters,” in Ornament und Askese, ed. Pfabigan, Alfred (Vienna, 1985), 69–92.Google Scholar
37 See Gilman, Sander L., Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), 15–35.Google Scholar
38 See Nebehay, , Egon Schiele, document 102, 131.Google Scholar
39 My discussion of Kokoschka and his patrons here and elsewhere in this essay is deeply indebted to Sherwin Simmons's important article, “Kitsch oder Kunst? Kokoschka's Der Sturm and Commerce in Art,” Print Collector's Newsletter 23, no. 5 (11–12 1992): 161–67.Google Scholar See also Werkner, Patrick, Austrian Expressionism: The Formative Years, trans. Parsons, Nicholas T. (Palo Alto, Calif., 1993)Google Scholar, for his chapters on Kokoschka, Schiele, and their contemporaries.
40 For a discussion of and documents for these events, see Schweiger, Werner J., Oskar Kokoschka. Der Sturm. Die Berliner Jahre 1910–1916. Eine Dokumentation (Vienna, 1986).Google Scholar
41 Schiele failed to land a similar contract or exhibition with Cassirer. See Roessler's card to Schiele dated August 2, 1911, in Nebehay, , Egon Schiele, document 240, 179.Google Scholar
42 See Kokoschka, Oskar, Briefe, vol. 1 (Düsseldorf, 1984), 16–27.Google Scholar
43 This brief essay was republished with slight modifications under the title “Die Kunst—der Neukünstler,” in Die Aktion 4, no. 20 (1914): 428.Google Scholar
44 In an undated manuscript cited in Nebehay, , Klimt, Dokumentation, 32Google Scholar, Klimt wrote, “There is no self-portrait of me. I am not interested in myself as ‘material for a picture’, rather in other people, especially women, and even more in other phenomena. I am convinced that as a person I am not particularly interesting.”
45 Arthur Roessler, “In memoriam Gustav Klimt,” cited in Nebehay, , Klimt. Dokumentation, 356.Google Scholar
46 See Elsen, Albert, “Drawing and a New Sexual Intimacy: Rodin and Schiele,” in Egon Schiele: Art, Sexuality, and Viennese Modernism, ed. Werkner, Patrick (Palo Alto, Calif., 1994), 5–30.Google Scholar
47 Among the recent spate of literature on Altenberg's photograph collection, a representative essay is Lensing, Leo A., “Peter Altenberg's Fabricated Photographs: Literature and Photography in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna,” in Vienna 1900: From Altenberg to Wittgenstein, ed. Timms, Edward and Robertson, Ritchie (Edinburgh, 1990), 47–72.Google Scholar
48 See Roessler's letter to Goltz cited in Nebehay, , Egon Schiele, document 276, 186.Google Scholar
49 This is the story told by Alessandra Comini, without documentation, in Egon Schiele: Portraits (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974), 99.Google Scholar
50 The letter is dated March 31, 1913; this translation is by Comini, , Egon Schiele, 87.Google Scholar
51 See Manheim, Ron, “The Germanic van Gogh: A Case Study of Cultural Annexation,” Simiolus 19, no. 4 (1989): 277–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
52 For example, Manheim (ibid., 282) cites Gustav Pauli's pamphlet Der Krieg und die deutsche Kunst. Vortrag gehalten am 20. November 1914 in der Reihe der “Deutschen Vorträge Hamburgischer Professoren” (Hamburg, 1915), 13Google Scholar, to the effect that “alles, was wir als bezeichnend für den Genius unserer Rasse angesprochen haben, wohnte in seiner [van Gogh's] Seele: die Selbstherrlichkeit, die den Saum verachtet, die Macht des Ausdrucks, die Ueberschwenglichkeit und die mystisch-schwärmerische Naturliebe.” In a fragment cited by Roessler in an early essay on Schiele, reprinted as “Kritische Fragmente, 1909–1918,” in Egon Schiele in der Albertina, ed. Mitsch, Erwin (Vienna, 1990), 18Google Scholar, the artist writes: “Meine rohen Lehrer waren mir stets Feinde. Sie — und andere—verstanden es nicht, daß ich von Vornehmen der Vornehmste, von Rückgebern der Rückgiebigste bin; daß ich den Tod liebe und das Leben; daß ich alles zugleich bin, aber niemals alles zu gleicher Zeit tue. Ich bin kein zwiespältiges Wesen. Mensch und Künstler in einem bin ich. Und ich bin für mich und die, denen die durstige Trunksucht nach Freisein bei mir alles schenkt—und für alle auch, weil alle ich auch liebe. In mir ist ein ewiges Träumen voll süßesten Lebensüberschusses. Rastlos, mit bangen Schmerzen innen in der Seele, lodert, brennt, wächst das Träumen zum Kampf, Herzenskrampf. Ich bin wahnwitzig rege mit aufgeregter Lust—denn nun kann ich endlich die spendende Sonne wiedersehen und frei sein. Die höchste Empfindung ist Religion und Kunst. Natur is Zweck—aber dort ist Gott, und ich empfinde ihn stark, sehr stark, am stärksten. Ich glaube, daß es keine ‘moderne’ Kunst gibt, daß es nur eine Kunst gibt, und die ist immerwährend.”
53 For a recent reading of Weininger as an extreme but essential mirror of male attitudes toward women at the Jahrhundertwende, see Žižek, Slavoj, “Otto Weininger; or, Woman Doesn't Exist,” New Formations 23 (Summer 1994): 97–113.Google Scholar
54 For instance, in a letter dating from November 1910 Schiele proposed to Roessler that the Künstlerhaus [!] ought to arrange “a great international art show. I told this idea to Klimt.” He then draws up a potential list of contributors: “Rodin, van Gogh, Gauguin, Minne, Klimt's work from the last ten years, Toorop, Stuck, Liebermann, Sievogt, Corinth, Meštrovič, and so on — only painting and sculpture. What a scream for Vienna!” Letter cited in Nebehay, , Egon Schiele, document 144, 139.Google Scholar Meštrovič was a Croatian sculptor.
55 Schiele's love of dressing up and role playing and his sense of fashion parallel in a striking way similar qualities of the life and work of Kafka. See Mark Anderson's brilliant analysis of Kafka's critique of ornament and fashion in Kafka's Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Siècle (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar Anderson has shown the rich way in which the consciousness of trade, especially the trade in fashion, determined Kafka's orientation toward the idea of the decorative in fin-de-siècle aestheticism. Schiele's career shows a remarkably similar relationship both to commerce and to the decorative. Between these two readings, the strikingly idiosyncratic art of Kafka loses some of its exceptional qualities by reacquiring aspects of conscious agency, confined no longer to psychological and aesthetic matters, but one that acknowledges the intensely commercial world in which Kafka lived and his simultaneous struggle toward a literary and a personal identity.
56 See Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1 (New York, 1980).Google Scholar