The Viennese Secession Movement
1897 - 1905
Michaela Buys (F2J431PC2)
The Viennese Secession Movement was founded in 1897, by a group of Austrian Artists, namely Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Josef Hoffman. Many more members joined the group and all though the members of the group resigned in 1905, the movement has contributed to the international communication between contemporary artists. It was the mix of the first movement of artists and designers who were concentrating on a forward-thinking, internationalist view of the art world.
According to Balasz Takac (2018), the Viennese Secession Movement "was formed as a critical reaction to the conservatism of the art institutions in the Austrian capital". The members of the movement wanted to be free from the commercialism of the art world. Hermann Bahr stated in Ver Sacrum, which was a journal that the secession published, "our art is not a fight of modern artists from the old ones, but the promotion of arts against the peddlers who pass for artists and have a commercial interest that prevents art form flourishing. Commerce or art, that is the issue before our Secession. It is not an aesthetic debate, but a confrontation between two states of the spirit.". This journal was published to bring awareness to the artists' work and ideas. The journal was released monthly until December 1903 when it was terminated, due to the decrease in subscribers
Artist: Gustav Klimt
Title: Medicine
Date: 1900-1901
Medium: Oil on canvas
In 1984, Klimt was asked by the Ministry of Culture to create and provide paintings for the new Great Hall of the University of Vienna. His job was to paint three paintings based off Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence. When Klimt started working on these three canvasses, he joined the Viennese Secession, so he ignored the theme that the paintings were supposed to be about, "the triumph of light over darkness". The artwork portrays a figure, Hygeia, the mythological daughter of the God of medicine, who can be seen at the bottom centre of the canvas and goes hand in hand with a snake and the cup of Lethe. Above the figure grew a large column of light, to the right of which grew a web of bare figures interlocked with the skeleton of death. The imagery portrayed in the canvas provoked criticism from others on two levels. Firstly, faculty and Ministry officials claimed that it was pornographic. Secondly, the painting did not portray the themes of medicine (a healing tool). Unfortunately, the three artworks, including medicine, were incinerated on the 7th of May 1945, during the Second World War. Many precious paintings, including Klimt's Medicine were stored in the Immendorf castle. SS officers started a fire, which destroyed the castle and the artworks stored inside.
References and Bibliography
Takac, B. 2018. The Philosophy and Aesthetic of the Vienna Secession Movement. widewalls. [Online]. Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/vienna-secession. Accessed: 11 August 2020.
Unknown. No Date. The Vienna Secession Movement. The Art Story. [Online]. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/vienna-secession/history-and-concepts/. Accessed: 11 August 2020.
Unknown. No Date. The Vienna Secession Movement Overview. The Art Story. [Online]. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/vienna-secession/#:~:text=The%20Secession's%20most%20dramatic%20decline,history%20between%201897%20and%201905. Accessed: 11 August 2020.
Unknown. No Date. Gustav Klimt Artworks & Famous Paintings. The Art Story. [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/klimt-gustav/artworks/. Accessed: 11 August 2020.
Unknown. No Date. Mystery of The Lost Paintings - Medicine by Gustav Klimt. lostpaintings. [Online]. Available at: http://lostpaintings.net/en/artwork/klimt/. Accessed: 11 August 2020.
