Vienna & Budapest 1900 - ‘Fin de siécle’ art, architecture & design
- Two of the cities best endowed with Art Nouveau art, design and architecture.
- Study similarities and differences within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the context of contrasting cultural developments and nationalistic aspirations.
- Led by specialist art historian Dr Diane Silverthorne.
INTRODUCTION
From a Bavarian cartoon of 1910.
Art Nouveau and its innumerable variants and synonyms never quite became mainstream, didn’t thrive for long and in some places was never much more than a cheeky decorative affectation, but it spread like wildfire to practically every corner of Europe. It was a movement rather than a style, being amazingly diverse in its forms and applications and, particularly in the Habsburg Empire, encompassing painting, sculpture and architecture as well as the decorative arts.
Defining Art Nouveau is a challenge; one universally applicable feature is a negative, that it abandoned the imitation of historical styles, but another is a positive, if vague in the extreme: that whatever other impulses and motivations there may have been, the pursuit of beauty was paramount.
Vienna and Budapest are among the half-dozen cities where the largest quantity of Art Nouveau art and design can be found. And, more than in most places, in each there was originality and a fecund variety of forms. But particularly striking is the sharp difference between the Austrian and the Hungarian variants. In Vienna, as in many places, ‘Secessionism’ developed in opposition to artistic orthodoxy and social conservatism; in Budapest, ‘Eclecticism’ was all this but additionally a manifestation of Magyr resentment of the cultural and political dominance of their Austrian overlords.
Both countries were within the Habsburg empire, and the Emperor of one was the King of the other. Even though since 1867 Hungary enjoyed a large measure of independence, the crescendo of national revivalism led increasingly to a desire to identify difference and express nationalist aspirations through the plastic arts. Artists rummaged among ancient myth and modern anthropology to develop specifically Hungarian forms and symbols.
The social and cultural roots of turn-of-the-century art and design in these two capitals are fascinating and illuminating, and an understanding of the nationalistic and political undercurrents is illuminating. But above all, this tour is a study of an artistic phenomenon which is of astonishing diversity, prolixity and, let it be said, exquisite beauty.
Defining Art Nouveau is a challenge; one universally applicable feature is a negative, that it abandoned the imitation of historical styles, but another is a positive, if vague in the extreme: that whatever other impulses and motivations there may have been, the pursuit of beauty was paramount.
Vienna and Budapest are among the half-dozen cities where the largest quantity of Art Nouveau art and design can be found. And, more than in most places, in each there was originality and a fecund variety of forms. But particularly striking is the sharp difference between the Austrian and the Hungarian variants. In Vienna, as in many places, ‘Secessionism’ developed in opposition to artistic orthodoxy and social conservatism; in Budapest, ‘Eclecticism’ was all this but additionally a manifestation of Magyr resentment of the cultural and political dominance of their Austrian overlords.
Both countries were within the Habsburg empire, and the Emperor of one was the King of the other. Even though since 1867 Hungary enjoyed a large measure of independence, the crescendo of national revivalism led increasingly to a desire to identify difference and express nationalist aspirations through the plastic arts. Artists rummaged among ancient myth and modern anthropology to develop specifically Hungarian forms and symbols.
The social and cultural roots of turn-of-the-century art and design in these two capitals are fascinating and illuminating, and an understanding of the nationalistic and political undercurrents is illuminating. But above all, this tour is a study of an artistic phenomenon which is of astonishing diversity, prolixity and, let it be said, exquisite beauty.
ITINERARY
DAY 1
Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna (British Airways) and drive to the Gallery of Austrian Art in the Belvedere Palace. Here amidst Baroque magnificence is a splendid collection of paintings by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and contemporaries. First of three nights in Vienna.
DAY 2
Vienna. The stunning Secession Building was designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich (1898) to exhibit artists ‘seceding’ from the academy system; Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze is housed here. The Leopold Collection possesses an excellent collection of paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele and by most of his peers. Otto Wagner successfully straddled establishment and progressive patronage and became the most influential designer in Vienna; works by him include colourful apartment façades, his villa in the suburbs and the Kirche am Steinhof, a hilltop hospital church of refulgent beauty, the apogee of Secessionism.
DAY 3
Vienna. A walk in the inner city looks at turn-of-the-century buildings and interiors including the notorious gentleman’s outfitters in Michaelerplatz by Adolf Loos and the Post Office Savings Bank by Wagner. There is a superb collection of furnishings of the era at the Museum of Applied Arts, and paintings and interiors in the Vienna Museum. Two former metropolitan railway pavilions, white and gold, by Wagner and Olbrich, epitomise the modernity and beauty of Viennese Secessionism.
DAY 4
Vienna to Budapest. By rail to Budapest (23/4 hours). In the last third of the 19th cent. the population tripled and prosperity peaked so major Art Nouveau buildings of all sorts abound in Pest on the north bank of the Danube – offices, department stores, government institutions, banks, apartments. The afternoon walk passes many including the Parisian Court with a façade enriched with Gothic and Eastern motifs, the Klotild and Matilde Palaces, office blocks faced with glazed tiles, and the Philanthia Florist, which continues its original function. First of two nights in Budapest.
DAY 5
Budapest. Its façade open to the Danube, József Vágó’s Gresham Palace (1907) is as monumental as Art Nouveau gets. Other places seen on the morning walk include the former Stock Exchange by Ignác Alpár and the Post Office Savings Bank by the leading architect of the time, Ödön Lechner. Across the Danube in Buda, the National Gallery houses a magnificent collection of Hungarian art. Return to the hotel in Pest by the funicular and walk back to the hotel. Dinner is in a restaurant with an art nouveau interior.
DAY 6
Budapest. The Museum of Applied Arts (1893–6) and the Geological Institute (1896–99) are two of Ödön Lechner’s most radical and memorable buildings, elaborated with forms from Hungarian folk art and Asia with symbolic references to Attila the Hun in a determined attempt to create a national style. The Calvinist Church by Aladar Arkay (1913) is a ceramic-clad synthesis of German, Scandinavian and American Art Nouveau with stained glass windows by Miksa Roth – international in inspiration therefore. Fly from Budapest to Heathrow, arriving c. 6.00pm.
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