Staying at Topazz Hotel, well located in the center of town (Innere Stadt). Modern, “trendy”! Great room (corner – 2 oval-shaped windows; good shower pressure!) Earthy breakfast on premise. Staff enthusiastic – very helpful with restaurant recommendations and reservations (requests few days before arriving! Certainly very recommendable!
Paid our homage to the “city of music”: attended “Aïda” at the State Opera House (Staatoper – part of “monumental” Vienna on the Ringstrasse!). So many sites in the city remind you that Mozart, Beethoven, Hayden, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler, etc. all at one point or another, German or Austrian, lived here, had the greatest moments of their career here!
A city that seems to love cinema as well! Watched
“The Third Man” - Reed’s 1949 classic film thriller, based on Graham Greene’s scenario depicting the black atmosphere that prevailed in Vienna immediately after the war, with Karas’ “inoubliable” zither music theme, and Orson Welles as the villain Harry Lime. Watched it online in Malta the week before... Too early though for the yearly ‘Viennale” – the Vienna International Film Festival, October 24 to November 6 this year…
Started visit with a tram tour on the Ringstrasse (a circular road around the Innere Stadt, built in 1857 where stood the fortifications of the city before), a matter of getting a sense of the dimension of this 1.8 million people city (was 2.2 in 1900!) Walked to and visited of course Stephansdom, the gothic cathedral that dominates the city! Walked down one of the city main commercial street, Kärntnerstrasse – une piétonnière for most of the day; stopped along the way by the Loos American Bar, a small tiny place on a side street, built by Adolf Loos in 1908 – walked in for a glimpse; could only take picture from the outside! Had a “Maltese moment” when we stopped along Kärntner at the Church of St-john the Baptist, which was established in the 14th century and belongs to the Order of Malta – the order has, we learnt, some 1800 volunteers in Vienna caring for local charitable organizations.
Spent time –not enough, considering what is there to see! – in museums: saw part of the Picture Gallery at the Kuntzhistorisches Museum (Bruegel the elder) – we were inspired to visit by the recent movie “Museum Hours” seen in Toronto!) and the special exhibition of the British painter Lucian Freud’s work (first time apparently shown in the city of his grandfather Sigmund!); the incomparable Schiele (who died so young at 28, victim of the Spanish flu after the first world war!) and a special exhibition (“Vienna 1900”) which includes quite a bit on Klimt and “Viener Werkstätte” works at the Leopold Museum; and finally a special exhibition on “Matisse and the Fauves” at the Albertina Museum.
We had to skip the Belvedere Palace, built in the 17th century as a summer residence, and its baroque gardens, somewhat outside the city but nearby. Now a museum, housing notably Klimt’s famous “Kiss” painting! There is also the Schloss Schönbrunn (which we did not go to), built on a hill, southwest, outside of the city – another display of imperial splendor – some 2000 rooms! Maria Theresia (18th century) chose it as its seat and court (Napoleon stayed there for 4 years!) We walked through what I called the Hofburg complex, south of the Michaeleplatz, which houses some of the museums we eventually visited, and the famous Spanish Riding School (no interest in seeing a performance by the so-called “Lippizaner” white stallions!)
Attempt to spend the last day in the wine country – Vienna apparently is the only world city with a ‘wine country’ within its city limits! – without much success though as we were caught by the rain; as a result, we came back in town (Bus 38A and U4 to Schwedenplatz) and had light lunch at coffeehouse Demel, near the Hofburg, where we had our “Viennese culinary moment” – a mélange coffee and an applestrudel!
Talking of meals, had a wonderful walk (first day was a true sunny Fall day!) to the Stadtpark for a memorable lunch at the Meierei café, the lunch place at the esteemed (some say ‘the best in the world!’) Steirereck im Stadtpark restaurant – housed in a former dairy farm but far from being rustic! Followed by a coffee ( a “mélange” of course) at the celebrated Prückel Café. Lunch as well at the Glacis Beisl, in the Museum Quartier, recommended by the Hotel for typical Viennese foods. Also, dinner, first after the opera, at the nearby Plachutta’s Gasthaus zur Oper, to have authentic “boiled” beef dish (a Vienna specialty, apparently); then at Chinese Sternzeichen (where Lang Lang takes his mother for food when touring in Vienna!); and finally at Fabios, an Italian, near the hotel…discussion about Lucian Freud…
Somehow, the Jews occupy a special place in Vienna’s history and culture. They are identified as such, wealthy people eventually, but persecuted, and the ethnicity of several artists. The first pogrom goes back to 15th century (1421 to be exact, during Emperor Albrecht II’s reign), having been left in peace and flourishing for some 200 years. Then again in the 17th century (1670). The city could not prosper though without their full participation in the financial world. Hitler did it again in 1938, after the Anschluss, that culminated with the notorious “Reichkrystallnatch” when some 6500 Jews were round up, executed or sent to a concentration camp! All in all, very few Jews survived the Second World War in Vienna (Sigmund Freud was made to leave in 1938, along with some 100,000 other Jews who were able to escape before the borders closed in 1939. Some 65,000 died in ghettos and concentration camps - 4 of Freud’s 5 sisters died in concentration camps!) Only some 6000 Jews survived to see liberation of the city!
Vienna is really defined by its past, a hundred years old past and more. First the baroque and neo-renaissance styles of the Hapsburg centuries-old empire and the official buildings of the Ringstrasse, but also the “fin de siècle” (the turn of the last century) culture! A world that did not quite hear or understand those who would become emblematic in the years to follow: Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele (see below from Leopold Museum website), Oskar Kokoschka, Sigmund Freud, the architect Otto Wagner (his greatest opponent: Ferdinand, the Archduke, who believed the “Maria Theresa” style as the most beautiful!) among others (the turn coat Adolph Loos - the American Bar which we had a look at; Joseph Hoffman – the Stoclet Palace in Brussels; and Joseph Maria Olbrich – the Secession building, which we walked by); the Jugendstil, the Secession movement, and the Wiener Werkstätte.
Very telling that Klimt, Schiele, Wagner, along with Kolo Moser the designer, were all to die at the end of the first World War, in 1918! It is quite surprising, at first sight, to see so many famous “rebellious” types, evolving in such a conservative environment, but again it may be that only such a prosperous and diversified society could produce and sustain such dissidence!...
Leaving tomorrow…
Vienna, October 17. 2013
Bibliography:
Leopold Museum Vienna; Prestel Museum Guide
The Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna; Prestel Museum Guide
Vienna 1900; Art, life & Culture; The Vendome Press, New-York
Lucian Freud, Sebastian Smee, Taschen
Vienna 1900; Leopold Collection Vienna; Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna – Munich
Only in Vienna; Duncan J. D. Smith. Christian Brandstätter Verlag
Vienna, City Guide, Lonely Planet Publications Pte Ltd, Nov 2010.
Vienna, A Traveler’s Literary Companion, edited by Donald G. Daviau
Vienna, Knopf Mapguides, 2011
Leopold Museum Masterpieces,
Vienna 2013, Wallpaper City Guide
Le Petit Klimt, Catherine de Duve, Kate’Art Editions
(leopoldmuseum.com)
Egon Schiele
With 41 paintings and 188 works on paper the Leopold Museum is the largest and most prominent collection with works of Egon Schiele worldwide.
When Egon Schiele died in 1918 at the age of only 28 year of the Spanish flu he was seen as being one of the most important artists of his time. During the turmoil of the following decades he was more and more buried in oblivion until he completely disappeared into thin air after being judged as “degenerate art”. When Rudolf Leopold saw works by Egon Schiele at the beginning of the 1950s he immediately recognized that their quality, emotionality and technical bravura could absolutely be compared to the Old Masters. The life of the young eye doctor changed radically. From now on he entirely devoted himself to collecting and trading art. Many Schiele paintings and drawings were on sale on the free market at the time and even quite affordable even though they were not that cheap: a large-sized oil painting pretty much had the same price as a new car. Compared to the many million Euros that one would have to pay for them today this is nothing. Rudolf Leopold made significant contributions to the international esteem in which he is held today.
Besides the oil paintings and graphic works the Leopold Museum also houses the Egon Schiele-Documentation Centre that is dedicated to research on Schiele’s work and also holds numerous autographs. For the first time the lyricist work of Schiele dawns on a broader audience.
Schiele as lyricist
While Schiele was quite popular for his paintings and drawings in his lifetime, his poetic work was unnoticed for a long time although his expressionist lyricism is indeed quite important. The originals of Schiele’s poems belong in large part to the Leopold collection. Many letters and poems were almost designed as graphic works of art by Egon Schiele. The topics are similar to those depicted in his paintings: those are personal visions with the greatest expressiveness, colorfulness and directness. Unusual word combinations and wird coining, gramatically incomplete phrases and graphically positioned hyphens coin this so unusual atmospheric language. For instance Schiele wants „to taste dark water“, „see wild air“, „build white clouds“ oder he creates „rainbow foam“, foot race alleys“ or a „wind winterland“. His hard pressed soul that finds expression in his artistic world also breaks out eruptively in his lyricist work: „Excess of life“ and „agony of thinking “ are just as present as dark forces: „demons! – brake the violence! – your language, - your signs, - your power!“, proclaims Egon Schiele. The range of his contradictory feelings culminates in the paradoxical and final finding: „Everything is lively dead“.
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt (1862 Vienna – Vienna 1918) is the greatest and most impressive person of the Austrian art at around 1900. Coming from modest circumstances, Klimt studied at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule where his talent for drawing soon was discovered. Therefor he got a number of public contracts together with his brother Ernst und his university friend Franz Matsch. The panaches at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the great paintings at the staircase of the Burgtheater testify the technical perfection of this young „Künstler-Compagnie“. However these works were entirely committed to Viennese historicism. During the 1890s Klimt was looking for different means of expression and finally founded the Secession in 1897 with other like-minded artists. Klimt was the first president of the Vienna Secession. The culmination of this development were the University of Vienna ceiling paintings that burned in 1945 in a mansion in Lower Austria. The Leopold Museum presents these major works by Klimt for the first time as black and white photographs in the original size. The radical depiction of his personal view of the world was too pessimist for the professors at the University of Vienna and led to a huge scandal at the time. As a reaction Klimt decided to never accept any public contract again and focused on the creation of lyric landscape paintings that he painted during his summer visits together with the Flöge family to the Attersee region in Upper.
After decoratively overloaded, splendid art works, his style gets softer at around 1910. The painting “Death and Life” gets created and several times over-worked. Klimt elevates the topic into something general and gives „life“ a wonderful beauty with some inherent sadness – with death standing next to it. Enfeebled by a cerebral apoplexy, Gustav Klimt dies of pneumonia on 6 February 1918.
Gustav Klimt once said about himself:
“I can paint and draw. There is no self-portrait of myself. I am not interested in my own person – more in other people, females. […] I paint day by day from morning to night – figurative paintings and landscapes, less often portraits. Already when I should write a simple letter I get frightened like due to imminent seasickness. Those who want to know more about me shall observingly regard my paintings, and try to realize who I am and what I want.“Wiener Werkstätte
This movement finally led to the foundation of the Wiener Werkstätte by Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and the patron Fritz Wärndorfer in 1903. It was the aim of the Werkstätte to renew the art term in the field of applied arts and to embellish the life by everyday objects designed by artists. Following British examples, the challenge was to offer simple, elegant unique items in reply to the uncharitable and industrial replicas of past styles. A tea pot and a wardrobe were designed with just the same diligence and idealism. Everyday objects thus were elevated to an art object. All spheres of life should be designed homogenously and do justice to a modern culture.
Until the 1920s the company opened up sales affiliates at the top addresses in Vienna and abroad. Nevertheless its failure loomed ahead. It was especially for the high prices of their products that the Wiener Werkstätte failed to accomplish its social cause namely to ensure that the life of everybody was embellished by everyday objects designed by artists. Until its final closure in 1932, the company always relied on the support of prosperous patrons.
The Leopold Museum shows metalworks and furniture by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser as well as selected objects by Otto Wagner and others in its permanent exhibition.
Vienna 1900
How the conservative and culturally quite sedate city of Vienna of the 19th century could one of the most creative cities in the world at around 1900 is still up to discussion. One reason could be that compared to relatively closed groups in other European centres, the cohesion of the elite in the capital of the Habsburg Empire was quite strong until the early 20th century. The achievements of the “Moderne” could therefor easily spread to all different areas, beginning with paintings, literature and music right up to medecine and jurisdiction, and bestow one last great rebellion on the battered Habsburg Empire.
In Austrian art the year 1897 with the foundation of the Vienna Secession marks the birth of modern art. Nineteen artists led by Gustav Klimt pulled out of the traditional Künstlerhaus on 24 May 1897 and founded the “Association of visual artists Austria, Secession”. They did not want to submit themselves to the historicist taste and the political will anymore. The journal Ver Sacrum was a far-reaching voice for modern art and the building of the Vienna Secession, opened in 1898, provided the young artists with the possibility to present their art works to a large audience. They wanted to actively teach the inhabitants of Vienna modern art, organized big international exhibitions and for the first time brought artists like van Gogh or French impressionists to Vienna. The entire life was meant to be penetrated with art. Art handicrafts were put on a level with paintings and sculptures. Architects as well as painters used their talents over and over as designers of various objects. Thus the Vienna Jugendstil soon could be seen on billboards, designed entire churches and embellished private apartments. The final aim was an artistic synthesis, which would embellish life and set people in the best case into a veritable paradise.
Art Nouveau
„In the beginning we of course had to struggle with the strong conservatism of big Viennese companies. We literally had to force our designs upon them, didn’t ask for any remuneration but only for royalties. But suddenly the public seemingly took pleasure in the new type of furniture and materials and book covers and so also the shop couldn’t get enough of the secessionist stuff.“ This is how Kolo Moser remembered the exploding demand for art nouveau motifs at around 1900.
This „Jugenstil“ (as art nouveau is referred to in Austria) was part of a pan-European art trend that was referred to as „Modern Style“ in Britain an das „l’art nouveau“ in France. Art nouveau was seen as a countermotion to past historicism which only copied past art styles. By elegantly curved lines and floral decorations they didn’t only create single art works but entire artistic synthesis. Art nouveau buildings were furnished with art nouveau furniture, wallpapers, carpets and tableaus by people wearing art nouveau clothes and art nouveau jewelry that ate from art nouveau crockery. The complete blend of art and everyday life was their aim - nothing was neglected.
Being a versatile designer, Kolo Moser coined the Austrian Jugendstil, worked as a graphic artist of the journal Ver Sacrum and even designed the letter head and the signet of the Wiener Werkstätte. However the poster for the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession was designed by Gustav Klimt and by its reduction it is one of the pioneer art nouveau prints. The influence by Gustav Klimts is also very present in early works of the Wiener Werkstätte, which from the beginning developed revolutionary jewelry designs hat radically broke the mold: what counted was not material value but the artistic idea. Gustav Klimt, who designed patterns and ornaments for applied arts himself, often bought elegant jewelry of the Wiener Werkstätte which he liked to make Emilie Flöge a present of, who is also because of that one of the iconic figures of art nouveau.
Go to the exhibition Vienna 1900.
The Interwar Period in Austria
The year 1918 marked a turning point in several ways: Firstly it was the end of the First World War and the Habsburg Empire, which lasted for 645 years. And secondly, the death of the artists Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser and Otto Wagner entailed a considerable hiatus in Viennese artistic activity. The Austrian provinces thus gained rather quickly in importance. The experience of wartime atrocities, the collapse of the Austrian monarchy, a strengthened sense for pacifism and certain social utopias led to existential bewilderment, which is reflected in the art of the era. And furthermore because of the lack of a decisive centre, the artistic work of the interwar period is particularly rich and diverse.
Based on selected masterpieces of Austrian art, the Leopold Museum presents a comprehensive overview of the manifold appearances of paintings of the interwar period and treats their importance which has been so far regarded as being not very high in the context of international developments. As successors to Cézanne, as exponents of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and especially of late Expressionism, Herber Boeckl and the Nötscher Kreis stand out in particular. In Nötsch, a small town in the Austrian province of Carinthia, a lose artist community gathered together in the early twenties. Beside Franz Wiegel, the leading figure of the Nötscher Kreis, Anton Kolig, is on view in the Leopold Museum which presents many of his most outstanding paintings.
The Collector Rudolf Leopold
When the great art collector and patron of the arts Rudolf Leopold died on 29 June 2010 aged 85 as director of the museum, that carries his name, he left a unique lifework behind. Collecting art was his purpose in life. This obsessions was by far not restricted to „Fin de Siècle“ Vienna but extended to Old Masters, colored peasant-cupboards, glass or gothic mortars.
When Leopold visited the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna for the very first time as a young medical student at the age of 22, he was so overwhelmed that he decided to study art history and to compile his own art collection. But since the Old Masters were of course way too expensive, he first acquired works of the 19th century. But when he happened across the artist Egon Schiele, he realized that Schiele was on a par with the Old Masters and on top of that affected issues of today’s world. Over the years thereby the largest and most prominent Schiele-collection in the world developed. Not least, it were the Schiele paintings of the Leopold collection exhibited in museums and exhibition halls all over the world that made Egon Schiele known internationally and shifted him into the first row of European artists. Leopold‘s catalogue raisonné with a first index of motifs, published in 1972 after years of work, is an unrivalled standard reference down to the present day.
Prof. Rudolf Leopold did not only campaign for Egon Schiele, but just as relentlessly for the appreciation of his contemporaries. Over the period of five decades and with the everlasting support of his wife Dr. Elisabeth Leopold, he compiled a collection consisting of over 5200 works of art, that were consolidated into the Leopold Museum – Private Foundation in 1994. Today, the Leopold Museum enjoys worldwide reputation and is one of the major attractions of Vienna.
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