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| Jugendstil | |
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  _(8728647639).jpg) Top: Ernst Ludwig House at theDarmstadt Artists' Colony; Center: cover ofJugend magazine byOtto Eckmann (1896); Bottom: Dining room ofPeter Behrens in Darmstadt (1900–1901) | |
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| Years active | c. 1896–1914 |
| Location | Germany |
Jugendstil (German pronunciation:[ˈjuːɡn̩tˌstiːl]ⓘ; "Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in thedecorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910.[1] It was the German and Austrian counterpart ofArt Nouveau. The members of the movement were reacting against thehistoricism andneo-classicism of the official art and architecture academies. It took its name from the art journalJugend, founded by the German artistGeorg Hirth. It was especially active in the graphic arts and interior decoration.[2]
Its major centers of activity wereMunich,Vienna andWeimar and theDarmstadt Artists' Colony founded inDarmstadt in 1901. Important figures of the movement included the Swiss graphic artistHermann Obrist,Otto Eckmann, the Belgian architect and decoratorHenry van de Velde, as well as the AustriansOtto Wagner,Joseph Maria Olbrich,Gustav Klimt, andKoloman Moser, among others. In its earlier years, the style was influenced by the BritishModern Style. It was also influenced by Japanese prints. Later, under theSecessionists' influence, it tended toward abstraction and more geometrical forms.[1]
From 1898 to 1903, The Vienna Secession, led byGustav Klimt andMax Kurzweil published the journalVer Sacrum (magazine), an important chronicle of many of the groups artistic contributions to the world of art and design.
TheSecession Building, completed in 1898 byJoseph Maria Olbrich in Vienna, is widely regarded as one of Europes most noteworthy early modernist buildings in the style of the Vienna Secession.
The movement had its origins inMunich with the founding of an association of visual artists in 1892, which broke away from the more formal historical and academic styles of the academy.Georg Hirth chose the nameMunich Secession for the association. Later, theVienna Secession, founded in 1897 and theBerlin Secession took their own names from the Munich group. The journal of the group,Jugend, begun in 1896, along with another Munich publication,Simplicissimus andPan in Berlin, became the most visible showcases of the new style. The leading figures of this movement, includingPeter Behrens,Bernhard Pankok, andRichard Riemerschmid, as well as the majority of the founding members of the Munich Secession, all provided illustrations toJugend.
In the beginning, the style was used primarily in illustrations and graphic arts.Jugendstil combined floral decoration and sinuous curves with more geometric lines, and soon was used for covers of novels, advertisements, and exhibition posters. Designers often created original styles of typeface that worked harmoniously with the image, such as theArnold Böcklin typeface created in 1904.
Otto Eckmann was one of the most prominent German artists associated with bothJugend andPan. His favourite animal was the swan, and so great was his influence that the swan came to serve as the symbol of the entire movement. Another prominent designer in the style wasRichard Riemerschmid, who made furniture, pottery, and other decorative objects in a sober, geometric style that pointed forward towardArt Deco. The Swiss artistHermann Obrist, living in Munich, made designs with sinuous double curves, modeled after plants and flowers, which were a prominent motif of the early style.
TheDarmstadt Artists' Colony is a remarkable collection ofJugendstil buildings created beginning in 1899 byErnest Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, a grandson of Queen Victoria, to promote both commerce and the arts. He brought together a group of designers to create his new community, includingPeter Behrens,Hans Christiansen, andJoseph Maria Olbrich.[3] The Colony architecture represented a complete break with the earlier floral style, and was much bolder in its design. Behrens and several of the other architects built their own houses there, and designed every detail, from the doorknobs to the dishes.[4]
The most impressive building of the Colony is the Ernst-Ludwig House, named for the Grand Duke, which contained the workshops of the artists. It was designed by Olbrich, with an entrance in the form of a three-quarter circle, flanked by two statues,Force andBeauty, by Ludwig Habich (1901).
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The Norwegian town ofÅlesund suffered a disastrous fire[5] on 23 January 1904. With the support ofKaiser Wilhelm II of Germany the town was reconstructed in Jugendstil by local Norwegian designers and architects.[6] To honor Wilhelm, one of the most frequented streets[7] of the town is named after him.
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The city ofWeimar was another important center of theJugendstil, thanks largely to the Belgian architect and designerHenry van de Velde. Van de Velde had played an important role in the early Belgian Art Nouveau, building his own house and decorating it in Art Nouveau style, with the strong influence of the BritishArts and Crafts Movement. He was a known in Germany for his work in Belgium and Paris, and began a new career in Dresden in 1897, with a display at the Dresden Exposition of decorative arts. His work became known in Germany through decorative arts journals, and he received several commissions for interiors in Berlin, for a villa inChemnitz, theFolkwang Museum inHagen, and the Nietzsche House inWeimar forElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of philosopherFriedrich Nietzsche. He settled in Weimar in 1899 and produced a wide variety of decorative works, including silverware and ceramics, all in strikingly original forms. His silverware was particularly unusual: each piece had its own form, with sleek curving lines, but together they formed a harmonious ensemble. In 1902, he decorated the apartment of CountHarry Kessler, a prominent patron of the Impressionist painters.[8]
In 1905, with the patronage of the Grand Duke of Weimar, he created the Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar. He created a showcase of applied arts for the Dresden Exposition of Applied Arts in 1906, decorated with paintings byLudwig von Hofmann, intended as the main room of a new museum of decoration in Weimar. He transposed the characteristics of his silverware, dishes, and furniture into the architecture. Van de Velde left off the curling vegetal lines of Art Nouveau decoration and replaced them with much simpler, more stylized curves which were part of the structure of his buildings and decorative works.[8]
The importance of Weimar as a cultural center of theJugendstil was ended in 1906, when its main patron, Count Harry Kessler, commissionedRodin to make a nude statue for the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke was scandalized, and Kessler was forced to resign. The Weimar school of design lost its importance until 1919, when it returned as theBauhaus underWalter Gropius, and played a major part in the emergence ofmodern architecture.[9]
The architect and designerPeter Behrens (1868–1940) was a key figure in the final years of theJugendstil, and in the transition to modern architecture. Born inHamburg, where he studied painting, Behrens moved to Munich in 1890 and worked as a painter, illustrator and bookbinder. In 1890, he was one of the founders of theMunich Secession. In 1899, he was invited to participate in theDarmstadt Artists' Colony, where he designed his own house and all of its contents, including the furniture, towels and dishes.
After 1900 he became involved inindustrial design and the reform of architecture to more functional forms. In 1902, he participated in the Turin International Exposition, one of the first major Europe-wide showcases of Art Nouveau. In 1907, Behrens and a group of other notableJugendstil artists, includingHermann Muthesius,Theodor Fischer,Josef Hoffmann,Joseph Maria Olbrich,Bruno Paul,Richard Riemerschmid, andFritz Schumacher, created theDeutscher Werkbund. Modeled after theArts and Crafts movement in England, its goal was to improve and modernize the design of industrial products and everyday objects. He first major project wasAEG turbine factory in Berlin (1908–1909). Behren's assistants and students at this time includedMies van der Rohe, C. E. Jeanerette (the futureLe Corbusier), andWalter Gropius, the future head of theBauhaus. The work of Behrens and the Werkbund effectively launched the transition from theJugendstil to modernism in Germany, and the end of theJugendstil.[10]
In Berlin,August Endell was both editor ofPan magazine and a major figure inJugendstil decoration, designing hotels and theaters, such as the interior of Buntes Theater in Berlin (1901), destroyed during World War II. He designed every detail of the interior down to the nails. with each room in a different color, and on a different theme. He also designed theHackesche Höfe, a complex of buildings in the centre of Berlin, noted for the imaginative details of the decoration, in spirals and curling forms,
The most prominent graphic artist wasOtto Eckmann, who produced numerous illustrations for the movement's journalJugend, in a sinuous, floral style that was similar to the French style. He also created a type style based upon Japanese calligraphy.Joseph Sattler was another graphic artist who contributed to the style through another artistic journal calledPan. Sattler designed a type face often used inJugendstil.
Another important German graphic artist was Josef Rudolf Witzel (1867–1925), who produced many early covers forJugend, with curving, floral forms which helped shape the style.
The magazineSimplicissimus, published in Munich, was also noted for itsJugendstil graphics, as well as for the modern writers it presented, includingThomas Mann andRainer Maria Rilke. Important illustrators for the magazine includedThomas Theodor Heine.
The ideal of designers of theJugendstil was to make a house a complete work of art, with everything inside, from the furniture to the carpets and the dishware, silverware and the art, in perfect harmony. With this ideal in mind, they established their own workshops to produce furniture.
August Endell,Theodor Fischer,Bruno Paul, and especiallyRichard Riemerschmid were important figures inJugendstil furniture.
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Metallwarenfabrik Straub & Schweizer (WMF) was, by 1900, the world's largest producer of household metalware, mainly in theJugendstil style, designed in the WMF Art Studio under Albert Mayer. WMF purchased Orivit, another company known for itsJugendstil pewter, in 1905.
