WORKSHOP
is a new educational feature on First European Shippings website
that focuses on Hungarian art, design, applied arts and architecture
of the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries. Topics include
avant-garde painters as well as applied arts such as ceramics, mosaics
and stained glass and new essays with photographs will be added
each month.
While Hungarian artists and designers have historically created
works similar to their Western European counterparts, they tend
to be less well-known - and therefore under-valued - outside of
Hungary. To know the historic reasons for the evolution of various
styles, to comprehend the social milieu of a certain period, and
to learn about the development of certain materials that made new
styles and new modes of visual expression possible, all contribute
to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the fine and applied
arts of Hungary during this time.
Turn-of-the-century Vienna and
the Wiener Werkstatte
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Detail
of vitrine
Possibly produced by the Wiener Werkstatte, c. 1905-1910
Lemonwood with ebonized decoration
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Two typical
chair designs of the Wiener Werkstatte, c. 1905, executed by the J & J Kohn
factory. Bent beechwood, reupholstered.
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Josef
Hoffmann
Chair from the "Buenos Aires" set J & J Kohn Factory c. 1905, original condition
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Table
by Otto Prutscher
, Wiener Werkstatte designer Mahogany, c. 1905 Executed
by a private furnituremakers' workshop
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"So long as our cities, our houses, our rooms, our furniture, our effects, our
clothes and our jewelry, so long as our language and feelings fail to reflect
the spirit of our times in a plain, simple and beautiful way, we shall be infinitely
behind our ancestors."
--Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, from the manifesto of the Wiener Werkstatte,
published 1905
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Gustav Siegel
Display for the Kohn brothers, Paris world's fair 1900
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Like the Biedermeier period that dominated style in most of German-speaking Europe
from 1815-1848, the Wiener Werkstatte style was a total design concept that pervaded
all aspects of everyday life - ranging from furniture and porcelain to lighting
fixtures, jewelry and flatware. The Werkstatte was founded in 1903 in Vienna by
designers Hoffmann and Moser, as well as the patron Fritz Warndorfer. It was a
collective of designers and craftspeople whose works are characterized by functionality;
clean geometric lines; simple, high-quality materials; and organic patterns inspired
by plant life.
"We wish to establish intimate contact between public, designer and craftsman,
and to produce good, simple domestic requisites. We start from the pubpose in
hand, usefulness is our first requirement, and our strength has to lie in good
proportions and materials well-handled," stated Moser and Hoffmann, who remained
two of the Werkstatte's most influential designers.
The Werkstatte was clearly following in the footsteps of previous utopian arts
movements such as Arts and Crafts, and certainly some of their ideals echo that
of John Ruskin and William Morris. But the crucial difference is that the Werkstatte
was truly the first movement that combined an emphasis on high-quality craftsmanship,
design and materials with modernism and mass production. Previous movements had
opposed the use of any machine and instead placed primacy on works done completely
by hand.
The group saw itself in a way that can almost be described as 'messianic.' Part
of their complex mission was to escape the weighty Historicist movements that
had characterized much of art and architecture throughout the 19th century by
creating designs that were simple, new, and suited to modern life. Yet they also
sought to 'save' society from the soulless, poor-quality mass manufacturing operations
that were beginning to come into the furniture industry.
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Josef Hoffmann,
"Sitzmachine", stained beechwood,
1904
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By 1906 the Wiener Werkstatte designers were regularly included in various officially-sponsored
international trade expositions, and also opened a new salesroom in Vienna. Their
projects were quite eclectic. Some were expensive, site-specific, unique, complete
design concepts such as the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. But while the wealthy
patrons of Viennese society provided them with many of their most spectacular
commissions, the group also placed a great deal of emphasis on simple furniture
and objects that could be mass-manufactured and thus accessible to a larger share
of the public, particularly the growing middle class. In this the group collaborated
with the J & J Kohn and Thonet factories, which was already by that time manufacturing
bent beechwood furniture on an extremely high quality of level and with a wide
variety of excellent designs.
Although Wiener Werkstatte furniture and decorative objects were sought after
from the beginning, the venture was never particularly financially successful,
many of the key designers died during or shortly after World War I, and the movement
came to an end well before the start of World War II.
While the Werkstatte members designed and executed all manner of functional objects,
it is the furniture that is the most readily available today. The furniture is,
in accordance with the group's principles, based on artistic, functionally-oriented
designs and executed in high-quality but simple materials. For Hoffmann in particular,
who was an architect by training, furniture design was an outgrowth of architecture,
an integral part of the home environment.
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Wiener Werkstatte,
fabric designs, executed by Joh. Backhausen und Shne
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Nearly a century after the movement was founded, the forms of Wiener Werkstatte
furniture are still highly pleasing to the eye. Their proportions are human. Their
decorative elements are perfectly integrated into their functions. Furthermore,
they are comfortable to use and can harmoniously share a space with Art Deco,
Secessionist, Craftsman, Biedermeier or even contemporary furniture. It is not
surprising that Wiener Werkstatte furniture has gained so much in popularity in
recent times.
Sets of nesting tables, parlor sets, and a spectacular variety of
chairs created by the Wiener Werkstatte designers are relatively
easy to find in the antique galleries of Central Europe today, but
the array of available pieces is constantly changing and rare, one-of-a-kind
or limited edition pieces are often found as well. For more information
on how we can help you acquire Wiener Werkstatte furniture for your
own home, please contact First European Shipping at
taylorj@firsteuropeanshipping.com
SOURCES
:
Elle Decor magazine, Nov. 2024
Kallir, Jane. Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstatte.
Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
The Nagybanya school of painting
The Nagybanya school of painting is one of the seminal influences in Hungarian
art of the last century. It was a fertile garden that - over many seasons from
its foundation in 1896 to its dissolution 1937 - yielded several generations of
painters diverse in styles and ideas but united in philosophies and intellectual
influences.
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Zdiszlv
Hercik:
Before dinner
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Sandor Szolnay:
Nagybanya Landscape
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Oszkr Nagy:
Calvinist Church of Nagybanya
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Istvn Kastly:
View from the hill
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The art colony's founding generation included Istvan Reti, an erudite theoretician
who was the first to truly define the movement's role. Other founding members
included Janos Thorma, Bela Ivanyi-Grunwald, and Karoly Ferenczy.
Nagybanya and surrounds - which was within Hungary's borders when the school was
founded but following World War I and the Treaty of Trianon was part of territory
awarded to Romania - provided an endless variety of light and scenery for the
naturalistic, French-influenced plein-air painting that was the Nagybanya painters'
hallmark.
Although later generations of the school diverged from the ideas of the founding
artists, most of Nagybanya painting is characterized by the direct observation
of real life and nature, rendered with rich colors in a naturalistic approach.
The Nagybanya painters' original artistic influences included the Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists as well as Bastien-Lepage; their philosophical influences
included Benedetto Croce. Reaching even further into the past, the group was also
influenced by Constable and the Barbizon School, the paintings of which they could
have viewed on several occasions as young artists in Budapest. As Reti stated
in the foreword to the catalogue of the Nagybanya exhibition in 1912, "it was
the Nagybanya group of artists who have brought modern art to stay and be acknowledged,
and revived artistic morals."
Paintings by Nagybanya painters - from those of the founding painters
and more famous representatives of the later generations to those
of lesser-known students - often are available at Budapest's galleries
and auction houses. Please email
taylorj@firsteuropeanshipping
for more information.
Zsolnay Ceramics
A visitor to Budapest with a keen eye for beauty cant help but marvel at what
an extraordinarily prolific factory Zsolnay must be. How could one factory in
the medium-sized southern Hungarian city of Pecs be responsible for thousands
of brilliantly-colored roof tiles, hundreds of ornamented facades, and constellations
of dinnerware, vases, urns, cache-pots and figurines?
In
Hungarian applied arts, the turn of the 20th century is of particular interest
because of the movement known alternately as Art Nouveau, Secessionism and Jugendstil.
Hungarian designers embraced Secessionism and its organic forms, use of ancient
design motifs from Egyptian, Aztec, Sumerian, Mesopotamian or other sources. Yet,
because of their strong desire to express a truly Hungarian style, they forged
their own version of Secessionism that incorporated folk art, medieval architecture
and oriental motifs that expressed the eastern, mysterious origin of the Hungarian
people. This principle expresses itself in all the applied arts, including Zsolnay
ceramic work.
The
Zsolnay factory, which was already a well-established company employing 800 people
by the end of the 19th century, achieved particularly high international acclaim
between 1898 and 1908. Vilmos Zsolnay, who had purchased the factory from his
brother in 1865, developed a special formula for ceramic tiles and architectural
sculpture. This was what would later become known as pyrogranite, an extremely
compact, high-fire ceramic that was also frost resistant, making it ideal for
building facades and garden furnishings. Initially it was used as a substitute
for stone for such features as balcony supports and column capitals as well as
decorative friezes. Often the pyrogranite was richly colored and brightly glazed.
Shortly after the development of pyrogranite came eosin a highly-durable metallic
glaze that imbues an almost supernatural luster and magical color. High-quality
eosin pieces (like those pictured here) impart the illusion of being illuminated
from within.
Zsolnay
sought to compete with high-quality ceramic wares from Austria and the Czech
republic, and so he brought in highly-skilled craftsmen from all over Europe to
oversee production, scientists to develop new glazes, and designers in a continual
effort to make the firms wares the most spectacular in Europe. Most of Budapests
most spectacular Secessionist buildings are decorated with Zsolnay elements, including
the Liszt Academy of Music and the Museum of Applied Arts. Individual decorative
tiles, planters, vases, dinnerware and other Zsolnay objects can be found from
the flea markets to the most elegant galleries and auction houses.
For information on Zsolnay items for sale, refer to our
catalogue under
PORCELAIN
. Also see WROUGHT
IRON for information on our
custom-designed
wrought iron
home and garden furniture using salvaged Zsolnay architectural
elements
SOURCES:
Eri Gyongyi and Zsuzsa Jobbagyi, eds. A Golden Age: Art and Society
in Hungary 1896-1914. Greenhalgh, Paul. Art Nouveau: 1890-1914. Lorinczi Zsuzsa,
ed. Budapest in Detail. Mu-terem Gallery, Budapest
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