![]() ![]() With the help of Freud’s discoveries in psychoanalysis the “immoral” was recognized as a source of creation. The emergence of an aesthetic subculture was a result of the search for an artistic community, a Künstlerschaft that would serve as a forum in which artists could awaken the desire for beauty and freedom of thought. Controversial transformations were also taking place in literature and philosophy. The Secessionists wanted to break that isolation, organizing and participating in international exhibitions and bringing foreign art to Vienna to cultivate the public taste. Because of its traditionalism, Vienna was considered provincial by the rest of Europe. ![]() While the aristocracy, the professionals, and the conservatives wanted to uphold traditional values, a new generation of modern artists and writers was emerging, advocating new views. As the multicultural empire itself, Vienna was not free from social tensions and became a hotbed of conflicting world views. At the time Vienna was also the medical center of the world it was where Sigmund Freud had come to practice psychoanalysis. Artists and writers from across the Austro-Hungarian Empire were drawn to the capital and its aesthetic life, its cafes and theatres. ![]() Since the days of the waltz, Vienna was famous for its culture. Its center had been newly rebuild and decorated with buildings designed by Otto Wagner. Vienna at the turn of the century was the place where the antiquated traditional order met twentieth-century modernism. The quest for psychological truth in art resulted in a scandal for Klimt however the door to a new type of artistic creativity had been opened, not only allowing artistic independence from the bourgeois convention, but also leading to increasingly radical critique of the status quo. The three University paintings represent the epitome of Klimt’s use of classical myth and symbolism to communicate a critique of the condition of modernity. Starting with the three paintings commissioned by the University of Vienna, Klimt embarked on a modernist quest, descending into the darkness of the unconscious and unveiling the instinctual drives that Freud had been writing about around the same time. Having established his reputation decorating several buildings along the newly designed Ringstrasse, Gustav Klimt took a daring step away from the tastes of the powerful patrons. This break led to the formation of the Vienna Secession and Vienna’s entrance in the ranks of the European avant-garde. The resigning artists believed that art and culture should be left to the artists, rather than statesmen. The dispute was not merely a conflict between contrasting aesthetics, but rather a question of value and status of art itself. On May 22, 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of artists to resign the Viennese Künstlerhaus, a state-sponsored art institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. (Carl Gustav Jung, The Undiscovered Self, 1957) Orpheus mourned her to the upper world, / And then, lest he should leave the shades untried, / Dared to descend to Styx… (Ovid, Metamorphoses) The pleasingness of the artistic product is replaced by chill abstractions of the most subjective nature which brusquely slam the door on the naïve and romantic delight in the senses and on the obligatory love for the object. Though seeming to deal with aesthetic problems, is really performing a work of psychological education on the public by breaking down and destroying their previous aesthetic views of what is beautiful in form and meaningful in content. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |