Illustration: Alexander von Salzmann. Embroidered cushion designs, c1910.
Alexander von Salzmann was of German origin but born and raised in Georgia a province in the then Russian Empire. In many respects Salzmann was a fine art painter by profession. He studied in both Moscow and Munich and set up a studio in Munich in 1900 along with Adelbert Niemeyer and Carl Strathmann.
It is known that Salzmann produced work in a range of fine art disciplines including fresco. He was also involved in stage design and had connections with a number of creative people involved in music and dance in both Germany and Georgia, mostly through his ballet dancer wife. However, he is perhaps not so well known for his embroidery design work which he produced at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century.
Illustration: Alexander von Salzmann and Charlotte Krauss. Embroidery designs, c1911.
Embroidery design was particularly popular during this period and both the Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration and Dekorative Kunst magazines which were both influential and popular in Germany and had been since their initial publication at the very end of the nineteenth century, featured regular articles concerning the latest developments in both contemporary German and British embroidery.
All four of the illustrations for this article feature embroidery work designed by Salzmann. However, two of the illustrations also feature work by another embroidery designer Charlotte Krauss. That there is very little difference between the two styles of design work perhaps says more about the underlying style trends of the era and perhaps of the market for embroidered goods in Germany than it does necessarily about the individual designers themselves.
Illustration: Alexander von Salzmann. Embroidered cushion designs, c1910.
The work is both colourful and relatively unstructured with naturalistic styled flora and fauna taking precedence over any other decorative motif or pattern repeat. This can be seen perhaps in comparison with one of leading contemporary British designers who worked largely in embroidery, Ann Macbeth. Macbeth's work tended towards the geometric very often with a relatively strict format, usually being framed within large bordered areas. To be fair Salzmann has produced decorative embroidery work using the same large borders, but because he has taken the step of using the background material colour as his border, the pattern work does not appear to be perhaps quite as strict as the work of Macbeth for example.
There is a certain amount of playfulness on the part of Salzmann's work and it has to be wondered how much of his interest in music and dance was incorporated into these embroidered pieces. They show a love of colour and line that seems almost spontaneous and certainly brings to mind some of the elements that were to appear in the earlier phase of the Art Deco decorative style that was to appear after the First World War.
Illustration: Alexander von Salzmann and Charlotte Krauss. Embroidery designs, c1912.
Most of the work shown does tend towards contained central pattern work or bordered areas, styles that are often part of the embroidery vocabulary, particularly when considering that embroidery is often perceived as a craft skill that deals with embellishment, often of a secondary nature. However, Salzmann also produced pieces that entailed the entire available space, producing compositions that dominated rather than supported the product. This can be seen clearly in the third illustration which shows some of Salzmann's work for fully embroidered cushions. They are as bold and attention seeking as the cushions with white surrounding frames as in the first picture. However, by filling the space the cushion in some respects becomes the embroidery, rather than the embroidery sitting on the cushion. This gives the full embroidery cushions a more dynamic and tactile quality, as if it were somehow less precious. Whether this has anything to do with neutral framing or specific placement, is uncertain. However, it does question the role that embroidery has played throughout history as both support and overlay to other fabrics and particularly to that of ceremony, where embroidery skills were often used for display purposes and aggrandisement of individuals and social groups.
It is interesting to note therefore how embroidery can be both formal and playful depending, to a certain extent at least, on the style and situation of the embellishment.
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