Viennese Art Nouveau Lace

Illustration: Franziska Hofmanninger. Lace design, c1899.

Although lace work is often thought to be traditionally bound up with distinctive regions of Europe, it has also had a relatively recent history as a design led craft. The craft of lace has in fact been involved in a number of eras where it has been closely associated with distinctive decorative art periods, one of the most creatively inspiring and original of these would have to be that of the Art Nouveau.

The Art Nouveau decorative era which was at its height during the last decade of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth century, was a particularly creative period with many designers and decorators incorporating, either wholesale or at least elements of its individual style into their work. There was little that was not incorporated into the style and Art Nouveau ranged from architecture, through to ceramics, glass, metal, wood, graphics, illustration, wallpaper and textiles.

Illustration: Franziska Hofmanninger. Lace design, c1899.

As far as textiles was concerned Art Nouveau could be seen in all of the mainstream textile manufacturing outlets as well as in hand craft. Therefore, there was Art Nouveau styled printed, woven, embroidered and lace textiles which could be seen in finished articles in both costume and interior fabrics. On the whole, much of the output was highly creative and although there was a certain element of formulaic work, this seems to have been a smaller percentage of the textile output than would be expected.

Europe being a continent made up of a complex patchwork of sometimes widely differing cultures, regions and ethnic groups, it is not surprising that one decorative style should be interpreted in a variety of ways and this is true of Art Nouveau. The style was interpreted in Russia for example, differently than it was in Spain, and likewise what appeared culturally suitable in Finland was interpreted differently in Italy. It is not therefore surprising that in Vienna Art Nouveau should be interpreted yet again as a relatively distinct and independent decorative style separate from not only other areas of Europe, but indeed other areas and regions within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

 Illustration: Franziska Hofmanninger. Lace design, c1899.

The five examples shown in this article are of Art Nouveau inspired lace design from Vienna. Four were produced in about 1899, while one is slightly later and was produced in about 1902; they are therefore perfect candidates for the style. One designer produced the design work for all five pieces, and that designer was Franziska Hofmanninger who was an important figure in the expansion of Austrian lace into the contemporary world of Art Nouveau.

It has to be remembered that Art Nouveau was a style that many in Europe were suspect of and in some cases openly hostile to. The contemporary can often discomfit individuals and groups; hostility is often shown because of confusion, intransigence or just simply an unwillingness to accept the challenge of change and the refreshment of ideas. Art Nouveau was seen very much from the start as a passing fad, an affectation of the French imagination. However, the decorative style did not whither or simply go away, and the number of interpretations across Europe shows perhaps the strength of its creative adaptability, one that was hidden from some by its more obvious affectations.

Illustration: Franziska Hofmanninger. Lace design, c1899.

Hofmanninger chose to interpret, through lace, a series of delicate patterns largely based on floral motifs. While there is a certain element of languorous naturalism in her pattern work, much of the more overtly stylised interpretations found in the French and Belgian versions seem to be largely missing. While to a certain extent this could be seen as within the practicalities of the craft itself, it is also perhaps part of the differing style interpretation across Europe of the Art Nouveau movement. While Vienna was by no means denied the more overt styling that is synonymous with France and Belgium, there was perhaps less reliance on the super imposed affectation and more on the use of nature, and particularly floral work. 

Some of Hofmanninger's slightly later lace design work - Lace Work of Franziska Hofmanninger - is a little more naturalistic than the pieces shown here and is perhaps a little more reminiscent of the decorative work of Gustav Klimt for example. This does not necessarily imply that Hofmanninger either copied or was inspired by Klimt, although she might well have been. It does perhaps suggest that there was a core intrinsic approach to Art Nouveau that seemed more natural to Austrians than to others. This would be seen as part, of not the fragmentary aspect of Art Nouveau, but its ability to adapt and reflect the cultural dimensions of regional Europe, something every good decorative design era needs to address in order to be considered successful.

Illustration: Franziska Hofamnninger. Lace design, c1902.

Art Nouveau, although seemingly short-term in its longevity, did in part, give life to the following European Art Deco movement. Art Nouveau itself has to be seen as a particularly successful and wide-ranging decorative style that breathed new creative life into many of the manufacturing and hand craft disciplines and launched a large proportion of creative careers, some of which stretched well into the twentieth century.

Further reading links:

The Galician School

Illustration: Galician School. Copy of antique needlepoint lace, 1905.

The first thing to mention about Galicia is that this article refers to the Austrian province of Galicia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, rather than the region of North-West Spain. That the Austrian province no longer exists as an entity but has been subsequently incorporated within the modern boundaries of Poland and Ukraine should also be mentioned.

Galicia was the north eastern province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It had once been part of an independent Poland, a nation that had been ruthlessly carved up between the three Empires of Austria, Germany and Russia. Although not existing as a political entity throughout the nineteenth century, only reappearing at the end of the First World War, this by no means meant, despite the rigours of the three empires, that Poles and their culture disappeared. The identity of the Polish nation was maintained and reinforced, very often through cultural formats, so that the struggle for an independent identity could be maintained, as it was through the entire nineteenth century.

Of the three empires, the Austrian section of the Polish people was largely contained within Galicia, and relatively speaking, Galician Poles fared much better than those in Germany and Russia. The Polish cultural identity was both maintained and promulgated. The two major cities of the province Cracow (Krakow) and Lemberg (Lviv), both had Polish speaking universities, and Krakow especially became a focal point for a range of Polish creative endeavours including fine art, music, literature and various handcrafts. It was at Krakow that the Polish Arts and Crafts movement was largely centred.

Although the Austrian government of the nineteenth and early twentieth century is often seen as reactionary, intransigent and extremely heavy-handed when dealing with its different minorities within the Empire, there were attempts to promulgate some form of connectedness within the disparate groups. Austrian authorities were well aware that their empire was a multi-cultural construct that could easily fall apart without a concerted effort to maintain its cohesion. Although the authorities often insisted that German be the official state language and Austrians tended to fair much better within the Empire than many of the minorities, there was active definition and regionalism, particularly within the larger ethnic groups where native languages and cultural heritage and creativity were allowed to develop, relatively speaking.

Illustration: The Austrian Province of Galicia.

In the context of both tying together the different ethnic groups, but also allowing a certain amount of regional expression, a network of design schools were set up across the Empire. These often pursued art and craft disciplines that were native to regions, so that wood carving would be encouraged in one region, glass making in another and lace in yet another. The idea being that both employment and regional identity through craft could be developed. This would result in the production of state sanctioned decorative work that would in some ways express the positiveness of the multi-ethnic Empire, rather than its divisions.

 

As with the other schools across the Empire, the Galician School produced students that were intended to be both future teachers and makers. Although there was an element of regionalism within the schools and a connectedness with local communities and cultural formats, there was still a heavy reliance on centralisation and the belief that regional groups should owe allegiance to the Empire. Curriculums and standards were still maintained and enforced from Vienna and even much of the design work including lace patterns that students were to produce within the schools, were designed in Vienna and then sent out to each regional school. Some of these designs were produced in the latest styles, particularly that of Art Nouveau. However, others, as in the case of the example shown above, were reproductions of traditional design work which were sometimes Austrian, but often from various European origins. However, within any creative educational establishment, it is interesting to note how the local community, its traditions and cultural heritage often impinge. How much so was the case within the Austrian network of design schools and how that effected future teachers and makers is unknown. That it must at least have had an indirect effect seems probable.

In many respects this was an extraordinary adventure for a traditionally bureaucratic and reactionary government. Although not entirely unique, as different systems were being created in different parts of Europe, the system of design schools set up by the Austrian government was admired across Europe and was even discussed in North America.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled at the end of the First World War, and Galicia became part of the new Republic of Poland, some of the elements that had been part of the Austrian system were taken into the new Poland. Krakow for example, is still considered to be the cultural centre of Poland and the art, design and craft elements that had been such an important part of the of the Polish maintenance of their identity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was maintained and built on through much of the twentieth century.

Although the system of design schools was short-lived, after the dismantling of the Empire each newly independent region would have taken those design schools within its own system. Whether they decided to maintain, encourage or shut down the schools, would have been a decision only they could make.

Further reading links:
The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture
Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772-1914 (Rochester Studies in Central Europe)
Cracow (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
Cracow, the royal capital of ancient Poland: its history and antiquities
Cracow: An Illustrated History
Polish Art and Architecture, 1890-1980: An outline history of Polish 20th century art and architecture
Early Polish Modern Art: Unity in Multiplicity
Out Looking In: Early Modern Polish Art, 1890-1918
An Outline History of Polish Applied Art
Cracow: A treasury of Polish culture and art
A Survey of Polish Literature and Culture

Wallpaper Design by Emanuel Josef Margold

Illustration: Emanuel Josef Margold. Wallpaper design, c1910.

Wallpaper design work is often looked down upon as one of the lesser decorative skills. William Morris was particularly sneering and saw no real creative value or point to wallpaper pattern work. However, that did not stop him from producing prodigious rolls of the stuff throughout most of his career and to a certain extent, it could be said to have kept Morris & Co afloat through the most difficult economic times of the company.

Wallpaper design work is often indicative of a specific design style and can be easily identified and associated, often more so than textiles, with a particular decorative era. Sometimes wallpaper pattern work could even be slightly ahead of the more generalised decorative periods, and examples of wallpaper work can be seen that pre-empted a number of the major interior styles and movements, particularly in the twentieth century. However, even when considering nineteenth and indeed eighteenth century wallpaper work, styles and pattern work were often relatively immediate and topical. Whether this had more to do with the immediacy of the medium, compared to other areas of interiors such as textiles and furniture, or whether it had more to do with the large number of companies involved in the business of wallpaper making and the extreme competition that that engendered, is to be debated.

Wallpaper decoration and the professional designers that fed the industry, usually on a freelance commission basis, were wide-ranging and covered a host of skills from illustration to architecture. Many had little or no experience in the basics of wallpaper design, which is a technical as well as creative occupation. That a large proportion of designers, both commissioned and employed by wallpaper companies were primarily textile designers, suggests a similarity in both design fields. This would help to explain why textiles and wallpaper design are often so closely linked as disciplines when discussing the history of interiors.

The Austrian architect and designer Emanuel Josef Margold produced the two wallpaper designs that illustrate this article at the turn of the first decade of the twentieth century, in about 1910. Margold was known to have produced a range of work during the early twentieth century that included printed and woven textiles, embroidery, and wallpaper design. He was a member of the Wiener Werkstatte where he was for a while Josef Hoffmann's assistant. This relationship often gives the impression that Margold's work was derived from that of Hoffmann, and while there is a certain similarity, it only really corresponds when seen in the larger light of Austrian and German Jugendstil decoration. It has to be remembered that while Margold was indeed a member of the Wiener Werkstatte, he was also a one time resident at the Darmstadt Artists' colony, and also a member of both the German and Austrian Werkbund. This perhaps gives Margold a much larger and more comprehensive appreciation of the decorative arts in Central Europe before the First World War, and also that of his place within it, than perhaps the generalised moniker of being an assistant to Josef Hoffmann.

Illustration: Emanuel Josef Margold. Wallpaper design, c1910.

As to the two examples of his decorative wallpaper work, both appear bold, strikingly confident and graphically motivated. Neither show any of the complexity and involved style that was popular in both France and Britain. To be fair there was an element of pairing down and simplifying of wallpaper design even in France and Britain, although both came to this result from different directions, which was often the result of revivals and historical precedents. However, neither country was involved in modern ideals on anywhere near the scale produced in Central Europe. The movement in Germany and Austria was very much a matter of looking for new concepts and ideas and using many of the new skills being rapidly developed in both architecture and illustration.

This initial discovery and exploration was to become an unstoppable movement that would take decoration and pattern into a whole new area of exploration during the 1920s and 1930s. Inevitably due to the start already made by Margold and others like him throughout Germany and Austria in the first decade of the twentieth century, the notion of true modernism and the exploration and development of that decorative ideal went much further and faster than that of France with its conservatively and elitist led Art Deco formula. 

That decoration and pattern itself was to suffer the shock of being removed or at least disassociated from architecture, and to an extent interiors by the Modernist movement, has led to a seemingly permanent disruption of the central role decoration played for centuries in the cultural life of Europe. That Modernism generally saw the decorative arts as an irrelevance, is still very much with us today and can clearly be seen when considering the very subservient role that the decorative arts play in the world of contemporary architecture.

This was clearly not in the minds of those who designed wallpaper pattern work in 1910. However, the direction of increased simplicity on all fronts of the decorative arts during this period, does beg the question as to the reasoning behind the simplifying and de-cluttering of interiors. It seems as if there was perhaps more significance to the downsizing and eventual downgrading of decoration and pattern than being merely that of the removal of the more ornate excesses of late Victorian decoration and the increasingly scientific approach to health and interiors. Not a conspiracy as such, but perhaps a generalised shift in emphasis and ideal.

Further reading links:
Wallpaper: A History of Style and Trends
Pattern Design: Period Design Source Book
Wallpaper, its history, design and use,
Twentieth-Century Pattern Design
German Modernism: Music and the Arts (California Studies in 20th-Century Music)
Exotic Spaces in German Modernism (Oxford Modern Languages & Literature Monographs)
The Total Work of Art in European Modernism (Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought)
Erich Mendelsohn and the Architecture of German Modernism (Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity)
German Cities and Bourgeois Modernism, 1890-1924
German Encounters with Modernism, 1840-1945
The Divided Heritage: Themes and Problems in German Modernism
Wiener Werkstatte: 1903-1932 (Special Edition)
Wiener Werkstatte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932
Textiles of the Wiener Werkstatte: 1910-1932
Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstatte
Wiener Werkstatte: Avantgarde, Art Deco, Industrial Design (German Edition)
Wonderful Wiener Werkstatte