Illustration: Mathilde Hrdlicka. Pillow lace collar, 1905.
Although lace making was by no means a new endeavour in Austria at the beginning of the twentieth century, it did take on a new direction and a new dynamism from that that had been seen through most of the nineteenth century. Within the confines of the cultural patchwork that was the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire, there was a whole panoply of traditional styles connected to the many nationalities that made up the Empire. Therefore, there was a wide-ranging choice of unique and individual craft skills ranging from Polish to Bosnian and Czech to Romanian with many others in between. Within this rich heritage if traditions was formed a contemporary movement for the advancement of lace-making in Europe.
Although the Central School of Lace-Making was founded in Vienna in 1879 and was producing exceptional work during the latter part of the nineteenth century, it was at the turn of the new twentieth century that the School and its lace work really began to be recognised internationally.
Illustration: Mathilde Hrdlicka. Needlepoint lace design, 1905.
There were a number of key players within the Central School of Lace-Making, including such names as Johann Hrdlicka, his wife Mathilde and Franziska Hofmanninger. It is the work of Mathilde Hrdlicka along with that of Hofmanninger that is particularly impressive. More importantly, it goes some way into explaining the new dynamism that was to envelop Austrian lace work. The School literally stripped back all the vestiges of European lace-making, and rebuilt the craft skill with an emphasis on a professional design process and an attention towards observationally inspired decoration. This meant that the natural world was to play a much larger role in lace design work and with that a much more natural and relaxed decorative feel was emphasised, one that perhaps could not be as clearly identified within the purer tradition of lace making.
The illustrations shown here are all lace design work produced by Hrdlicka in around 1905. They show how far the Austrian contemporary movement within the lace craft had progressed. Although there is a certain element of contemporary styling that could be called, at least superficially, Art Nouveau, the work is in fact much more part of the movement within Austria towards a contemporary Austrian style that was unique to Central Europe. Although all of the designs are the work of Hrdlicka at the Central School, it must be remembered that the actual lace-making itself could have taken place in a variety of schools throughout the Empire and so these pieces are not necessarily from Vienna itself.
Illustration: Mathilde Hrdlicka. Pillow lace design, 1905.
It could be said that Hrdlicka, along with a whole generation of designers, tutors and critics within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were moving the decorative world of Central Europe along relatively radical contemporary lines. Although lace itself does not necessarily lend itself to the radical and the contemporary, an attempt was made to restructure the craft in order to reflect the changing world, which included an emphasis on new forms of creativity.
One of the interesting points concerning the Central School of Lace-Making in Vienna was the fact that because the Austro-Hungarian Empire was relatively centralist in nature, it meant that the School itself was involved within education throughout the Empire. Therefore, the School was able to clearly spread its contemporary ideals throughout the many lace-making traditions of Central Europe. However, situations are rarely one-sided and it must be assumed that the various lace-making traditions across the Empire in their turn reflected back to the School. Therefore, in some ways at least the differing traditions, along with contemporary creativity, fused into a much stronger craft skills base. That stronger grounding in the contemporary was to outlast the Empire, and was in fact to continue within the schooling of the separate nations that were eventually to make up much of Central Europe and the Balkans. Many schools and colleges throughout the region have had and still do have a contemporary and modernist approach to the education and art, design and craft while still maintaining the parameters of tradition within those subjects. An attitude and system that is often overlooked by those in Western Europe and North America.
Illustration: Mathilde Hrdlicka. Pillow lace collar, 1905.
Although it may seem a small step to take in the large and long history of a craft skill as diverse as lace-making, the Austrian system promulgated by the Central School in Vienna, along with the likes of Hrdlicka, was lauded across Europe and North America in numerous publications. It was inevitably held up as an excellent example of a traditional craft skill that was being restructured and reinterpreted to the meet the needs of the new century and that of the contemporary world. What is important overall is not so much the attempt to restructure and redefine lace-making in central Europe, but the attempt to structure a craft skill as a profession. By establishing an educational school for lace-making, Austria was in some ways setting a certain standard of education for the decorative arts. This could only ever really be achieved by government intervention as in the case of the Central School of Lace-Making. It may in itself, not have set the standard for Europe as a whole, but government recognition of the professional teaching of art, design and craft went some way in defining the template for the modern European model of state funded Schools and Colleges of Art and Design.
Illustration: Mathilde Hrdlicka. Needlepoint lace design, 1905.
Vienna, 1890-1920
Art & Society: The New Art Movement in Vienna, 1897-1914
Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture, Design
Vienna 1900 (Memoires)
Vienna 1900: Art and Culture
Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty: Science, Liberalism, and Private Life
Klimt, Schiele, Moser, Kokoschka: Vienna 1900
Freud, Dora, and Vienna 1900
Rethinking Vienna 1900 (Austrian History, Culture and Society, 3)
Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889
Sacred Spring: God and the Birth of Modernism in Fin De Siecle Vienna
