Illustration: Walter Leistikow. Wallpaper design and frieze, c1899.
The German fine artist Walter Leistikow also produced a significant amount of design and decorative work between the years 1897 and 1902. He was particularly involved in textiles, tapestry, stained glass, furniture and wallpaper design. The wallpaper examples shown here which were reproduced in an 1899 publication of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration the leading fine art and decoration magazine of Germany if not Europe as a whole, are a clear and good example of his style.
Illustration: Walter Leistikow. Wallpaper design and frieze, c1899.
Leistikow was an important member of the Modernist art movement in Germany. In 1898 after showing work at the Royal Academy in Berlin for a number of years, a landscape by Leistikow was rejected as being below standard. This was a euphemism used by the establishment to denote the unacceptability of modern art. This rejection directly influenced the founding of the Berlin Secession, which very much like the Viennese Secession, soon proved more popular and entertaining than any of the establishment funded and sanctioned Royal Academy shows could ever be.
Illustration: Walter Leistikow. Wallpaper design and frieze, c1899.
Leistikow's approach to fine art was such that many of the new parameters used were seen to be more than appropriate when applied to the decorative arts. Therefore, during a relatively short period over the turn of the twentieth century, Leistikow produced work in both fine and decorative arts, hoping as so many did during this period, to blur the lines between the two art systems producing a genuine art that would be broadly inclusive of all aspects of the interior.
Regarding Leistikow's wallpaper design work during this period, it is one of originality, taking a definite fine art approach to the discipline. The work is refreshingly clean and contemporary and has little to identify it with some of the more obvious excesses of the Art Nouveau movement. It is interesting to note some of the elements that combine to make these wallpaper designs what they are. They can only be described as graphic in tone and quality and it must be remembered that Leistikow had been producing graphic artwork for the influential German Pan magazine since its first publication in 1895.
Illustration: Walter Leistikow. Wallpaper design and frieze, c1899.
Although Leistikow produced wallpaper design work for such a relatively short period of time and arrived at the discipline from a fine art perspective which is not always the best direction, he was able to produce work that should be seen as some of the leading design and decorative work not only in Germany, but in Europe in general.
Leistikow gave up design work in 1902 to concentrate again on his fine art painting. His reasoning was that he felt that the decorative arts could give a formulaic approach to creativity, which could well influence and reflect in his fine art work. It is unclear whether he meant that the two disciplines could not be combined, or at least work in some form of partnership as he had originally planned. However, he did not return to the decorative arts and died at the extremely early age of 42 in 1908.
Illustration: Walter Leistikow, 1903.
Walter Leistikow, Landschaftsbilder (Ars Nicolai Galerie) (German Edition)
Walter Leistikow (1865-1908): Maler der Berliner Landschaft (German Edition)
Das Leben Walter Leistikows. Ein Stück Berliner Kulturgeschichte
The Berlin Secession: Modernism and Its Enemies in Imperial Germany
Die Berliner Secession: Berlin als Zentrum d. dt. Kunst von d. Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (German Edition)
Arts in Germany: German Art, German Art Just Before the Third Reich, Zero Foundation, Erwin Faber, Kunsthalle, Berlin Secession, Kunstmuseum
BERLINER SEZESSION (The Berlin Secession)
Wallpaper: A History of Style and Trends
Pattern Design: Period Design Source Book
Wallpaper and the Artist: From Durer to Warhol
Wallpaper, its history, design and use,
Wall Papers for Historic Buildings: A Guide to Selecting Reproduction Wallpapers
