Illustration: Graslitz Lace School. Collar in needlepoint lace, c1905.
The Graslitz Lace School was one of a series set up and maintained by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Graslitz, which is present day Kraslice in the Czech Republic, was by no means the only school in the area that dealt with the teaching of traditional crafts. Bohemia was a particularly rich area for craft disciplines and the Austro-Hungarian authorities set up a number of schools that concentrated on furniture, stone carving, glass, metal, jewellery and ceramics craft work, as well as textile based disciplines such as weaving, embroidery, lace, rug making and basketry.
Many of the schools were founded at the end of the nineteenth century and the system itself was up and running well before 1900. However, this also means that all of the disciplines were firmly affected and influenced by the Art Nouveau movement and much of the lace work produced in the school was certainly affected by the decorative movement. However, the actual reasoning behind the craft school system was one based on the Arts & Crafts ideas and ideals of John Ruskin, whereby local sustainability and the propagation and continuation of traditional regional skills was actively encouraged.
Illustration: Graslitz Lace School. Lace pocket handkerchief, c1905.
The schools were set in place to encourage and diversify the various craft traditions throughout the Empire. Strangely they were both provincial and central at the same time. While regional characteristics and ethnic diversity was encouraged, at least to a certain extent, most of the design work which the students used in order to practice and perfect their skills base, was sent out from Vienna where a handful of experienced artists and designers produced the design work. This is particularly true of the Graslitz Lace School where decorative pattern work used by the students was directly derived from designs by Franziska Hofmanninger, Mathilde Hrdlicka and a small number of other designers who all worked in Vienna.
Interestingly, schools like the one set up in Graslitz, did have a certain amount of independence despite the fact that they were tied into a state framework. The language that schools used for teaching for example was not necessarily the official German or Hungarian language, but could reflect the local ethnic makeup of regions. Also, in the case of Graslitz, the local Bohemian traditions and styles were incorporated as much as possible into the design work, so that although Art Nouveau designs were sent out by Central Government, they could be tempered by local lace making techniques and practices. After all, the lace produced at Graslitz was by students who would have been expected to have graduated and then worked or taught within the local Bohemian lace craft industry.
Illustration: Graslitz Lace School. Drawn thread work, c1905.
The system was regularly monitored from Vienna, where a number of added initiatives were included such as regular touring exhibitions and libraries that kept many of the regions in contact with the latest ideas and stylistic thinking that was present in the capital.
All of the examples shown in this article were produced by students at the Graslitz Lace School in about 1905. They do range in both style and sophistication, some of which is down to the ability of the individual student, but also that of the designer in Vienna.
Although state run initiatives tend to be problematic and prone to funding and political problems, the Austro-Hungarian applied art schools network proved to be extraordinarily successful and found praise throughout Europe, as well as North America. The fact that the authorities within the Empire actually wanted the system to work, which is not always the case with government initiatives and programmes, added to its likelihood to succeed.
Illustration: Graslitz Lace School. Drawn thread work, c1905.
Although with the advent of the First World War and the eventual collapse and partition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which also proved to be the end of the applied arts network, the system had worked. By producing an optimistic blueprint for the practical and successful application of craft schools in a world dominated by industrial mass production, the Austro-Hungarian government had proved that hand-craft could be both a part of the contemporary world and organised in a fashion that made it work. That this was one of the few successful attempts to highlight and emphasise the craft tradition and the art of hand-work is perhaps a reflection of the institutional neglect by successive central governments of the importance that these traditions played and still could play within the economy and larger cultural heritage of both nations and regions of a contemporary Europe.
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