Illustration: Hans Karl Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas. Rug design, c1898.
Hans Karl Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas was a Swiss artist and designer who produced a range of work in Germany during the latter years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century. he was involved in fine art painting, architecture and interior design as well as ceramics, metalwork, jewellery and furniture design.
Berlepsch who did not add Valendas to his name until 1902, in order to both disassociate himself from and avoid confusion with the German politician of the same name, was deeply involved in the German Art Nouveau movement in Munich. Growing up in rural Switzerland he was always close to the natural world and had a fascination with all aspects of nature whether large or small. Berlepsch's father was also keen on a range of scientific interests which included botany, biology and geology and these were passed on to Berlepsch as a boy. This all gave the artist and designer a perfect background in which to interpret and gain inspiration for Art Nouveau, a movement with the appreciation of nature at its core.
Berlepsch was also to produce a certain amount of textile work including these two rug designs produced at the very end of the nineteenth century. Although not necessarily in the same mould or style as mainstream Art Nouveau, they lend themselves much more to the traditions of carpet design in Asia, they do still use nature as their base. However, Berlepsch has gone much further than either an observational approximation of the natural world, or even the highly stylised versions of nature seen within Art Nouveau. These rug designs are quirky and playful with the first example even appearing as a strangely surreal landscape.
In some respects they are good examples of Berlepsch's own philosophy and creative background. He was well versed in medievalism with an early interest in the French Gothic revivalist Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. He also had a particular interest and love of Classicism which he gained from a former tutor Gottfried Semper. He travelled widely in Europe, from Bulgaria and Dalmatia to Spain, Italy and England where he studied for a while under both William Morris and Walter Crane. It is this personal and wide-ranging fascination with so many forms of traditional and contemporary art, design and decoration that gives Berlepsch's work such an appeal as it has such a fascinating historical vocabulary as well as being versed in the contemporary, the marriage of the two always giving infinitely superior results in the long term.
Illustration: Hans Karl Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas. Rug design, c1898.
This wide ranging curiosity that was so much a large part of Berlepsch's character, can be seen with his interest in Japanese art and craft. Sometimes the interest that European artists, designers and craftspeople showed in traditional Japanese work can be misleading, as it was not always the Japanese style itself that interested Europeans, but that of the underlying creative philosophy and practical purpose that connected Japanese art, design and craft.
Berlepsch himself was fascinated with the fundamental and practical principles of Japanese art and craft traditions. He saw the Japanese system of art and craft as having a much closer connection to the basic elements of the natural world. He believed that Europe had had the same system as the Japanese for much of it early creative history. He felt that if the innate consideration and connection with nature that the Japanese shared naturally within their art and craft traditions, could be regained within Europe's own art and craft system, then the German Art Nouveau movement could be the tool in which to achieve that aim.
Art Nouveau had as its central theme the love of nature and its reflection through decoration. Berlepsch wondered if this could then become a real, dynamic and fundamental tool in which to shift the emphasis of European decorative arts away from that of a dependency on the retail, fashion and money systems. A real foundation made from a fundamental connection between nature and art that many in Europe felt the individual Japanese artist and craft person shared, could change the European art, design and craft system for generations if not indefinitely.
That much of this was speculative interest on the part of Berlepsch and others like him, does not negate the fact that he was both fascinated and intrigued by all aspects of art and decoration from the tiniest detailing to the grandest of theories. This makes Berlepsch a particularly fascinating and intriguing creative individual in his own right.
Further reading links:
Art nouveau in Munich: Masters of Jugendstil from the Stadtmuseum, Munich, and other public and private collections
ART NOUVEAU IN MUNICH, MASTERS OF JUGENDSTIL
Jugendstil Guertelschlieýen / Art Nouveau Buckles: Sammlung Kreuzer / The Kreuzer Collection
Art Nouveau; A Paris Londres Vienne Munich
Modern Style: Jugendstil/Art Nouveau 1899-1905
Jugendstil aus Nurnberg: Nuremberg Jugendstil
Bruno Paul: Deutsche Raumkunst und Architektur zwischen Jugendstil und Moderne (German Edition)
Jugendstil Building, Majolikahaus, Vienna, Austria Photographic Poster Print by Walter Bibikow, 32x24
Jugendstil. Möbel, Glas, Keramik, Metalle, Lampen, Schmuck, Uhren.
Schmuck-Kunst im Jugendstil At Nouveau Jewellery
