Illustration: Valentin Hrdlicka. Rug design, c1909.
The Czech architect Valentin Hrdlicka produced work across the present day Czech Republic and Slovakia during a lifetime that saw his Czech home start as an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Bohemia and Moravia, and eventually end as an independent Czechoslovakia. Although chiefly an architect by profession, like most architects for generations before the twentieth century, Hrdlicka produced work in a number of disciplines including illustration and textiles. He produced this rug design in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Although not necessarily unique in its generalised style and composition, it does show a vibrancy and freshness, considering the more traditional fare in rug and carpet design that was still both available and popular in the early years of the twentieth century. In the twenty first century we are perhaps more aware of the scope and breadth of carpet and rug design and the number of different styles and techniques that can be brought into place in order to produce work that expands the creative ability of the discipline. However, in the early twentieth century, before the First World War, carpet and rug design was still very much considered to be one of the more traditional interior accessories, and while it is true that compared to the end of the nineteenth century, design work was beginning to find new and more expansive ways in which to express a uniqueness that it could call its own, much of this experimental work was still very much outside the scope of the average consumer.
New, and to many, relatively disturbing departures from the traditions of the European decorative arts, were limited to small sections of the community that were either interested in being included within the formats and ideas being unfolded in the early years of the new century, or were involved in the often complicated relationship with artists, architects and designers in the form of patron. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire for example, some wealthy individuals were more than happy to display new ideas and products commissioned from rising stars in the decorative and fine arts, within their official residences. However, others, although still commissioning, relegated the works to summer of winter homes, those that were not strictly official residences.
However, there was a brisk trade in the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the avant-garde in general, whether that be through the fine or decorative arts. In the last two decades of the life of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before its dismantling at the end of the First World War, a complex balance of decoration which often combined both fine and decorative arts, appeared in the Austrian capital Vienna, particularly through the work of the Secession and the Wiener Werkstatte. However, ideas concerning the future of fine and decorative art and their combination or otherwise were not limited to Vienna. The Empire, being a multinational affair meant that in some respects at least, there existed a number of regional centres outside that of Vienna and Budapest. These regional centres, which in fact often had national status, vied with Vienna for prestige in the arts. Therefore, Kracow in the east for example, was at the centre of a Polish re-emergence of traditional Polish art and crafts, formulated into new dimensions for the twentieth century. In the west meanwhile, Prague which was often seen as the Empire's third city after Vienna and Budapest, and certainly second only to Vienna in the Austrian sector of the Empire, was keen to see itself as a patron of the arts and particularly those of the new century.
In many respects Czechs saw themselves as perhaps one of the more sophisticated regions of the Empire, and despite a certain amount of ingrained Austrian elitism against non-German speakers, Czechs were liberally included within the arts of the Empire, with many individuals and companies supplying the fine and decorative arts, as well as that of music and architecture. In this respect, Hrdlicka's career can be seen as an interesting reflection of the status of the region, whether through self-imaging within the region itself, or indeed as seen by those outside the borders. He did not go to Vienna to either study or practice architecture, though admittedly a number of Czechs did gravitate towards the obvious capital. However, it does show that if Hrdlicka could practice both his own independent creative ideas concerning architecture and design, along with the ideas that were percolating throughout Central Europe during the early years of the twentieth century, without leaving Bohemia and Moravia, then this gives some indication of at least an element of the potential of a sophisticated audience for his work within his own homeland.
This is to say, that at least to some extent, Vienna was not necessarily the only creative centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the start of the twentieth century. It was by all means the most important, but that does not negate the many different ethnic and national centres of the Empire that saw a genuine shift in art and decorative perspectives at the beginning of the century. Centres that would have included the modern cities of Budapest, Prague, Kracow, Brno, Zagreb, Trieste, Ljubljana, Sarajevo and others. All would have felt to some extent at least, the gradual cultural shift in perspectives that the new century seemed to portray.
Further reading links:
Czech Cubism: Architecture, Furniture, and Decorative Arts 1910-1925
Vienna Secession 1898-1998: The Century of Artistic Freedom (Prestel Art)
Art-Nouveau Prague
A Guide to Czech & Slovak Glass
Devetsil: Czech Avant-garde Art - Architecture and Design of the 1920's and 1930's
Czech Modernism: 1900-1945
Art for Travellers Prague: The Essential Guide to Viewing Art in Prague
Czech modern art 1900 1960: The National Gallery in Prague : modern art collection, the Trade Fair Palace (Czech Edition)
Prague & Art Nouveau
Prague 1900
Alphonse Mucha: The Spirit of Art Nouveau
Art & Society: The New Art Movement in Vienna, 1897-1914
Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture, Design
Art Nouveau: Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Taschen's 25th Anniversary Special Editions Series)
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (Art and Ideas Series)
Art Nouveau 1890-1914
Art Nouveau (Architecture and Design Library)
Art Nouveau (World of Art)
