Graslitz Lace School

 

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.

Further reading links:

Contemporary Bohemian Lace 

Pictorial Archive of Lace Designs: 325 Historic Examples (Dover Pictorial Archive Series) 

Art & Society: The New Art Movement in Vienna, 1897-1914 

Vienna, 1890-1920 

Vienna 1900 (Memoires) 

Vojtech Preissig: Art nouveau from a flourishing period of Czech culture

Art-Nouveau Prague

Prague 1900

Identification of Lace (Shire Library) 

Pictorial Archive of Lace Designs: 325 Historic Examples (Dover Pictorial Archive Series) 

Beginner's Guide to Bobbin Lace 

Antique Lace: Identifying Types and Techniques (Schiffer Book for Collectors) 

Renaissance Patterns for Lace, Embroidery and Needlepoint (Dover Pictorial Archives) 

Guide to Lace and Linens 

Bohemian Embroidery

Illustration: Egerland embroidered cuff.

Bohemia is the westernmost region of the modern Czech Republic and for centuries was part of the multi-ethnic and sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bohemia itself was, to a certain extent, an example of at least a bi-ethnic community with both Czech and German towns and communities within its regional borders.  The embroidery within this article is generally Bohemian in context, but to be more specific it concerns what was generally known as Egerland embroidery. Egerland, surrounding the town of Eger, modern day Cheb, was in the extreme western area of Bohemia and was until as recently as the end of the Second World War, largely populated by those of German descent.

Illustration: Egerland embroidered cuff.

In this respect, it is probably wise to differentiate, at least partially, between German and Slav embroidery in the region. All the examples of embroidery shown here are of Ederland and therefore German origin. The rest of Bohemia tended to follow the larger Slavic tradition of national costume with large areas of embroidery work. However, Ederland embroidery was much more localised, and became more so the closer we get to the twentieth century where modern clothing replaced much of the traditional national costumes of the area. Embroidery became limited to much smaller areas of decoration, particularly around the cuffs of shirts and blouses.

Traditional Egerland colours for embroidery work tended to contain large amounts of blue and yellow, rather than the predominant red of Slavic embroidery. Whether the colour variation was used to differentiate regions and ethnic divisions is unclear, although the Egerland population's natural and consistent sympathy towards German culture, whether that be Austria itself or neighbouring Bavaria, rather than with the Slavic Czechs in the rest of Bohemia, may have something to do with the consistency of colour.

Illustration: Egerland embroidered cuff.

What is interesting about the design work shown here is how closely at least some of the examples are to the decorative work produced at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly by those designers associated with the Wiener Werkstatte. This groundbreaking and popular decorative movement, which was founded in 1903 and was to dominate the decorative arts of Vienna for at least a decade or more, was dominated in its turn by what at the time was considered traditional peasant art. The regional diversity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire proved a particularly rich resource for the designers of the Werkstatte.

Bohemia was connected directly to the Wiener Werkstatte on a number of levels. At least a dozen of the large contingent, who worked for the Werkstatte over its lifetime, were born within Bohemia or Moravia, including Josef Hoffmann himself. Factories and workshops within the region also supplied products with the distinctive Wiener Werkstatte look, particularly in glass of which Bohemia was and still is famous.

Illustration: Egerland embroidered cuff.

Although no sweeping statements can be made about designers with Bohemian or Moravian backgrounds swamping the Werkstatte with ethnically derived decoration, it is within the realms of possibility to say that at least some of the background and initial ideas of an artist or designer can originate from childhood memories and neighbourhoods. Josef Hoffmann himself has gone on record as admitting that his Moravian background influenced at least some of his Werkstatte decorative work.

Whatever the reasoning behind any influence on the Werkstatte itself, the design work shown here is fresh, lively and unpretentious. There is little of any classically static engineering of the decoration, with work appearing to be both bold and spontaneous. This general style of embroidery work which could be found across Central and Eastern Europe provided an enormous inspirational vocabulary for a number of schools, organizations and movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is certain that its influence, at least to some extent has been downplayed by the perceived influences of more exotic areas of the world outside of Europe. Perhaps this has more to do with European ethnic and regional decoration being judged as largely unaesthetic and broadly amateur in quality and nature. However, this makes it all the more important to recognise as an influence on the decorative arts of Europe.

Illustration: Egerland embroidered cuff.

Egerland Embroidery, like all other regions of European embroidery work, has a decorative list of parameters that makes it unique within the larger European framework. It is this regional uniqueness, all with separate vocabularies, that has allowed European embroidery to become such a rich, diverse and influential medium that has spread well beyond its own craft.

Further reading links:
Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary
Wiener Werkstatte: 1903-1932 (Special Edition) 
Embroideries & Patterns from 19th Century Vienna (Embroideries & patterns from nineteenth century Vienna from the Nowotny collection)
Goddesses and their offspring: 19th and 20th century Eastern European embroideries
Wiener Werkstatte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932
Textiles of the Wiener Werkstatte: 1910-1932
Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstatte
Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques, and Patterns from All over the World
Embroidered Textiles: A World Guide to Traditional Patterns