“Jugendstil – A Star was born in Munich”– with Ingvild Richardsen

Known and unknown items, new discoveries and research results are presented under this label. Here you will find published and unpublished key texts, magazines, books and letters on the modern art movement Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. This series includes interviews by Uwe Kullnick with Ingvild Richardsen, interviews by Uwe Kullnick and Ingvild Richardsen with art collectors and art experts, for example: Graham Dry, Beate Dry-von Zezschwitz, Mitchel (Micky) Wolfson Jr., and others . In addition, readings of key contemporary texts and book presentations.

“On the carpets by Obrist and von Eckmann, the whole splendor of the field flowers in the meadows of Rottach and Tegernsee suddenly seemed to blossom. It was unforgettable how these floral wonders suddenly appeared before our eyes! It was as if it was precisely here, in the field of applied art, that naturalism wanted to show its best, its strongest … All at once a whole series of new names became known…”

What the famous writer Max Halbe, who moved to Munich from Berlin in 1895, describes in retrospect in his memoirs is the sensational birth of a new style, a modern art movement in Munich that would later be labeled “Jugendstil”.

Bold colors, new shapes, sweeping lines, and floral ornaments are used; the artistic is combined with craftsmanship, architecture, and encompasses all areas of life: “Jugendstil is what they call any pot with an eerily stylized lily on it, or a woman with a crazy hairdo, or an orchid. …  Art Nouveau is the name given to chairs you can’t sit on, cupboards you can’t put anything in, glasses you can’t drink from, spoons you can’t eat with! It’s to get out of your skin,” was the mocking description of the Munich poet Hanns von Gumppenberg in retrospect.

Jugendstil is the German version of a revolutionary European modern art movement and art production that emerged in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria before 1900. The leading figures of this new art movement, which first emerged in England, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria before 1900. The leading figures of this new art movement, which first emerged in the European metropolises of London, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Vienna in the last third of the 19th century, were in close contact with each other. They influenced and inspired each other in their artistic endeavors.

Using new principles, an attempt was made to proclaim a new age in response to industrialization and historicism in Europe. The artists were looking for a style of their own time with its own character. Art and life were to be comprehensively reformed and brought together to form a new unity, a utopian, aesthetically determined form of life and society that would completely permeate the private sphere. The aim was to create a total work of art that would dissolve the boundaries between life and art. It was also the artistic transformation of functional everyday objects that characterized the paintings, furniture, jewellery, glassware, ceramics, textiles, and lamps of Jugendstil. The imitation of nature was important, for example, through curved lines or floral ornaments. Dark, symbolist designs also influenced the art and culture of the fin de siècle.

So-called Japonism played a decisive role. The unusual beauty and spirit of Japanese art captured and influenced the applied arts in Europe from the last third of the 19th century. Without the inspiration that Japanese art provided to Europeans, Art Nouveau would not have come into being.

The commitment and artistic sensibility of artists and art dealers of Jewish origin also played a decisive role in the emergence and development of this new modern style. (The programs will also deal with this hitherto completely neglected aspect).

 

 

The new art movement and production before, around, and after 1900, which ushered in artistic modernism, known in England as Arts and Crafts and in France as L’Art Nouveau, was given the name Jugendstil in Germany. This was around 1899 in connection with the legendary magazine Jugend, which was founded in Munich in 1895 by Georg Hirth, the publisher of the “Münchner Neueste Nachrichten.” The magazine “Jugend,”, first issued in January 1896, which saw itself as contemporary and modern, gave its name to the new style. Hirth, who played an immense role in the modern renewal movement and for Munich Jugendstil, also based the title “Jugend” for his magazine on the theatre play “Jugend” by Max Halbe, with whom Hirth was close friends: Hirth also cited the ‘Jugend’ mountain near Hohenschwangau in the Bavarian Alps as an inspiration for the magazine’s title. Hirth attempted to break up the ossified traditions of European painting by publishing a “treasure trove of forms,” books of models for the formation of a new taste and the development of a new art movement. It is, in fact, thanks to Georg Hirth that Munich was generally regarded as the city of Art Nouveau and Japonism around 1900.

Around 1896, Munich became the birthplace of German “Art Nouveau,” not only because of its name but also thanks to two Munich artists in particular: Hermann Obrist and August Endell, who moved to Munich in the early 1890s. From 1896 onwards, they, who were also active at the forefront of the Munich women’s movement, made their mark on the public with pioneering, iconic works. “Alpenveilchen” (“Cyclamen”) is the name of the wall-hanging, the revolutionary embroidery by Hermann Obrist, which has inspired all modern-minded people in Munich, Berlin, and London since the end of March 1896 and is still known today as “Der Peitschenhieb” („Whiplash“). Endell’s programmatic essay “Um die Schönheit” (“On Beauty”) is also revolutionary. In it, he settles accounts with the past and points the way to modernity.

In the summer of 1896, two art exhibitions were held in Munich, to which August Endell responded with a long essay: “Um die Schönheit – Eine Paraphrase über die Münchener Kunstausstellungen 1896,” published in a 29-page booklet. The cover is decorated with an ornament: a jet-black orchid. August Endell himself designed the cover and created this ornament. In his book, the author leaves hardly a good hair on the exhibited Munich artists and others, including Max Liebermann, Berlin, and Franz von Lenbach, and compiles a long list of their shortcomings. What is most significant, however, is that Endell also points the way to a new modern art.

Based on Professor Theodor Lipp’s epistemology, who was famous at the time and lectured at Munich University, Endell developed an aesthetic concept based on the theory of immediate emotional perception:

“… anyone who has only once felt the emotional impact of forms and colors will find in them a never-ending source of extraordinary and undreamt-of pleasure. … Who has never been enchanted by the delicious curves of the blades of grass, the marvelous inexorability of the thistle leaf, the tart youthfulness of sprouting leaf-buds, those who have never … been gripped by the great tranquility of vast masses of leaves and stirred to the depths of their souls know nothing of the beauty of forms.”

August Endell focuses on immersing himself in form and colour and the resulting feelings. He writes, “There are certain orchids that are among the most horrifying that one can imagine, that directly instill fear in us.” It is precisely this power that interests Endell in art. In fact, the root of his book cover lies in this quote: the stylized form of a many-armed, two-eyed, and very menacing-looking undersea monster, a kind of skull.

With his essay “Um die Schönheit” (On Beauty), he opens up new paths for art and lays the foundation for German Jugendstil.

The central importance of the artists’ colony in Schwabing and Maxvorstadt for the development of German Art Nouveau at the time is no secret. Still too little known is the major role that the Munich women’s movement played in this context for the emergence of Art Nouveau, especially the Munich photo studio Elvira and the protagonists of Munich Modernism.

Off to Munich (Ab nach München!)

Off to Munich was the motto everywhere in the last third of the 19th century. People were convinced that the dawn of the “new man,” the dawn of “modernity,” could only happen here. Everyone who was anyone moved to Munich. “Here there was no top and bottom, as in the class-conscious and status-conscious north, but rather a casual, pleasing coexistence, eye-catching going and letting go, only with occasional intervals through berserk outbursts of the Bavarian irascibility inherent in all phlegm. Variety, colorfulness, sensual pleasure, and not least comedy where the eye lingers,” wrote the writer Max Halbe. He was convinced: “that there was only Munich if you wanted art, this one Munich and no other city beside it.” Many responded to this call, and the steady influx of newcomers created a creative and fertile mix of old-established residents and foreigners.

Munich Shone (München leuchtete). With this opening sentence, Thomas Mann described the Munich of those years in his novella “Gladius Dei,” the special atmosphere and energy that was then hovering over Munich. In the 1890s, the years in which Munich Art Nouveau emerged, Munich was the city of superlatives, the city of stars, the city of meteoric careers. Famous magazines such as “Simplicissimus” and “Jugend” were founded here. In no other city were there as many scandals as in Munich, where the battles for modernity raged. Representing Germany, the liberation from the narrow customs and traditions of the Wilhelmine Empire took place here. It was from here that most of the provocations and attacks were launched—not only through literary, artistic, and architectural works but also through the new ways of life, lived and exhibited in Munich during this decade. Completely new roles as men and women were tested, new forms of cohabitation were tried out, and new forms of sexuality and eroticism were experienced. In fact, the dawn of the “new” man was taking place in Munich.

By the end of the 19th century, Munich had not only risen to become the second metropolis of the empire but had also become one of the most important art metropolises in Europe. But in 1899, the city also stood as the flagship of the modern women’s movement, as a beacon of German emancipation, as a city of modern, progressive, emancipated women.

The above text is based on Ingvild Richardsen’s (“Leidenschaftliche Herzen“). The book describes the emergence of Art Nouveau in Munich in the context of the women’s movement. Art Nouveau or Jugendstil  was also a focus of the exhibition “Eva’s Daughters” at the Monacensia in 2019. In addition, Atelier Elvira, a nucleus of Munich Art Nouveau , was presented by Ingvild Richardsen in the Graphic Cabinet of the Augsburg Art Collection (2022).

About the Author

The literary scholar and cultural historian, author, and exhibition curator Dr. Ingvild Richardsen studied in Würzburg, Siena, Bonn, and Munich. Since completing her doctorate at LMU Munich (2000), she has worked nationally and internationally as a researcher, lecturer, and author for universities, film, and television. She researches and publishes on European cultural history and the culture of remembrance, women’s movements, Jewish history, Jewish heritage, the Nazi era, modern art movements such as Art Nouveau , and international contexts. In 2020, she received the Zonta Club Fünf-Seen-Land Media Award for her books and films and the Mobility Research Award from Meiji University Tokyo, with which she works closely in an academic capacity (publications, lectures, conferences). She lives in Munich and works as a researcher at the University of Augsburg, where she carries out pilot projects and research projects.

* This translation was produced with AI deedle. AI poroximity assisted with spelling and grammatical errors and helped to improve the clarity and flow of the text in certain areas, while retaining the original meaning and style. Last view done by Graham Dry.