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From Brocades to Silks and Powders: Women's Art Exhibitions and the Formation of a Gendered Aesthetic in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Julie Marie Johnson
Julie Marie Johnson
Affiliation:
Visiting Lecturer in Art History, Indiana University Northwest
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Type
Forum: New Views of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 28 , January 1997 , pp. 269 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1997

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References

1 Members of the Eight Women Artists were Wisinger-Florian, Olga, Egner, Marie, von Eschenburg, Marianne, Granitsch, Susanne, Müller, Marie, Munk, Eugenie, Feodorowna-Ries, Teresa, and Tarnoczy, Bertha; “Empfang bei den Acht Künstlerinnen,” Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt, 01 18, 1902, 6.Google Scholar

2 On November 15, 1902, Olga Wisinger-Florian wrote to Marianne von Eschenburg: “I found out, among other things, that the government wanted to take us women painters seriously, and to put us on the same level as the Hagenbund, Secession, and Künstlerhaus in foreign exhibitions! Now just when we were so stupid to stop, they saw that one could not count on us”; Wiener Stadtbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung I.N. 65902. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

3 Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs. I. Ausstellung. Die Kunst der Frau. 11–12 1910. XXXVII.Google Scholar Ausstellung der Vereinigung bildender Künstler Österreichs, Secession, Vienna.

4 By Modernism I mean the ideas that hardened into a doctrine: the celebration of individual genius and the history of progress and the affirmation of the essential nature of the artwork (and in the history of art this has most often meant a progression toward flatness in painting, and an aesthetics of autonomy that was expressed most famously by Clement Greenberg). By modernism with a small “m” I refer to Vienna's own debates on what should constitute modern art (die Moderne); the definition was in dispute and had not yet hardened into a doctrine. I distinguish modernism from modernity (meaning contemporaneity, a break with the time and way of life that preceded it, and the processes of social and economic change resulting from technology and urbanization). It is the doctrine of Modernism that ultimately excluded the art of the woman from positive consideration, especially in the American academy, but here I am especially considering modernism as it was in dispute in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

5 Pollock, Griselda, Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art (London, 1988).Google Scholar

6 Plakolm-Forsthuber, Sabine, Künstlerinnen in Österreich 1897–1938. Malerei, Plastik, Architektur (Vienna, 1994)Google Scholar, is the most notable exception.

7 Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Shedel, James, Art and Society: The New Art Movement in Vienna, 1897–1914 (Palo Alto, Calif., 1981)Google Scholar; Wiegenstein, Jane, “Artists in a Changing Environment: The Viennese Art World, 1860–1918” (Ph.D. diss, Indiana University, 1980).Google Scholar

8 Vereinigung Österreichischer bildender Künstler und Künstlerinnen, 1899; Wiener Künstlerbund, 1901; Wiener Kunst im Hause, 1902; Wiener Werkstätte, 1903; Österreichischer Künstlerbund, 1905–6, headed by Anton Hlavacek (this group has often been confused with the Bund Österreichischer Künstler, Klimt's group, which appears to have allowed women to become members, and recoiled from rules and regulations); Wirtschaftsverband bildender Künstler Österreichs, 1914, an umbrella organization that welcomed all unions, regardless of gender.

9 Visitors to the exhibitions there rode up in a glass elevator, which still exists, as does the union (1., Maysedergasse). The other three women's unions were the Verein der Schriftstellerinnen und Künstlerinnen in Wien (Union of Women Writers and Artists in Vienna, 1885), which also still exists; the Kunstschule für Frauen und Mädchen (Union of the Art School for Women and Girls, 1897), which held annual exhibitions of its students' works; and the Radierklub der Wiener Künstlerinnen (Engraving Club of Viennese Women Artists, 1903), which sold by subscription portfolios of diverse prints.

10 The 8 Künstlerinnen und Ihre Gäste exhibited annually and semi-annually with Pisko, usually around the month of January. They invited European women artists to exhibit with them, usually including over ninety paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. The first exhibit took place in 1901, the second in 1902, the third in 1904, the fourth in 1906, and the fifth in 1909.

11 These self-professed old-fashioned critics used a parodic, often humorous and witty style; Gustav Klimt himself was the object of many of their essays. A single newspaper might publish the gamut of critical views, in which more forward-looking critics advocated the artist's viewpoint, explaining modern art to the public, while the humorists took the role of the bemused spectator, affronted by the spectacle of the new.

12 “Wo ich den gebrauchsgegenstand ornamental mißbrauche, kürze ich seine lebensdauer.… Diesen mord am material kann nur die laune und ambition der frau verantworten” (Loos, Adolf, “Ornament und Erziehung,” in Sämtliche Schriften [Vienna, 1962], 395).Google Scholar The feuilletonistic conflations and stylistic obfuscations that Karl Kraus is known for crusading against also inspired architect Adolf Loos to formulate a specific sense of what modernism (“die Moderne”) should signify. In this essay I am spending some time analyzing the writers whom the modernist would dismiss (both then and now) in order to reconstruct some of the debates around women artists; see Wigley, Mark, “White Out: Fashioning the Modern,” in Architecture: In Fashion, ed. Fausch, Deborah (New York, 1994), 148–268Google Scholar; and Wagner, Nike, Geist und Geschlecht. Karl Kraus und die Erotik der Wiener Moderne (Frankfurt am Main, 1982).Google Scholar

13 I attend to this publishing boom in my dissertation.

14 St.-g, “Künstlerinnen und ihre Gäste,” Neue Freie Presse, 01 13, 1901, 9.Google Scholar This fear of the enemy within—the imagined other who belongs to a powerful secret society—has been more familiarly linked to constructions of Jews.

15 Purchases are noted in records of the Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv and correspondence of Olga Wisinger-Florian, Wiener Stadtbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung. One member of the Eight sardonically noted their success with the fashionable set in 1902, complaining that when the women of “ganz Wien” came, Pisko was so flattered that he played with the prices for them; Marie Egner Tagebuch, in Marie Egner—eine österreichische Stimmungsimpressionistin, ed. Suppan, Martin and Tromayer, Erich (Vienna, 1981), 64.Google Scholar

16 Folnesics, J., “Erste Ausstellung der Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs,” Österreichische Rundschau 25, no. 5 (1910): 410–12.Google Scholar

17 Zifferer, Paul, “Im Atelier der Frau,” Neue freie Presse, Morgenblatt, 11 13, 1910, 1–3.Google Scholar

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Folnesics, , “Erste Ausstellung,” 410–12.Google Scholar

22 Wagner, Walter, Die Geschichte der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Vienna, 1967), 265.Google Scholar

23 There were over three hundred works exhibited, primarily paintings and sculptures. The show preceded by several decades the women's art retrospective curated by Linda Nochlin and Anne Sutherland Harris, which was similar in content (in the historical section); see the exhibition catalog by Nochlin, and Harris, , Women Artists, 1550–1950 (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

24 B. G., Neues Wiener Journal, Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

25 The members of the installation committee were Olga Brand-Krieghammer, Helene Baronin Krauss, Ilse Twardowski-Conrat, Josef Engelhart, and Friedrich König. Critic R. von Enderes noted the intention to exhibit works whose origins particularly correspond with “feminine nature” in “Die Frauenkunstausstellung in der Wiener Secession,” Neuigkeits-Weltbühne, 11 25, 1910Google Scholar, Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat. Such an exhibition required and received cooperation from the government, yet scant records make it difficult to determine how close it came to the original vision of the women organizers. Use Conrat, vice president of the union, described organizing the exhibition in her manuscript memoirs and recalled experiencing enormous difficulties with the male jurors of the Secession (manuscript memoir, 23.III.1939, Nachlaß Ilse Twardowski-Conrat, Tagebücher, Briefe, Stadtarchiv München). I am grateful to Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber for generously sharing materials from the Twardowski-Conrat Nachlaß with me.

26 Martha tadelt ihre eitle Schwester now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and is attributed to Simon Vouet. On grim ladies, see Heller, Reinhold, “Some Observations concerning Grim Ladies, Dominating Women, and Frightened Men around 1900,” in The Earthly Chimera and the Femme Fatale, ed. David, and Gallery, Alfred Smart (Chicago, 1981), 1–15.Google Scholar

27 Zifferer, , “Im Atelier der Frau,” 1–3.Google Scholar

28 Hauer, Karl, “Weib und Kultur,” Die Fackel 213 (1906): 5–10Google Scholar; Ortner, S. B., “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” in Woman, Culture and Society, ed. Rosaldo, M. Z. and Lamphere, L. (Stanford, Calif., 1974).Google Scholar

29 Josef Strzygowski, “‘Die Kunst der Frau’ Feuilleton,” Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

30 Roessler, Arthur, “Kunstausstellungen. Wien,” Kunst und Künstler 9, no. 4 (1910): 204–5Google Scholar; , K. R., Der Cicerone 3 (1911): 29–30.Google Scholar

31 Pollak, Friedrich, “Die Frauenkunstausstellung der Sezession,” Der Morgen (Vienna), 11 28, 1910.Google Scholar For another complaint that women's “impressionistic exaggerations” would have been “better left out,” see Sch-r, “Die Kunst der Frau (37. Ausstellung der Sezession),” Deutsches Volksblatt (Vienna), 11 5, 1910Google Scholar (evening edition), Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

32 Schreder, Karl, “Die Kunst der Frau (Ausstellung in der Sezession),”Google Scholar Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

33 Strzygowski, , “‘Die Kunst der Frau’ Feuilleton.”Google Scholar

34 On the aesthetics of the detail, see Schor, Naomi, “Gender: In the Academy,” in Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

35 Zifferer, , “Im Atelier der Frau,” 1–3.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 Pollak, , “Die Frauenkunstausstellung der Sezession.”Google Scholar

38 See, for example, Kokoschka's 1910 Portrait of August Forel, in which he painted Forel in a decrepit state; two years later Forel suffered a stroke and took on the decrepit look. “[Kokoschka is a] man who slits open souls; simply by painting the hands and the head he lays before us in an eerie way the spiritual profile of the subject. This cruel sort of psychotomy is strongly reminiscent of vivisection”; Ehrenstein, Albert, Menschen und Affen (Berlin, 1925)Google Scholar, cited in Werkner, Patrick, Austrian Expressionism, trans. Parsons, Nicholas (Palo Alto, Calif., 1993), 83.Google Scholar

39 Weininger, Otto, Geschlecht und Character (Vienna, 1903)Google Scholar; Haeckel, Ernst, The Riddle of the Universe, trans. McCabe, Joseph (New York, 1902).Google Scholar On monism, see Gasman, Daniel, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism (London, 1971).Google Scholar On gender bias in science, see Russett, Cynthia Eagle, Sexual Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)Google Scholar; Birken, Lawrence, Consuming Desire (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988)Google Scholar; and Mosse, George L., Nationalism and Sexuality (New York, 1985).Google Scholar

40 Schreder, , “Die Kunst der Frau (Ausstellung in der Sezession).”Google Scholar

41 Tietze-Conrat was the sister of sculptor (and curator) Ilse Conrat (“Die Kunst der Frau. Ein Nachwort zur Ausstellung in der Wiener Sezession,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst N.F. 20, no. 6 [1910]: 146–48Google Scholar). The view is most succinctly articulated by Friedell, Egon, “Die entdeckte Frau,” in Abschaffung des Genies, ed. Illig, Heribert (Vienna, 1993).Google Scholar

42 Zifferer, , “Im Atelier der Frau,” 1–3.Google Scholar

43 Pollak, , “Die Frauenkunstausstellung der Sezession.”Google Scholar

44 The phrase “economy of the senses” was coined by Robert Nelson for a conference of the same name held at the Chicago Institute for the Humanities, April 16–18, 1996. In The Analysis of Sensations, trans. Williams, C. M. (New York, 1959)Google Scholar, Ernst Mach implied that humans perceive sensation equally, regardless of gender. Jacques Le Rider suggests that Ernst Mach's ideas created a masculine identity crisis; Otto Weininger and Ernst Haeckel, for example, attempted to reinsert gendered identities into their new views of the world (Rider, Le, Modernity and Crises of Identity, trans. Morris, Rosemary [New York, 1993]).Google Scholar See also Garb, Tamar, “Berthe Morisot and the Feminising of Impressionism,” in Perspectives on Morisot, ed. Edelstein, T. J. (New York, 1990), 57–66.Google Scholar

45 Deutsches Tagblatt, 11 8, 1910Google Scholar, Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat. For an extended discussion on woman's suggestibility as a positive quality, see Filek, Egid, “Das Weib und die Kunst,” Neues Frauenleben 14, no. 8 (08 1902): 1–6.Google Scholar

46 “Parlare di un'arte austriaca sarebbe un errore.… Appena negli ultimi anni si comincia a notara un'arte—locale e non nazionale—viennese. Quindi sarebbe opera vana andar in cerca di un'art femminile austriaca nel passato, come nel presente”; Alessandra Duda, La Donna, Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

47 Mandler, Ernst, “Die Frau in der bildenden Kunst”Google Scholar; -o-, “Die Kunst der Frau,” Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.

48 “Az asszony a müvészetben” (The woman in the field of art: A stroll through the Viennese Secession exhibit), Pesti Naplé, 11 13, 1910Google Scholar, Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat. I am grateful to Louis Szathmary for translating this review.

49 A. F. Seligmann, Feuilleton, “Die ‘Ausstellung der Frau,’” Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat; Kuzmany, Karl, “Die Kunst der Frau. Zur Ausstellung in der Wiener Secession,” Die Kunst für Alle 25 (1911): 193–202Google Scholar; “Aus dem Wiener Kunstleben,” Kunst und Kunsthandwerk 13 (1910): 703–6.Google Scholar

50 Mandler, , “Die Frau in der bildenden Kunst,” Nachlaß Twardowski-Conrat.Google Scholar

51 Bovenschen, Silvia, “Is There a Female Aesthetic?” New German Critique 10 (Winter 1977): 111–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Showalter, Elaine, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness,” Critical Inquiry 8 (Winter 1981): 179–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Higonnet, Anne, Berthe Morisot's Images of Women (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar