Art nouveau [antikvár]

Introduction The Final Chord and A New Beginning Josef Maria Auchentaller Book illustration From Vcr Sacrum, 1898 Color heliogravure, 202.2 x 202.2 era There are three kinds of reader: a first who enjoys without judging, a third who judges without enjoyment, and one in between, who judges with enjoyment and enjoys with judgment; it is this reader who actually produces the work of art anew. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe^ Cube and arabesque A work of art is created anew by ttie response ot its beholder - or, if instead ot Goethe we were to follow the words of Panotsky^ - it is the beholder's knowledge and experience which cause a work of art to evolve. It is possible to perceive every object aesthetically, whether a product of man or of nature, and it is a personal decision whether we view it aesthetically or not. Yet even if its creator intended, not every work of art is seen in an aesthetic sense. This is dependent on the dominance of certain influential criteria: do I react chiefly to the shape or to the subject, to the idea or to the content, and how do I associate these elements? The artist's intentions need an opposite pole; even consciously executed works of art are dependent on the "qualifications" with which the observer is armed. The conception of a work of art is determined by the observer's visual practice and intellectual and cultural knowledge, which in turn spark off the most diverse associations of ideas. This short digression is intended to further the understanding of Art Nouveau, on the one hand celebrated as the beginning of the Modern Style and as the first and last uniform style since the Baroque, and on the other dismissed as "ornamental hell", kitsch, and arts and crafts. The aesthetics of Art Nouveau is an aesthetics of contradiction; in order for these contradictions to be experienced as a work of art, a sufficient understanding of the object beheld is required which reaches far beyond visual perception. "Of course, every style is unique, but Art Nouveau is unique among styles."^ Before the incredibly high quality which Art Nouveau was to contribute to the artistic development of the 20th century can be applied as a criterion, this style, a relatively short-lived phenomenon of 25 years, must be respected as an achievement in its own right. "In the past, numerous artistic directions have called themselves 'modern'. We can disregard the fact that the builders of the first Gothic cathedrals differentiated between 'opus antiquum' and their work, 'opus modernum'. Even Rococo was termed 'style moderne' by its contemporaries. The style we call Art Nouveau was named 'modern style' in England around 1890."" Art Nouveau, "New Art", was and still is modern, and was and still is historical. The violent mutation of the turn of the century - the extremes of our present day and age are no fewer - hid the lure of a beautiful death and a catalyst for all kinds of new ideas still relevant to today's world. "We were all Art Nouveau artists. There were so many wild, crazy curves to those Métro entrances and on all Art Nouveau work that I rebelled and restricted myself almost exclusively to straight lines. Yet despite this, I still took part in Art Nouveau in my own way. Even if you are against a movement, you are still part of it."^ Cube and arabesque (ill. right and opposite page) are the pro and contra of the same movement, whose source lies in the same fund of philosophical, literary, artistic, and socio-reformative thoughts and ideas. It was these "qualifications", the cultural and political background, which shaped this principle of design. A great