Bey Ond Klimt

KLIMT New Horizons in Horizons in New Central Europe BEYOND BEYOND KLIMT Did the deaths of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser, political and ideological boundaries. A sense of community and Otto Wagner in 1918 mark the end of an era in the art of was fostered, for example, through artists’ associations, avant- the countries of the former Habsburg Monarchy? What new garde journals like MA, the International Exhibition of Theater trends were already emerging before 1914 and the First World Technology in Vienna, and schools like the Bauhaus in Weimar. War? What effect did the new nation-states have on the com- In 1938, the violent dictatorships that led to the Second mon interests of artists, and how did they respond? Progressive World War put an end to this creative period and obscured artistic movements thrive on the exchange of ideas and reject the perception of a shared culture. BEYOND KLIMT Gustav Klimt The Golden Knight, 1903 Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya New Horizons in BEYOND Central Europe KLIMT Content ∙ Foreword 6 ∙ The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy and its Aftermath in Arnold Suppan 8 the Interwar Period A ARTISTIC DIVERSITY AT THE END OF THE HABSBURG MONARCHY ∙ Gustav Klimt’s Late Work and his Relationship with the Franz Smola 24 New Viennese Avant-Garde ∙ In Search of a Tradition of the Future: Markéta Theinhardt 34 Notes on Several Czech Artists From Preisler to Filla ∙ Beyond Rippl-Rónai: Gergely Barki 40 Expressionist Trends in Hungarian Art ∙ “Everyone is striving to move on.” The Collapse Stephanie Auer 48 of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its Impact on Austrian Expressionism ▪ Plates 58 B WAR AND DISILLUSIONMENT ∙ Documentation and Propaganda: Arnika Groenewald- 116 War Painters in the Service of the Habsburg Monarchy Schmidt ▪ Plates 121 C PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES—REVOLUTION AND REBIRTH ∙ “The heart of Austria is not the center, but the periphery”— Gábor Dobó, 142 Avant-Garde Journals in East-Central Europe Merse Pál Szeredi ▪ Plates 153 D INTERNATIONALIST ART ∙ To the Bauhaus! Éva Bajkay 174 ∙ Artists from the Successor States of the Austro-Hungarian Flóra Mészáros 182 Monarchy and the Group Abstraction-Création in 1930s France ∙ The Rise and Fall of Avant-Garde Theater in the Countries Barbara Lesák 188 of the Former Austro-Hungarian Empire ∙ Not Master in His Own House— Judith Elisabeth 194 Topologies of Surrealism and Freud’s Legacy Weiss ▪ Plates 201 E VARIATIONS ON THE FIGURATIVE ∙ Magical Hideaways: Gabriele Spindler 268 Fantastic Trends in Austrian Art Between the Wars ∙ New Objectivity or New Realisms? Ivo Habán 278 Trends in the Successor States of Austria-Hungary, with a Special Focus on Czechoslovakia ▪ Plates 290 F EMIGRATION—PERSECUTION—RESISTANCE ∙ Migration: Motivation and Artists’ Fates Alexander Klee 340 ∙ Gesellschaft or Gemeinschaft? Kurt De Boodt, 350 Visions for Europe: Erwin Hanslik, Otto Neurath, Paul Dujardin and Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi ▪ Plates 361 APPENDICES ∙ Artists and List of Works 370 ∙ Index of Persons 378 ∙ Concordance of Place Names 380 ∙ Authors 386 ∙ Notes on Typography 390 ∙ Picture Credit 391 ∙ Colophon 392 Front cover of cover Front Integral (detail), vol. 1, no. 3, Bucharest, 1925 3, Bucharest, 1, no. vol. (detail), C Psychological Studies — Revolution and Rebirth “The heart of Austria is not the center, but the periphery”— 142 Avant-Garde Journals in East-Central Europe Gábor Dobó Merse Pál Szeredi “The heart of Austria is not the center, but the periphery”— Avant-Garde Journals in East-Central Europe1 Gábor Dobó, Merse Pál Szeredi C 142 “The heart of Austria is not the center, but the periphery. avant-garde magazines became part of European art You won’t find Austria in the Alps—chamois, yes, and discourse, even assuming a trend-defining role within edelweiss and gentians but barely a hint of the double- it. Moreover, they gave writers in the countries of the headed eagle. The substance of Austria is drawn and former Monarchy and beyond a platform that enabled replenished from the Crown Lands.” (Joseph Roth, The them to remain in contact, despite language, ethnic, Emperor’s Tomb, 1938, ch. 5) and national barriers5 (fig. 1). The East-Central European avant-garde jour- After the end of the Austro-Hungarian Monar- nals of the 1920s utilized the ground prepared for them N chy, the editors of avant-garde journals in the by the “little magazines” in what was a crisis-ridden geo- successor states developed radical concepts political context, to say the least. In fact, in his influential that questioned the former function of art and work The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, artists. In East-Central Europe, until the end of Commu- Eric Hobsbawm interpreted the period from the start of nism around 1990, the latter were ascribed a prophetic World War I to the end of World War II as a single war.6 role inherited from the romantic nationalism of the nine- The once multilingual and multinational Monarchy frag- teenth century and carried over into the individual nation- mented into individual nation-states, which often closed al cultures, which the avant-garde of the time sought themselves off and, moreover, in which many millions to overcome. Artists now regarded themselves as mem- of people found themselves in a minority situation.7 The bers and parts of an international and collaborative governments of the successor states initiated various mod- network. Of course, the cultural models of the different ernization programs, including cultural policy concepts, regions also had an influence on the avant-garde, and but in general these efforts were not intended to initiate they had a marked effect, for example, as charismatic communication between the multinational states of the artists in many genres. Mention might be made here Carpathian Basin. On the contrary, the neo- national pro- of Ljubomir Micić, Karel Teige, or Lajos Kassák, who were gram of Kuno Klebelsberg (1922–31 Minister for Religion them selves influenced by the Romantic Sándor Petőfi and Education in the conservative Horthy system) pushed or Adam Mickiewicz. After the disintegration of the for comprehensive education reforms that were to pres- Austro- Hun garian Monarchy and in the ensuing compli- ent a first step toward restoring the “territorial integrity” cated geo political and cultural situation (called “histoire of the country, meaning a revision of the peace treaties croisée” by historians, on account of the parallel inter- following World War I.8 connections that existed2), avant-garde artists stepped In the context of this rising nationalism in the out of the routine of their accustomed environments successor states, the role of the avant-garde journals, in many respects. This enabled them to bring together which were published in several languages and distribut- the diverse Modernist tendencies on the territory of the ed internationally, took on increased importance—and former Empire within the avant-garde network.3 not only in Hungary. Their format and the ease with After the collapse of the Monarchy, avant- which the “little magazines” could be distributed made garde journals played an important role, as they were by them ideal as vehicles for relatively rapid transborder definition a collective cultural product in which a group communication, even after several of them had been of artists articulated their complex artistic and social banned in some countries. Such was the case with MA program, which in turn contributed to the international (1916–25) by Lajos Kassák, who in the first half of the 1920s discussion of art. The avant-garde journals did not worked as an exile in Vienna. Kassák’s colleagues smug- appear out of the blue. Not only the number of “little gled it under the name of 365 or Kortárs from Austria to magazines,” as they were called, but also their circula- Hungary, and also distributed it in Czechoslovakia and tion had been increasing significantly since the 1880s, Romania. An indication of the connecting and integra- first in Western Europe and then worldwide.4 By the tive role of these avant-garde journals is the fact that end of the nineteenth century, these periodicals had their contributors included a strikingly large number of assumed the important role of communicating between artists who were multilingual and at home in several European cultures and making cultural trends and their cultures. Among Kassák’s collaborators in MA were the new interpretations more widely known. In another painter János Mattis-Teutsch, who worked for the journal respect as well, the “little magazines” of that time and in Budapest in the 1910s. In the 1920s he contributed around the turn of the century resembled the avant- to the periodical Contimporanul (1922–32) in Bucharest, garde journals of the 1920s discussed here: They had a although he continued to live in the Transylvanian-Saxon distinctive artistic program, their authors frequently pro- city of Kronstadt (now Brașov, Romania). Róbert Reiter filed themselves as members of some putative move- (pseudonym Franz Liebhard/t) began as an avant-garde ment, and they often attacked the existing institutional poet and literary translator, working initially for MA in system. The avant-garde editors made exceptionally Temeschwar (now Timișoara, Romania) in Hungarian and good use of the “little magazine” strategies so as to for- German. The avant-garde poet Lajos Kudlák was also mulate their own programs in the successor initially involved in MA, becoming known later states of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. under the name L’udovit Kudlák as a Slovakian C This essay will look at the strategies by which 143 Modernist painter. The Hungarian-born Serbian Avant-Garde Journals in East-Central Europe Journals in East-Central Avant-Garde Fig. 1 Advertisement for international avant-garde journals on the back cover of MA, vol. 8, no.

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