Original Woodcut Portrait by Leopold Blauensteiner, from Ver Sacrum 1903 Heft 17
Illustrated Page from the sixth and final year of the renowned art journal Ver Sacrum; Published by the Association of Visual Artists, Vienna, Austria, 1903. Heft 17.
This single sheet (page 293) measures 23.7 cm. x 25 cm. Verso is blank.
Paper is lightly browned and toned around the edges, else in very good condition.
Ver Sacrum (“Sacred Spring” in Latin) was the official magazine communicating the artistic and creative ideals of the Vienna Secession. Conceived and founded by Gustav Klimt and Max Kurzweil, the periodical had a six-year run from 1898 through 1903 and comprised drawings and graphic designs in the style of the Secession movement together with literary contributions from distinguished European writers including Richard Dehmel, Knut Hamsun, Rainer Maria Rilke and others. The magazine is renowned for its contribution to typography, illustration, and graphic design; and was responsible for reshaping ideas about and influencing magazine (and magazine advertising) and book design to the present day. Ver Sacrum was a vehicle for spreading the poetic and artistic manifestos of the Austrian secessionists: in the first issue of 1 January 1898, presented before the first Secession Exhibition, Hermann Bahr (1863 - 1934) summarized the intentions: "We intend to bring foreign art to Vienna, so that not only artists, scholars and collectors can find stimulus and motivation, but also the general public who are particularly sensitive to art, educating them to appropriate the aesthetic sense that is present to the state of instinct in every man, directing him to beauty and freedom to think and feel".
The Vienna Secession was an art movement formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. The main artists and designers involved with this movement were Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Olbrich, and Josef Hoffmann. This website focuses on the historical contribution to graphic art and design by the Vienna Secession as well as Germany and Austria’s contribution to the style of Jugendstil graphic art. Some attention is also given to the counterpart Art Nouveau movement in France, Belgium, and Holland; artists like Alphonse Mucha, Henry Van de Velde, and Fernand Khnopff whose influence played an important part in the development of German and Austrian graphic art. (-Roberto Rosenman, From website “The Vienna Seccession; Art Nouveau in Vienna and Germany 1895—1918”).
"Whoever picked up the magazine (Ver Sacrum) for the first time realized that they were faced with a very new approach: first of all the square format, that geometric image that would become... the characteristic of Josef Hoffmann's graphics and the favorite format of the paintings by Gustav Klimt. Hence the character of "Gesamtkunstwerk" - total work of art - which radically distinguished Ver Sacrum from all other magazines. Each issue had to be a complete work of art, representing the secessionist conception of the Association. The overall artistic approach itself had to aim at a higher ideal. From the smallest decoration to the colors, to the typographical characters, to the illustrations, to the text, everything had to reflect the collective idea, interpreted from time to time by an editorial committee made up of ever-changing artists and writers." (--Marino de Grassi & Marina Bressan: Nel Segno di Klimt: Ver Sacrum, La Revista d’Arte della Secessione Viennese).
JHN
Keywords:
Rainer Maria Rilke Hugo von Hofmannsthal Maurice Maeterlinck Knut Hamsun Otto Julius Bierbaum Richard Dehmel Arno Holz Josef Maria Auchentaller Ricarda Huch Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Friedrich König Gustav Klimt Josef Maria Auchentaller Charlotte Andri-Hampel Gottlieb Theodor von Kempf Josef Hoffmann Kolo Moser Ferdinand Andri Wilhelm List Adolf Boehm Otto Friedrich Alfred Roller Karl Moll Koloman Moser Charles Mackintosh Herman Bahr Otto Wagner Joseph Olbrich Adolf Bohm Joseph Enegelhart Max Klinger Marina Bressan Marino De Grassi