Champions of the Fin-de-Siècle (1867-1914)

Fin de siècle is French for end of the century. The term "fin de siècle" is commonly applied to French art and artists as the traits of the culture first appeared there, but the movement affected many European countries. The ideas and concerns developed by fin de siècle artists provided the impetus for movements like symbolism and modernism. The creative literary, artistic, architectural and musical talent concentrated in the city at the turn of the 20th century was unmatched.

The major political theme of the era was that of revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society and liberal democracy. The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism and vitalism, while the mindset of the age saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution.

Fin de siècle culture has been perceived to have influenced 20th century culture, such as Bohemian counterculture having similarities to punk counterculture in that both celebrate a romantic and willful sense of decay and rejection of social order.

England's ideological space was impacted by the philosophical waves of pessimism sweeping Europe, starting with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's work from before his death in 1860 and gradually impacting artists internationally Art Nouveau, Jugendstil in German: the modernist dreamscapes of the turn-of-the-20th century forever changed art and architecture.

The end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth are commonly referred to as the “fin-de-siècle,” a French term that means “end-of-the-century.” It is characterized by degeneration of traditional forms (e.g., the symphony or representational art) and radically new beginnings. Some writers associate decadence with this period as well. This is also the period when Freud introduced new ideas about the psyche.

Artists struggled for new ways of expression during this period. The mini-chapter on Debussy explores some of the alternatives developed in France. In Vienna, where Strauss worked most of his life, artists and writers (as well as musicians such as Arnold Schoenberg) contributed substantially to a growing modern style. Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele are three artists most closely associated with new trends in Vienna.

Leading Figures

1. Peter Altenberg, writer, poet
2. Eduard Arnhold industrialist, banker
3. Béla_Bartók composer
4. Vicki Baum writer
5. Otto Brahm drama, literary critic
6. Johannes R. Becher
7. Max Beckmann painter, sculptor
8. Richard Beer-Hoffmann dramatist, poet
9. Moritz Benedikt neurologist
10. Sarah Bernhardt stage & film actress
11. Gyula Benczúr painter
12. Hugo Bettauer writer, journalist
13. Siegfried Bing art dealer
14. Lujo Brentano economist
15. Hermann Broch writer
16. Elias Canetti Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981
17. Veza Canetti writer, playwright
18. Bruno Cassirer
19. Paul Cassirer
20. Moïse-de-Camondo
21. Lovis Corinth painter
22. Edward Craig
23. Adolf Dessauer banker, writer
24. Tilla Otillie Durielux
25. Josef Engelhart painter
26. Alfred Flechtheim
27. Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen Degener
28. Henry Ford Industrialist, innovator
29. Sigmund Freud psychoanalyst
30. Walter Gropius architect - Bauhaus School
31. Gerhart Hauptmann
32. Hugo Curt Herrmann
33. Theodor Herzl journalist - Zionist visionary
34. Alfred Walter von Heymel
35. Josef Hoffmann architect
36. Hugo von Hofmannsthal writer, poet, dramatist
37. Vladimir Jabotinsky author, poet, Zionist
38. Wassily Kandinsky painter
39. Franz Kafka writer
40. Hans Kelsen jurist, philosopher
41. André-Gide
42. Harry Graf Kessler
43. Gustav Klimt, symbolist painter
44. Oskar Kokoschka artist, poet
45. Karl Kraus journalist, satirist
46. Gyula_Krúdy writer, journalist
47. Max Kurzweil painter
48. Ödön Lechner architect
49. Ephraim Moses Lilien art nouveau illustrator
50. Adolf Loos architect
51. Gustav Mahler composer, conductor
52. Katia Mann
53. Thomas Mann Nobel Prize in Literature, 1929
54. Carl Moll
55. Sylvie Monnom
56. Koloman Moser artist
57. Gabriele Münter artist
58. Aleksander Alexandre Natanson
59. Alphonse Mucha Art Nouveau painter
60. Louis Alfred Athis Natanson
61. Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Misia Natanson
62. Thadée Tadeusz Natanson
63. Friedrich Nietzsche philosopher
64. Max Nordau Zionist leader, physician
65. Hermann Obrist sculptor
66. Joseph Maria Olbrich architect
67. Max Oppenheimer painter
68. Karl Ernst Osthaus
69. Karl Popper philospher, economist
70. Max Reinhardt actor, director
71. Rainer Maria Rilke poet
72. Joseph Roth journalist, writer
73. Felix Salten writer, critic
74. Egon Schiele figurative painter
75. Arthur Schnitzler author, dramatist
76. Arnold Schoenberg composer, painter
77. Rudolf-Alexander-Schröder
78. Fritz Schumacher architect, urban designer
79. Jose Maria Sert
80. Rudolf Steiner philospher, architect
81. William Sternheim
82. Ernst Stöhr painter
83. Henry Van de Velde painter, architect
84. Marie Louise van-de-Velde
85. Otto Wagner architect, urban planner
86. Alma Mahler Werfel
87. Franz Werfel novelist, playwright
88. Oscar Wilde writer, poet
89. Ludwig Wittgenstein philosopher
90. William Butler Yeats Nobel Laureate poet
91. Stefan Zweig writer

Fin de siècle and Viennese Secession

The Vienna Secession was established on 3 April 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Max Kurzweil, Josef Engelhart, Ernst Stöhr, Wilhelm List, and other artists. It was a ‘secession’ indeed, a split-off from the Vienna Society of Visual Artists (Künstlerhaus) that had been motivated by a vehement rejection of the latter’s conservatism and notion of art still rooted in Historicism.

Prominent donations the Secession made to the Modern Gallery, which had been founded in 1903 and preceded the Belvedere as an institution, included The Plains of Auvers (1890) by Vincent van Gogh, the bust of Henri de Rochefort-Luçay (1897) by Auguste Rodin, and The Evil Mothers (1894) by Giovanni Segantini; these works marked the beginnings of today’s internationally acclaimed collection of early twentieth-century art. At its heart is the Secession itself, personified by Gustav Klimt, whose masterpiece The Kiss (1908) is regarded as the monumental icon of Viennese Art Nouveau.

 In 1905, Gustav Klimt and a group of artists and architects, such as Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Richard Luksch, Wilhelm Bernatzik, Max Kurzweil, Wilhelm List, Carl Moll, Koloman Moser, and Emil Orlik, left the Secession. The fundamental issue that had been up for discussion was whether the decorative arts should be included in the prevalent concept of art. Klimt and his like-minded colleagues fervently advocated for art and everyday life to merge and form a unity. With its outstanding exhibition events Kunstschau (1908) and Internationale Kunstschau (1909), the Klimt Group offered such young talents as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer, and many others a future-oriented platform. Source

The culture of Viennese Jewry at the fin de siècle

The wealth of culture that the Jewish community of Vienna developed in the short period of its flourishing - between the middle of the nineteenth century and its destruction by the Nazis - is the more astonishing as Vienna had no Jewish community of any size before the mid-nineteenth century. Jews were banned from what was then the imperial capital until the revolution of 1848 and were not fully emancipated from all restrictions of residence until 1867, as part of the reforms that followed Austria’s defeat by Prussia in the war of 1866.

The Jewish contribution to the culture of Vienna in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries extended across the range of cultural and intellectual activity.

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Links

• Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture by Carl E. Schorske
• Rabbis and Jewish women in fin de siecle Vienna, 1867--1914] by, Julie Lieber
• Jewish Women in Fin de Siècle Vienna - Between Shtetl and Salon 1900, by Alison Rose.
• Vienna is Different: Jewish Writers in Austria from the Fin de Siècle to the Present by, Hillary Hope Herzog
• The Road to Jewish Nationalism, Zionism and the Fin De Siecle by Brian Horowitz
• Zionism and the Fin de Siècle Nordau to Jabotinsky, by Michael Stanislawski
• Museum Fin de Siècle Brussels
• Museum
• The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle
• France, Fin de Siècle by Eugen Weber
• Petersburg Fin de Siècle by Mark D. Steinberg
• Beginning of the End Decadence and anti-Semitism in Arthur Schnitzler’s Vienna, by Wesley Yang
• Fin de Siècle and Other Essays on America and Europe , By Walter Laqueur
• Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siècle France , By Datta
• The Viennese Café and Fin-de-Siècle Culture by, Hannah E. Johnson
• The culture of Viennese Jewry at the fin de siècle
• Gustav Klimt - His Life
• Gustav Klimt Art Archive
• The European Belle Epoque 1870 -1914
• Histories of Dreams and Catastrophe photos, video
• Chronological Synopsis - Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siècle France by Datta

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