Francesco Mazzaferro
How to Keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire Together:
the Disputes on the National Style(s)
the Disputes on the National Style(s)
and the Role of Albert Ilg
Variety of Styles as Identity of a Multinational Empire
The First Vienna School of History of Art in support of Architectonic Eclecticism
 |
| Fig.1) Vienna, Vienna, 'Votive Church' built by Heinrich Ferstel between 1856 and 1879 (Neo-Gothic) |
 |
Fig.2) Miklós Barabás (1810-1898)
The emperor Franz-Joseph, 1953
|
On 18 February 1853 the young (23-year old) Emperor Franz Joseph escaped a terror attack; as a sign of relief and reconnaissance for the escaped danger, the imperial house decided to build up a new church, which ought to be voluntarily financed with funds from all regions of the Empire and should be a symbol of its unity. On the place where the attempt to kill the Emperor took place, the Votivkirche (Fig. 1) was built up in Vienna between 1856 and 1879. It was in Neo-Gothic style.
Building-up a Neo-Gothic church as symbol of the unity of the Empire may seem a backward-looking decision, in 1856. It was not: the architect, Heinrich Ferstel, was as young as the Emperor (26 years old). Only a few years before, John Ruskin had written (1851-1853) The Stones of Venice, a work on the theory of Gothic architecture. Exactly in those years, the Prussian Court also financed the works to complete the Cologne Cathedral, as a symbol of the cultural unity of the country in not-yet unified German.
 |
| Fig. 3) Cologne, 1856. The construction of the Cathedral |
In 1857 Franz Joseph decided to demolish the defence walls of Vienna and to replace it with a ring road, the Ringstraße, which would serve as a monumental circumvallation, both hosting the symbols of Habsburg’s power as well as the administrative infrastructure for the new town. This was an important step, in symbolic terms: the walls which had once defended twice Vienna from the Ottomans were now replaced to permit a radical modernisation of the capital of the Empire.
The Edict “Es ist Mein Wille” of 25 December 1857 contained a list of all buildings, gardens, squares and their locations, calling for “the establishment of official buildings – including the new Headquarters for the army, the towns garrison, the opera, the Imperial Archive, the City Hall … and the necessary buildings for museums and galleries …“. These buildings include today, among others, the Parliament, the City Hall, the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Fig. 4), the Naturhistorisches Museum, the University, the Burg Theatre (Fig. 5) and the Vienna Opera.
 |
| Fig. 4) Vienna - The Kunsthistorisches Museum built by Carl von Hasenauer and Gottfried Semper between 1871 and 1891 (Neo-Renaissance) |
 |
| Fig. 5) Vienna, Burgtheater, built by Gottfried Burgtheater Built by Gottfried between 1874 and 1888, Neo-Baroque |
The Edict also announced an architectural competition, and expressly requested the preparation of a plan. Particular emphasis was given to the free mandate (freier Spielraum) left to architects. “To get a master plan, a competition is opened, including the drafting of a program in accordance with the here prescribed principles. For the rest, however, the competitors shall be free in the preparation of their projects, to ensure that appropriate proposals should not be excluded.”
The end result of the competition was a combination of outstanding buildings conceived in different “style languages”, in line with the eclectic approach of historicism. This was also the result of a concept – typical of that architectonic school – associating a category of building to a given style. For instance, along the model of the Westminster Palace (started in 1840) and following Ruskin’s idea that the Gothic Palazzo Ducale in Venice was the model for public buildings, a number of Parliaments and city halls had been built-up in that style across the world (for instance, the City Hall in Munich, starting in 1867, and the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, in 1878). Using Neo-Gothic was also in line with the idea that city halls had to be a symbol of prosperous and active bourgeoisie, like it had been in the Middle Ages. It was therefore not surprising that the Vienna City Hall along the Ringstraße was built up in Gothic revival style (Fig. 6). “The Neo-Gothic city hall adopted the Gothic style, identified as the glorious time of the autonomy of the urban bourgeoisie; with its neo-Attic form, the Parliament let resuscitate the paradigmatic world of Greek democracy, and the Opera shined with the noble, internationally well appreciated, Neo-Renaissance (Fig. 7) “ (Eva-Maria Landwehr). It goes without saying that what happened in Vienna had important implications throughout Austria-Hungary, first of all in Budapest (Haas).
 |
| Fig. 6) Vienna. City Hall, built by Friedrich von Schmidt between 1872 and 1883, (Neo-Gothic) |
 |
| Fig. 7) Vienna, The Opera House, built by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll between 1861 and 1869 (Neo-Renaissance) |
Setting up a new capital with symbols of all main art styles of the past was also in line with the logic of a multinational empire extending well beyond Austria and Hungary, from Cracow to Prague, from Lvov to Czernowitz, from Dubrovnik to Trieste, from Venice to Milan.
Taking on board different ideas, giving an open mandate to architects, and drawing from styles of different regions and époques was also a sign of creeping political liberalisation. In 1861 a constitutional rule was introduced in Vienna; in 1867 the Compromise (Ausgleich) between Austria and Hungary made of Budapest the co-capital of the Empire.
The stability of the Empire was strongly anchored in its own diversity. The Habsburg had achieved to preserve the borders they had since the Vienna Congress, reached a new constitutional equilibrium by creating a dual system between Austria and Hungary, and were expecting to prolong in the future their century-old power on a large portion of Europe.
To sum up: Vienna was experiencing an important architectonic transformation, inspired by an eclectic reference to a multiplicity of old styles, in line with the most modern tendencies in Europe (think about the parallel urban reform of Paris under Baron Haussmann).
Innovation, liberalism and cultural eclecticism were very much in the state of mind of the urban cultural elite of the town. The first generation of the Vienna School of History of Art and his liberal leaders, like his founder, Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg, were strongly behind the new attempt to legitimate power over a multinational polity through a multiple reference to different art styles. The Ringstraße project was both based on a symbolic link with the past (Antiquity, Middle Age and Renaissance), and a functional use of new engineering technologies, the same combination between “art as philology” and technology which the Vienna school under Eitelberger had conceived as basis for its activity.
Eitelberger was keen to ensure the Vienna School would work on art monuments across the board in the entire Empire, fully appreciating similarity and diversity among them. This was testified, among others, by the decision to publish a 2-volume corpus of the Mittelalterliche Kunstdenkmäler des österreichischen Kaiserstaates (Medieval monuments of the Austrian Empire) in 1858-1860. Volume I included sections not only on Austria and Hungary, but also on Prague and Bohemia, Istria, Friuli, and Trent. Volume II had ample sections on Lombardy-Venice and Moravia.
Also the extensive production of literature on art by Eitelberger himself testified his interest to spread information on art monuments across the Empire: they included monographs and articles on all regions, here quoted chronologically:
- The Venetian school and Raphael (1854)
- Cividale del Friuli and its monuments (1857)
- The Diocletian’s Palace in Split (1859)
- Contributions to history of art in the Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice (1859)
- The middle age art monuments in Arbe, Zara, Traù, Spalato and Ragusa (1861)
Turning back to the monuments which were built along the Ringstraße, Matthew Rampley writes: “EItelberger’s artistic preferences were not governed by a consistent aesthetic outlook; he praised Neo-Gothic structures, such as the Vienna Rathaus by Friedrich Schmidt and Heinrich von Ferstel’s Votive Church, but also wrote an extended defense of van der Nüll and von Sicardsburg’s much-criticized Neo-Renaissance Vienna Opera House. Moreover, for all his emphasis of the leading role of German culture, he acknowledged the achievements of others, such as the Czech Architects Josef Hlávka – who supervised the building of the Vienna Opera House – and Josef Zítek, architect of the Prague National Theater.”
The End of Eclecticism and
the Dispute on National Styles in Austria-Hungary
The equilibrium on which liberalism and eclecticism were based was however very precarious. Elsewhere (particularly in France) the development of historicism had become inextricably linked with political nationalism already in the mid of the XIX Century (Mihail). Two developments occurred which changed the overall framework for Austria-Hungary. While until now the choice of art styles along the Ringstraße simply pointed to the co-existence of a variety of aesthetic taste, in the new phase the partisans of different styles exchanges rude arguments, each defending contrasting orientations in terms of identity and style.
First, the two political
and cultural competitors of Austria-Hungary, i.e. Italy and Germany, achieved
their political unification, respectively in 1861 and 1871, in both cases at
the expense of Vienna’s influence in Europe. The two new national countries
made of Renaissance (Italy) and Neo-Renaissance (Germany) an element of cultural
identity. This transformed the perception of Renaissance and Neo-Renaissance
style across-Europe, from a universal style to the intentional expression of an
architecture searching for the legitimacy of its own national heritage. Symbolically,
Italy (which had unified itself through a number of conflicts against the
Habsburg) moved its capital from the Baroque-dynastic town of Turin to the two
capital of Renaissance: Florence first
(between 1865 and 1871) and Rome as from 1871. For the first time in Italy’s
history, Renaissance was visibly identified with a national style. To imitate
the French model, the Neo-Renaissance became the ‘semi-official’ architectonic
style of newly edified public buildings In newly-unified Germany, like the
Parliament (the Reichstag in Berlin (Fig.8), build up between 1884 and 1894), city
halls (the most famous, in Hamburg, dating back to between 1884 and 1897) tribunals,
schools, universities, seats of banks and insurances, operas (the Alte Oper in
Frankfurt, between 1877 and 1880 (Fig.9)) and even train stations, like in Frankfurt am
Main again (1883-1885).
 |
| Fig. 8) Berlin, Reichstag, built by Paul Wallot between 1884 and 1894 (Neo-Renaissance) |
 |
| Fig. 9) Frankfurt am Main. Alte Oper, built by Richard Lucae, Albrecht Becker and Edgar Giesenburg between 1873 and 1880 (Neo-Renaissance) |
Second, driven by a combination of romanticism and search for local identity, art movements became (together with musical ones) frontrunners in the search for a local identity. Rampley shows that – much to the surprise of the Viennese art historians – their non-German colleagues gave birth to separate schools across the Empire, opening a new dynamic “centre” and “periphery” discussions in art history: in Budapest (1872), Prague (1874), Zagreb (1878), Cracow (1882), Lvov (1893). Each of these schools supported the discovery of a national style, founded on the analysis and interpretation of direct links with Italian Renaissance (and thereby bypassing Vienna). Important steps were – for instance - the invention of the Czech Neo-Renaissance style (Vybíral); the emergence of Neo-Renaissance as a common style for South Slavonic nations, starting with the style of the first South Slavonic Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb, finished in 1880 (Conley and Makaš); the organisation of a ‘old master’ exhibition in Cracow (1882), signalling the direct link between Italian and Polish painters across centuries (Ramsley).
 |
| Fig. 10) Zagreb – South Slavonic Academy of Science and Art, built by Hermann Bollé between 1877 and 1880 (Neo-Renaissance) |
These two developments created a new framework for discussions on national styles, which took places contemporaneously within two concentric cycles: in the Austrian-Hungarian empire as a whole, historicism (with its different forms) became a source of legitimacy against the rules imposed by Vienna and Budapest; in Vienna, the discussion on styles became a dispute on Austria’s own identity. Let us see how this affected the perception of the different styles.
Neo-Gothic. Once the style of the church
initiated in 1853 as a symbol of unity (the Votivkirche), and an import from
liberal Great Britain, Neo-Gothic was increasingly perceived as a symbol of Wilhelm
II’s expansionist power, in some respect a visualisation of pan-germanism (and
therefore as a threat to the autonomous identity of Austria). It was however the
preferred ‘national style’ of those wishing an integration of Austria in the
broader German world;
Neo-Renaissance. While Renaissance had been once seen as a symbol of universal style (think about neo-classicism), Neo-Renaissance turned to be the language of political nationalism, in two opposite respects: on the one hand the style of the so-called Deutsch-nationalen (those wishing to maintain a strong German-speaking rule on the Austrian-Hungarian empire, and – ultimately – to secede from the Empire to create an autonomous German-speaking Austria, separate from Germany); on the other hand the style of non-German nationalities and national art movements, either aiming at teaching a stronger identity (use of national languages in universities) and political autonomy or even at an eventual exit from the Empire.
Neo-Baroque. Baroque was associated – across Europe - with the counter-reform and the fortune of dynastic powers (see the importance of Baroque for royal palaces across Europe). In Austria-Hungary, therefore, it was seen (see below) as the ‘national style’ of the Habsburg, the ‘national style’ of those having a dynastic view of Austria-Hungary’s identity.
For a multi-national and multi-lingual Empire (and for its German speaking core around Vienna), the dispute on styles in the XIX century had therefore the same importance for the collective identity which – for instance – had in Italy the revival of the Questione della lingua (the dispute on which type of Italian to use in the newly established Kingdom of Italy) shortly after the country’s unification. It was not (only) on history of art, but on the future of the polity called Austria-Hungary.
Quoting Dirk de Meyer, Rampley recalls that “modern art history and nationalism came of age side by side. The sense of a common national identity could be made visible in, for example, artistic traditions mapped out by reference to the artistic monuments of the past. Such visualisation of nationhood was also evident in the division of art into ‘national’ schools, a practice that was established at an early stage in the history of the discipline, in which art was read as the visible expression of national character.”
Until the 1860s, the Vienna School had been the exception. It was with Albert Ilg that the Vienna School refocused its attention to the search for a ‘national style’. He did it however in the sense of codifying the common historical art language of the Habsburg dynasty, and of Austria-Hungary as a whole. He opposed therefore any form of separatism, both from German and non-German speaking Austrians. He was the champion of Baroque and Neo-Baroque, against Gothic revival and above all the most hated ‘Neo-Renaissance’.
Albert Ilg defined himself as “Fachmann und Patriot” (a professional and a patriot). It is certain that he proclaimed recurrently his unconditioned support for the Habsburg family. A recurrent theme of his work is the focus on art in Austria-Hungary (Ilg, 1893), and the need to identify an Austrian national style in arts. He was extremely conservative in political terms (he wrote that “cannons and bayonets are our last shelter against the beast of Socialism” – see Ilg, 1889) and even more rough – and often intolerant – in his often personal polemical attacks against colleagues. Even the author of his necrology (normally, everybody speaks well of somebody who had passed away) did not refrain from criticising the violence of Ilg’s opinionated criticism against adversaries (Boheim)
 |
| Fig.11) Haus der Industrie Neo-Renaissance |
In 1880, Albert Ilg published a pamphlet under the pseudonym ‘Bernini the Younger’ (jüngere Bernini), with the title “Die Zukunft des Barockstils: eine Kunstepistel” (The Future of Baroque Style: an Epistle on Art). In it, he proposed Neo-Baroque as the popular architectural style for Austria-Hungary, defending the thesis that a return to Baroque should be the future of Austrian architecture. “As writes the art historian Albert Ilg under the pseudonym of Bernini the Younger in 1880 ‘This incipient direction to Neo-Baroque has worked its way up from the bottom. At least in Vienna, the indications hereof are evident. The need originated directly from the people‘. To the question of the reasons of this orientation to Neo-Baroque, he also answers: ‚ As it already did in the past, the baroque style still provides us with everything which has been essential for us, and which – while been necessary already since centuries – could not be offered by means of the elder styles: the theatre, our still Baroque clothes, the coach, the piano, smoking, drinking tea and coffee, and thousand other small things; all things that we would certainly not do without (even to the price of renouncing to the most beautiful Renaissance style) there loose their incongruous nature in her relation to the general art style, because that same style is already grown up with all of them’. That the baroque style was seen as popular, as the style of the small man, is proved by a comparison between the “Haus der Industrie” and the “Haus der Kaufmannschaft” in the Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna. In the second one the reception of Austrian Baroque, in the first one the rather neo-classical basic attitude, with a much stronger aspiration to power and representation.“ (Haas,p. 160)
 |
| Fig.12) Haus der Kaufmannschaft, Neo-Baroque |
Ilg did not share at all the imperial enthusiasm for the urban plans on the Ringstraße. A very rich and stimulating discussion on Ilg’s criticism is contained in an article by Peter Stachel, entitled: "Vollkommen passende Gefäße" und " Gefäße fremder Form": die Kritik des Kunsthistorikers Albert Ilg (1847-1896) an der Architektur der Wiener Ringstrasse, ihr identitätspolitischer Hintergrund und ihre kunstpolitischen Auswirkungen“. (“Fully appropriate containers” and “containers of an extraneous form”: the criticism of art historian Albert Ilg (1847-1896) to the architecture of Vienna’s Ringstraße, their background in terms of political identity and its impact on art policy”).
As mentioned in the title, Ilg distinguished between ‘fully appropriate containers’ and ‘containers of an extraneous form”, the first referring to architecture in line with Austrian tradition and the second to architecture not in line with it. Stachel comments on the reasoning of Ilg’s criticism to the architecture of the Viennese Ringstraße, identifying its background in terms of political identity and its implications in terms of art policy (Stachel, 2006).
As a first, very general criticism to the new urban planning in Vienna, as mentioned by the article on Ilg in “Deutsche Biographie”, the Viennese art historian had general doubts on the idea to making use of the space occupied by high symbolic heritage, like the old defence walls (those which had protected twice the town from the Turks), destroying part of the architectonic substance of old Vienna to create what he considered a perhaps aesthetically beautiful, but for him substantially useless, ring road while forgetting the streets around.
A second, much more
important argument concerns Ilg’s general aversion against the excessive
eclecticism of the style of the buildings. Here Ilg (speaking under
pseudonymous as Bernini the Younger) quotes Ilg himself.
“Bei Betrachtung der Ringstrasse, so Ilg, gewinne man den Eindruck, sie
sei mit der Absicht erbaut worden, den Studenten die Anschaffung historischer
Bauatlanten zu ersparen, mit Ausnahme einer ägyptischen Pyramide sei die
ganze Architekturschichaiming forte vertreten. „Mit echter deutscher
Gründlichkeit“ habe die Wiener Kunst alle historischen Kunststyle
„durchgeschwitzt“ und „selbst das classische Hellenenthum aus der Berliner
Surrogatsfabrik wurde uns nicht erspart“; erst ganz zuletzt sei man auf
„unsere heimische Barocke gekommen“. (jüngere Bernini)
|
"Looking at
the Ringstraße, so Ilg, raises the impression that it has been built with the
intention to make sure students do not have to spend money to buy any atlas
of historical architecture: with the only exception of an Egyptian pyramid,
the whole history of architecture is represented. ‘With true German
thoroughness’ the Viennese art ‘diluted’ all historical art styles and ‘even
the classical Hellenism from the Berlin surrogate factory has not been spared
to us’; only at the very end we have ‘come to our domestic Baroque’. (jüngere
Bernini, Bernini the Younger)
|
Das Entstehen und Emporblühen jener Kunstrichtung, welche herkömmlicher
Weise mit dem Namen des sogenannten Barockstiles bezeichnet wird, ist in
Österreich eine Erscheinung welche mit großen geschichtlichen und politischen
Ereignissen auf das innigste zusammenhängt. Jene merkwürdige Kunstart stellt
sich ordentlich als die Illustration einer neuen geistigen und materiellen
Gestaltung aller Dinge im Vaterland dar; sie ist gewissermaßen auf dem Gebiete
des sinnlich Wahrnehmbaren das neue Cachet für das neu gewordene Österreich.
Während nämlich im XVI. und noch ziemlich tief hinein ins XVII. Jahrhundert
dieses Landes infolge seiner nachbarlichen Lage zu Italien seit dem Erlöschen
alles mittelalterlichen Wesen die Formen der Renaissance aufgenommen und
weitergeleitet hatte, ohne es dabei aber zu einem local-charachteristischen
Typus zu bringen, zeigt sich beiläufig seit der Mitte des XVII.Jahrhunderts
der Barockstil als eine Richtung, die zwar keineswegs auf österreichischer
Erde entstanden ist, sondern wie die Renaissance auf dem Wege des alten
Verkehres beider Länder über die Alpen gedrungen ist, aber wohl als ein Stil,
bei dessen Pflege sich heimischer Geist nicht bloß als recipierender Schüler
erwies, sondern in dessen Form derselbe vollkommen eigene, für sein Wesen
charakteristische Ideen zu zeugen, verstand. Es gibt eine österreichische
Barocke von ausgesprochenem Typus, wie es eine italienische und französische
gibt; ja, man kann beinahe ebenso in Frankreich bei uns von einem Stil
Ferdinands III., Leopolds I., Josefs I. und Karl VI. sprechen wie dort von
Louis treize, quatorze und quinze, nur aber, dass darunter in beiden Ländern
sehr verschiedene Dinge verstanden sind.
Dagegen hat es keine österreichische Renaissance gegeben. Es wurden zwar
schon under Ferdinand I. zahlreiche italienische Architekten berufen, um die
verfallenen Städte, welche dem Anprall der Türkenmacht entgegensahen, nach
den neuen Principien der italienischen Fortifikationskunst mit geeigneteren
Schutzwehren zu versehen. […] Was durch diese mächtige südliche Befruchtung
nach Österreich gelangt war, verband sich wohl alsbald mit den noch
vorhandenen Residuen des
nordisch-gothischen Kunstsinnes und gestaltete sich allmählich zu jenem
eigentümlichen Gepräge, welches wir als sogenannte deutsche Renaissance
kennen, besonders nachdem auch Einheimische im neuen Geiste des Südens zu
schaffen versuchten. Aber diese deutsche Renaissance ist, wenn auch am
frühesten auf österreichischer Erde, doch gleichzeitig auch in der Schweiz
und im übrigen Süddeutschland aus denselben Einflüssen und Bedingungen
entstanden. (pp.259-260)
|
The emergence and
blossoming of that art direction, which is conventionally designated by the
name of the so-called Baroque is, in Austria, a phenomenon which is related
to major historical and political events in the closest way. That peculiar
art style turns neatly as the illustration of a new spiritual and material
design of all things in homeland; to a certain extent - in the realm of what
is noticeable through our senses – it is the new cachet for the newly become Austria. Since the extinction of all
medieval nature, this country had received and forwarded - in the XVI and
still late in the XVII Century - the forms of the Renaissance, as a result of
its neighbouring location to Italy. This happened without bringing about any local-characteristic
typus of Renaissance. As the Renaissance, also the baroque style has
been spilled on the routes of ancient intercourse between the two countries
over the Alps, since around mid-1600. However, the baroque style - even if it
shows itself here as a direction by no means originated on Austrian soil - is
fostered by the local spirit. That local spirit does not act simply on the
receiving end, but understands how to produce specific ideas for its own essence.
There is an Austrian Baroque of a pronounced type, as there are an Italian
and French. Yes, you can almost speak with us about one style of Ferdinand
III, Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI, like in France you can talk of a Baroque
of Louis XIII, XIV and XV (even if in the two countries the same words may be
understood very differently).
In contrast, there
has been no Austrian Renaissance. Indeed, under Ferdinand I numerous Italian
architects have been appointed to our ruined cities, which had to be repaired
from the clash with the Turkish power, to provide them with the new
principles of the Italian fortification art and more appropriate defence
power. [ ... ] What was passing through this powerful fertilisation from the South
to Austria, merged itself very soon with the still remaining residuals of the
north-Gothic sense for art and made itself to that peculiar character, which
we know as the so-called German Renaissance, especially after also locals tried
to create in new spirit of the South. But this German Renaissance, albeit present
at the earliest on Austrian soil, grew at the same time in Switzerland and
elsewhere in Southern Germany, from the same influences and conditions. (
pp.259 -260 )
|
Quoting Ilg, Stachel (2006) observes that our author – under the pseudonym of Bernini the Younger - did not only pay a global homage to Baroque as a culture and a style which has left an important imprint on Austrian culture at large, but also had a precise political reading: Baroque was and is the style of Habsburg dominance over Europe. Ilg wrote that it is “a fact, that only that specific art style can be the most appropriate for a people, the only one which corresponds and represents that people, if its blossoming corresponds with the blossoming of the additional factors of prosperity. In Austria this was the case only with Baroque.” He quotes the victory on Turkish invaders as well as the success of counter-reform in all countries under Austrian control, the replacement of Protestant noble families with catholic families, the role of religious orders, and several other political factors serving as support to baroque style.
Finally, Baroque is
considered as the national style also in terms of its intimate correlation of
the art style with the nature of the Austrian people. Ilg elaborated on it in
two of his works.
Wenn man die Parallele zieht zwischen den geistigen Eigenschaften jenes
Stils und denen des österreichischen Volkes, so stört in solchem Vergleiche
allerdings nicht die kleinste Dissonanz. Die zwei sind wahrlich für einander
wie geschaffen, im Guten und Minder-Guten taugen sie zusammen wie Futteral
und Inhalt. […] Das österreichische Wesen ist die leibhaftige Barockfaçade: lustig und frisch und immer
lächelnd, nirgends langweilig, voller Capricen und guter Dinge, ein ganzes
Nest an Ueberraschungen. Wo der ruhige Deutsche zweifelsohne die regelrechte
Gerade einhalten würde, das springt dies warme Blut in zehn Brüchen und Winkelchen zurück,
versteckt sich neckisch in Nischen, hüpft im verkröpften Gesimse hervor oder
schwingt sich sorglos in tollem Volutenbogen über die ganze Geschichte
hinweg. Doch du kannst ihm nicht böse sein darob […] der ist gerade so, wie
man ihn allein lieb haben kann“ (jüngere Bernini, P. 42)
Die Geschichte hat Österreich-Ungarn mit seiner merkwürdigen und
wichtigen Stellung zwischen Occident und Orient, zwischen dem heitern Italien
und dem ernsten Deutschland, eine so bedeutsame großartige Rolle ertheilt, eine Mission von
so hohen Werthe für die gesammte Welt, dass ein geistreicher Mann mit Recht
sagen dürfte: wenn dieses Österreich nicht so bestände, so müsse man es
schaffen. Naturgemäß müssen in einem solchen Staatwesen die
mannigfachen geistigen Elemente, welche hier inbegriffen sind, auf
einander wirken und kann dadurch nur
ein Gesammtbild geistigen Lebens entstehen, welches von so verschiedenen
Elementen berührt, die interessantesten Seiten darbietet. Wohl mag da zuweilen
jene friedsame Ruhe der Entwicklung fehlen, wie sie unter anderen Umständen
im Culturleben gedeihen kann; wohl mag hier von Störungen, Unterbrechungen,
Kämpfen und unerreichten Zielen oftmals die Rede sein, aber gerade diese
stete Gährung der verschiedensten geistigen Gewalten gibt dem heimatlichen
Culturgemälde eben auch den ureigensten Reiz. (Ilg, 1983)
|
If you draw the
parallel between the spiritual qualities of that style and those of the
Austrian people, so it does not interfere in such comparisons the smallest
dissonance. The two are truly done the one for the other, for the better and the
less good they are suitable as sheath and its content. [ ... ] The Austrian
essence is the incarnate of the Baroque facade: funny and fresh and always
smiling, never boring, full of caprices and good things, a whole nest of
surprises. Where the quiet German would without doubt stick to the veritable
straight line, the warm blood just jumps back and forth in ten breaks and small
corners, hides amusing in niches, jumps out in angle bent cornices or swings
carelessly away in great volute bows along the whole story. But you cannot threat
to be mean to him [ ... ]; he is just like you can only love him"
(younger Bernini, P. 42)
History has imparted
to Austria- Hungary such an significant great role, with his specific and
important relations between Occident and Orient, between the cheerful Italy
and the earnest Germany, a mission of such high values for the whole world,
that a witty man would right say: if this Austria did not exist so, one should
create it. By nature, it is exactly in such a polity that the manifold
spiritual elements included here may interact among each other; in this situation
only a global picture of spiritual life can develop, which - so affected by
various elements - presents the most interesting sides. Indeed, sometimes may
be lacking that peaceable tranquillity of development, which one can thrive in
other circumstances of cultural life; probably here there may be often the
reference to malfunctions,
interruptions, fights and unreached goals, but just this continuous
fermentation of various intellectual powers gives the native picture of
culture just also its very own charm. (Ilg, 1883)
|
Ilg wants to differentiate
the development of Baroque in Austria-Hungary – as an autonomous regional
style, common to all region of the multinational Empire - from Renaissance and Baroque
in Italy. He develops strong polemical arguments against Neo-Gothic and
especially Neo-Renaissance in Germany (where Munich in particular becomes an
example of “Münchens Deutsch-Renaissance Allotrien”, the “Munich German-Renaissance
futilities”). Stachel (2006) explains that the polemic arguments against German
influence on style also mean to contrast the “deutschnationalen” tendencies in art,
that is to oppose the thesis of that part of the German speaking population in
Austria-Hungary that wanted to secede from the Habsburg empire, either to join a
‘great German’ political entity or to create Austria as a separate
German-speaking state (like it eventually happened after the First World War). This
is a quotation from Ilg on this (from Bernini
the Younger’s article):
Gerne lassen wir den geehrten Stammesgenossen ihre deutsche Renaissance,
welche die Stilart ihrer Reformationszeit sein soll und ihnen das sicherste
Präservativmittel gegen das Franzosenthum zu gewähren scheint. Mögen sie
damit glücklich sein, denn die Kunst, in welcher nicht der Baukünstler und
Maler und Bildhauer, sondern der Tischler die erste Violine spielt, passt
völlig für ihre Natur. Sie thun ganz recht daran: es ist eine biedere, brave,
solide, hausväterische und im Vergleich zu anderen auch ziemlich billige
Kunstsorte. In jedem solchen Kasten muß man sich einen Pastorenrock hängen denken.
|
We are happy to leave
to our honoured fellow tribesmen their German Renaissance, which should be
the style of their Reformation period and seems to grant them the safest protection
means against the French culture. May they be happy with that, because art,
in which not the architects and painters and sculptors, but the carpenter
plays the first violin, is a perfect fit for their nature. You do quite right
about it: it is a worthy, brave, solid, for family fathers like and compared
to other places also pretty cheap art. In every such case it is necessary to
think of dressing a pastor jacket.
|
Only Baroque, according to Ilg, had the capacity to merge all national individualities, and in fact is a mosaic with a differentiated composition. “not the Neo-Renaissance, as often stated by contemporaneous, but the Neo-Baroque is for Ilg the ‚supra-national style‘ per se and therefore the appropriate ‘antidote’ against explicitly nationally construction styles and, at the same time, the dynastic and supra-national construction style of the supranational Austrian State “ (Stachel,2006).
Besides animated
discussions and inflamed pamphlets, did Ilg manage to impact the direction of
history of art in Austria-Hungary? Yes, he did it, by convincing the Habsburg
family and administration on the need to prefer Neo-Baroque to other styles.
However, under the pressure of public opinion, Neo-Renaissance remained
strongly preferred among the public. Stachel quotes two episodes in his papers.
First, also as a consequence of the violent exchanges of views in the press, the construction of the symbolically most important building of the Ringstraße was delayed and delayed: the Kaiserforum (Fig. 13), where the Habsburg family should have transferred its residence. The leading architect of that time, Gottfried Semper, prepared a gigantic Neo-Renaissance plan, which would have been rivalling the main royal palaces in Europe. Only the idea that the Imperial family would transfer its residence from one of the Baroque palaces built up by his heroes, the architects Joseph Johann Bernard and Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, to a sumptuous Neo-Renaissance palace made Albert Ilg run crazy. This became the main target of his polemics for years. The development of the project had been so much delayed that it had become prohibitively expensive. Construction should have started in 1913, but the First World War made this impossible.
 |
| Fig. 13) Plan by Gottfried Semper for the Kaiserforum on the Ringstraße in Wien (1870) - never implemented (Neo-Renaissance) |
Second, the imperial family financed directly the construction of opera houses everywhere in Austria Hungary. Almost all projects were commissioned to a single architecture studio, owned by Fellner & Helmer. They built fourty operas, some of which also outside the Empire. The town of Graz was a bastion of the deutsch-nationalen, also due to widespread anti-Slavonic feelings. For this reason the city council wanted absolutely a Neo-Renaissance opera, but the Habsburg imposed a Neo-Baroque building (Fig. 14). It was another contemptuous issue.
 |
Fig.14) Graz. Opera House,
built by Ferdinand Fellner the younger und Hermann Helmer (1899)
(Neo-Baroque)
|
More in general, Ilg animated between 1885 and 1894 a group of conservative art and music critics (called the Ilg’s circle – Ilg-Kreis) which promoted a strong disapproval of new aesthetic tendencies in Vienna, in favour of tradition (‘what is normal, sound and simple’), and against what they defined ‘monstrous’ and ‘abnormal’ (Stachel, 2006). They published a journal, called “Gegen den Strom - Flugschriften einer literarisch-künstlerischen Gesellschaft” (Against the stream – Leaflets of a literary-artistic society). In those years, a similar polemic opposed in Vienna (and, from there, the entire European musical scene) the two “pro-Brahms” and “pro-Bruckner” parties, in terms of music theory, the first defending the Viennese classical balance against oversized Wagnerism, and the second promoting a radical post-romanticism.
Ilg died in 1896, apparently as a consequence of a sudden and severe nervous illness. From what we read, he did not have much calm time in his 49 years life. His project of making Baroque the style of the future for Austria-Hungary failed. It was however not only history (the defeat of Austria-Hungary in the First World War, the expulsion of the Habsburg from Austria) to make several of his life’s goals irrelevant: one year after his death, the Secession Group was created in Vienna, and as from that moment on all art disciplines were affected by a radical modernisation of taste, a rejection of prevailing historicism and – if any – some influence only from Neo-Gothic. The ephemeral struggle between Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque was due to be forgotten soon.
It was already mentioned
that Ilg animated a very violent type of polemical exchange, which inevitably
did not raise much sympathy for him. Twenty five years after his death, in 1934
Julius von Schlosser wrote a famous article on the history of the Vienna School
of History of Art. His words on Albert Ilg (who had been his editor in the
second series of the Quellenschriften)
were full of disdain. The article is here quoted in the translation by Karl
Johns. (von Schlosser, 1934).
“Above all, one must however mention Albert Ilg (born 1847, † 1896 as director of the former ‘Ambras Collection’) a genuinely gifted if undisciplined intellect. He was a pupil of Eitelberger, who also employed him at his museum from 1871, and associated with him particularly in editing the ‘Quellenschriften’. Already in 1880, he published a humorously written short polemic The Future of the Baroque Style (Vienna: Manz 1880), under the pseudonym Bernini the Younger. Here as in other publications, he passionately endorsed the emerging Neo-Baroque, which in his strange and not always unmotivated character as quintessential Austrian (‘Stockösterreicher’), he described as the Austrian ‘national style’. It is a subject that does not ring at all gracefully in our ears these days, and for so interesting and paradoxical an author as Hermann Bahr (another Upper Austrian like both Wickhoff and Riegl!), it still today constitutes that shibboleth of the ‘Austrian type’. The collection of sources about the biography of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (and it is no more than that) was not published until 1895, just shortly before he died.”
Apart personal antipathy, Ilg and Schlosser belonged to two different worlds. In political terms, they were clearly not on the same page. Ilg’s main concern was to preserve the dynastic identity of Austria-Hungary from cultural assimilation of Germany and Italy. To that end, he had developed a very strong anti-German feeling. Von Schlosser’s article was written twenty years after the Habsburg had been forced to leave Vienna. Schlosser himself had in any case a political preference for the deutsch-nationalen (Aurenhammer), and – in the very last year of his life – had expressed support for the Anschluß, the inclusion of Austria as part of the Third Reich forced by Hitler a few months before the start of the Second World War (Lersch).
More broadly, von
Schlosser had made of the pursuit of cultural contacts with Italy and Germany
one of the missions of his life, as made clear by his pluri-annual friendship
with the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce and the German linguist and
Romanist Karl Vossler. For him, Austria cultural identity was not preserved by
differentiating Austrian art (and history of art) from its neighbours, but,
through an intense cultural integration, aiming at a global understanding of
culture.
It should be mentioned
that the contribution of the Vienna School of History of Art on the national
style did not finish with Ilg’s death. Also thanks to all contradictions in its
own identity Vienna remained a vital and innovative centre of art. For an
article on the Vienna School and modern architecture, see Vybíral (2009).
Vienna has been a laboratory for the development of architecture and style during the period of the Ringstraße, but also of history of art. Developments have gone step by step with geopolitical events.
Between 1850 and 1860, the
first generation of the Vienna School of History of Art, with Rudolf
Eitelberger von Edelberg has been characterised by four elements: (i) a sense
of belonging to a multi-national and multi-cultural common art framework, with
deep roots in all periods of art and extensive relationship with major
countries in Europe; (ii) an eclectic view of architectural historicism; (iii)
a cultural identity of Austria-Hungary characterised by liberalism and plurality
of inputs, and (iv) a sense of openness to urban innovation in Vienna. At this
stage, Austria-Hungary was still more powerful than any of his neighbours,
covered the same territory it had taken control of at the Congress of Vienna in
1815, and was a forerunner in a multiplicity of respects (see the launch of the
Ringstraße project).
Twenty years after, after
the publication of the pamphlet on the future of Baroque in 1880, Albert Ilg’s
initiated an polemic activity as historian of art and publicist which will
modify all four elements: Ilg identified one national style for the entire
Empire (Baroque for the past; Neo-Baroque for the future), in opposition to
cultural influence from outside Austria (from Germany, in particular) and as
unifying element for an empire exposed to national tensions. Eclecticism was
rejected, and the urban innovation according to a plurality of styles seen as a
manifestation of lack of coherence. His conception of Austria was conservative
and dynastic, his thinking defensive. He literally hated German influence on
arts and everything coming from them. It is not excluded that he saw more
clearly than many others the risks to which Austria-Hungary was exposed, with
the external challenge of the reunification of Germany and Italy, as well as
the domestic instability generated by the contrasting nationalism of German and
non-German groups of the society. His identification of Neo-Renaissance as the
‘negative’ of ‘Neo-Baroque’ as the ‘positive’ can be seen as the sign of
radicalisation of history of art discussions, at a time where the golden times
of Austria Felix were about to finish.
At the end of our journey,
we took note of the strong rejection by Julius von Schlosser of all Ilg’s
arguments, in 1934. Austria-Hungary had already disappeared since almost two
decades, and Ilg’s violent anti-German tones had been replaced by a new
proximity with the powerful neighbour. A defensive view of Austria’s artistic identity
has been replaced by the identification of common areas or work and mutual
influence, with Renaissance as common source of inspiration for Austria,
Germany and Italy. However, we cannot but take notice of a false sense of
security: only two years after the article written by von Schlosser, with the
Spanish Civil War, a decade of destruction will change Europe for ever. The
same year as his death, in 1938, von Schlosser will see Hitler’s troops
entering in Vienna. While his friends Benedetto Croce and Karl Vossler took a
clear position against the respective totalitarian regimes in Italy and Germany,
von Schlosser’s position was certainly more ambiguous.
______________________________________________________________________________
Annex 1) Models of Neo-Gothic, Neo-Rinascimental and Neo-Baroque Buildinga in other city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
 |
| Fig. 15) Budapest. Parliament by Imre Steindl between 1885 and 1904 (neo-Gothic) |
 |
| Fig.16) Budapest. St. Stephen's Basilica, built by József Hild and Miklós Ybl between 1851 and 1906 (Neo-Renaissance) |
 |
Fig. 17) Budapest. Burg Palace,
by Miklós Ybl and Alajos Hauszmann, between 1890 and 1903(Neo-Baroque) Completely destroyed during World War II |
 |
| Fig. 18) Prague. Rudolfinum Palace, built by Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz between 1876 and 1884 (Neo-Renaissance) |
LIST OF SOURCES
Aurenhammer Hans H. - Zäsur oder Kontinuität?, Das Wiener Kunsthistorische Institut im Ständestaat und im Nationalsozialismus, in: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 2004, S. 11-54.
Boheim Wendelin - Albert Ilg, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen der Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, XIX Band, Tempksy, Vienna, Prague, Lipsia, 1989, pp. 353-359
Cennini, Cennino - Das Buch von der Kunst oder Tractat der Malerei des Cennino Cennini da Colle di Valdelsa, übersetzt, mit Einleitung, Noten und Register versehen von Albert Ilg, Neudruck der Ausgabe 1871, Wagener Edition, Melle, 2008
Cennini, Cennino - Das Buch von der Kunst oder Tractat der Malerei des Cennino Cennini da Colle di Valdelsa, übersetzt, mit Einleitung, Noten und Register versehen von Albert Ilg, Wilhelm Braunmüller. Wien, 1871
See:http://books.google.com.au/books?id=MfoGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=cennino&f=false
See:http://books.google.com.au/books?id=MfoGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=cennino&f=false
Damljanobvić Conley, Tanja and Gunzburger Makaš, Emily – Shaping Central Europe and Southeastern European Capital Cities in the Age of Nationalism, in: Emily Gunzburger Makaš, Tanja Damljanobvić Conley, Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires: Planning in Central and Southeastern Eastern, Routledge, Oxfordshire, 2010, pp. 1-28
Dobslaw, Andreas – Die Wiener „Quellenschriften“ und ihr Herausgeber Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg, Deutscher Kunst Verlag, Berlin München, 2009
Es ist Mein Wille, Wiener Zeitung, 25 Dezember 1857, S. 1-2. See: http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Die_Erweiterung_der_Stadt_Wien
Haas, Hanns / Stekl, Hannes (Hg.). Bürgerliche Selbstdarstellung. Städtebau, Architektur, Denkmäler. Bürgertum in der Habsburgermonarchie, Böhlau Verlag, Wien, Köln Weimar, 1995
Ilg, Albert (Hrsg.), Kunstgeschichtliche Charakterbilder aus Österreich-Ungarn, unter Mitwirkung von Moriz Hoernes, Robert Ritter von Schneider, Josef Strzygowski, Josef Neuwirth, Heinrich Zimmermann, Alfred Nossig, Herausgegeben von Albert Ilg, Prag Wien, F. Tempsky, 1893
Ilg, Albert – Nur nicht Österreichisch!, Wien 1885 (Gegen den Strom 1).
Ilg, Albert – Das schwarze Kameel, Wien 1989 (Gegen den Strom 22)
(Der) jüngere Bernini [Albert Ilg] - Die Zukunft des Barockstils: eine Kunstepistel, 1880
Lachnit, Elvig – Die Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte und die Kunst ihrer Zeit. Zum Verhältnis von Methode und Forschungsgegenstand am Beginn der Moderne, Böhlau, Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2005
Landwehr, Eva-Maria - Die Kunst des Historismus, UTB, Böhlau Verlag, Köln Weimar Wien, 2012
Lersch Thomas – Schlossers Hakenkreuz. Eine Replik, in: Kritische Berichte, Ulmer Verlag, 4/90
Mihail, Benôit – Nationalism and Architecture in Nineteenth-Century France. The Example of the French Renaissance Revival, Linda Van Santvoort, Jan De Maeyer and Tom Verschffel, eds. Sources of Regionalism in the Century, Leuven University Press, 2008, pp. 59-69
Presbyter, Theophilus - Schedula Diversarum Artium, I. Band, Revidierter Text, Übersetzung und Appendix von Albert Ilg. Anonymus Bernensis, zum ersten Male herausgegeben und übersetzt von prof. Dr. Hermann Hagen, Neudruck der Ausgabe 1874, Otto Zeller Verlag, Osnabrück, 1970
Presbyter, Theophilus - Schedula Diversarum Artium, I. Band, Revidierter Text, Übersetzung und Appendix von Albert Ilg. Anonymus Bernensis, zum ersten Male herausgegeben und übersetzt von prof. Dr. Hermann Hagen, Wilhelm Braunmüller. Wien, 1874
Rampley, Matthew – The Vienna School of Art History, Empire and the Policy of Scholarship, 1847-1918, Pennsylvania State University, 2013
Riesenfellner, Stefan (Hrg) – Steinernes Bewußtsein I. – Die öffentliche Repräsentation staatlicher und nationaler Identität Österreichs in seinen Denkmälern, Böhlau Verlag, Wien Köln Weimar, 1998
Stachel, Peter - "Vollkommen passende Gefäße" und " Gefäße fremder Form": die Kritik des Kunsthistorikers Albert Ilg (1847-1896) an der Architektur der Wiener Ringstrasse, ihr identitätspolitischer Hintergrund und ihre kunstpolitischen Auswirkungen, East Central Europe = L'Europe du Centre-Est, Vol. 33, Nº. 1-2, 2006 pag. 269-292
Stachel, Peter – Albert Ilg und die „Erfindung“ des Barocks als österreichischer „Nationalstil“, in Csáky, Moritz; Celestini, Federico; Tragatschnig, Ulrich (Hrg), Barock ald Ort des Gedächtinisses. Interpretament der Moderne/Postmoderne, Böhlau, Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2007
von Schlosser, Julius - Die Kunstliteratur: ein Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte, Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co, Wien, 1924
Von Schlosser, Julius - Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art - Review of a Century of Austrian Scholarship in German, in: Journal of Art Historiography, no 1, December 2009,
Translation by Karl Johns of: Die Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte‘, Mitteilungen des österreichischen Institut für Geschichtsforschung Ergänzungs-Band 13, Heft 2, Innsbruck, Wagner 1934.
Vybíral, Jindrĭch - “… die Kunst muss aus nationalem Boden hervorgehen“. Die Erfindung des tschechischen Nationalstils, in: Matthias Krüger – Isabella Woldt (eds). Im Dienste der Nation. Identifikationsstiftungen und Identitätsbrüche in Werken der bildenden Kunst, Berlin 2011, pp. 77-94.
See:
Vybíral, Jindrĭch – National Identity and Style. Constructing National Identity on the Example of Czech Architecture of the 19th Century, in: Vendula Hnídková, National Style. Arts and Politics, Praha 2013, pp. 148-162.
Vybíral, Jindrĭch –The Vienna School of Art History and (Viennese) Modern Architecture, in Journal of Art Historiography, Number 1, December 2009
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento