In 1897, a group of Viennese painters, architects, sculptors, and designers declared their independence from the styles and artistic hierarchies promoted by traditional art academies and salons. The Vienna Secession, as they named their movement, sought to abolish the distinction between fine and applied arts and to realize the Gesamtkunstwerk (meaning "total work of art") through the integration of all creative disciplines. Drawing inspiration from Symbolism, the English Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, and other international artistic currents, the Secessionists, including Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Koloman Moser, and Otto Wagner, championed aesthetic freedom, bold experimentation, and art's vital role in responding to contemporary life and society.
This course explores the Vienna Secession as both a historical movement and a set of enduring questions about art's place in society. Through close study of manifestos, exhibition designs, architectural spaces such as Joseph Maria Olbrich's iconic Secession Building, magazines including the Secessionists' official publication Ver Sacrum, and significant works by Klimt and his contemporaries, we examine how ornament, symbolism, and form were employed to challenge prevailing norms and create new ways of seeing the world.
Key questions guide our exploration: What does it mean to challenge tradition through art? How do aesthetic movements embody and advance freedom and innovation? Why does the Secession's fusion of beauty, provocation, and modernity continue to resonate in contemporary debates over modernism, design, gender, psychology, and cultural innovation?
This course is available for "remote" learning and will be available to anyone with access to an internet device with a microphone (this includes most models of computers, tablets). Classes will take place with a "Live" instructor at the date/times listed below.
Upon registration, the instructor will send along additional information about how to log-on and participate in the class.
