Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #22

Continuing the delve into back numbers of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. Volume 22 covers the period from April 1908 to September 1908, and the highlight of this issue is a series of ink drawings (above and below) by Carl Otto Czeschka, another member of the Wiener Werkstätte. Also in this edition is a feature on Gustav Klimt’s controversial Faculty Paintings. As usual, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail is advised to download the entire number at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

Klimt’s Faculty series was created for the University of Vienna’s Great Hall. The profusion of naked bodies and sinister females proved too much for the staid members of the faculty, and Klimt was accused of producing pornography. The Jurisprudence panel (above) is one of the strangest of all his works, with three women representing the Furies presiding over a condemned man ensnared by an octopus, a common creature in Japanese art but very rare in Western art up to this time. We only ever see black-and-white reproductions of the complete paintings as they were destroyed by the SS in 1945.

More Wiener Werkstätte with a feature on the newly-built Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich. The very distinctive tower is known as the Hochzeitsturm, or Wedding Tower, named to commemorate the wedding of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Darmstadt in 1905.

Discover more from { feuilleton }