2010 Chicago
HGCEA Emerging Scholars Session
Chair:Barbara McCloskey, University of Pittsburgh
Friday, February 12, 12:30 - 2:00 PM
Grand CD South, Gold Level, East Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago
The Dialectics of Vision: A Reevaluation of Viennese Expressionism
Nathan J. Timpano, Florida State University and Harvard Art Museum/Busch-Reisinger Museum
Viennese Expressionism has historically been understood as a style interested in the inner vision and emotions of the modern artist. This conceptualization is largely due to the handling of the discourse by contemporary art critics who rejected optical vision for a deeper, more personal understanding of artistic form at the turn of the century. Oskar Kokoschka’s 1912 essay “On the Nature of Visions” alternately addresses the decisive role of both inner and outer vision/s in the development of modern painting. In his essay, Kokoschka suggests that artistic vision develops from the “semblance of things” observed in one’s daily environment, and that an awareness of these visions materializes on “a level of consciousness,” rather than a state of remembering. Building upon Kokoschka’s vision dialectic, this paper argues that the corporeal gestures that materialize in paintings by Viennese Expressionists were drawn primarily from the artists’ visual culture, and not their inner musings.
Alfred Roller, the Vienna Secession, and the Gesamtkunstwerk
Diane Silverthorne, Birkbeck, University of London and Royal College of Art
Alfred Roller, the Vienna Secession and the Gesamtkunstwerk Diane Silverthorne, Birkbeck School of History of Art, University of London The designer Alfred Roller, a founder of the Vienna Secession with Gustav Klimt in 1897, remains best known as Gustav Mahler’s set designer at the Vienna Court Opera during Mahler’s acclaimed time as Music Director. In this role, Roller has been attributed with evoking Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, notably in his first production of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ in 1903. However, Roller’s contribution to the set pieces which made up the art of the Vienna Secession in their early years has been under-estimated. This paper describes how Roller embodied significant and newly emerging creative roles, in two other distinctive spaces of art: Ver Sacrum, the Secession periodical, and exhibition design in the Secession Haus, and their turning point from nineteenth century craftsmanship, to modern twentieth century practices. This study brings to light certain of Roller’s practices which fulfilled Secession aspirations for a unified aesthetic, embodying the principles of Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk.
Kunstwissenschaft and the "Primitive": Excursions in the History of Art History, 1880-1925
Priyanka Basu, University of Southern California and Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
From 1880-1925, in tune with colonization, vast amounts of non-European and other non-classical material culture accumulated in European collections, especially in Germany. At the same time, European art previously considered "decadent" began to be legitimated as worthy of art-historical study. This encounter with non-classical objects brought the "primitive" into the newly-formed discipline of art history, which also drew into its orbit scholarship from other fields. Just as styles of modernist primitivism in artmaking emerged during these years, so was the discipline of art history forced to grapple with questions regarding a new material and aesthetic culture. This paper examines aspects of German-speaking art history’s encounter with the "primitive," namely, its attempt to derive psychological laws of artmaking and to trace the evolution of art from "primitive" objects, especially from ornament, and its espousal of the notion of a human artistic drive and impulse to decorate embedded in the psyche.
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HGCEA 2004
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