Art in the Habsburg Empire:
Between Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism



I:  MARIA THERESA IN VIENNA


Caspar von Zumbusch
Maria Theresa (1888)
Empress of Austria-Hungary, 1740-1780.

The Monument of Maria Theresa in front of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (The Museum of Art History)
(designed by Gottfried Semper, completed in 1893)


The Kunsthistorisches Museum (and the Museum of Natural History (in the foreground) in Gottfried
Semper’s plan for the Imperial Forum (Kaiserforum), Vienna (1870)





Map of Austria from William Shepherd, Distribution of Races in Austria-Hungary (London, 1911)



NATIONALISM IN THE ARTS IN THE 19TH CENTURY



Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
King Ottokar II and Rudolph of Habsburg at the Battle of Marchfeld (1835)


Anton Petter - Ottokar's Son Wenzel (Václav) asks Rudolph of Habsburg for the Corpse of his father
(1826)


The so-called National Awakening
František Palacký (1798 - 1876)
Author of History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia (1836 and 1848)
But note: first published in German and then translated into Czech

L: Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
R: Cover of a 1919 edition of The Bartered Bride (first performed 1866)


Antonín Dvořák
Slavonic Dances (1878-86)


Josef Myslbek – Monument to Přemysl the Ploughman and Libuše (Prague, 1881-1890)



Mikoláš Aleš
St. Wenceslas on the façade of A. Storch and Son, bookseller and publisher, Prague (1896)


Josef Myslbek – St. Wenceslas, Wenceslas Square, Prague (1918)



Monuments to St. Wenceslas
L: Bartoušov (northern Bohemia) (1735)
R: Chlumec nad Cidlinou (northern Bohemia) (1807). Sculptors unknown

R: Equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Rome (175 CE)
L: Donatello, Equestrian statue of General Gattamelata, Padua (1453)


Crowd rallying in Wenceslas Square on 28 October 1918



Bertalan Székeley
Discovery of the Body of King Louis after the Battle of Mohács, 1526 (1860)


Albert Schickedanz and György Zala, Millennium Memorial, Budapest
(1896-1929)


The Archangel Gabriel with the Crown of St. Stephen and the Cross of Hungary
Arpád leading the Magyar chieftains


Miklós Ybl
St. Stephen’s Basilica, Budapest (1905)
Built to celebrate Saint Stephen I of Hungary (975-1038)

A vintage photo of an old building Description automatically generated
Alajos Strobl
Monument to St. Stephen I, in Budapest (1906)

MODERNISM AND HABSBURG COSMOPOLITANISM



Josef Maria Olbrich, The Secession Building (1898)
Gustav Klimt, The Beethoven Frieze (1902)


Falat Krajobraz 1906.jpg
Julian Fałat – Landscape with the Giewont peaks (1906)


http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Weiss/Images/Promienny.jpg
Wojciech Weiss – Radiant Sunset (1900)


‘Our Poles have achieved a great success here. Their long gallery is a space in itself, a landscape
in itself. They have breathed a different air from time immemorial, and have other ways of
thinking’
Ludwig Hevesi, Review of the Secession Exhibition, 22 November 1902, reprinted in Hevesi, Acht
Jahre Sezession (Vienna, 1906) p. 402
http://www.szecesszio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2570873150x.jpg

'In no way do we accentuate Czechness; be yourself and you will be Czech. We have no fear for our
tongue. We are nationally so far advanced that no power in the world can tear it away from us.
[ … ]
We will seek mutual understanding with our German countrymen … Do we count the workers as part of
the nation? Even when they proclaim that they are internationalist? Yes. Nationality is not a
patent of the Young Czechs or the Old Czechs.'
František Šalda et al, 'Manifesto of Czech Modernism,' in Rozhledy 5 (1895-1896)

František Kupka
The Wave (1902-3)


Manes Exhibition.bmp
Arnošt Hofbauer
Poster for the 1898 Mánes Exhibition, Topič Gallery, Prague

Katsushika Hokusai – The Great Wave (1830-32)



L: Antonín Procházka, Circus (1907)
R: Georges Seurat, The Circus (1891)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Cezanne_The_Card_Players_Barnes.jpg
L: Paul Cézanne, The Card Players
(1890-92)
R: Antonín Procházka – Card Players (1908)
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5053/5493169384_5d8a9e3cca_o.jpg