This autumn the National Gallery presents Facing the Modern, a not-to-be-missed exhibition of Viennese portraiture from the turn of the twentieth century. Almost uniquely among the avant-garde of the early 1900s, the Vienna Secession, a group of maverick Austrian artists formed in 1897 and lead by the great Gustav Klimt, turned to portraiture as a way of breaking new ground.
While other Modernist movements were concentrating on landscape or still-life as a way of stamping their own personality on their subject, turn-of-the-century Vienna was keeping the commissioned portrait – and with it the artist/patron relationship – alive and well, and taking it in new directions.
The variety of characters on show in this exhibition demonstrates how broad an interest there was in Modern art in Vienna from the get-go. It hints at a society-wide fascination with the avant-garde, particularly among the middle classes. Crucially, Viennese art was focusing on individual identity (as befits a society that produced Sigmund Freud),progression and status gained through being as new and cutting-edge as you could be. While Parisians published manifestos, the Secession constructed a huge exhibition building, financed by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s extremely wealthy father. This was not a penniless movement.
The Vienna Secession was largely neglected in British collections of the early twentieth century thanks to the Italo-Francophile leanings of museum buyers at that time. Nowadays, there is an almost universal appetite for the work of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, and yet still Viennese painting of this period seldom comes to Britain. So, if nothing else, this exhibition will be a rare and valuable opportunity to see these works first-hand. It also promises to be interesting from a sociological point of view, giving an insight into the iconoclastic, forward-thinking, liberated capital of an empire in decline. And with that empire soon to be crushed and scattered by the onrush of two world wars, there’s real sadness and dramatic irony here, too – perhaps more than in any other art in Western Europe.
Tickets: £11, Concs: £5.50
What | Facing the Modern at The National Gallery. |
Where | National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN | MAP |
When |
09 Oct 13 – 12 Jan 14, Open 10am-6pm daily. 10am-9pm Fridays. |
Price | |
Website | Click here to book via the National Gallery For |