Jugendstil

Jugendstil (German pronunciation: [ˈjuːɡn̩ tˌstiːl] ⓘ;

Jugendstil
"Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly
in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in
Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent
from about 1895 until about 1910.[1] It was the
German counterpart of Art Nouveau. The members of
the movement were reacting against the historicism
and neo-classicism of the official art and architecture
academies. It took its name from the art journal
Jugend, founded by the German artist Georg Hirth. It
was especially active in the graphic arts and interior
decoration.[2]

Its major centers of activity were Munich and Weimar

and the Darmstadt Artists' Colony founded in
Darmstadt in 1901. Important figures of the movement
included the Swiss graphic artist Hermann Obrist, Otto
Eckmann, and the Belgian architect and decorator
Henry van de Velde. In its earlier years, the style was
influenced by the British Modern Style. It was also
influenced by Japanese prints. Later, under the
Secessionists' influence, it tended toward abstraction
and more geometrical forms.[1]

History
The movement had its origins in Munich with the
founding of an association of visual artists in 1892,
which broke away from the more formal historical and
academic styles of the Academy. Georg Hirth chose the
Top: Ernst Ludwig House at the Darmstadt
name Munich Secession for the association. Later, the
Artists' Colony; Center: cover of Jugend
Vienna Secession, founded in 1897 and the Berlin
magazine by Otto Eckmann (1896); Bottom:
Secession took their own names from the Munich
Dining room of Peter Behrens in Darmstadt
group. The journal of the group, Jugend, begun in
(1900–1901)
1896, along with another Munich publication,
Simplicissimus and Pan in Berlin, became the most Years active
c. 1896–1914

visible showcases of the new style. The leading figures Location Germany
of this movement, including Peter Behrens, Bernhard
Pankok, and Richard Riemerschmid, as well as the majority of the founding members of the Munich
Secession, all provided illustrations to Jugend.
In the beginning, the style was used primarily in illustrations and graphic arts. Jugendstil combined floral
decoration and sinuous curves with more geometric lines, and soon was used for covers of novels,
advertisements, and exhibition posters. Designers often created original styles of typeface that worked
harmoniously with the image, such as the Arnold Böcklin typeface created in 1904.

Otto Eckmann was one of the most prominent German artists associated with both Jugend and Pan. His
favourite animal was the swan, and so great was his influence that the swan came to serve as the symbol
of the entire movement. Another prominent designer in the style was Richard Riemerschmid, who made
furniture, pottery, and other decorative objects in a sober, geometric style that pointed forward toward Art
Deco. The Swiss artist Hermann Obrist, living in Munich, made designs with sinuous double curves,
modeled after plants and flowers, which were a prominent motif of the early style.

Joseph Maria Olbrich and the Darmstadt Artists' Colony

The Darmstadt Artists' Colony is a remarkable collection of Jugendstil buildings created beginning in
1899 by Ernest Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, a grandson of Queen Victoria, to promote both commerce
and the arts. He brought together a group of designers to create his new community, including Peter
Behrens, Hans Christiansen, and Joseph Maria Olbrich.[3] The Colony architecture represented a
complete break with the earlier floral style, and was much bolder in its design. Behrens and several of the
other architects built their own houses there, and designed every detail, from the doorknobs to the
dishes.[4]

The most impressive building of the Colony is the Ernst-Ludwig House, named for the Grand Duke,
which contained the workshops of the artists. It was designed by Olbrich, with an entrance in the form of
a three-quarter circle, flanked by two statues, Force and Beauty, by Ludwig Habich (1901).
Armchair and aluminum bronze The Mathildenhöhe – Glückert
doors designed by Peter Behrens for House (1901)
his music room at Darmstadt

Behrens' house Entrance to the Ernst-Ludwig House,

the workshop of the artists at the
Darmstadt Colony, by Joseph Maria
Olbrich (1901)
Olbrich's house, reconstructed in a Exhibition Building (1901)
simpler style after it was destroyed in
World War II. Only the colored
checkerboard design is original.

Wedding Tower (1901)

Henry van de Velde and Weimar

 Interior of Room 6 of the Arts Palace, Porcelain plate by Henry van de
Düsseldorf by Henry van de Velde Velde for Meissen factory (1903)
(1902) (Darmstadt Museum)

Silver terrine by Henry van de Velde

(1905–06)

The city of Weimar was another important center of the Jugendstil, thanks largely to the Belgian architect
and designer Henry van de Velde. Van de Velde had played an important role in the early Belgian Art
Nouveau, building his own house and decorating it in Art Nouveau style, with the strong influence of the
British Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a known in Germany for his work in Belgium and Paris, and
began a new career in Dresden in 1897, with a display at the Dresden Exposition of decorative arts. His
work became known in Germany through decorative arts journals, and he received several commissions
for interiors in Berlin, for a villa in Chemnitz, the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, and the Nietzsche House
in Weimar for Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He settled in
Weimar in 1899 and produced a wide variety of decorative works, including silverware and ceramics, all
in strikingly original forms. His silverware was particularly unusual: each piece had its own form, with
sleek curving lines, but together they formed a harmonious ensemble. In 1902, he decorated the
apartment of Count Harry Kessler, a prominent patron of the Impressionist painters.[5]

In 1905, with the patronage of the Grand Duke of Weimar, he created the Grand Ducal School of Arts and
Crafts in Weimar. He created a showcase of applied arts for the Dresden Exposition of Applied Arts in
1906, decorated with paintings by Ludwig von Hofmann, intended as the main room of a new museum of
decoration in Weimar. He transposed the characteristics of his silverware, dishes, and furniture into the
architecture. Van de Velde left off the curling vegetal lines of Art Nouveau decoration and replaced them
with much simpler, more stylized curves which were part of the structure of his buildings and decorative
works.[6]

The importance of Weimar as a cultural center of the Jugendstil was ended in 1906, when its main patron,
Count Harry Kessler, commissioned Rodin to make a nude statue for the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke
was scandalized, and Kessler was forced to resign. The Weimar school of design lost its importance until
1919, when it returned as the Bauhaus under Walter Gropius, and played a major part in the emergence of
modern architecture.[7]

Peter Behrens and the German Werkbund

The architect and designer Peter Behrens (1868–1940) was a key figure in the final years of the
Jugendstil, and in the transition to modern architecture. Born in Hamburg, where he studied painting,
Behrens moved to Munich in 1890 and worked as a painter, illustrator and bookbinder. In 1890, he was
one of the founders of the Munich Secession. In 1899, he was invited to participate in the Darmstadt
Artists' Colony, where he designed his own house and all of its contents, including the furniture, towels
and dishes.

After 1900 he became involved in industrial design and the reform of architecture to more functional
forms. In 1902, he participated in the Turin International Exposition, one of the first major Europe-wide
showcases of Art Nouveau. In 1907, Behrens and a group of other notable Jugendstil artists, including
(Hermann Muthesius, Theodor Fischer, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Bruno Paul, Richard
Riemerschmid, and Fritz Schumacher, created the Deutscher Werkbund. Modeled after the Arts and
Crafts movement in England, its goal was to improve and modernize the design of industrial products and
everyday objects. He first major project was AEG turbine factory in Berlin (1908–1909). Behren's
assistants and students at this time included Mies van der Rohe, C. E. Jeanerette (the future Le
Corbusier), and Walter Gropius, the future head of the Bauhaus. The work of Behrens and the Werkbund
effectively launched the transition from the Jugendstil to modernism in Germany, and the end of the
Jugendstil.[8]
 Music room of Behrens' house in AEG turbine factory in Berlin, by
Darmstadt (1902) Peter Behrens (1908–1909)

Architecture and decoration

In Berlin, August Endell was both editor of Pan magazine and a major figure in Jugendstil decoration,
designing hotels and theaters, such as the interior of Buntes Theater in Berlin (1901), destroyed during
World War II. He designed every detail of the interior down to the nails. with each room in a different
color, and on a different theme. He also designed the Hackesche Höfe, a complex of buildings in the
centre of Berlin, noted for the imaginative details of the decoration, in spirals and curling forms,

Buntes Theater, Berlin (1901) by

August Endell

Posters and graphic arts

The most prominent graphic artist was Otto Eckmann, who produced numerous illustrations for the
movement's journal Jugend, in a sinuous, floral style that was similar to the French style. He also created
a type style based upon Japanese calligraphy. Joseph Sattler was another graphic artist who contributed to
the style through another artistic journal called Pan. Sattler designed a type face often used in Jugendstil.
Another important German graphic artist was Josef Rudolf Witzel (1867–1925), who produced many
early covers for Jugend, with curving, floral forms which helped shape the style.

The magazine Simplicissimus, published in Munich, was also noted for its Jugendstil graphics, as well as
for the modern writers it presented, including Thomas Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke. Important
illustrators for the magazine included Thomas Theodor Heine.

Cover of Pan magazine by Joseph Illustration by Bernhard Pankok in

Sattler (1895) Jugend (1896)

Cover of Jugend by Otto Eckmann Cover of Jugend by Otto Eckmann

(1896) (1896)
Cover of Jugend issue #40 by Josef Restaurant poster by Josef Rudolf
Rudolf Witzel (1896) Witzel (1896)

Andromedia, an illustration for Simplicissimus cover by Thomas

Jugend by Hans Christiansen (1898) Theodor Heine (1905)

Masthead of Dekorative kunst, the

Munich decorative arts magazine
(1901)
Furniture
The ideal of designers of the Jugendstil was to make a house a complete work of art, with everything
inside, from the furniture to the carpets and the dishware, silverware and the art, in perfect harmony. With
this ideal in mind, they established their own workshops to produce furniture.

August Endell, Theodor Fischer, Bruno Paul, and especially Richard Riemerschmid were important
figures in Jugendstil furniture.

Maple wood and leather armchair by Armchair by Joseph Maria Olbrich,

Otto Eckmann (1898) oak and textile (1901), Darmstadt
Museum

Armchair by Joseph Maria Olbrich, Chair by Bruno Paul (1900)

Darmstadt Museum

Metalware
Metallwarenfabrik Straub & Schweizer (WMF) was, by 1900, the world's largest producer of household
metalware, mainly in the Jugendstil style, designed in the WMF Art Studio under Albert Mayer. WMF
purchased Orivit, another company known for its Jugendstil pewter, in 1905.
Orivit pewter Jugendstil calling card Orivit Jugendstil pewter bowl with
tray. Design no. 2043. c.1900 glass liner. c.1900

WMF Jugendstil pewter dish. Design

no.232. c.1906

Notes and citations

1. Encyclopedia Britannica On-Line edition, Jugendstil
2. "Jugendstil: Art Nouveau in Germany" (http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/jugends
til.htm). www.visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
3. Sembach, Art Nouveau (1991), pp. 141–163
4. Sembach (1993) pp. 141–163
5. Sembach (1991), pp. 132–134
6. Sembach (1991), pp. 132–134
7. Sembach (1991), p. 139
 8. Bony, L'Architecture Moderne (2012), pp. 55–57

Bibliography
Bony, Anne (2012). L'Architecture Moderne (in French). Larousse. ISBN 978-2-03-587641-
6.
Lahor, Jean (2007) [1901]. L'Art nouveau (in French). Baseline Co. Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85995-
667-0.
Ormiston, Rosalind; Robinson, Michael (2013). Art Nouveau – Posters, Illustration and Fine
Art. Flame Tree Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84786-280-8.
Sembach, Klaus-Jürgen (2013). L'Art Nouveau- L'Utopie de la Réconciliation (in French).
Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-3005-5.

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