When we think about Vienna around 1900, our first associations with this period are fin-de-siècle and the establishment of the Art Nouveau period. Moreover, it was a time of blossoming cultural...Show moreWhen we think about Vienna around 1900, our first associations with this period are fin-de-siècle and the establishment of the Art Nouveau period. Moreover, it was a time of blossoming cultural life during the greatest period of the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The main goal of Viennese Art Nouveau was to supplant the entrenched historical styles with modern, bourgeois and Austrian style. Furthermore, the main concept of the Art Nouveau was to strive for a style unity in every possible field of art. The architecture and decorative arts of the Sezessionsstil were much appreciated by Viennese cultural circles. The Austrian cultural centre subsequently became a home to this type of art, since 1900. There emerged two primary art associations called Sezession established in 1897 by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), and Wiener Werkstätte, begun in 1903 by Josef Hoffman (1870-1956). Klimt’s paintings are characterised by applied influences of symbolic paintings of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, elements of Egyptian paintings, Byzantine mosaics and Japanese art. The essence of those factors can be found in later Klimt paintings such as The Kiss (1907-1908). The architect Josef Hoffman on the other hand, was operating with straight lines and geometrical figures. One of the most eminent projects ascribed to Hoffman is the Sanatorium in Purkersdorf (1903-1904) and the Palais Stocklet in Brussels (1905-1911). Notably, Sezession became an opposition to academic art and 19th century eclecticism. The main objective of this style was to break with historicism and focus on nature instead. However, along with Art Nouveau, Vienna also took a traditional approach to art and collecting, understood as creating a collection based on early modern Italian and Renaissance art as well as on Dutch Golden Age paintings. International connections, such as a good flow of information on sales and the developing art trade in a specific period enabled many collectors to purchase a good number of old master paintings. Among the Viennese collectors captivated by Renaissance art, Karol Lanckoroński (1848-1933) is the eminent example of a collector, who managed to create an incredibly interesting and broad collection, as we will see in following chapters.Show less
The present thesis seeks to analyze the specific issues emerging from the transition of a private collection into the public realms of the museum, exemplified by a specific exhibition. "For Your...Show moreThe present thesis seeks to analyze the specific issues emerging from the transition of a private collection into the public realms of the museum, exemplified by a specific exhibition. "For Your Eyes Only. A Private Collection between Mannerism and Surrealism" has displayed Richard and Ulla Dreyfus-Best’s private collection for the general public at the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation in Venice and the Kunstmuseum Basel as a travelling exhibition in 2014. The interaction between ‘private’ and ‘public’ has been a central aspect when examining the origins of the museum. Although these interrelations have been academically acknowledged in a historical context and in connection with the alleged “boom” of personal-collection museums, the curatorial standpoint of this transition has been fairly neglected. Moreover, neither the Dreyfus-Best collection, nor its public display has been thorogouly investigated. Thus, new insights beyond the object’s textual and formal connections haven’t been published so far. The following research intends to outlines the underlying structures of the collection’s transition from the private into the public realm of the Kunstmuseum Basel. The main research objective is thus to unfold the ways of curatorial reinterpretation in order to understand how a private collection is made understandable and intellectually accessible for the public by means of particular structures and concepts of order. The Dreyfus-Best collection’s similarities to a Renaissance Wunderkammer will be used as starting point to question whether similar structures were implemented in the curatorial concept of the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum. Furthermore, Michel Foucault’s account on the ‘Renaissance episteme’ will be examined, in order to propose a certain applicability of these ordering principles to the basic structure of the museum-exhibition.Show less
