The Order

of Ornament,
the Structure
of Style
Theoretical Foundations of
Modern Art and Architecture

DEBRA SCHAFTER
San Antonio College

published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge

The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

cambridge university press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, uk
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http://www.cambridge.org
Debra Schafter 2003
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2003
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typefaces Bembo 11/13 pt. and Centaur System DeskTopPro/UX

[bv]

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Schafter, Debra, 1955
The order of ornament, the structure of style : theoretical foundations of modern art and
architecture / Debra Schafter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-521-79114-6 (hb)
1. Decoration and ornament Europe, Central Art nouveau. 2. Art nouveau
Europe,
Central Themes, motives. 3. Modernism (Art) Europe, Central. 4. Art
Criticism Europe History 19th century. 5. Decoration and ornament,
Ancient Influence. 6. Symbolism in art Europe, Central. I. Title.
nk1442 .s33 2002
729'.0943'09034 dc21
2001025938
ISBN 0 521 79114 6 hardback

For my parents,
Merriam and Richard Zanuzoski

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1

Introduction
Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

The Order of Ornament in Nineteenth-Century

Theories of Style
John Ruskin and the Representation of Divine Order
Owen Jones and Natural Structure
Gottfried Semper and Evidence of Function
Alois Riegl and the Psychological Disposition

Ornament and Language

The Language of Architecture
Ornament as Emblem
The Formal Sign
Symbolizing the Creative Process
The Perceptual Signifier

Visual Evidence
The Emblematic
Structural Signs
Functional Symbols
Perceptual Stimuli
Palais Stoclet as Gesamtkunstwerk

page ix
xiii
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7
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167
vii

Contents
5

Conclusion
Consequences
The Subsequent Impact

Notes
Bibliography
Index

viii

178
180
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195
257
273

Illustrations

1 John Ruskin, drawing, Part of the Cathedral of St. Lo, Normandy,

from his The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849
2 Owen Jones, pattern compositions, Ornament of Savage
Tribes, from his The Grammar of Ornament, 1856
3 Owen Jones, Examples of Moresque Ornament, from his The
Grammar of Ornament, 1856
4 Owen Jones, Stanhope wallpaper design for Jackson and
Graham, c. 1870
5 Caribbean hut, from Semper, Der Stil
6 Profile, full, and combined views of palmette, from Riegl,
Stilfragen
7 Lotus/palmette chain on Attic bowl from Aegina, from Riegl,
Stilfragen
8 Palmette under-handle motif from Apulian red-figure vase, from
Riegl, Stilfragen
9 Palmette ornament from necking of the columns on the north
porch of the Erechtheion, Athens, from Riegl, Stilfragen
10 Corinthian capital from Temple of Apollo, Bassae-Phigalia, from
Riegl, Stilfragen
11 Example of arabesques in manuscript illumination from Cairo,
1411, from Riegl, Stilfragen
12 John Ruskin, drawing, Northwest angle of the facade of St. Marks,
1852
13 Comparison of emblematic features of Gothic architecture with
debased style, from Pugin, True Principles of Pointed or
Christian Architecture
14 Basic principles of harmonic composition for surface patterns,
from Jones, The Grammar of Ornament
15 Individual particles of Greek lotus/palmette motifs, from Jones,
The Grammar of Ornament

page 21
28
29
31
37
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50
50
51
65
68
75
75
ix

List of Illustrations
16 Egyptian and Assyrian columns, from Semper, Der Stil
17 Assyrian relief from Nimrud, detail of heraldic-style composition
with winged bulls, from Riegl, Stilfragen
18 Lion Hunt, alabaster relief, Nineveh (slabs 124867/868)
19 Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Josef Pembauer, 1890
20 Gustav Klimt, Music II, 1898 (destroyed)
21 Kylix (cup) attributed to Makron, Berlin Staatliche
Museum 2290
22 Gustav Klimt, 1st Secession Exhibition Poster and Catalog cover,
1898
23 Gustav Klimt, Pallas Athene, 1898
24 Gustav Klimt, Judith I, 1901
25 Otto Wagner, Kirche St. Leopold am Steinhof, Vienna, 19027
26 Otto Wagner, Kirche St. Leopold, Vienna, detail of entry
27 Koloman Moser, fabric samples (detail): (top) Palm Leaf, 1899;
(bottom) Poppy, 1900
28 Hoffmann, fabric samples (detail): (top) Vineta, 1904; (bottom)
Mushrooms, 1902
29 Otto Wagner, Majolikahaus (apartment house at 40 Linke
Weinzeile, Vienna), 18989
30 Joze Plecnik, Zacherl House, competition design, 1900
31 Joze Plecnik, Langer House, Vienna, 190001
32 Traditional Slovene textile motif
33 Josef Hoffmann, example of Gitterwerk, c. 1905
34 Josef Hoffmann, sketch for high-backed chair, 1903
35 Japanese family crest, Edo Period, nineteenth century
36 Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Willow Tea Rooms Settle,
Glasgow, 1904
37 Biedermeier-style chaise, ash and ebony, Austrian, early nineteenth
century
38 Leopold Forstner, female-figure mosaic panel, from vestibule of
Palais Stoclet, Brussels, c. 1910
39 Oskar Kokoschka, illustrations from Die traumenden Knaben,
1908
40 Otto Czeschka, illustrations from Die Nibelungen, original ed.,
1908
41 Max Fabiani, Portois & Fix Building, Vienna, 18991900
42 Midas Monument (Yasilikaya, Phrygia), from Semper, Der Stil
sterreichisches Postparkasse, Vienna, 19036 and
43 Otto Wagner, O
191012
sterreichisches Postparkasse, Vienna, detail of
44 Otto Wagner, O
exterior cladding
x

85
94
94
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107
107
109
110
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125
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127
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127
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130
133
135
136
137

List of Illustrations
45 Otto Wagner, Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna, interior view of
ceiling, 19027
46 Otto Wagner, Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna, interior view of
flooring, 19027
47 Othmar Schimkowitz, Nike figure, cast aluminum, Postparkasse,
Vienna
sterreichisches Postparkasse, Vienna, detail of
48 Otto Wagner, O
entrance
sterreichisches Postparkasse, Vienna, interior,
49 Otto Wagner, O
detail of heating register
sterreichisches Postparkasse, Vienna, view
50 Otto Wagner, O
of main lobby
51 Joze Plecnik, Zacherl Building, Vienna, 19045
52 K. M. Kerndle, design for a facade, 1904
53 Otto Prutscher, Lower Austrian Pavilion, Vienna Jagd Exhibition,
exterior view of exhibition hall, 1910
54 Pavel Janak, study for a facade, 1912
55 Ludwig Baumann, Chamber of Commerce, Vienna
56 14th Secession Exhibition, 1902, Haus Secession, Vienna, view of
central gallery
57 14th Secession Exhibition, 1902, Haus Secession, Vienna, view of
side gallery with Rudolf Bacher sculpture
58 14th Secession Exhibition, 1902, Haus Secession, Vienna, view of
side gallery with Ferdinand Andri capital figure
59 Gustav Klimt, Beethoven frieze, 14th Secession Exhibition, 1902,
Haus Secession, Vienna
60 Gustav Klimt, detail of Beethoven frieze: Suffering of Weak
Humanity, Knight in Armor, and Pity and Ambition
61 Gustav Klimt, detail of Beethoven frieze: Hostile Powers
62 Gustav Klimt, detail of Beethoven frieze: Poetry (representing
the Arts)
63 Gustav Klimt, detail of Beethoven frieze: Choir of Angels and
Embracing Couple
64 Otto Wagner, apartment house at 23 Schottenring, Vienna, 1877,
facade and view with adjacent building
65 Otto Wagner, Villa Wagner II, Vienna, 191213
66 Koloman Moser, chair, cedar and lemonwood, 1904, designed for
Apartment for a Young Couple
67 Loffler & Powolny, Vase for Violets, 1906, manufactured by
Wiener Keramik
68 Gustav Klimt, Philosophy, oil on canvas, 18991907 (destroyed 1945)
69 Gustav Klimt, Medicine, oil on canvas, 19007 (destroyed 1945)

138
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157
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159
161
162
xi

List of Illustrations
70 Gustav Klimt, Jurisprudence, oil on canvas, c. 1907 (destroyed 1945)
71 Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, oil on canvas, 1907
72 Gustav Klimt, Golden Apple-Tree, oil on canvas, 1903 (destroyed
1945)
73 Gustav Klimt, Park, oil on canvas, 190910
74 Josef Hoffmann, Abstract relief, 14th Secession Exhibition, 1902
75 Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet, Brussels, 190511, ground plan
76 Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet, Brussels, 190511, front facade
77 Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet, Brussels, 190511, back facade
78 Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet, Brussels, 190511, interior,
vestibule
79 Gustav Klimt, Dining-room frieze, Palais Stoclet, Brussels,
190511, overview
80 Gustav Klimt, Dining-room frieze, Palais Stoclet, Brussels,
190511, Expectation
81 Gustav Klimt, Dining-room frieze, Palais Stoclet, Brussels,
190511, Fulfillment
82 Gustav Klimt, Dining-room frieze, Palais Stoclet, Brussels,
190511, end panel
83 Adolf Loos, Manz Bookshop facade, Vienna, 1912
84 Adolf Loos, American Bar, Vienna, interior, 1908
85 Adolf Loos, Chicago Tribune Tower Building, competition
design, 1922
86 Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait with Twisted Arm, charcoal and wash,
c. 1910
87 Egon Schiele, Little Tree, watercolor and pencil, 1912

xii

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1
Introduction

he traditional idea of modernism as an essentially Western European phenomenon that erupted from a collective rejection of academic
standards and independent searches for new and innovative means of
expression held sway for nearly a hundred years.1 At the core of conventional
accounts of the Modern Movement is the concept that historical and representational values were abandoned in exchange for increasingly subjective, symbolic, and truthful forms of expression. In the same narratives, the Art Nouveau/Jungendstil, Symbolist, and craft revivalist movements are generally
positioned as transitional bridges between early-nineteenth-century academic
practice and the high modernism of the twentieth century. Here authors have
identified connecting formal and conceptual traits among works produced by a
broad range of artistic personalities, enabling them to arrange large bodies of art
and architecture into concise and manageable trends.
Studies of modern art, architecture, and theory produced in the past several
years have challenged such convenient but unsupportable oversimplifications
and, increasingly, have dismantled many of the assumptions, chronologies, and
hierarchies firmly affixed to standard narratives of arts presumed progressive
march through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With greater
frequency they have exposed the diversity, complexity, and pan-European nature
of modern art, architecture, and design, particularly in the earliest phases of
their development.2 This examination of early modern art, design, and theory
embarks on a similar pursuit of reassessing many basic assumptions entrenched
in studies of modernism. At its center is an evaluation of the underlying organization of nineteenth-century stylistic theories, wherein new notions regarding
the function and meaning of artistic forms arose from extensive investigations
of materials from previously unknown or neglected periods and cultures. Contrary to the concept that modern art and design developed from an ahistorical
search for purer form and more personal modes of expression, this study proposes that it was precisely within a more discriminating study of tradition and a
keener observation of style (eventually, from lesser-known cultures) that theo-

Introduction
rists devised new concepts regarding how art functions and obtains meaning. In
addition, this examination observes the role that late-nineteenth-century theories (and the sources on which they were based) played in the emergence of
modern form in central European art, architecture, and design. Objects derived
from early or archaic stages of art- and shelter-making in the ancient Near East
and throughout the European West embodied for theorists (and, subsequently,
for artists and architects) a particular vitality and purity lost in the periods
traditionally upheld as the inculpable standards of Western art and architecture,
in particular, the classical Greek, the Italian High Renaissance, and the Baroque.3
This project identifies archaisms as one of the key factors that contributed to
the advent of modern expression in the visual and applied arts produced outside
the most prominent western European centers of modernism. Also, it seeks to
unravel central European artists incentives for adopting ancient motifs and
shaping them into meaningful compositions. More important, it also recognizes
that archaisms took a very specific form that of ornament in late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century art, and explores the significance of the alliance
between archaisms and ornament as it supported both the rational and the
decorative intentions of artists and architects.4 In the ornamental compositions
associated with ancient art and vernacular objects, central European architects
and artists discovered rational designs for articulating form and structure, residual
evidence of artistic and architectural development, and visually complex patterns
that suggested new perceptual possibilities for both the constructed facade and
the painted surface. Hence, the concept of archaizing as it is examined here
extends beyond mere replication of early art forms to the ongoing search for
structural sources, functional origins, and the psychological roots of the fine and
applied arts.
The revelation that ornamental form could operate with such force and
variety was not the unique discovery of early modern painters, builders, and
designers, however. Rather, these perceptions of ornamental function may be
traced back to the numerous inquiries into the basis and meaning of style that
began in England in the 1840s. Ornament represented the central topic in
studies of stylistic development emerging just before the second half of the
nineteenth century, since it was perceived as the most conventionalized manifestation of style in architecture and the applied arts. More specifically, applied
sculptural decoration, ornamental patterns, and highly stylized motifs produced
in remote locations and in primal stages of object-making presented the distinct
advantage of revealing stylistic roots in their purest and most legible state.
I have identified four general functions assigned to ornament in the many
theses on style that emerged in England and on the European continent in the
latter half of the nineteenth century. The nomenclature established to distinguish
between the various emphases in ornamental applications, though derived primarily from the vocabularies of the nineteenth-century theorists themselves, is
also a matter of analytic convenience. In the most literal sense, ornament could

Introduction
operate as a reflective emblem, capable of communicating a complete concept to
its audience by means of its representational nature. The fact that it resembled a
natural element or an image allowed the emblem to convey meaning independent of its context. The term emblem was used in the nineteenth century to
refer specifically to representational and iconographic decoration.5 By contrast,
ornament functioning as a sign distills from natural forms a vocabulary of conventionalized motifs, the arbitrary character of which permits the ornamental
composition to define and order an object by transferring the rational laws of
nature (proportion, balance, unity) to the man-made article. Ornamental signs,
unlike emblems, are entirely dependent on their context for meaning. Ornament can also operate as symbol, in which case it reflects neither the appearance
nor the structure of nature, but rather designates an underlying concept. The
spectator senses a comprehensive order in a building or object when he understands the function of its parts. The symbols supplied by ornament designate the
functional operation of the part by recalling artistically how the work of architecture or art was made. As a result, symbols mediate between the whole of a
building or object and its parts.
The designations sign and symbol were used interchangeably in the nineteenth
century, as they often are in the present, but for the theorists examined here
they had specific connotations. While sign referred to a conventional mark that
stood for a more complex notion, in ornamental theory it shared its formal
structure with the natural forms it replaced. Symbols in nineteenth-century
stylistic theories, on the other hand, often referred to a concept rather than a
physical object and, therefore, whether representational or abstract, were not
directly reflective of the idea they presented. Last, ornament acting as a perceptual signifier can convey the essential characteristics of a constructed object by
appealing directly to the senses of the viewer. In this role, ornament stimulates
optical and tactile sensations by recalling past sensory events and, consequently,
helps the viewer understand formal elements and their relationships. Though
the signifier represents only one half of the sign in Saussurean linguistics, its
specific use in this study is intended to designate ornament that could trigger in
the viewer a perceptual memory of past sensory activity.
These four definitions of ornamental function are evaluated primarily
through the writings of four prominent theorists: John Ruskin (18191900),
Owen Jones (180974), Gottfried Semper (180379), and Alois Riegl (1858
1905). Each author produced a corpus of theoretical work that exemplifies one
of the four functions of ornament assessed here and identified in turn-of-thecentury art and architecture. The work of all four authors emerged from a
growing body of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century literature on the
visual arts determined to expand notions of art beyond archaeological questions
of fact (patronage, purpose, techniques, and contemporary conditions and ideals). These increasingly critical approaches treated art as autonomous matter,
exhibiting an independent vitality and displaying legible marks that allowed

Introduction
authoritative judgments of works from the past. As such, each author examined
here drew from a vast compendium of emerging ideas regarding artistic function, internal logic, and audience response.6 What was unique about the theories
of Jones, Semper, and Riegl in particular, however what draws them together
as the focus of this study was the way in which they intentionally departed
from the traditional emphasis on Western material in order to build their treatises.
Whereas Heinrich Wofflin, Konrad Fiedler, Adolf Hildebrand, Adolf Goller,
and August Schmarsow, among others, focused on the western European tradition so as to absorb styles from antiquity, the Renaissance, and the Baroque into
the artistic present, Jones, Semper, and Riegl put all art on an equal footing as
the subject for discussion.
Of central interest is how each of the four writers structured the material of
his inquiry and consequently arrived at a certain perception of ornamental and
stylistic meaning. By investigating the underlying organization (as opposed to
the content alone) of stylistic doctrines, we discover how Ruskin, Jones, Semper, and Riegl obtained their investigative approaches from other areas of
inquiry. Past and current ideas of how the natural world was ordered and how
language acquired meaning dominated the methods by which each of these
theorists defined style and understood ornament. The task at hand, however, is
not one of showing how one area of knowledge came to mirror another, but
rather to demonstrate that the stable structures defining particular modes of
scientific and linguistic inquiry suggested (both intentionally or unintentionally)
the means by which to assess the development and implications of style. Presented here is a model of theoretical assessment that attempts to broaden the
readers understanding of the conceptual context in which nineteenth-century
perceptions of style were framed. This examination of the configuration of
stylistic doctrines allows a more comprehensive understanding of the positions
of the four key writers at its center and, consequently, clarifies the intentions,
diversity, and meaning of the unique formal and compositional factors that
define the nascent stages of modern art, architecture, and design in central
Europe.
The earliest of these writings, appearing in mid-nineteenth-century England,
reflects a lingering dependency on the medieval perception of universal order;
the arrangement and meaning of ornament, like that of nature and language,
was derived from biblical concepts. As a result, John Ruskin conceived ornament as a reflective emblem, representing a divinely ordered natural world and
the fundamental tenets of Christian doctrine.
Ruskins meditations on style present an illuminating contrast to studies of
ornament that aligned their methodologies with those of modern science in the
hope of claiming equal validity for their results. By 1860, natural science, biblical
criticism, and comparative philology all contributed to the realization that the
Bible was not historically true. Geology proved the earth was much older than
biblical accounts implied, Darwinism challenged biblical explanations of Crea-

Introduction
tion, and a comparison of Hebrew with other languages revealed that it was
not, as many evangelists had thought, a unique tongue created by God as the
medium of his truth.7 What constituted a natural science also underwent
transformations in the course of the nineteenth century and, as a consequence,
art and architectural theorists were forced to reevaluate the defining characteristics of style. For Ruskins compatriot Owen Jones, ornament should display
the rigorous order that dictated surface structure in nature and, accordingly,
permitted a system of botanical classification. The process of assessing nature
systematically employed in botany had its linguistic parallel in the field of
General Grammar, which in a similar manner sought universal rules for organizing linguistic signs or words.
German architect Gottfried Semper, working in London at the same time as
Ruskin and Jones, took heed of the scientific approaches to applied ornament
incorporated into current design curricula and exemplified in Joness writing.
Semper, however, modeled his inquiries into proper ornamental construction
on the more recent comparative methods of investigating natural phenomena
(comparative anatomy and biology) and language (comparative philology). Consequently, understanding underlying functions and the creative roots from which
they emerged became the focus of Sempers architectural theory, the operations
of which he proposed should be symbolized by ornament.
As a result of Sempers work, interpretive vision replaced the activity of
reading surface information in order to understand structure. Herein lay the
essential meaning of ornament in the writings of Austrian art historian Alois
Riegl. Rather than presenting the reflective emblems of a divinely inspired
message, the structural signs of nature, or the functional symbols of the creative
process, Riegl defined the perceptual signifiers comprising ornamental compositions. In doing so, he identified varying psychological dispositions that dictate
stylistic schemas and proposed transitional stages in how various cultural groups
throughout history have ordered and perceived visual information. Riegl was
particularly interested in the transformation of universal laws that determined
ornamental compositions; as a consequence, his method of investigation is
closely aligned with that of his contemporaries in the field of language study,
the Neogrammarians.8 As Riegl gradually became more interested in the
psychological antecedents that dictated stylistic transformations, his final contribution to the history of aesthetic development anticipated the core principles of
structural linguistics.
In Mots et les choses (1966; translated as The Order of Things: An Archaeology of
the Human Sciences), French thinker Michel Foucault defined parallel strategies
by which humankind ordered information across natural, linguistic, and economic science at four stages in history, beginning in the Middle Ages and
extending into the modern era.9 The parallels between Foucaults models of
ordering knowledge and my assessment of stylistic theories, however, are more
frequently a result of convergence than of construction. From numerous points

Introduction
of intersection, I have attempted to locate each theoretical model in terms of its
contents, boundaries, and relationships to other systems of inquiry. If the approach presented here appears structuralist in nature, it is perhaps due to the
inherent truth in a statement Foucault made in a later text, The Archaeology of
Knowledge, that humans retrace their own ideas and their own knowledge.10
At the same time I am mindful of the potential artifice in trying to create
associations across disciplines. The goal is not to demonstrate within each model
some type of a face of the period with a united aim, but rather to open up
our reading and understanding of these key theoretical positions by creating
vertical systems of associations, thereby creating new unities that erase the limits
and limitations of traditional constructions.
Although in a few instances the theorists themselves openly acknowledged
parallels between their work and models of natural and linguistic science, it
would be false to claim that the strategies they employed were ever intended to
imitate directly other modes of inquiry. I would argue instead that the authors
of note responded either intentionally or coincidentally to the fixed structures
offered by natural science and linguistic studies, and from them assumed particular schemes for prioritizing perceptual and conceptual activities. More important, then, what this project shares with other investigations of varying conceptual dispositions are questions of how and why certain structures of ordering
information are selected over others.11 Toward the final goal of comprehending
the roots of early modern art, architecture, and design principles more completely, I would propose that the construction of theoretical accounts as much as
their content figured prominently in the development of modern ideas and modes
of perception that emerged in central Europe.
It would be imprudent to claim (as well as impossible to prove) that all, or
even a large share, of the artistic and architectural works produced in central
Europe and exhibiting archaizing traits reflect the direct influence of the English,
German, or Austrian stylistic theories examined here. Proof of such a postulate
is further hindered by the dearth of theoretical and interpretive writings left by
the artists and architects themselves.12 At best, we can examine some of the
cultural conditions that initiated interest in ancient artistic sources and made
artists and architects receptive to reevaluating the formation and meaning of
visual material. To do this, we turn to one particular cultural center that stood
at the crossroads, absorbing stylistic theory from the West and disseminating
artistic and architectural principles throughout central Europe. The cultural
milieu of turn-of-the-century Vienna, examined in Chapter 1, provided an
intellectual atmosphere that prompted searches for more honest and meaningful
forms of expression. Simultaneously, the stylistic philosophies analyzed in Chapters 2 and 3 had the critical effect of supplying conceptual and perceptual
understanding to the less familiar visual material from the archaic past with
which artists and architects teaching, training, and working in Vienna had been
recently confronted.13 In Chapter 4, I will show that theoretical inquiries sug-

Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

gested to practitioners how principles derived from archaic vocabularies of
ornamental forms could intensify iconography, define structural parts, elucidate
underlying function, and condition new perceptual experiences within their
own work. Seen through the lens of late-nineteenth-century stylistic analyses,
archaic arts not only presented a refreshingly honest alternative to academic
procedures but acted analogously to scientific pursuits that also attempted to
define and interpret the world.
Invoking the art of the past in order to intensify iconographic and compositional meaning in the visual arts dates as far back as the appearance of archaisms
in classical Greek sculpture and painting.14 More recently, scholars have revealed
that even the most progressive architects of the nineteenth century continued
to work out new structural and functional concepts within a vocabulary of
historical devices and iconographic symbols.15 What was unique to the latenineteenth-century perception of ancient art was the fervent desire to tap some
potent authenticity that seemed lacking in academic arts of the present and
absent in the canonical Western styles on which they were based. At the same
time, the work of the past represented the raw material to be absorbed and
transformed by its adaptation to new works. Theorists writing in the latter half
of the nineteenth century carefully analyzed the idiosyncrasies of historical detail
and, consequently, revealed art as a particular response to a certain attitude
toward the world. Once discovered and systematically understood, the emblem,
sign, symbol, or perceptual signifier could be applied to new material, constructional, and pictorial problems. As such, the phenomenon of archaizing prepared the way for modern movements of the twentieth century. In assuming
this critical position, its appearance, paradoxically, defines an archaic stage of
twentieth-century modernism.

Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

It is necessary to appreciate the cultural environment in which some of the
earliest signs of archaizing appeared in order fully to comprehend its wide appeal.
In Vienna during the last decade of the nineteenth century, the phenomenon
surfaced in virtually every artistic medium and, without exception, functioned
as some form of ornament. Situated at the center of the Habsburg Empire,
Vienna holds a significant place in this study. As the capital of the AustroHungarian Empire, it was strategically positioned between artistic trends and
aesthetic theories taking root in England and western Europe and was establishing innovative and distinct arts institutions of its own. Here, many of the most
prominent central European artists, architects, and designers trained and worked.
To understand how interest in primal forms functioned and contributed to a
modern artistic perception, we should first consider the process through which
Vienna, although somewhat reluctantly and sluggishly, engaged modern culture
as a whole.

Introduction
While modernity arose elsewhere in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century,
the Viennese bourgeois population of the 1860s and 1870s embarked upon an
urban redevelopment of the citys urban core by constructing an array of public
and private buildings along a newly created grand boulevard in a melange of
revivalist styles.16 Though recently scholars have identified progressive protomodernist ideas at work beneath the stylistic facades of many of these monuments, the Ringstrasses opulent and eclectic display of historical styles also
furnished important symbols of aristocratic values that linked the liberal bourgeoisie to the ruling class of the Habsburg dynasty, the history of which in
Austria extended back to the thirteenth century.17
The principal institutions defining the appearance and intentions of the fine
arts were dominated by the same motives and personalities responsible for
projecting the monumental historicism in the architectural projects of the period. August Siccards von Siccardsburg (181368) and Eduard van der Null
(181268), both leading revivalist architects of the day and codesigners of the
Rings Hofoper (Imperial Opera House), also acted as Meisters at the Akademie
der bildenden Kunste (Academy of Fine Arts). Siccards was also founder and
president of the principal exhibition society serving the fine arts, the Kunstlerhausgenossenschaft (Genossenschaft bildender Kunstler Wiens), or Vienna Society of Fine Artists, founded in 1861.18 Viennas foremost artist of the era, Hans
Makart (184084), perhaps the most acclaimed history painter in central Europe
in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, produced the painted equivalent
to the historical and theatrical spectacle of Ringstrasse architecture. In a style
distilled from Titian, Veronese, and Rubens, Makart presented the Viennese
public with grand moments from history and captured the events of the day
with a singular bravura that made them seem equally viable to his contemporary
audience.19
It is a well-worn precept in most studies of Viennas modern period that
architectural and artistic displays such as these represented the gross vulgarity of
bourgeois taste to which the next generation of artists and architects so vehemently objected. But the development of a modern stylistic idiom in art and
architecture did not occur (as is often implied by the same authors) as some
sudden leap from the decorative eclecticism ensconced in the Ringstrasse to the
reductionism espoused by and exhibited in the works of Viennese architect
Adolf Loos.20 Rather, it evolved gradually over an approximately thirty-year
period during which the possibilities and limits of artistic meaning were tested
and cultivated within a vocabulary of historical devices and iconographic programs. In acknowledging this arrested course of development, one can gradually
untangle the web of contradictions associated with the emergence of modern
concepts in Vienna and throughout central Europe.
One of the most notable institutions to oppose the traditional standards
upheld by the Akademie der bildenden Kunste and the Kunstlerhausgenossen sterreichisches Museum fur Kunst und Industrie (Austrian
schaft was the O

Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

Museum for Art and Industry). The museum, founded in 1864, and its affiliated
Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts), established in 1868, were modeled after Londons Normal Training School of Design, attached to the innovative South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum).21 By
sterreichisches Museum had hoped
instruction and example, founders of the O
(as had their British counterparts) to promote and support a happy union of the
decorative arts and industry.22
Initially under the direction of Rudolf von Eitelberger (181985), the museum furnished Kunstgewerbeschule instructors, such as art historians Moritz
Tausing (183584) and Franz Wickhoff (18531909), with original examples of
applied arts drawn from all periods and nations as models for the decorative arts.
It is important to consider the cultural significance of the broad range of artifacts
contained within the museums holdings. As the heirs to classical Roman civilization and located in the southern marches of central Europe, citizens of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire owed their artistic heritage to western and eastern
European factors alike. Ennobled arts of the Roman Empire, as well as the craft
objects of regional manufacture, exhibited the extent of these forces.
As the University of Viennas first professor of art history (a position he
accepted in 1852), von Eitelbergers ardent promotion of the applied arts based
on the study of historical artifacts had a powerful impact on his colleagues and
followers. In addition to Tausing and Wickhoff, successive instructors at the
university included Alois Riegl, the museums curator of textiles from 1887 to
1898. These four scholars, each of whom devised an approach to the visual arts
demanding precise, firsthand observations of craft objects from an unusually
broad range of historical periods, formed the foundation of Viennas school
of art history.23 With reference to the Viennese school, Udo Kultermann notes:
Art historians there demanded both extreme historical precision and personal
familiarity with original works. Horizons well beyond the bounds of traditional
art history opened up in the process, including new attention to the practical
question of the preservation of monuments.24
With the reins of the directorship turned over to Arthur von Scala in August
1897, the museums program, previously devoted exclusively to the promotion
of contemporary Austrian designs, underwent immediate rejuvenation with the
exhibition of English furniture from the nineteenth century.25 Von Scalas intention was to revitalize Viennas decorative arts by comparing them with modern
English design, in order to follow up and keep pace with the progress and
development of taste in the fine and applied arts, which lead to new styles and
fresh discoveries in all directions.26
Vienna also witnessed in 1897 the formation of Austrias main opposition
sterreichs (Union of
association of artists, the Vereinigung bildender Kunstler O
Austrian Fine Artists), more commonly known as the Secession.27 The organization was established as a result of the increasingly conservative and isolationist
stance of the Kunstlerhausgenossenschaft, which forced the resignation of thir-

Introduction
teen of its younger members in May 1897.28 The dissenting young artists
adamantly demanded a more active exchange with the continuing development of art abroad.29 The catalog preface to the first Secessionist exhibition, in
March 1898, stated the associations desire to form an alliance with foreign
artists:
Since the greater part of our public has hitherto been allowed to remain in
blissful ignorance of the powerful movement which has taken place in art in
other countries, we have been especially concerned, in our first exhibition,
to offer a view of modern foreign art, in order that the public may be
provided with a new and loftier criterion for the assessment of what is
produced at home.30

Both the formation and the goals of the Viennese association of artists paralleled
contemporary dissenting arts organizations in other urban centers, which were
also slow to experience the wave of modernism crossing western Europe. In
addition to the formation of the Munich and Berlin secession movements
(founded in 1892 and 1898, respectively), more minor artistic associations were
created in Dresden, Karlsruhe, Dusseldorf, Leipzig, Weimar, Rome, Budapest,
Prague, and Krakow.31 Most appealing to the Viennese Secessionists were the
alternatives to representational realism (in painting and sculpture) and historicism
(in architecture and the decorative arts) being explored throughout the Continent, particularly the ornamental stylization exhibited by English design reformers, members of the Glasgow School, and adherents of the Art Nouveau and
Jugendstil trends in France and Germany.
The fact that many founding members of the Viennese Union adopted
numerous aspects of the new Jugendstil earned the association its own stylistic
appellation, Secessionsstil, though the manner by no means defined the artistic
philosophy of the association as a whole. From its origins, artists defined as
Impressionists, Naturalists, and Stylists broadly represented the Viennese
Secession; at the same time, the association brought together painters, graphic
artists, architects, and designers.32 The craft-oriented members, the Stilisten,
represented adherents of avant-garde trends in design promoted by the Kunstgewerbeschule and based on the English design curriculum. Their increased
opposition to the more traditional painters of the Secession, the Naturalists
(or nicht-Stilisten), initiated the establishment of a decorative arts and crafts
collective, the Wiener Werkstatte, in 1903, and eventually the departure of the
Stilisten from the association altogether in 1905.33
When one of the Secesssions earliest members, Felician von Myrbach, became acting principal of the Kunstgewerbschule in 1899, a critical link was
established between the applied arts institution and the emerging avant-garde.34
Von Myrbach wasted little time in appointing Secessionists to the schools
faculty, and the Kunstgewerbeschule quickly assumed the role of instructing
emerging avant-garde artists. Already, Secession members Alfred Roller and

10

Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

Josef Hoffmann had joined the schools faculty as professors of drawing and
architecture in 1893 and 1898, respectively. In 1899, Koloman Moser entered
the institution as a professor of painting; in the following four years Arthur
Strasser (1900), Leopoldine Guttmann (1901), Carl Otto Czeschka (1902), Rudolf von Larish (1902), and Franz Metzner (1903) also joined the faculty.35 By
the time Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser had established the Wiener
Werkstatte in 1903, the applied arts school had become the principal training
ground for workshop employees as well.
All of the ingredients necessary to launch Viennas unique, yet paradoxical,
brand of modernism were in place. The desire to counter the stylistic eclecticism
exhibited in Ringstrasse architecture and decoration in order to move beyond
debased Western style, encouraged architects and artists to seek out fresh
sources of inspiration in both innovative contemporary trends from abroad and
in their own cultural past. The first aspiration was demonstrated by the exhibi sterreichische Museum fur Kunst
tions of current British arts and crafts at the O
und Industrie. The appeal of more recent artistic movements on the Continent
was evident as well in the Secessionists immediate embrace of Jugendstil and,
to a lesser degree, Symbolist agendas.36 Shortly after its foundation, the Secession
also assumed the role formerly performed by the museum in providing a forum
for current European design. As early as its second exhibit in the winter of 1898,
the association displayed applied-art designs from foreign countries. Its eighth
exhibition, held in late 1900, included work by Pariss Maison Moderne, Charles
Robert Ashbees British Guild of Handicrafts, Belgian designer Henry van de
Velde, and the Mackintosh-MacDonald-McNair group (the so-called Glasgow
School).37
The second major source of inspiration for Secession artists, the arts of the
past, were exhibited with quite different intentions in mind. They were to serve
as examples of sound craftsmanship and fit design rather than as models for
stylistic imitation. As a consequence, the extraordinarily broad array of materials
sterreichische Museum fur Kunst und Industrie from its
displayed in the O
inception had a less predictable effect on artists, architects, and designers. By
presenting products from western and eastern European antiquity, from peasant
craft industry, and from Austrian decorative arts dating back to the earlier part
of the century (most significantly, Biedermeier classicism), the museum introduced intriguing alternatives to the more exhausted styles exemplified by academic aesthetics.38 This influential assortment of design prospects also highlighted for artists and art historians the significant relationship that existed
between style and ornament, and encouraged both theorist and practitioner to
reassess the boundaries separating the fine and applied arts.
As a result of the numerous and contradictory incentives that gave rise to
the new styles emerging in turn-of-the-century art and architecture, a somewhat
confused picture of central European modernism has emerged. Most authors
struggle to explain the seemingly conflicting aesthetic philosophies found in

11

Introduction
both the visual and technical arts that were directed simultaneously at reduction
and clarity, and at ornamental complexity. That visual material derived from
early Western sources supported both the rational and the decorative approaches
identified with central European modernism may be partially attributed to the
intellectual culture in which archaisms emerged. Consequently, by understanding the contributions that archaisms made to the fine and applied arts, we can
also comprehend something of the philosophical positions of the contemporary
artist, architect, and audience.
Carl Schorske observed that in Vienna the dominant middle class of the
1860s and 1870s assert[ed] its independence of the past in law and science. But,
whenever it strove to express its values in architecture, it retreated into history.39 The discrepency Schorske notes is an important one. From the moment
of their accession to political power in 1860, Viennas liberal bourgeoisie, Schorske contends, began to reshape the city in their own image.40 More accurately,
though, it was the image of their aristocratic predecessors that they sought to
emulate. In terms of architecture, revivalist styles secured for the emerging
middle class a viable image of its social and cultural aspirations. Conversely, the
progressive state of law and scientific values (belief in rule by law and social
progress through science) was an expected consequence of the positivist spirit
that permeated nineteenth-century European thought as a whole, and was
embraced wholeheartedly by Austrian liberalism. The paradox Schorske describes is perhaps not so simple. Law and science, no less than architecture, were
dependent on past models as they formulated new theories, though, obviously,
architecture displayed its historical sources more prominently. More recently,
scholars have endeavored to disclose the complexity of the seemingly obvious
rupture Schorske describes. Mallgrave and Ikonomou note: If nineteenthcentury art in general fell victim to the vast proliferation of knowledge and the
exhaustion of historical themes, our familiar catchphrases often do not take into
account just how these presumed failings at the same time fundamentally restructured the dialogue.41 As science and law moved away from metaphysical
speculation and toward scientific positivism, architecture was making its own
transition from idealism to realism. The same authors point out: We lose sight
too easily of the fact that these diverse, even contrary tendencies were generally
perceived as working together toward the same goal, and that the newly splintered disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and aesthetics, for instance, were presumed to share a common methodological footing
(Wilhelm Dilthey).42 When reactions toward the static state of the arts began
to surface in the final decade of the century (long after liberalism was spent),
advancements in scientific and linguistic understanding provided the necessary
conditions in which artists and architects were able to frame alternatives to
naturalism and historicism. More important to the present study, these methodological strategies offered a context in which to systematically assess the compositions and motifs of ancient and vernacular arts and force them to comply

12

Cultural Context: Vienna at the Crossroads

with rational laws of construction and application. As a consequence, artists,
architects, and designers discovered that objects from the distant past and the
marginalized present were capable of resolving new material, constructional, and
pictorial problems. The fact that they called upon archaisms to act in these
various manners may be attributed in part to the transformations that positivism
itself underwent in the course of the nineteenth century.
Depending on the type of science it emulated and which aspects of a
particular science it regarded as important, positivism assumed a number of
forms. One variety attempted to ground intangible ideas in empirical evidence
and, accordingly, associated moral issues with physical characteristics.43 Inspired
by botanical and biological science, another sort of positivism sought to establish
methods of classification dependent on visible surface evidence and/or the
rigorous ordering of causal relationships.44 Increasingly, however, philosophers as
well as scientists began to question the universal application of scientific systems
and the consistency of empirical observations on which they were based. Adherents of a critical positivism pointed out the subjective roots of methodological structures and the varying psychological positions from which physical evidence was gathered.45 Some critics went to even greater extremes and rejected
scientific reasoning altogether; the antirationalist views of Schopenhauer were
given a wider audience when expressed in the writings of German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche. The latter privileged subjectivity, creativity, and the will
above the rational tenets of science, proposing an artistic model of history to
replace the scientific one that had only just emerged in the eighteenth century.46
By 1890 a burgeoning interest in the role of the individual psyche began to
challenge confidence in the benefits and progress of science and faith in rational
structures of knowledge. Creating a sense of unity between self and world reached
beyond the pursuits of natural science. Like the restrictions imposed upon
perceptual knowledge, philosophers and writers also challenged the limits of
linguistic communication. Language became a particularly important concern
in late-nineteenth-century Vienna as a result of the diverse cultural basis of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Issues of national consciousness were raised across a
broad cultural range and initiated revivalist interest in vernacular literature as
well as philology.47
The concept that the splintered personality impeded communication had
implications beyond the multicultural identity of the empire, however; the
vacillating psyche of the individual could also thwart linguistic meaning and
prevent language from expressing abstract experience. Writers sought solutions
to the dilemma in two opposing extremes. Viennese author/journalist Karl
Kraus advocated an approach that would strip away all verbiage in order to
reduce language to its simplest and most factual form.48 Novelist and poet Hugo
von Hofmannsthal, on the other hand, proposed the redemption of language
through the artistic, specifically the poetic word, drawing upon the multivariate
moods of historical styles and periods in literature.49 However, the artistic and

13

Introduction
subjective approach to understanding the world and communicating its meaning
did not suddenly replace positivist precepts. Rather, a transformation of positivist
values occurred, aimed at reconciling externally verifiable factors with erratic,
willful elements.50
Margaret Olin has observed that this new perspective attempted to overcome the threat of subjectivity by embracing it and making it part of the theory
of knowledge which remained basically rational.51 Nowhere was the phenomenon Olin describes more evident than in the work of Sigmund Freud, wherein
exploration of the unconscious mind was subjected to rigorous scientific investigation and rational rules of interpretation. In the last quarter of the century,
German physiologist Hermann Helmholtz had established important precedents
for applying a scientific approach toward understanding subjective experience in
the domain of visual perception. He acknowledged the inability of perception
to reveal reality, but maintained that it did yield knowledge of a lawful order
in the realm of reality and contended that this order could be represented in
the symbol system of our sensory impressions.52 In a similar manner, Ernst
Mach, a professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna in 1895 (as well as
a mathematician and scientist), argued that, while we have knowledge only of
our sensations, with the aid of physics and mathematics we attain the ability to
understand the sense data that we gather.53
The dubious nature of perceptual knowledge and the instability of linguistic
signs had serious consequences in late-nineteenth-century Vienna. Increasingly,
individuals in a number of disciplines attempted to separate the realm of reason
from that of the subjective will. In the early twentieth century, this goal was
pursued in linguistic philosophy by Ludwig Wittgenstein, in journalism by Karl
Kraus, and in architecture by Adolf Loos. But, in the decades surrounding the
turn of the century, models of analysis derived from scientific, mathematical,
and linguistic structures provided the surest means of rescuing nature, language,
and ornament from slipping into the type of private and complex fantasies
evident in the irrational operations of the unconscious mind, the subjective
newspaper commentaries know as feuilletons, and frequent overindulgence in
decoration.54
This study begins by situating the stylistic theories of each of the four key
authors within a particular intellectual current as expressed by specific scientific
and linguistic strategies. Ruskin, Jones, Semper, and Riegl engaged the topic of
style from very different viewpoints and, subsequently, defined ornament in a
variety of terms. Nonetheless, evident in the stylistic analyses presented in the
following two chapters is a nineteenth-century propensity for establishing systematic relationships among elements. These four theorists shared the notion
that the natural world contains an irrefutable order; for each, identifying and
understanding the arrangement, patterns, and conditions of nature was the first
step toward establishing a rational function for ornament and devising a unified
style for art and architecture.

14