Jane Burden Morris's video: Carl Otto Czeschka

For Karin, dear friend from Austria, with love, Happy Birthday!!! 💜🌷🎂🎁🎈 https://www.youtube.com/user/mmbmbmbmb :::::::::: Carl Otto Czeschka, (1878-1960), Austrian. A leading member of the Vienna Secession and later the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop), Carl Otto Czeschka was a vital figure in promoting the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (total art concept). His extraordinarily fine work in graphic design, furniture, metalwork, textiles and jewelry established his reputation as an artist of the highest rank. Czeschka’s graphic designs, predominantly flat, attenuated, and delicate, represent a departure from the slightly earlier rectilinear styles of Moser and Hoffmann. Instead of checkerboards and grids, we suddenly find delightful vines and flowers that foreshadow the art deco period of the mid-1920s to mid-1930s. Czeschka is perhaps best known today for the eight double-page illustrations for Franz Keim’s abridged Nibelung saga and for the program cover designed for Vienna’s Fledermaus Cabaret. While the artist’s work belongs unmistakably to the avant-garde of fin de siècle Vienna, it continues to appeal to art lovers for its timeless qualities of drama and elegance. Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs) (1920). Carl Otto Czeschka's eight double-page illustrations to Franz Keim's abridged version of the Nibelung saga, a mythic tale of royal wealth and betrayal, evoke an elegant and enchanted world. Stylized toy soldiers and chessboard knights, like the ones the artist displayed at the Viennese Kunstschau exhibition in 1908, stand guard or enact epic battles. A Viking ship glides through choppy waters; the luminous geometric ornamentation on its sail epitomizes the Viennese use of lush surface patterning, in which exotic and folk sources were filtered through a distinctively modern aesthetic. The volume appealed to the widespread interest in untutored forms, such as "primitive" and children's art, as a basis for cultural authenticity and renewal. Allegorien Neue Folge, 1897, published by Gerlach & Schenk Verlag fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Vienna, was a serial publication that began as Allegorien und Embleme in 1882. A sourcebook of inspiration made for and by young Viennese artists became something of a galvanizer of the modernist movement in Vienna with its new series issued in 1897. Its publisher, Martin Gerlach, plucked young artists and even art students who were exploring the newest techniques in drafting and graphic design to contribute to his publication. This was the beginning of a long-standing relationship. In the forward to the 1897 edition, Gerlach, expounds upon the new approach which consciously shifted away from historicism rooted in the conservative Academy. Instead, the artists were encouraged to explore new subjects and new ways to present them. More unconventional subjects such as: Wine, Love, Song, Music and Dance; Arts and Sciences; the Seasons and their corresponding activities, sports and amusements, breathed fresh, modern life into the allegorical genre. Specific topics that were explored ranged from Electricity and new concepts of Work and Time to Bicycle Sport and the Graphic Arts. Gerlach went on to publish some issues of the Secession’s journal called Ver Sacrum as well as postcards designed by its members. The Viennese art critic, Joseph August, called Gerlach the “Fuhrer der Moderne” (Leader of Modernism). The new 1897 series, featuring its innovative and modern art plates, is an important art historical document as it played a significant role in helping shape the avant-garde art movement in Vienna which exploded onto the scene with the formation of the Vienna Secession in 1898. Individually, the plates are important works; they are noteworthy for their stylistically and thematically modern approach. These plates offer some of the earliest examples of Viennese avant-garde and Secession artists’ published work. :::::::::: Music: “The Ride of the Valkyries” (Wagner) Performed by: Ting Chung-Wai - Transcribed For Solo Piano by Wong Chun-Wai http://www.wongchunwaimusic.com/ https://soundcloud.com/wongchunwai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrVjsZUrvC4 ::::::::::: Jane Burden Morris’ Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Laika231