This summer, two great capitals of Central Europe are hosting shows on the region’s modern art of the early twentieth century. The exhibition “Vienna 1900: Birth of Modernism” at the Leopold Museum in Vienna is currently on view, as is “Modern Times—Hungarian Art Between 1896 and World War II” at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest.
“Vienna 1900” and “Modern Times” overlap in scope as they both shed light on the rise of artistic Modernism in Austria and Hungary, respectively. But this rise was two-pronged, as Vienna and Budapest were the dual capitals of Austria-Hungary, which dissolved as an entity during World War I and formally ended with the 1920 treaties at Trianon and Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
When Austria-Hungary dominated Central Europe from 1867 to 1918, Budapest played second city to Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary reigned over ethnic minorities as a hegemon of Central Europe, but Hungary had fought for most of the nineteenth century to be politically on par with Austria. As a result, Hungarian national identity simultaneously expressed pride and anxiety about its place in Europe. Accordingly, “Modern Times” works to show Hungary and its artists searching for a national cultural identity outside of the country.
“Modern Times” includes approximately 380 objects. These paintings and sculptures show how Hungarian artists navigated the newness of Modernism at first within the empire and then alone as citizens of a rump Hungarian state after World War I. Hungarian Modernism’s impetus came from a colony of artists living abroad near Munich during the 1880s. Then, in the decades leading up to World War I, several artists such as József Rippl-Rónai moved to France and found influence in Paris. Rippl-Rónai’s Woman in a White-Dotted Dress (1889) echoes the oeuvre of Edgar Degas. The woman’s right shoulder is raised slightly higher than her left as she appears to peek off into the distance while gently grasping the fold of her dress in a slouched position. The focus on posture and bodily position recalls Degas’ ballerinas, which convey similarly dynamic postures in performance and rehearsal scenes.
Portraiture also connects the two exhibitions, showing a shared emphasis on the human figure that transcends national boundaries. Male nudes are prolific, especially those set against nature. The female form, when it does appear, is androgenized, as in Oskar Kokoschka’s 1913 sketch of himself embracing Alma Mahler. In Budapest, Gyula Derkovits’s Sand Carriers on the River Danube (1933) recalls the blocky physiques in Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian scenes, and Lajos Tihanyi’s Bathers (1907) features effete male figures whose limbs appear most delicate. In Vienna, the nude athletic man leaping through a mountainous field in Koloman Moser’s Spring (1913) embodies the masculine energy that Germanic culture has historically associated with nature.
The Hungarian artists featured in “Modern Times” established modern art in the country by reinterpreting Impressionism in a Hungarian national context. To that end, the Hungarian Modernist painter Simon Hollósy’s Peasant Yard with a Cart (1912) blends vibrant colors reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s landscapes and the short brushstroke technique of Camille Pissarro that emanates a sense of movement.
Viennese Modernists were influenced by French Impressionism, as well as Expressionism, but that influence was incorporated into the cultural aesthetic of the city. Austria did not experience the same international dispersion of its artists after World War I that Hungary did. Austrian Modernism adapted foreign influences to refine Viennese cosmopolitanism; Hungarian Modernism went abroad to import new artistic techniques. That key difference is evident today in the contrast between the two exhibitions. “Vienna 1900” exudes a confidence that “Modern Times” lacks.
“Vienna 1900” has an even more sweeping scale. Covering two floors and encompassing arts and crafts, furniture, paintings, and sculpture, the exhibition deftly explores the city’s artistic avant-garde without misleading the audience into believing these writers and artists comprised the only cultural circle in this multiethnic but staunchly conservative metropolis.
An entire room in “Vienna 1900” is devoted to residential and commercial furniture, including Adolf Loos’s austere chairs for the Café Museum and his Lounger Knieschwimmer, a recumbent chair that resembles an aborted chaise with a bolster affixed at the end. The Secession movement’s contribution to Austrian Modernism also features prominently. Secessionism was propelled by a group of dissident artists in the 1890s, including Gustav Klimt and Carl Moll, both among the founders of the Union of Austrian Artists.
On display is Klimt’s poster for the group’s first show, “Exhibition of the Vienna Secession” (1898), featuring the ancient Greek mythic figures of the Minotaur and Theseus engaged in a struggle against a tawny mustard background. In recent years, Klimt has gained even more international popularity for his shimmering portraits due to the 2015 film Woman in Gold. But “Vienna 1900” does not give in to popular tastes. Klimt’s somber landscapes assume greater prominence in the hall. The Large Poplar, an oil on canvas from 1902–03, gives a sense of foreboding as dark clouds appear to rush over and upward from the slimmest of horizons.
Compared to the exhibition’s overall content and tone, the oddity is a recreation of the full-size nude doll Kokoschka made in 1919 to resemble Alma Mahler, the widow of a fellow Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler. The material resembles fleece clumps as if patched together from the trimmings of a shorn sheep. Anonymous photographs of the doll sitting upright and lying down are on view. Seeing the doll next to Kokoschka’s sketch of his embrace with Alma puts a lighter spin on their relationship.
But perhaps more aesthetically shocking, the Leopold Museum intentionally displays crooked artworks throughout “Vienna 1900.” Dotted around the exhibition, artworks hang off-center by three degrees. This curatorial choice is part of the museum’s “A Few Degrees More” initiative intended to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change through accompanying tombstone labels, specifically that “an increase of 3°C in the global average temperature would cause sea levels to rise by around 70 cm until [the year] 2100.” One of the affected paintings in the series is Egon Schiele’s 1914 oil on canvas, Houses by the Sea (Row Houses). Born in Tulln, Lower Austria, Schiele honed his skills under Klimt’s tutelage. Schiele, featured in “Vienna 1900,” is among the most prominent artists in Austrian art history. He is too important to be subjected to contemporary politics of “A Few Degrees More,” a move that we gladly don’t see in the Hungarian National Gallery.