This May, a large exhibition entitled “Vienna—nell’età della Secessione, 1885-1918” (“Vienna in the age of the Secession, 1885-1918”) opened in Venice, at the Palazzo Grassi, which overlooks the Grand Canal.[1] The show was organized by Maurizio Calvesi, the professor of the history of modern art at the University of Rome who is responsible for the visual-arts section of the Venice Biennale. More than a thousand works of art by more than a hundred artists were presented.
The “Secession” in the exhibition’s title refers to a movement of young European artists who, in the 1890s, “seceded” from the official, conservative artistic institutions of the time and formed their own, new associations. The first Sezession was founded in Munich in 1892. Its Viennese counterpart began in 1897, when a group of painters, led by Gustav Klimt and supported by the art critic Ludwig Hevesi, separated themselves from the Genossenschaft Bildender Kunstler; a year later they moved into their own building, a splendid pavilion designed by the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich. Today the term “Viennese Secession” is used in a broad sense to designate the cultural renaissance that took place in Vienna between 1885 and 1918.
The recent exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi attempted to do many things. For one, it was concerned with giving attention to minor artists—like Richard von Alt, Egger-Lienz, Boecklin—as well as to the great masters of the period, like Klimt and Egon Schiele. For another, it tried to show the unity of Viennese culture
