The Wiener Moderne or Viennese Modern Age is a term describing the culture of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in the period between approximately 1890 and 1910. It refers especially to the development of modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 in the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n capital and its effect on the spheres of philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, design

Design

Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

 and architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

.

Architecture

The architect Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner

Otto Koloman Wagner was an Austrian architect and urban planner, known for his lasting impact on the appearance of his home town Vienna, to which he contributed many landmarks.-Life:...

 wrote a book titled "Moderne Architektur von 1895" (en: Modern architecture of 1895), in which he declares the era and predominance of the historic style (especially the buildings on the Ringstraße

Ringstraße

The Ringstraße is a circular road surrounding the Innere Stadt district of Vienna, Austria and is one of its main sights...

 in the neo-Greek, neo-roman and neo-baroque

Neo-baroque

The Baroque Revival or Neo-baroque was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture which displays important aspects of Baroque style, but is not of the Baroque period proper—i.e., the 17th and 18th centuries.Some examples of Neo-baroque architecture:*...

 styles) to be over. He did not know of the term "Moderne" yet, he only spoke of the necessity for architecture to keep up and adapt to new technological developments. Otto Wagner himself would make use of new building materials such as steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 and iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 and encompass it into his work.

Adolf Loos

Adolf Loos

Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos was a Moravian-born Austro-Hungarian architect. He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay Ornament and Crime he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau...

 designed some of the most well known structures of the period. These included the Looshaus, the American Bar, and the Steiner House, among others. The Looshaus in Vienna (also known as the Goldman & Salatsch Building) marks the rejection of historicism, as well as the ornaments used by the Wiener Secession. Adolf Loos received the assignment in 1909, and the building was finished in 1910. Upon opening, its appearance shocked Vienna's citizens, since their overall taste was still very much historically oriented. Because of the lack of ornaments on the façade, people called it the 'house without eyebrows'. The American Bar, also known as the Kärntner Bar, showcases Loos' combination of simple, unadorned forms with opulent materials and fine, simple detailing to give a modern, rich impression. The Steiner house was designed for the painter Lilly Steiner and her husband Hugo. It is located in a Vienna suburb. The Steiner house became a highly influential example of modern architecture; it played a significant role in establishing Loos' reputation as a modern architect to the audience outside of the Viennese community, and became an obligatory reference for architects during the 1920s and 30s. Almost all of the literature of the Modern Movement has reproduced the garden façade as an indisputable example of radical rationalist modern architecture.

Literature

The most notable literary grouping of this period was the Young Vienna

Young Vienna

Young Vienna was a society of fin de siècle writers who met in Vienna's Café Griensteidl and other nearby coffeehouses from 1890 until 1897...

 movement, a society of "coffeehouse literati" centred on the writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

 Hermann Bahr

Hermann Bahr

Hermann Bahr was an Austrian writer, playwright, director, and critic.-Biography:Born and raised in Linz, Bahr studied Philosophy, Law, Economics and Philology in Vienna, Czernowitz and Berlin. During a prolonged stay in Paris he discovered his interest in literature and art...

. Bahr's 1890 work Zur Kritik der Moderne (On Criticism of Modernity) established the word modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 as a literary term, whilst Die Überwindung des Naturalismus (The Surpassing of Naturalism) published the following year, declared the then current style of naturalism

Naturalism (literature)

Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...

 to be at an end. He was influenced in this by developments in French literature

French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...

, notably symbolism

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

, which he had encountered his studies in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 (1888–1890) where he had come to know the works of avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 writers such as Joris-Karl Huysmans

Joris-Karl Huysmans

Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...

, Paul Bourget

Paul Bourget

Paul Charles Joseph Bourget , was a French novelist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Amiens in the Somme département of Picardie, France. His father, a professor of mathematics, was later appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand, where Bourget received his early education...

 and Maurice Barrès

Maurice Barrès

Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....

. Bahr proclaimed a new Romantik der Nerven (romanticism of the nerves), which concentrated on the impressions and sensations of the human soul; in this he referred back to developments in the still new science of psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and his critical writings were consequently influenced not only by literary writers but also by psychologists, notably Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

, and the philosopher of science Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves...

. The literary consequence of this Romantik der Nerven was the encouragement of literary forms that foregrounded the perceptions of the individual, among them the unreliable narrator

Unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...

 and the interior monologue.

Bahr used his position in Vienna as a theatre critic and feuilleton

Feuilleton

Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles...

ist to promote other members of the Young Vienna circle, most notably Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...

, who met at the Café Griensteidl and later at the Café Central

Café Central

Café Central is a coffeehouse in Vienna. It is located in the Innere Stadt district at Herrengasse 14 in the former Bank and Stockmarket Building , today called the Palais Ferstel after its architect Heinrich von Ferstel....

. Other members of the group included Arthur Schnitzler

Arthur Schnitzler

Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...

, Peter Altenberg

Peter Altenberg

Peter Altenberg was a writer and poet from Vienna, Austria. He was key to the genesis of early modernism in the city.-Biography:...

, Felix Salten

Felix Salten

Felix Salten was an Austrian author and critic in Vienna. His most famous work is Bambi .-Life:...

, and Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...

, all of whom, though disparate in styles and interests, demonstrate different facets of the character of the Wiener Moderne in their writing. Schnitzler created one of the earliest examples of modernist stream of consciousness writing in Lieutenant Gustl (1900), and his most famous work, Reigen (La Ronde

La Ronde (play)

La Ronde is a 1900 play by Arthur Schnitzler. It scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day through a series of encounters between pairs of characters . By choosing characters across all levels of society, the play offers social commentary on how sexual contact transgresses...

) (1897), is typical of the fin de siècle

Fin de siècle

Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...

 interest in sexuality. Hofmannsthal's early poems show the influence of the French symbolists and Stefan George

Stefan George

Stefan Anton George was a German poet, editor, and translator.-Biography:George was born in Bingen in Germany in 1868. He spent time in Paris, where he was among the writers and artists who attended the Tuesday soireés held by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He began to publish poetry in the 1890s,...

's aestheticism

Aestheticism

Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...

, whilst his work as a librettist for Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

 reflects the interpenetration of the different branches of the arts typical of the epoch. The aphorist Altenberg is notable as much for his archetypically bohemian

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

 lifestyle as for his writing. Salten, best known nowadays for his later children's books, is widely regarded as the author of the infamous pornographic

Pornography

Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

 novel Josephine Mutzenbacher

Josephine Mutzenbacher

Josephine Mutzenbacher – The Life Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself is an erotic novel first published anonymously in Vienna, Austria in 1906...

, a sign arguably of the decadence

Decadence

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...

 that was associated with the period. Zweig (also a librettist for Strauss) was, in addition to his own stylistically polished writing, a noted translator of the symbolists, and later a passionate defender of a collective European culture in the face of aggressive nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, reflecting the openness of the epoch to foreign cultural influences and indeed the melting pot of different cultures that was part of fin-de-siècle Vienna.

The other dominant voice in Viennese literature during this period was the satirist

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 Karl Kraus

Karl Kraus

Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...

. Originally Kraus had been associated with the Young Vienna writers but he broke with them and attacked them in his 1897 essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

 Die demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature), which was written after Café Griensteidl burnt down. In his periodical Die Fackel (The Torch), Kraus regularly satirised lazy journalism, which he considered to be exemplified in the feuilleton writing of many of his contemporaries, but his interests ranged over many of the other issues which were prominent in the cultural life of fin-de-siècle Vienna, among them Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

, psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

, political corruption and nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, all of which he attacked in the pages of Die Fackel. The antagonism between Kraus and other leading Viennese cultural figures, which in the extreme case of his criticism of Felix Salten's feuilletons lead to Salten assaulting him in the street, but also encompassed spats with Freud, Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...

 and Hugo von Hoffmansthal among others, might be seen as a sign of the vigorous debate characteristic of the period.

External references

• Architecture
  • http://mimoa.eu/projects/Austria/Vienna/Looshaus
  • http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/americanbar/index.html
  • http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/steiner/index.htm

• Literature
  • Literatur in der Wiener Moderne - University of Salzburg
    University of Salzburg
    The University of Salzburg, or Paris Lodron University after its founder, the Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron, is located in the Austrian city of Salzburg, Salzburgerland, home of Mozart. It is divided into 4 faculties: catholic theology, law, humanities and natural science.Founded in 1622, it...
    
    
  • Hermann Bahr - University of Marburg
  • Karl Kraus - Hypocrisy or Merely Contradiction