The Imperial Arts and Crafts Schools, Vienna
absolutely no restriction on her students, and is
glad when they find congenial employment in
other lands. It would, perhaps, be well were she
to make more effort to retain them for herself.
It may be said of one and all of these Professors
that they are inspired with the true spirit of art for
its own sake, and that they are also born teachers
who know how to lead their pupils and to infuse
a true feeling into them, to show them the way
gently that their talents may develop gradually.
It lies in the nature of some to blindly follow their
teachers for a time before they feel strong enough
to go alone, and to this is due the fact that some
follow too closely in the footsteps of their masters.
These soon fall into the rank of mere copyists,
and there is always a contingent of such in any
EX LIBRIS BV OSWALD DITTRICH
(PROF. MOSER’S CLASS)
In the same way hand-weaving has been intro-
duced, and this is of inestimable worth when it
is considered that many of these students have
found and will continue to find employment in
factories. The little attention formerly paid to the
adjustment of the design led to the designer being
ousted; he was of no real use, for he did not
understand the nature of the materials he was to
decorate. The very essence of modern Vienna
art is its practicability, and many students of
these schools have found employment in foreign
lands. In Germany, for instance, many of those
trained there during the last seven years, as well
as some of Professor Otto Wagner’s students, have
been appointed professors or teachers in various
arts and crafts schools of Germany. Austria places
DESIGN FOR PRINTED FABRIC BY FRANZ RISCHER
(PROF. MOSER’S CLASS)
EX LIBRIS BY U. ZOVETTI (PROF. MOSER’S CLASS)
328
large body of students or workers. There is no
doubt as to the success of the teachers, who as
artists have also received their merited recognition.
They have sent forth from these schools many who
have gained fame for themselves, and if some few
have fallen in with the rank and file they have all
helped to diffuse a feeling for Viennese art. What
Hoffmann, Moser, Myrbach, Roller, Czeschka and
others have done history will tell. At present we
see the result all around us, both in true art and
in the patchwork eclecticism practised by the
manufacturers who wish to avoid the expense or
paying an artist. Everywhere in the shop windows,
on the placards on the walls, and on the exterior of
the new fiats this patchwork meets our eyes;
but the very “patches” tell a history of those who
tried but could not succeed, because they were