Studio: international art (16.1899)

Art in Vienna

INTERIOR OF THE "SECESSIONIST" EXHIBITION BUILDING, VIENNA J- M- OLBRICH, ARCHITECT

gewer-beverein. It can, indeed, be of very little
interest to the readers of The Studio to follow up
the different arguments that were arrayed against
Hofrat von Scala for introducing the English
style here. My own opinion, if I may be allowed
to express it, is, that a large metropolis like Vienna
whose different art industries have been feeding, so
to speak, upon the rather stale dishes of time-
honoured tradition for years and years, ought to
feel grateful to a man who undertakes the difficult
task of bringing the friends of art as well as the
general public, into immediate contact with the
expressions of life and art that are in accordance
with the spirit of the age. What does it matter
if they are, for the present at least, imported from
London, or Paris, or elsewhere? Has Vienna a
modern art industry of its own growth ? If so,
nobody, I fear, has as yet succeeded in discovering
it. If the talent is there—there are certainly
signs of it—then it will be developed by contact
and comparison rather than by perpetual isolation.
What we want is a good school, and where can we
find a better one ? People here must learn to

understand, and to see and feel how a modern
style develops itself freely and naturally. In the
opinion of the director, this development can be
brought about either by copying a good modern or

BUCKLE IN SILVER BY RUDOLF BACHER

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