Degree Date

2024

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

History of Art

Abstract

This dissertation examines Viennese Japonismus and modern allegory in the work of Gustav Klimt. One of the paradoxical ambitions of Vienna’s early visual modernists was the creation of a new art that would, nevertheless, revive the essence of tradition, creating a collective aesthetic that crossed national and historical boundaries. Klimt and his close collaborators, like Josef Hoffmann, and artists engaged in the broader context of central Europe, like Emil Orlik, believed that Japanese art presented a viable path toward a universal, modern visual language. This conception arose from layers of exoticism, primitivism, Orientalism, and genuine encounter with old and new Japanese art. The questions I address are: How did the historical cultural problem of the fracturing Habsburg Empire inform the aims of artistic reformers from the 1860s through the foundations of the Secession and Wiener Werkst.tte? How did the inescapable question of Austrian identity in the arts encourage eclecticism and the emergence of new paradigms like Japonismus? How did the multifaceted layers of international Japonism inform Viennese artists’ mindful selections and emulative reinventions of Japanese aesthetic principles? In the particular case of Klimt, how did the visual tradition of allegory, which was foundational and persistent in his oeuvre, shape his pursuit of a truly modern art for and of his age? Lastly, how did Klimt’s serious and lengthy engagement with the arts of Japan inform his modernization of allegory? Building on institutional histories, historiographies, critical reexaminations of Austrian visual modernism, the model of “Vienna 1900,” and the works of Klimt, I argue that Klimt did not simply adorn allegory in the new cloak of Japonismus, he aimed for coalescence and a unity that would establish a new modern paradigm. This examination engages with areas of inquiry opened by German/Austrian-Asian studies, scholarship on cultural transfer and exchange, and new explorations into world's fairs, international Japonism, and the Meiji arts. It is the first monograph to study the inter-relation of Japonismus and allegory in Klimt’s art.

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