Fin-de-siècle Vienna was the central gathering point of the European avant-garde and an extraordinary laboratory for new ideas and concepts.
Here is a dazzlingly illustrated (with over 700 illustrations) portrait of this astonishing cultural ferment and its most important protagonists. The contributors discuss Klimt and the artists and architects - among them Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos - who joined him in the 'Secession', and reflect on the glories of the Wiener Werkstätte's crafts, prints, graphic art and fine book production.
Themes range from the compositional logic of such musical pioneers as Hugh Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schönberg, Alan Berg and Anton Webern to the literary and journalistic life of the Café Griensteidl, the favourite haunt of such luminaries as Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Hermann Bahr, Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus.
Further figures integral to the mix include Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism; the dramatist Arthur Schnitzler and his one-act diagnoses of the morbidly cyclical nature of washed-out emotion; Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Wilhelm Reich with their masterly insights into the human psyche; and Fritz Mauthner and Ludwig Wittgenstein, pioneers in the philosophy of language.
The book includes a compact but detailed appendix that offers information on the significant figures, institutions and publications of this remarkable period.
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