About “Youth Style”
“Youth Style”—or Jugendstil—was the first avant-garde movement to take root in German-speaking Europe. As the name suggests, it was a movement spearheaded by the young, who objected to the stultifying historical styles and bourgeois values of their elders. Responding to industrialization and the often conflicting demands of art and commerce, “Youth Style” attempted to chart an aesthetic course for the dawning twentieth century. Its goals were best summarized by the motto of the Vienna Secession: “To the age its art, to art its freedom.”
Munich
Jugendstil first appeared and flourished in Munich in the 1890s, an outgrowth of the recently unified nation’s desire to cement its identity through a cohesive style. Making no distinction between fine and applied arts, Jugendstil designers sought to reform everyday objects through a focus on function as well as form—though they also emphasized two-dimensional design. While it bears some superficial similarities to Art Nouveau, Jugendstil (which takes its name from the influential periodical Jugend) focuses more intently on figural art than does its more decorative French counterpart. Such figural work was on marvelous display in the pages of both Jugend and the more satirical weekly Simplicissimus. Thomas Theodor Heine and Bruno Paul were among the leading contributors to the latter; both artists also lent their designs to posters for the anti-authoritarian cabaret Die Elf Scharfrichter (The Eleven Executioners). In the end, though, Munich proved too conservative to sustain its artistic scene. Many of its key Jugendstil figures, among them Heine, Paul, and Ludwig Hohlwein, gradually dispersed.
Vienna
Sometimes referred to as Secessionstil, Austrian Jugendstil is indeed closely linked to the Vienna Secession, along with such other avant-garde artists’ associations as the Hagenbund, Wiener Kunst im Hause (Vienna Art in the Home), and the Wiener Werkstätte. Most Austrian posters tended to be commissioned by groups such as these, rather than by commercial entities. These artistic relationships, along with the close collaboration between printers and the avant-garde associations they served, consequently afforded designers a great deal of creative freedom. Conceived as “total works of art” (Gesamtkunstwerke), Secessionstil posters, with their interlocking positive and negative shapes, and highly stylized lettering, are occasionally illegible. The form, though beautiful in its own right, finds itself at odds with function.
Berlin
Turn-of-the-century Berlin’s newfound prominence as the capital of unified Germany gave rise to its rapid and extensive transformation into the country’s first modern metropolis. As the population exploded and industry flourished, the evolving commercial sphere demanded novelty and stylishness. Peter Behrens, working for the electrical company AEG, was among the first to use design to create a comprehensive corporate identity. Lucian Bernhard, Edmund Edel, Hans Rudi Erdt, and Julius Klinger—all of whom worked for the printer Hollerbaum & Schmidt—helped popularize the “object poster” (Sachplakat). Modern branding thus grew to replace the direct, personal bond once shared between consumer and purveyor. In essence, Berlin’s poster artists commoditized the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
