!!!Graphik
Graphic Arts: Variously defined to include all or some of the visual
and technical arts involving design, writing, printing etc. The German
term Graphik comprises all forms of artistic expression based on
drawing, such as (hand) drawings executed with pencils, styluses,
pens, chalk, coal etc. and - in a narrower sense - printed graphics
produced by a variety of processes. While throughout the ages there
have been hardly any Austrian artists who devoted themselves
exclusively to drawing, there have been many who excelled in this
field.
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The earliest extant works produced by the oldest printing technique,
woodcutting, date from the early 15%%sup th/% century and were made
in monasteries in Bohemia, Bavaria and the Alpine region (Lambach,
Mondsee). Under Emperor Maximilian I artists such as A. Duerer
and H. Burgkmair created woodcuts for historical and genealogical
works (Theuerdank, Weisskunig, Triumph of Maximilian); in the early
16%%sup th/% century, representatives of the Danube School (A.
Altdorfer, W. Huber, J. Breu the Elder) produced significant
representations of landscapes. The importance of woodcuts was soon
reduced on account of the greater versatility offered to artists by
other graphic techniques such as etching and engraving. The art of
woodcutting was revived and further developed (wood engraving) in the
19%%sup th/% century when the Romantic movement deliberately reverted
back to late Gothic tradition. In 1834 B. Hoefel established a school
at Wiener Neustadt which was followed by the Xylographic Institute in
Vienna in 1855.
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Copper engraving was introduced in the South-German and Salzburg
regions in the 15%%sup th/% century (Meister des Marienlebens) and
around Lake Constance (Meister der Spielkarten, Meister E. S.).
In the course of the 16%%sup th/% and 17%%sup th/% centuries the
technique not only established itself in Austria but actually
developed beyond its original scope, which was predominantly
reproductive in nature (E. Sadeler, A. Spaengler, and the Jezl family
in Tirol). The first professorship for copperplate engraving was
established at the Vienna Academy of Art in 1727. The popularity of
copper engravings reached its culmination in Austria with the works of
J. M. Schmutzer at the time of Maria Theresia, when a number of
privileges were granted to artists (including an import ban on copper
plates in 1748 and 1756. In 1766 Schmutzer founded a "Copper Engraving
Academy", which was merged with the old Art Academy in 1772, whose
teachers, alongside Schmutzer, included such important landscape
artists as J. C. Brand, F. E. Weirotter, M. Wutky and F.
Domanoeck.
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In the 18%%sup th/% and early 19%%sup th/% centuries the Vienna
Court especially promoted the mezzotint technique, a method related to
copper engraving which had first been developed in the 17%%sup th/%
century. The method was in particular used for portraits by artists
like J. G. Haid, J. Jacobe, J. P. Pichler and V. G.
Kininger. Yet another technique, etching, which allowed the artist
even more freedom of expression than copper engraving, reached its
first peak in the early 16%%sup th/% century in the works of the
Danube School (A. Altdorfer, W. Huber, H. Lautensack, A. Hirschvogel),
and later met with particular interest in the 18%%sup th/% century on
the part of M. J. Schmidt, P. Troger, F. A. Maulbertsch and
others. These artists and virtually all the other important
18%%sup th/% century painters produced many drawings (design sketches
and drawings of details) in connection with the decoration and
furnishing of major secular and religious buildings. Lithography, a
technique developed in 1797/98 by Aloys Senefelder, was introduced in
Vienna shortly after 1800, particularly by the German Romantic artists
J. C. Erhard, J. A. Klein, F. Olivier and others. In 1817
A. F. Kunike founded the first Lithographic Institute in Vienna,
followed by I. Hofer. who opened another in Graz in 1828. J.
Kriehuber, J. Moessmer, F. Steinfeld and J. Alt were among the leading
Austrian lithographers of the 19%%sup th/% century. In spite of the
great diversity of graphic techniques available in the 19%%sup th/%
century, drawing continued to hold a central position (F. Pforr, J.
Scheffer v. Leonhardshoff, J. Fuehrich, P. Krafft, J. A. Koch,
Brueder Olivier, M. Loder, T. Ender, R. Alt).
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The invention of photography in the 19%%sup th/% century diminished
the importance of the old graphic techniques as methods of
reproduction. A distinction was increasingly made between artistic
"originals" and what came to be described as "Gebrauchsgraphik"
(commercial art). The Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, founded in
Vienna in 1888, became the leading school of graphic arts in Austria.
After, and partly side by side with, the graphic artists of the
Historicist period in Vienna (W. Unger, L. Michalek, F. Schmutzer), it
was the Vienna Sezession (which was established in 1898 and whose
spiritus rector, G. Klimt, saw drawing as an autonomous form of
artistic expression) that came to play a particularly important role
in the art of so heterogeneous a group of artists as E. Schiele, O.
Kokoschka, C. Moll, E. Orlik, A. Kolig, F. Wiegele, W. Thoeny, H.
Boeckl, A. P. Guetersloh or L. H. Jungnickel. However, A.
Kubin's rich, almost exclusively graphic, œuvre occupies a
special place among the works of these artists. The Sezession and
Wiener Werkstaette also gave considerable weight to the more
commercial aspects of graphic art (Gebrauchsgraphik) such as book
illustrations, poster art, postal cards etc. (K. Moser, J. Hoffmann,
A. Cossmann, F. Andri).
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After 1945, two Austrian groups made significant contributions to the
graphic arts - on the one hand the "Vienna School of Fantastic
Realism" (E. Fuchs, A. Lehmden, W. Hutter, A. Brauer) and the group
"Informel" (J. Mikl, J. Fruhmann, W. Hollegha, M.
Prachensky). The sculptor F. Wotruba and his followers (I. Avramidis,
R. Hoflehner, A. Hrdlicka) were responsible for yet another form,
design sketches for sculptural work, which they developed into a
branch of graphic art in its own right. Along with the artists already
mentioned, outstanding present-day graphic artists in Austria include
C. L. Attersee, G. Brus, P. Flora, A. Frohner, W. Pichler, A.
Rainer and H. Staudacher.
!Literature
B. Grimschitz, Die oesterreichische Zeichnung im
19. Jahrhundert, 1928; G. Aurenhammer, Handzeichnung des
17. Jahrhunderts in Oesterreich, 1958; C. Pack, Graphik in
Oesterreich, 1968; W. Koschatzky, Die Kunst der Graphic, 1972; idem,
Die Kunst der Zeichnung, 1977; Die Nazarener in Oesterreich
(1809-1939). Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik, exhibition catalogue, Graz
1979; Aspekte der Zeichnung in Oesterreich 1960 bis 1980, exhibition
catalogue, 1980/81; M. Pabst, Wiener Graphik um 1900, 1984; W.
Schweiger, Aufbruch und Erfuellung. Gebrauchsgraphik der Wiener
Moderne (1897-1918), 1988; Die Botschaft der Graphik, exhibition
catalogue, Lambach 1989.
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