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386 Matthew Rampley
its journal. The important exhibition of goldsmithing in the Museum of Applied Arts in
Budapest was the subject of an extensive review by Bruno Bucher, for example.69 But
this was the exception ; compared to the level of interest in the crownlands of Galicia,
Moravia, Bohemia and Gorizia, for example, the attention given to Hungarian art and
design was minor.70 Slowly, external political realities began to intrude.
Eitelberger envisaged the Museum (and art more generally) as participating in an
Austrian political and social order that transcended national differences. The same held
true for Henszlmann and Pulszky in respect of Hungary. This outlook was rooted in a
Liberal notion of national identity that first emerged in the first half of the century and
it converged with the narrative of cosmopolitanism that was formulated to legitimate
Habsburg rule. Yet in the final decades of the 1800s Liberalism in both halves of the
Empire took on a decidedly more nationalistic tone. In part this was in response to the
rise of nationalist movements ; in order to compete on the political stage, Liberals came
to adopt, in modified form, some of the rhetoric of their opponents. In Hungary, for
example, the image of a universal enlightened civilization was displaced by an ethnically
defined notion of Magyar identity based on romantic conceptions of the nomadic ori-
gins of the Magyars in central Asia. In part, too, however, this shift was the working out
of contradictions and tensions within that older liberal discourse.
Their root cause of such contradictions could be found in this understanding of Ger-
man (and Hungarian) identity and its place in the Empire, and its contradictory atti-
tudes are fully in evidence in Eitelberger’s writings. He endorsed the Habsburg vision
of an Austrian identity based on its cultural diversity. The Empire’s great achievements
were based, he argued, on the fact that it had been open to individuals from many places
and had welcomed them as good Austrians. In the field of politics, he noted, Prince
Eugene (from Savoy), Field Marshal Laudon (originally from Livonia), General Karl
von Schönhals (born near Wetzlar in Hessen) had all made crucial contributions to
Austrian life. A similar story could be told about the arts : figures such as Gottfried van
Swieten, the Dutch composer and patron of composers such as Mozart and Haydn,
Johann Peter Krafft and Heinrich Füger had all come from Germany : “Das geistige
Leben Wiens darf nicht auf einen particularistischen oder nationalen Isolierschemel
gestellt werden, wie es in Pest, Agram or Krakau geschieht.”71 Yet apart from the fact
69 B. Bucher, Die Goldschmiedekunst Ausstellung in Budapest, in : Mittheilungen des k. k. Ă–sterr.
Museums fĂĽr Kunst und Industrie, 19, 1884, pp.Â
122–129.
70 There were some exceptions. See, for example, K. Herich, Die ungarische Hausindustrie, in : Mit-
theilungen des k. k. Ă–sterr. Museums fĂĽr Kunst und Industrie, N.Â
F.Â
6, 1891, pp.Â
298–306.
71 “Viennese intellectual life cannot be placed on a national or particularistic Isolierschemel, as hap-
pens in Pest, Zagreb or Cracow.” R. Eitelberger von Edelberg, Die Plastik Wiens, in : idem,
Gesammelte kunsthistorische Schriften, vol.Â
2 (cit. n.Â
4), pp.Â
104–157, esp. p.Â
141.
Open Access © 2019 by BÖHLAU VERLAG GMBH & CO.KG, WIEN
Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg
Netzwerker der Kunstwelt
- Titel
- Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg
- Untertitel
- Netzwerker der Kunstwelt
- Autoren
- Julia RĂĽdiger
- Eva Kernbauer
- Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel
- Raphael Rosenberg
- Patrick Werkner
- Tanja Jenni
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- Wien
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- deutsch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-20925-6
- Abmessungen
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 562
- Kategorie
- Biographien