Vienna Secessionist Designs & Art Works: The what, why, who, when and where of it all.

I'm finding out that design and decorative categories are now my most enjoyable and fascinating topics. Especially the turn of the 20th century in Central Europe, when several new movements exploded and had a lasting effect. The International Fairs and Exhibitions of importance, were a great venue to display these new aesthetics and give them a world wide inspiration.

Here is an article from an internet site that has a good well written and concise understanding for this post's purposes.
......"In November 1896, the arch-conservative Eugeen Felix was re-elected as president of the Kunstlerhaus and the members of the organization, many of whom had been excluded from exhibitions in the past, took the opportunity to voice their opposition. Led by Klimt, they decided to form a new society based on the models of the Berlin and Munich Secession founded by Franz von Stuck in 1892. Klimt was by then the most recognized of the breakaway artists, having risen to fame as decorator during the great building boom of the Ringstrasse. His panel paintings on the Burgtheatre theatre in 1887 won him the Emperor’s prize in 1890 making him the favourite child of bourgeois Ringstrasse culture. It was only natural then that it would be Klimt, an artist at the peak of his fame, who should assume the leadership of the new movement.
On April 3, 1897, a letter was put forth to the Kunstlerhaus announcing the formation of a new group with Klimt as president and Rudolf von Alt as honorary president. Of a total of 40 members on the list, 23 were members of the Kunslerhaus, including Klimt, Joseph Olbrich and Koloman Moser. The group had in fact intended to stay in the Kunstlerhaus, but on May 22nd the board of directors put forth a motion of censure against the new group during their assembly forcing Klimt and the group to leave the meeting in silence. Two days later, an official letter of resignation was sent to the Kunstlerhaus announcing the resignation of twelve member artists including Stor, Olbrich, Moser, Carl Moll, and Felician von Myrbach. More resignations followed over the course of the next two years, including Hoffmann, Kurzweil and ending with Otto Wagner on October 11, 1899....."
......."Art historians have somewhat neglected the topic of the Vienna Secession because of its apparent lack of a specific program yet it was precisely its pluralist approach to the arts which made the group unique. From the onset, the Vienna Secession brought together Naturalists, Modernists, Impressionists and cross-pollinated among all disciplines forming a total work of art; a Gesamkunstwerk. In this respect, the Secession drew inspiration from William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts movement which sought to re-unite fine and applied arts. Like Morris, the Secessionists spurned 19th century manufacturing techniques and favoured quality handmade objects, believing that a return to handwork could rescue society from the moral decay caused by industrialization. In spite of their critique of industrialization, they did not completely reject the classicism which had stifled it’s artists in the previous decades. "....
...."Stylistically, the Secession has mistakenly been seen as synonymous with the Jugendstil movement, the German version of art nouveau. It is true that the Secessionists incorporated many of Jugendstil elements in it’s work such as the curvilinear lines that decorate the facade of the Secession building. Many of the organization’s members had been working in the Jugendstil style prior to joining and the group did honour the Art Nouveau movement in France by devoting an entire issue of Ver Sacrum in 1898 to the work Alphonse Mucha. Nevertheless, the Secession developed its own unique ‘Secession-stil’ centred around symmetry and repetition rather than natural forms. The dominant form was the square and the recurring motifs were the grid and checkerboard. The influence came not so much from French and Belgian Art Nouveau, but again from the Arts and Crafts movement. In particular the work of William Asbhee and Charles Renee Mackintosh both of whom incorporated geometric design and floral-inspired decorative motifs, played a large part in forming the Secession-style. The Secessionist admiration of Mackintosh’s work was evident by the fact that he was brought to Vienna for the 8th Secession exhibition."

I recommend the whole site page for reading, as I have copied a few paragraphs, which answers a lot of questions regarding the Vienna Secessionist style of design. https://www.theviennasecession.com/vienna-secession/

The Vienna Secessionist images are several original design pages from the late 1890s, these were produced by familiar names and some unknowns, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Alphonse Mucha, and Gustav Klimt, to name a few of the famous. The design usage was very diverse, applied to many expertises: such as textiles, artistic compositions, glass, ceramics, architecture, woodwork, jewelry, illustrations, posters, etc.