VIENNA SECESSION.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Ver Sacrum: First editions, a very scarce complete run of one of the most consequential artistic journals ever published, the organ of the Vienna Secession, bound in annual volumes, the latter four in floral cloth bindings likely by the Wiener Werkstätte.The Vienna Secession was a group of Austrian artists, led by Gustav Klimt, who, in 1897, broke away from the conservative Künstlerhaus to promote modern art and the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Ver Sacrum ("Sacred Spring") was their journal, which sought to integrate ornament, typography, layout, design, and text into a unified artwork. It included photographs of the Secession's own exhibitions, and texts were contributed by many leading poets and writers of the day. Literary and artistic contributors included Max Kurzweil, Rainer Maria Rilke, Maurice Maeterlinck, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Alphonse Mucha."Ver Sacrum remains a document of the first importance for any student of the period, and one without which it would be impossible to obtain a complete picture of the activity of the Secession" (Vergo, p. 44). The introductory essay declared that it "aims to show other countries for the first time that Austria is an independent artistic entity... it is meant to be a clarion call to the artistic sense of the people, to inspire, promote, and spread artistic life and artistic independence" (translated). The bindings of the latter four volumes are in the style of the Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903 to promo

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