The guild

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The third German arts and crafts exhibition was largely organized by members of the guild. Poster by Otto Gussmann.

The guild was a Dresden artists' association and was founded in June 1905 by city ​​planning officer Hans Erlwein and the sculptor Karl Groß in Dresden in order to counteract what Erlwein thought was an "unpleasant development" in the field of art: It was part of the reform movement in the arts and crafts as a counter-movement to that since In the mid-19th century, industrial mass production emerged using the then widespread use of stylistic features of historicism .

history

The guild was an amalgamation of Dresden sculptors , architects , painters and craftsmen . The focus was on bundling all reform-oriented forces in Dresden. A member of the guild could only following a unanimous decision appointed to be a candidate was not possible. The aim was to only take in presumably like-minded people from Dresden. Hans Erlwein was the first chairman of the guild until 1908 .

The guild's efforts led to the Third German Applied Arts Exhibition in Dresden in 1906 . The architects, painters and sculptors involved included Hans Erlwein , Karl Groß , Otto Gussmann , Julius Gräbner , Erich Kleinhempel , Wilhelm Kreis , Max Hans Kühne , William Lossow , Rudolf Schilling , Fritz Schumacher , Oskar Seyffert and Heinrich Tscharmann .

From 1906 to 1913, the guild was the publisher of the four times a year magazine Dresdner Künstlerheft (from 1908 under the title Dresdener Künstlerheft ) published by Julius Hoffmann . The club magazine was dedicated to the topic of architecture and applied arts and was richly illustrated with photographs.

Due to the steadily increasing number of members, it was decided at the guild meeting on December 6, 1907, to handle the association's business through specialist committees. These technical committees were made up of members elected for a period of one year. The following committees were created:

  • Editorial committee of the Dresdner Künstlerhefte and for press and public relations
  • Arts and Crafts Committee for the Promotion of Crafts
  • Art committee for questions of public construction, as well as for general art questions such as copyright, nature and heritage protection
  • Exhibition Committee
  • Appeals Committee
  • Festival committee

Over time, Hans Erlwein, Otto Gussmann, Fritz Schumacher and Georg Wrba formed a closer circle within the framework of the guild. They met weekly in their homes and exchanged ideas. They were all closely networked and carried out numerous public contracts. On January 1, 1909, Erlwein handed over the presidency of the guild to Georg Wrba after accusations regarding the alleged preferential treatment of members of the guild when awarding public contracts were reported in the press:

Nineteen Dresden artists under the leadership of Richard Daniel Fabricius , including the former guild members Richard Guhr and Josef Goller , as well as Erich Hösel , Georg Müller-Breslau and August Schreitmüller , filed a complaint against the municipal building department and Hans Erlwein as town planning officer. They demanded that public contracts should be awarded through competitive tenders and in an impartial manner without regard to membership of the artists' association Die Zunft . The complaint was against the background of the Dresden artists' dispute between conservative and reform-minded forces, which took place between 1907 and 1909, and was rejected by the city administration.

On July 3, 1909, the Elbe group joined the guild . From the ranks of the guild , the former Elbe , the guild and a number of outside artists, the Dresden Artists' Association was formed on November 6, 1909, chaired by Georg Wrba . With this merger, the Dresden reform movement should be placed on an even broader basis. In addition, the guild withdrew the attack surface from its conservative opponents by operating at least externally as the Dresden Artists' Association .

The guild then fell to only the care of conviviality. The guild evenings were informal and took place every Friday on the first floor of the Zacherlbräu pub at König-Johann-Straße  8, corner of Kleine Frohngasse, which was rented as a “guild room” for 1,000 marks a year  . No guests were tolerated at the meetings. The members wore the silver hammer of honor on the watch chain as a club symbol. The design of the guild room was designed by Julius Gräbner, who was given this task by drawing lots. The guild room was inaugurated on December 14, 1906. There was also a window designed by Otto Gussmann and a carved guild door in which the names of the members were engraved. In the guild room hung a uniformly framed silhouette of each member . For reasons of space, the guild used the first floor of the “Zum Tucher” restaurant in Webergasse  10 as a guild pub from 1909. The “Tucherbräu” was designed by architect Alexander Hohrath and inaugurated on November 2nd. The guild door and the window with the glass paintings by Otto Gussmann from the old "Zacherlbräu" were taken over.

During the war years the association's activities continued to decline. At the extraordinary meeting on January 16, 1918, the guild disbanded .

classification

The guild was part of the reform movement at the turn of the century as a countermovement to the fast-moving mass production that had arisen since the middle of the 19th century, which stylistically made use of the wealth of forms of bygone eras. This historically oriented style was characterized by the use of pretended precious materials and exuberant decorations and was used for simple everyday objects through to architecture.

Inspired by the English reform movement Arts and Crafts around William Morris and John Ruskin, forces formed in Germany in the last decade of the 19th century that critically examined the practice of “imitation”. The aim was a clarity and functional design of rooms and furniture as well as everyday objects. In architecture, the term reform architecture is used for this reform movement . They were also looking for a design that was adapted to the specific conditions of machine production.

A main concern of the guild was the idea of ​​the interaction of sculpture, painting and architecture in the service of a total work of art. The guild demanded, among other things, functional building and material justice. Painting and sculpture were seen in the service of spatial art. In the artists' association everyone should see themselves as “building professionals”, regardless of whether they are painters, sculptors, craftsmen or architects.

“Spatial art” was a key term in Dresden's urban development at the time. The idea was that sculpture, painting and architecture should go together so closely that they should appear inseparable, whereby all three should be space-forming, space-filling and in well-balanced relationships to one another.

"Material justice" was also a goal of the Deutscher Werkbund at the time and referred to the use of materials in such a way that the original properties and appearance remained visible. What this meant was the search for a new design based on “purpose”, “material” and “construction” (“ form follows function ”), which was also referred to as “objectivity” or “Sachstil” - and which was then used in the 1920s should be addressed again under the term “ New Objectivity ”.

The group's activities helped shape the artistic face of Dresden at the time: Fritz Schumacher designed the first crematorium ; Wilhelm Kreis prevailed with his design for the Augustus Bridge; Hans Erlwein built the Italian Village restaurant ; Selmar Werner created the Schiller monument ; Otto Gussmann designed the painting of the town hall dome ; Max Hans Kühne and William Lossow created the main station building in Leipzig and Oskar Seyffert's Folklore Museum was created. The King George memorial designed in plaster by Georg Wrba was ultimately not implemented; a later one was erected in front of the artillery barracks in Albertstadt and disposed of in 1952 as "artistically worthless".

Chairperson

  • Hans Erlwein, June 1905 - December 1908
  • Georg Wrba, January 1909 - September 1909
  • Oskar Seyffert, October 1909 - September 1910
  • Karl Groß, October 1910 - October 1912
  • Hans Erlwein, November 1912 - November 7, 1913
  • German Bestelmeyer, November 7, 1913 - June 4, 1914
  • Julius Ferdinand Wollf, June 4, 1914 - March 24, 1915
  • Karl Groß, from March 24, 1915 - January 16, 1918

Members

See also

literature

  • Jens Fritzsche: Wollf, Erlwein and “Die Zunft” . In: Julius Ferdinand Wollf. Search for an erased one . Kunstblatt-Verlag, Dresden 2019, ISBN 978-3-9820163-0-6 , pp. 162-163 .
  • Petra Klara Gamke: The artists' association guild . In: Karl Groß. Tradition as innovation? Dresden reform art at the beginning of modernism . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-422-06488-5 , p. 39-45 .
  • Günter Kloss: “III. German Applied Arts Exhibition Dresden 1906 ”and the artists' association“ Die Zunft ”in Dresden . In: Hans Erlwein: (1872-1914); City planning officer in Bamberg and Dresden . Imhof, Petersberg 2002, ISBN 3-932526-95-3 , p. 23-27 .
  • A. Werner Vogel, Eberhard Vogel: The guild . In: Otto Pilz: academic animal sculptor; (1876-1934); his life and work . VDS, Verlag Ph.CW Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2008, ISBN 978-3-87707-728-3 , p. 31-32 .
  • Jutta Petzold-Herrmann: The 3rd German Applied Arts Exhibition in Dresden 1906 - an outstanding cultural event . In: Dresdner Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Dresdner Hefte . No. 36 , 1993, ISSN  0863-2138 , pp. 25-40 ( digitized version ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Günter Kloss: “III. German Applied Arts Exhibition Dresden 1906 ”and the artists' association“ Die Zunft ”in Dresden . In: Hans Erlwein: (1872-1914); City planning officer in Bamberg and Dresden . Imhof, Petersberg 2002, ISBN 3-932526-95-3 , p. 23-27 .
  2. ↑ a b Die Zunft , Stadtwiki Dresden, accessed on April 11, 2015
  3. ↑ The association Die Gilde, founded on April 4, 1907, was a primarily economic association of arts and crafts. See Gamke (2005), p. 44
  4. ^ Paul Schumann : From applied art in Dresden . In: Die Kunst: Monthly magazine for free and applied arts . 14th year. Bruckmann, Munich 1911, p. 435-440 ( digitized version ).
  5. ^ Sabine Schulte: The German Hygiene Museum in Dresden by Wilhelm Kreis: Biography of a museum in the Weimar Republic. Dissertation . Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn 2001, p. 126 ( digital copy [PDF]).
  6. Jump up ↑ 12512 Committee for the erection of a King George Monument in Dresden. Saxon State Archives , accessed on April 27, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Stauffenbergallee. In: Dresdner-Stadtteile.de. Retrieved April 27, 2015 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Petra Klara Gamke: The artists' association guild . In: Karl Groß. Tradition as innovation? Dresden reform art at the beginning of modernism . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-422-06488-5 , p. 39-45 .
  9. ↑ a b c The Dresden Art Exhibition 1908 . In: Kunstchronik: Weekly for art and applied arts . 19th year, no. 29 . Seemann, Leipzig 1908, p. 504 ( digitized version ).