Gschnas

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A Gschnas [ kʃnaːs ] (also G´schnas , sometimes Gschnaß , rarely written G´schnaß , Geschnas ) is now an Austrian term for a happy costume party that comes from Viennese . It takes place during Mardi Gras. There is a seamless transition to a more elaborately designed costume ball, the carnival ball, and a Gschnas is differentiated from a masked ball, the redoubt and balls that also take place especially during carnival , which are usually attended in elegant evening wear .

Originally Gschnas meant something like "worthless stuff", later it often had a more special meaning for visually appealing stuff that is basically worthless. Today's usage is a short form of (das) Gschnasfest and (der) Gschnasball, which has been used almost since the origins. The gender is usually given as neuter ( the Gschnas ), sometimes masculine ( the Gschnas ) is also used . The plural ( the Gschnas ) is rarely used. The word comes from colloquial language , but has long been anchored in the standard Austrian language . The term is mainly used in the east of Austria to Salzburg. It is now sometimes used in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, especially as part of the name of events.

Festival on February 8, 1930 "In the dreamland". Figure "The Snuffed Zeus" with an electric flash by Erwin Puchinger, Josef Heu and Ferdinand Opitz (Künstlerhaus Archive)
Publication for the Gschnas festival in Greater Beijing, February 29, 1892 (Künstlerhaus Archive)
Gschnas Festival Gross-Peking February 29, 1892 (Künstlerhaus Archive)
The travelers in the Gschnasredoute on January 23, 1932 (Künstlerhaus Archive)
Herbert Pass: Invitation to the festivities in 1965 (Künstlerhaus Archive)

A special form is the almost- naked- Schnas.

Etymology and history

The origin of the term lies in the mhd. Sneise , which means series (similar things). From this the earlier term “Geschneise” developed, which then became “Gschneis” and “Gschnas” through colloquial language. Especially in agriculture, these words denoted worthless stuff such as tree sticks / waste wood but also cords and threads. In the Viennese dialect of the 19th century, "Gschnas" stood for scraps, scraps, leftovers, in painters for unusable paint scraped off the palette.

In the first half of the 19th century, hardly a large costume ball with disguise was held in Vienna, it was only in the second half of the 19th century that they increasingly took place. It is not known exactly how the costume parties became the Gschnasfest. What is certain, however, is that the origins lie in the Viennese artist festivals. In the suburb of Laimgrube there was the corner of Untere Stattengasse (since 1862 Dürergasse ) and Canalgasse (since 1902 Joanelligasse ) the inn "Blauen Strauss". There Leopold Ernst completed a neo-Gothic ballroom in 1847. This was the meeting point of the artists' association founded in 1851 and later renamed the Albrecht Dürer Association . In 1861 the artists' associations Eintracht and Albrecht-Dürer-Verein merged to form the professional representation of Viennese painters, sculptors and architects under the name of the Cooperative of Visual Artists Vienna . In 1868 the new home, the Künstlerhaus Wien , was opened. There are two otherwise unconfirmed accounts of how the name Gschnas is said to have come about :

  • According to an author from 1873, there was so much food left over at an artists' festival years before that one thought of holding a second festival with the "Gschnas", and another idea was to dress up "Gschnas". Since then, the costume has been as faithful as possible in terms of cut and color, but by no means made of the real, but of relatively worthless materials. Since then the mask festivals are said to have been held fairly regularly.
  • According to a description by Carl von Vincenti from 1904, the artist festivals as such go back to Vormärz . At one of the festivities at which Ernst is said to have furnished the hall in the “Blue Strauss” in a Gothic style, the painter Eduard Cramolini (actually Kramolin, 1807–1881) is said to have used the word Gschnas in the figurative sense for the first time when seeing the Carnival Gothic . In the 1860s, the word is said to have stood for the humorous artist evenings and from 1870 the carnival celebrations began in the new artist house and the heyday of the Gschnas. In the 1870s it should have been theatrical evenings and carnival picture shows.

The author from 1873 describes the festival at that time and the style of the costumes:

“Theatrical performances in which the madness has already reached a fairly high level, music and dance evenings are lined up; The final and highlight of the artists' carnival was, as usual, the 'Gschnasball'. [...] Since then, the law has existed for these mask festivals, which recur quite regularly, that the costume must be as true as possible in terms of cut and color, but not at all true in the fabric. Some stylistic period is usually prescribed; We have had antique, gothic etc. gschnasballs, and it is unbelievable how sensual and imaginative because the bad rags, the worn clothes, household and kitchen utensils are used, how the otherwise frowned upon tailcoat adapts to every age, in short with how modest means they are weird and at the same time brilliant effects can be achieved. For this year, 'Se. Your Highness Prince Gschnas the First and Only 'announced a court day; only blue blood was loaded, but preferably potentates who are no longer or not yet included in the Gotha calendar and representatives of extinct noble families. […] At a distance one really thought to see the precious brocades , laces , embroidery, ostrich feathers, armor , chains, etc.: stepping closer, one recognized the painted sackcloth, the table and bed carpets, the paper feathers and flowers, the gold jewelry Diamonds from the Christmas tree. The little cloak of black silk revealed itself as an old umbrella cover, the headgear of the Doge of Venice as the hood of a Linz peasant woman, the helmet with a nasal peak as a ' bailiff ' pasted with silver paper , the sword handle as a wooden candlestick, the magnificent train can't hide that she recently adorned an armchair. [...] Here, the 'handsome men' who once swap their housecoats for a 'knight' or sailor's suit, but also remain the old leather journeymen in colorful doublets , are excluded from the start or, if they venture into it, even play gloomy ones Figures, yes, even the beautiful woman who wants nothing but beautiful, has no reputation. It is method in folly. May it continue to prosper! "

Many of the members of the artists' association contributed to the furnishing of the premises, with many pictures and sculptures being created. They were humorous, often satirical and often quite political or dealt with changing art. For example, Stephan Hlawa later painted the actor Werner Krauss as Richard III. in the manner of various modern painters, such as Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele , Albin Egger-Lienz , George Grosz , Paul Klee , Pablo Picasso , Vincent van Gogh , Franz Marc and Marc Chagall .

Gschnas and costume ball of the artists. Wilhelm Gause, 1888
Women's donation to the Gschnas in the Künstlerhaus with the motto “Hubertusfest”, designed by Koloman Moser , 1896

From 1880, the big artist festivals began, also at the end of the artist carnival, on Carnival Monday. In 1882 the side wings were added and the fortress was enlarged. By 1904 there were fifteen of them and the brilliant ones were attended by three to four thousand guests. For a number of years, so-called Gschnas medals were minted for the artist's gnaw, which could be bought as souvenirs and which were later shown at numismatic exhibitions and in catalogs. According to Johann Veit Kull, these joke medals were probably first created in Vienna and other clubs have copied this idea.

The imperial councilor Theodor Theyer ( Theyer & Hardtmuth ), an art lover and also a gasoline artist himself, collected props over the years and set up a museum on the second floor of his castle in Rossatz , the Gschnasoleum . At the front door there was the greeting "GRVE • SENG • GOTTAL • LEMIT • ANANDA • 1892" (GRVES ENG GOTT ALLE MITANANDA = Hello God, everyone.)

The good profit from the festivals, thanks to the low taxation until the Second World War, was used for social support. The Gschnas festivals were famous and known beyond the borders of Austria. The painter Alexander Demetrius Goltz remarked in 1895: “It is only a good thing that we prove again every spring at the annual exhibition that we can also paint and model. Otherwise we would only be regarded as “Gschnas artists”. ”() The famous Gschnas festivals took place in the Künstlerhaus until 1965 with interruptions.

The name Gschnas also migrated to the Crown Lands and so in 1893 a Gschnas evening in the Brno German House and a Gschnas ball at Concordia in Prague are reported. The term was also used for other carnival events, for example a photo club in the 1890s organized Gschnas exhibitions with satirical photos and those of sham objects, such as a cardboard ruin. But at that time the Gschnas par excellence remained the one in the Künstlerhaus.

The festivals apparently gave the vernacular of Styria an extraordinary importance for Geschneise / Gschnas at the turn of the century. In a dictionary from 1903 it is explained as follows: "A mess of people, mixed society, also throwing away 'people', 'people'" "But this seems to be an exception.

Otherwise the term got a further, more specific meaning through the artist festivals. Writes Marie Weyr 1895:

“By 'Gschnas' the Viennese understands all appearances that are not based on being, the momentarily captivating, dazzling and yet unreal, which on closer inspection turns out to be worthless junk. 'Gschnasig' is the charming witch whom the magician conjures up in his arms at night to find the dry broomstick on his bed when he wakes up; 'Gschnasig' he calls the speeches of certain representatives of the people, Gschnasberge are the limestone hills of Saxon Switzerland to him when he thinks of the native Alps , King Mil ..., pardon, Menelaus in the ' beautiful Helena ' he calls a Gschnaskönig, etc.
The 'Gschnas' as festive decoration is a real and genuine Viennese specialty. As our artists created it and let it arise every year under their magically ruling hands, its material components are a primitive plebeian child, born from soil , kitchen rubbish, rubble and broken pieces, spiritually ennobled by its merit for the diaphragm of humanity, adorned with the Order of Art and Cheerful Science, the star of genius in real, non-snazzy diamonds. "

A dummy telephone could also be called a "Gschnas telephone apparatus". You could also call it talmi , sometimes kitsch . Some used the terms synonymously and others differentiated between “kitsch and Gschnas”. “For the Austrian, the definition of 'kitsch' is not difficult. Kitsch is Gschnas who claims to be taken seriously. But Gschnas, on the other hand, is an art exercise that does not want to be taken seriously. ”( Neues Forum , Vol. 3–4, Schriften zur Zeit, 1956, p. 297)

Between the art movements of the turn of the century, each other's productions were referred to as Gschnas. Hermann Bahr complained in 1896, a year before the Vienna Secession split off and while new initiatives were already underway in other cities: “The business, the business! That is the only thing that is taken seriously in the artist house. Anything that is not business is considered to be Gschnas, especially art; that's what the carnival festival is for. Who can still hope that it will ever be different? ”The playful jewelry, the bay windows, the wealth of stucco of historicism was criticized as Gschnas by Art Nouveau people , among others . Others referred to many of the Secessionists' works as "craftsmanship". In her memoirs, Bertha von Suttner described Le Chat Noir as an artist-Gschnas-Café and as the ancestor of all the cabarets that are now crowding the world.

From the 1960s onwards, the other meanings became less frequent, the costume party came to the fore and from the 1970s onwards, when the explanation “worthless stuff” and the like was even mentioned, it was mostly marked as out of date.

The colloquial expression Schnas for "nonsense, nonsense" is derived from the term

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Peter Wehle : Do you speak Viennese ?: from Adaxl to Zwutschkerl , Ueberreuter, 1980, ISBN 3-8000-3165-5 , p. 149:
    “(m, n); Grdbed. (still with S): Kitsch, worthless artifacts of all kinds ; today only in "Gschnasfest" - costume ball with the most unusual masks possible "
  2. ↑ a b c d Duden: the large dictionary of the German language in six volumes. Bibliographisches Institut, 1981, ISBN 3-411-01357-5 , Volume 3, p. 1101.
  3. ↑ Der Sprachdienst , Vol. 30–31, 1986, p. 63.
  4. ↑ " Gschnas ", ostarrichi.org
  5. ↑ For example:
    Official and advertising gazette of the communities Hohenems, Götzis, Altach, Koblach and Mäder  (     page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Volume 118, No. 8, February 25, 2006, p. 12 Innsbruck - Gschnas ended before Richter , tt.com, June 9, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hohenems.at  
  6. ↑ Partisam Life Gschnas, 2008 in Lustenau
  7. ↑ a b c Ulrich Ammon, Rhea Kyvelos (Hrsg.): German dictionary of variants. Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-11-016574-0 , p. 314.
  8. ↑ The St. Arnualer Stiftswald ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 416 kB), pp. 157–160, in: ???, 2007, part at warndt.eu  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.warndt.eu
  9. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Looff: General Foreign Dictionary: containing the Germanization and explanation of the foreign or not generally known German words and expressions occurring in German written and colloquial language, as well as in the individual arts and sciences, with names of origin, pronunciation and emphasis. H. Beyer, 1908, p. 352.
  10. ↑ a b c "B.": Artists' carnival in Vienna. In: Kunst-Chronik - supplement to the magazine for visual arts , 8th vol. No. 22, March 18, 1873, pp. 352–353.
  11. ↑ " Gschnas ", in: The Collaborative Encyclopedia, Volume 8. Leipzig 1907 S. 473rd
  12. ^ Adelbert Schusser: Johann Strauss. Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, 1995, p. 43.
  13. ↑ a b Gschnasfest , www.austria-lexikon.at , Version: March 12, 2010
  14. ↑ Gerd Pichler: Page no longer available , search in web archives: Review: Wladimir Aichelburg, Das Wiener Künstlerhaus 1861–2001 , Kunsthistoriker aktuell, 20th year, 1/03@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / kunsthistorikerin.at
  15. ^ Walter Koschatzky: Rudolf von Alt. 2nd Edition. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-205-99397-7 , p. 214 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  16. ^ Künstlerhaus , Austria Lexikon, as of March 12, 2010
  17. ^ A b c Carl von Vincenti: Gschnas (Viennese artist festivals). In: Theodor Hermann Pantentius, Hanns von Zobeltitz (ed.): Velhagen & Klafings MONTHLYhefte, 18th year, issue 6, February 1904, pp. 657-672 ( limited preview in the Google Book Search USA )
  18. ^ Mask and Kothurn. Volume 23, Institute for Theater Studies at the University of Vienna, 1977, p. 341.
  19. ^ Karl Domanig: Anton Scharff, K. and K. Kammer-Medailleur, 1845–1895. Publishing house of the Numismatic Society, 1895, p. 44 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - USA )
  20. ^ Johann Veit Kull: Repertory on Bavarian Coin Studies: 1. Continuation. Self-published by the Bavarian Numismatic Society, 1900, p. 878 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - USA )
  21. ↑ Karlheinz Roschitz: Kaiserwalzer: Dream and Reality of the Ringstrasse Time. Ueberreuter, 1996, ISBN 3-8000-3628-2 , p. 186.
  22. ^ A b Marie Weyr: Viennese artist festivals. In: Wienerstadt, Lebensbilder aus der Gegenwart , F. Temsky, 1895, p. 211 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  23. ^ Hubert Reitterer, Hans Peter Hye: Four dozen red stockings: On the history of the reception of the Bartered Bride by Bedřich Smetana in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, Volume 3, Part 4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004, ISBN 3-7001- 3270-0 , p. 271.
  24. ^ Society for the Promotion of German Science, Art and Literature in Böhmen, Prague: Overview of the achievements of the German Bohemia in the field of science, art and literature in 1893. KUK Hofbuchdruckerei A. Haase, 1897, p. 116.
  25. ^ Photographic Society in Vienna, German Society for Photography: Photographische Correspondenz . Volume 32, 1895, No. 414, p. 158 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - USA )
  26. ^ Theodor Unger, Ferdinand Khull, Johann Andreas Schmeller: Styrian vocabulary as a supplement to Schmeller's Bavarian dictionary. Leuschner et al. Lubensky's University Bookstore, 1903, p. 286 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - USA )
  27. ^ Carl Adolf Friese: Viennese Humor. Stern, 1891, p. 18 ( limited preview in Google Book Search - USA )
  28. ^ Eduard Castle: History of German Literature in Austria-Hungary in the Age of Franz Joseph I , Volume 2, Verlag von Carl Fromme, 1936, p. 1667.
  29. ^ Géza Hajós , Eckart Vancsa: Die Kunstdenkmäler Vienna: the profane buildings of the 3rd, 4th and 5th district , Schroll, 1980, ISBN 3-7031-0470-8 , pp. Lxxv, lxxviii
  30. ^ Richard Muther: Studies and Reviews. Volume I: 1900. 5th edition. Wiener Verlag, 1901, p. 291 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  31. ↑ Bertha von Suttner (author), Fritz Böttger (ed.): Memories of life. 6th edition, Verlag der Nation, 1979, p. 206.
  32. ↑ Günther Drosdowski, Wolfgang Müller: The Duden in 10 volumes: Volume 8: Meaning and related words and phrases. Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig, 1972, p. 309:
    "Gschnas → Maskarade"
  33. ↑ Brockhaus Encyclopedia in twenty volumes: Volume 24th 17th edition, 1976, ISBN 3-7653-0030-6 , p. 280:
    "wien .: Imitation, Talmi: the Gschnasfest, Faschungsfest (Viennese artist)"
  34. ↑ Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht (Ed.): Duden: Spelling of the German language. 21st edition. Bertelsmann Club, 1996, ISBN 3-411-04011-4 , p. 328:
    “(Austrian for costume party, ball); Gschnasfest "
  35. ↑ Herbert Fussy : In good Austrian style. öbv & hpt, 2003, ISBN 3-209-04348-5 , p. 53:
    “(esp. ostöst.): Short word for → Gschnasfest | (obsolete) worthless stuff // Gschnasfest: (esp. Ostöst.): a funny costume party “; → Gschnas