Secession

No more classics.

An art movement that became the manifesto of rebellion.

The primitive geometric shapes of the Secession building in Vienna are cutting away from the historicism and academic dogmas of Fin-de-siècle Europe.

But instead of rejecting it, the architectural expression establishes a new relationship with the past. While symmetry and proportions evoke the authority of an ancient temple, the golden dome's elaborate detailing and the mural decorations in the interior make reference to Byzantine religious art. Where medieval artists used the precious metal to worship god, the secessionists use it to promote the sacred character of art.

Just like the wider Art Nouveau movement in the rest of Europe, Secessionist Style emerges as a response to consumerism and mass production that followed industrialisation. By uniting fine art and decorative arts into a "total work of art", the movement worships individual creation through artistry and craftsmanship. And as the freeze by Klimt in the interior attests, it is a free, human-centred art that embraces sexuality and nudity as sacred elements of human existence, in defiance of society's conventions.

The inscription over the entrance reads:
"TO EVERY AGE ITS ART, TO ART ITS FREEDOM".

Architecture, art and craftsmanship, united in an act of defiance.  

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