Elective Affinities

Progressive galleries, such as the Miethke Gallery, and associations such as the Künstlerhaus, the Secession and the Hagenbund became the hubs of an especially fertile artistic discourse in the metropolis on the Danube around 1900. Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and his Italian rival Medardo Rosso (1858–1928), the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) and the Belgian sculptor George Minne (1866–1941) were just some of the artists whose exhibitions inspired the Viennese scene and whose works were purchased for private and public collections. Oskar Kokoschka was familiar with the paintings of the Brücke artists, Egon Schiele admired the sculptures of Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881–1919). The abandonment of academic conventions, a heightened sense of individualism and the courage to fathom any human abyss characterized a new zeitgeist that transcended national boundaries.