Rainer Metzger – författare

Vincent van Gogh’s story is one of the most tragic in art history. Today, he is celebrated the world over as one of the most important painters of all time, recognized with sell-out shows, feted museums, and record prices of tens of millions of dollars at auction.Yet as he was painting the canvases that would subsequently become these sell-out modern masterpieces, van Gogh was battling not only the disinterest of his contemporary audiences but also devastating bouts of mental illness, with episodes of depression and paralyzing anxiety which would eventually claim his life in 1890, when he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday.This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) pairs a detailed monograph on his life and art with a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings.

At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna became an epicentre for new thought. A multi-disciplinary environment emerged where music, writing and intellectual thought all flourished, often brought together in the capital’s famous coffee houses. This was the time of Freud and Wittgenstein, of Mahler and Schönberg, and of the Secession (1897–1905), the modern movement led by Klimt, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser that aimed to bring different arts together in a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, a total work of art; of Jugendstil, Vienna’s Art Nouveau; and of the Wiener Werkstätte, the workshop founded in 1903 by Moser and Hoffmann that revolutionized the decorative and graphic arts. There have been many exhibitions and publications devoted to this efflorescence, and even more monographs devoted to its key players. None, however, brings together a selection of visual material from across the different artistic disciplines as significant as this current volume, curated and authored by three leading scholars of the period. The book covers all areas of production: painting and drawing; decorative arts and crafts; applied art and book design; fashion, photography and architecture. In each section the illustrations take the lead, creating an invaluable visual reference point for all those eager to identify a given category of the arts within this period, particularly in the field of the decorative arts, from ceramics to glass, silverwork, furniture, jewelry; and graphic arts, from book design to posters and postcards. There are also many less familiar works in the field of fashion and photography, and a particular focus is given to the role of women in all disciplines of the time.

Paris is the City of Light in all its facets. In the 1920s La Ville des lumières gleams especially bright and becomes a magnet for creative people from around the world. This is the decade of Coco Chanel and Josephine Baker, Art Deco and Surrealism, café culture and cabaret. The most famous artists of the epoch, later called Classic Modernism, are in close contact and have lively exchanges with one another – including Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, René Clair, Sonia Delaunay, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. The creative life and all its excesses flourish – bohème is the word for this way of living. Composers like Igor Stravinsky, writers like James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway and exiles from Eastern Europe like Constantin Brancuşi or Marc Chagall enrich the illustrious scene on Montparnasse. The pulsing bars and dance halls of Montmartre are captured by photographers André Kertesz and Brassaï. The French economy is booming and luxury department stores like La Samaritaine open their doors. Coco Chanel creates her own perfume and designs the little black dress.More than 30 outstanding works of architecture, painting, sculpture, film, photography, design and fashion are presented, including Giacometti’s Surrealist Suspended Ball and the film Un chien andalou by Dalí and Buñuel. To this day, the burgeoning creativity, diversity and savoir vivre make Paris a place of longing for night owls, bons vivants and aficionados of the fine arts.

It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich’s rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought.This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin’s Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls; the crowded kinos and flapper fashion; the advances in technology and transport; the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains; the soaring buildings; the cinematic masterworks; and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money.Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Höch's The Journalists; Lotte Jacobi’s Hands on Typewriter; Otto Dix's Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden; Peter Behrens's project of the Alexanderplatz; and Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.

Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In paintings such as Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the representation of texture and mood, light and place. Yet in his lifetime, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would eventually claim his life, when, in 1890, he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday. This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh offers a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work of a master who continues to tower over art to this day.

Christian Ludwig, der sich 1966 den Namen Attersee gab, ist ein österreichischer Ausnahmekünstler. Gerade bei Attersee ist die Einheit von Kunst und Leben, die alte Obsession der Avantgarde, bewusst exemplarisch vollzogen. Hier treffen und ergänzen sich Biografie und Werk des erfolgreichen Malers, Musikers, Schriftstellers, Designers, Filmemachers und Segelsportlers. Daniela Gregori und Rainer Metzger loten die Persönlichkeit des Künstlers in der Interferenzzone zwischen Gemälde und Porträt, Image und Vorstellung in einer umfassenden Gesamtschau aus.Anlässlich des 80. Geburtstags von Christian Ludwig Attersee im August 2020 erscheint die überarbeitete und ergänzte Biografie des Universalkünstlers.

For Marc Chagall (1887–1985), painting was an intricate tapestry of dreams, tales, and traditions. His instantly recognizable visual language carved out a unique early 20th-century niche, often identified as one of the earliest expressions of psychic experience.Chagall’s canvases are characterized by loose brushwork, deep colors, a particular fondness for blue, and a repertoire of recurring tropes including musicians, roosters, rooftops, flowers, and floating lovers. For all their ethereal charms, his compositions were often rich and complex in their references. They wove together not only colors and forms, but also his Jewish roots with his present encounters in Paris, markers of faith with gestures of love and symbols of hope with testimonies of trauma.Across scenes of birth, love, marriage, and death, this dependable artist introduction explores the many versions of Chagall’s rich vocabulary. From visions of his native Vitebsk in modern-day Belarus to images of the Eiffel Tower, we explore the unique aesthetic of one of the most readily identifiable modern masters and one of the most influential Jewish artists of all time.

Vincent van Gogh’s story is one of the most tragic in art history. Today, he is celebrated the world over as one of the most important painters of all time, recognized with sell-out shows, feted museums, and record prices of tens of millions of dollars at auction.Yet as he was painting the canvases that would subsequently become these sell-out modern masterpieces, van Gogh was battling not only the disinterest of his contemporary audiences but also devastating bouts of mental illness, with episodes of depression and paralyzing anxiety which would eventually claim his life in 1890, when he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday.This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) pairs a detailed monograph on his life and art with a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings.

Paris is the City of Light in all its facets. In the 1920s La Ville des lumières gleams especially bright and becomes a magnet for creative people from around the world. This is the decade of Coco Chanel and Josephine Baker, Art Deco and Surrealism, café culture and cabaret. The most famous artists of the epoch, later called Classic Modernism, are in close contact and have lively exchanges with one another – including Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, René Clair, Sonia Delaunay, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. The creative life and all its excesses flourish – bohème is the word for this way of living. Composers like Igor Stravinsky, writers like James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway and exiles from Eastern Europe like Constantin Brancuşi or Marc Chagall enrich the illustrious scene on Montparnasse. The pulsing bars and dance halls of Montmartre are captured by photographers André Kertesz and Brassaï. The French economy is booming and luxury department stores like La Samaritaine open their doors. Coco Chanel creates her own perfume and designs the little black dress.More than 30 outstanding works of architecture, painting, sculpture, film, photography, design and fashion are presented, including Giacometti’s Surrealist Suspended Ball and the film Un chien andalou by Dalí and Buñuel. To this day, the burgeoning creativity, diversity and savoir vivre make Paris a place of longing for night owls, bons vivants and aficionados of the fine arts.

Poets and intellectuals brushed shoulders in bustling coffeehouses, young avant-gardists heralded a new era in social and sexual liberalism, waltzes resounded through the Ringstrasse, the Vienna Secession preached: “To every age its art — to every art its freedom;” and tremors warned of looming political disintegration when the Austrian capital passed into a new century.Across economics, science, art, and music, Vienna blossomed into a “laboratory of modernity,” one which nurtured some of the greatest artistic innovators—from Egon Schiele’s unflinching nude portraits to Gustav Klimt’s decadent Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, from the ornamental seams and glass floors of Otto Wagner to Ditha Moser’s calendars adorned in golden deities.Discover the zeitgeist, the scandals, and the extraordinary protagonists in this introduction to a transformative epoch. Across painting, sculpture, architecture, and design, we explore all the movers and shakers through insightful profiles and crisp double-page reproductions. Marking the centenary of the deaths of some of its brightest talents, this collection joins Vienna in its 2018 celebration of Modernism.

Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In paintings such as Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the representation of texture and mood, light and place. Yet in his lifetime, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would eventually claim his life, when, in 1890, he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday. This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh offers a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work of a master who continues to tower over art to this day.

Städte haben Konjunktur. Sie verkörpern die Maximalisierung des Lebens. In Städten entstehen die Trends, die Moden, die Stile und die Konzepte der Veränderung. Sie sind vielfältig und vielschichtig. Sie sind synonym mit Zivilisation. In zwölf Kapiteln heftet sich der Autor an die Fersen von ausgesuchten Städtern, die als Baedeker durch die jeweils ganz besondere Phase im Leben einer bestimmten Metropole führen. Die Reiseführer heißen u.a. Sokrates und Horaz, Augustinus und Dürer, Mascha Kaleko und Lina Bo Bardi; die Kultur- und Zivilisationsgeschichte führt von der Geburt der Demokratie in Athen über die Gottesstädte des Monotheismus der späten Antike zur Entstehung von Gotik und Universität im mittelalterlichen Paris und ins Katastrophenjahr 1666 nach London. Mozart scheitert an der feinen Gesellschaft in Wien um 1790 und Manet führt im Paris des zweiten Kaiserreichs vor, was Modernität meint; gegen Armut und Verelendung engagiert sich Jacob Riis in New York um 1900; Mascha Kaleko wiederum erlebt in Berlin um 1930 das Phänomen der Massenkultur. Anhand von Bodys Isek Kingelez'' Kinshasa schließlich lässt sich das Prinzip der Mega-Städte begreifen, der Global und der Arrival City, die Landflucht und Ungebrochenheit der Hoffnung auf ein besseres Leben in der Stadt.