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The Fantastic Art of Vienna - by Alessandra Comini (Hardcover)
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Highlights
- Art, music, literature, and science in Vienna at the turn of the last century presented a series of wrenching dualities: reality and illusion, sexuality and death, the external world and the internal self.
- Author(s): Alessandra Comini
- 150 Pages
- Art, History
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About the Book
An investigation of the historic Viennese milieu of plural dualities in which artists, musicians, writers, and scientists worked in the city not only of dreams but of nightmares.Book Synopsis
Art, music, literature, and science in Vienna at the turn of the last century presented a series of wrenching dualities: reality and illusion, sexuality and death, the external world and the internal self. Celebrated art historian Alessandra Comini explores in a lively, authoritative text the demonic origins of the 1000-year-old Habsburg Empire, easternmost outpost of Christendom against the dreaded Ottoman Turks. Escape from death encouraged a flight from reality and a predilection for the fantastic. Strauss waltzes inspired a collective escapism while a conquering Napoleon entered the city--twice. Vienna's fantastic heritage inspired composer Arnold Schönberg, author Hugo von Hofmannsthal, physician Sigmund Freud and invigorated the work of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Anton Romako, Gustav Klimt, Alfred Kubin, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, and the Fantastic Realism of Arnulf Rainer and Friedrich Hundertwasser.
Review Quotes
"Comini is one of the most compellingly readable art historians writing today." (Publishers Weekly)
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