
When most people speak of the Vienna Secession, they are usually referring to the initial period of its history between 18. The Secession's most dramatic decline in fortunes occurred at virtually the same time that Jugendstil fell out of style elsewhere in Europe. The Vienna Secession's work is often referred to (during the years before World War I) as the Austrian version of Jugendstil, the German term for Art Nouveau, and it is the work of its members in association with that style that has contributed most to its fame, particularly outside of Austria.It literally consisted of a set of artists who broke away from the association that ran the city's own venue for contemporary art to form their own, progressive group along with a venue to display their work.


This, in concert with their official journal Ver Sacrum, not only introduced the Austrian capital to their work, but that of contemporary and historical art movements on a global scale. Led at the beginning by Gustav Klimt, the Secessionists gave contemporary art its first dedicated venue in the city. It was the coalescence of the first movement of artists and designers who were committed to a forward-thinking, internationalist view of the art world, all-encompassing in its embrace and integration of genres and fields, and - highly idealistically - freed from the dictates of entrenched values or prevailing commercial tastes. The formation of the Vienna Secession in 1897 marked, quite accurately, the formal beginning of modern art in Austria - a nation at the time noted for its attachment to a highly conservative tradition.
