Week Fourteen Comments

   Week fourteen consisted of discussion of artists' groups somewhere other than France for once. It was perhaps one of the more interesting parts of the course. I had the opportunity to learn about German, Austrian, and Polish art which is not typically given weight in art history courses. The Munich Secession, Manes Union of Artists, the Vienna Secession and the Polish Sztuka were all offshoots (save for Sztuka) of larger organizations, who, in the case of the Vienna Secession started a new organization apart from their mother group to combat conservative xenophobia in their own cultural regions. It was an interesting period in the Austro-Hungarian empire, when individual national groups were able to for their own artists' organizations despite being part of one large empire.