Kinderkunst between Vienna and Brussels 1900

A study reveals that the Secessionist 'art for the child' movement, which drew inspiration from child art and folk aesthetics, may have paradoxically stifled children's innate creativity by surrounding them with a highly structured aesthetic system. This movement, evident in key commissions like the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, sought to nurture creativity through exposure to beauty but inadvertently created an environment that suppressed the childlike aesthetics modernists associated with vernacular folk art. The research examines this contradiction through an analysis of collecting practices and design spaces in Vienna and Brussels during 1900.

Brandow-Faller, M. (2021). Kinderkunst between Vienna and Brussels 1900. Brussels 1900 Vienna, 287–313. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004459984_013