handwerk-kunsthandwerk

Design History Society

Handwerk/KunsthandwerkAuthor(s): Stefan MuthesiusSource: Journal of Design History, Vol. 11, No. 1, Craft, Modernism and Modernity (1998),pp. 85-95Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Design History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316165 .

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Stefan Muthesius

HandwerklKunsthandwerk

This article sounds out some of the meanings of two important German terms. It deals with their recent history and compares the developments of the crafts in Britain and Germany. 'Das Handwerk' is equivalent to aspects of 'the crafts' and 'the trades' and is thus a term of much greater importance in German art and economic life than either crafts or trade are in Britain. 'Kunsthandwerk' is a late nineteenth-century term and its twentieth-century meaning is more narrowly equivalent to Arts and

Crafts and, later, studio crafts.

Keywords: Arts and Crafts movement-crafts history-crafts terminology-Germany-history of decorative arts- Modernism

One way of trying to understand the complexities thing which does not come under 'Industriepro- of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western duktion' (industrial production). A better crafts and design is to enquire into their basic twentieth-century English equivalent is thus terminology and to reflect on their terminologies another old Germanic word, craft, or 'the crafts' in different languages. It is essential to state, at the (its modern German derivative, 'Kraft', however, outset, that for this exercise it is not enough cannot be used in our context because it means, simply to present English 'translations of foreign very generally, force, strength or energy). Like words', certainly not in the case of the major craft, Handwerk can be seen in opposition to the terms. Rather, what is needed are definitions, products of 'industry', i.e. it is perceived to using a wide vocabulary of adjacent words as possess values which are different from, and well as their etymology, which means going back- better than those of industry-although that wards and forwards between languages. We need opposition is not nearly as strong as in the case to be aware, throughout, of the common roots of of crafts. Like crafts, Handwerk can, furthermore, Germanic, or Romance words, which, of course, be understood in opposition to design, although, simply reflect the shared Western social and because of the vagueness of the term design, the cultural history of all major concerns in the juxtaposition of Handwerk with Design is often fields of art and techniques. An English speaker nebulous, too. We shall come back to this when does not need to know much German in order to we mention some of the German twentieth-cen- get at the basic meaning of 'Hand Werk' or 'hand tury equivalents and variants of 'design'. work'; on that general level English and German On a basic level, Handwerk can also be opposed are still simply the same language. And yet we to Kunst.2 However, as one is acutely aware of the must be cautious at precisely this point. To trans- perennial European confusion reigning within the late literally Handwerk as handiwork ('hand semantic field of arts, of the fine, applied and work', curiously, lacks meaning) could be rmis- technical 'arts', it is not suprising to note that the leading, because the latter, if retranslated into Germans could create the seemingly paradoxical twentieth-century German as 'Handarbeit', has combination 'Kunst Handwerk'. But this hap- the very much restricted meaning of ladies' pened only during the later nineteenth century needlework (useful as well as ornamental).' and hence our second term is very much easier to

Handwerk, in all German-speaking lands, is the understand in English-speaking countries. The chief twentieth-century umbrella term for any- German Kunsthandwerk movement of the late

Journal of Design History Vol. ii No. ' ? 1998 The Design History Society 85



nineteenth or certainly the twentieth century was in both German- and English-speaking countries pretty much the equivalent of our Arts and Crafts was much simpler. There is actually a German movement, and of today's studio crafts. equivalent to trade, and that is 'Gewerbe'. An old Kunsthandwerk will be discussed further below synonym to Gewerbe is 'Gewerke', its nucleus and we first turn to Handwerk as such, although simply being 'Werk' (work). An old equivalent we have to be aware that some Arts and Crafts to modern German 'arbeiten', and the corres- values were instilled into plain Handwerk, too. A pondent for 'to work', is, indeed, 'werken'. We further English term comes to mind-'artisan'- shall come below to the way in which nineteenth- together with the French 'artisanat'. The way it and twentieth-century applied art and design refers to the skilled worker, in contrast to the ideologues put special emphasis on certain unskilled one, indeed corresponds to the notion terms and made them sound powerful: 'Werk' of skill in Handwerk; but as it was the designation was certainly one of those. Up to the last decades of the step on the social status ladder that was the of the nineteenth century Gewerbe/Gewerke, chief purpose of the term artisan, and as it was and, for that matter, Industrie, covered every- mainly used in the nineteenth century, its com- thing, from the roughest kinds of large-scale parison with the broadly used Handwerk is of production and the finest kinds of manufacture limited value. ('Manufaktur' is a German term, too, but its use

At the outset we must stress that Handwerk has been restricted to 'Porzellanmanufaktur') comprises a vastly greater sphere of activities than down to the small jobbing craftsman or trader.4 twentieth-century English 'crafts'. Handwerk is a The big change came, as everywhere else, with term that has a firm position in the realm of industrialization. Its main phase, in Germany, is economics and statistics. A Handwerker is the witnessed later than in Britain and its impact was generic term for the person who repairs one's more sudden. Full 'Gewerbefreiheit'-the com- plumbing, who cuts one's hair; the baker belongs plete freedom to set up any kind of business, to the 'Bickerhandwerk', the bricklayer to the anywhere-was only introduced in L869, in antici- 'Bauhandwerk'. Bauhandwerk is opposed to pation of the complete economic and political 'Bauindustrie', although here, in particular, the unification of Germany. Modern industry had borderlines between Handwerk and Industrie are finally swept away the remnants of the old guild increasingly difficult to draw. Another English restrictions. It soon, however, appeared that this term needs to be introduced here-'trade'. Hand- might spell disaster for the future of all those werk comprises the 'trades', such as in the 'build- manufacturing branches which had not acquired, ing trades'; it shares some of the imprecisions of or saw no prospect of acquiring, large-scale work- the term 'trade', including (and contrary to what force or machinery. There would seem to be has been said above) the blurred borderline nothing left to do for the smaller trades, every- towards industry. On the whole, though, thing was to be made by machine; only repair modern German Handwerk usually tries to play work would remain for the impoverished jobbing down any purely commercial element. Thus, at its artisan. Large branches of trade, even the whole of very briefest, Handwerk comprises both crafts Handwerk could be defined negatively, as that and trades. One could branch out here into gen- which was left behind by modernization. It was eral perceptions of German products, the ethos now that Handwerk began to reflect on its state and myth of 'Made in Germany', by reflecting on and status and rapidly built up its modem ethos, the ways in which a properly trained, 'profes- terminology and complex organization. sional' Handwerker combines the best of the German social stratification models, being 'trader' and of the 'craftsman', being the conduc- somewhat different from those which are nor- tor of a small business with his or her feet on the mally used in Britain, speak of the 'class of the ground, but also practising individualistic, con- Handwerker', or the 'class of the peasant farmer'. templative or arty ways of making, designing and The class of the Handwerker (Handwerkerstand) inventing.3 was held to be very largely part of the middle

If one goes back 150 or 200 years, the situation class (Mittelstand), of the bourgeoisie. It was

86 Stefan Muthesius



during the later nineteenth century that a large to continue some of the old rules, or at least the section of the Buergerstand, and with it most of old nomenclature of the guilds, for instance the the smaller trades, took a political turn to the old system of apprentices and journeymen, and right; they became opposed to both liberal inter- the protection of the term 'Meister'. As with brand nationalism and internationalist socialism; more names, this was and is a legal protection of the importantly, many of them, by 9goo, had terminology, a reinforcement of its ethos, but not embarked on an ideological stance of cultural an absolute protection of production monopolies. pessimism or scepticism, an ideology of anti- To this day, Handwerk represents a seemingly Modernism and anti-progress as well as a wide- firmly defined group of crafts, trades or profes- spread nationalism.5 A reference to the seemingly sions, and at the same time an officially defined intact world of the 'medieval craftsman'-a social group within German society.6 notion that had first been voiced around 18oo- Another crucial way of helping Handwerk in its became de rigueur [i]. 'competition with industry' was to lean towards

At the same time, Handwerk gave itself a the art side of manufacturing. As elsewhere, Ger- modern organizational framework with nation- mans in the second half of the nineteenth century wide associations, conventions, cleverly organ- were preoccupied with 'applying art to industry' ized publicity and political lobbying. Each town in as many branches of manufacture as possible. or district established a 'Handwerkskammer' Applied arts is translated as 'Kunstgewerbe', or (equivalent to the Chamber of Commerce and 'angewandte Kuenste' and sometimes as Industry, the Industrie- und Handelskammer) or 'Kunsthandwerk'-all terms, as well as Kunstin- a 'Handwerksverband/Handwerksverein', i.e. dustrie, were used interchangeably until the associations or societies. At times, the old term 189os. Kunstgewerbe meant the belief that artistic 'Innung', Handwerksinnung, was revived, values in manufacture could be inculcated though on the whole the modern organization through education. In the early decades, that is stayed clear of the other old German term for until about 187o-8o, the Kunstgewerbe movement guild, 'Zunft' (to add to the richness, the Germans still believed in a comprehensive way of applying also use Gilde). What was modern about this set- art to Gewerbe; i.e. art could be applied to all up was the carefully orchestrated network at production processes, to machine and mechan- regional and national level; 'Professionalization' ized processes, as well as to hand processes. The is another English term (without a precise art in applied arts was largely understood as German equivalent) which could be applied at 'applied' ornament.7 There was a belief, which this point. There were numerous pieces of legisla- was, for instance, still shared by Alois Riegl, tion, especially during the i88os, which attempted namely that good, ornamented products could

\miThe Potter: The Organ for the X ttocremeeG~crePresentation of the Interests of the

Workers in the Ceramics Industry and Related Professions, Halle, 1892

(Organ prNJrrtrftlag b;r 3attriffto btr lrbritfr in r Bob nbru Vurfriuaftrn galuftuuriqru.

Bal Ia~Ue . S. lonntaq ben 3. 31li 1892. 1. t -

Handwerk/Kunsthandwerk 87



be created without much additional physical Arts and Crafts new use of 'workshops', signify- effort, without much added cost, simply through ing small-scale work organizations. More import- a better understanding of ornament and by ant in the early years, from 1897 to about 1905, acquiring good taste ('Geschmack').8 was the insistence on pure artistic input. All

But by the late 1870s, certainly by the mid- products of the movement were designed by i88os, German critics began to divide industry named designers, by artists, as was common up. The twentieth-century attempt of Handwerk within the British Arts and Crafts groups. to define itself as a distinct kind of activity had Returning to our term Handwerk, the situation begun. It was now believed that machine-pro- grew more and more complex. A typical Hand- duced ornament was, or had lately developed a werker, say a maker of reasonably up-market tendency towards the 'cheap' and bad. It was furniture in a small or medium-sized firm, now held, furthermore, that it was German products, saw himself squeezed not only by industry, or the in particular, which had succumbed to this new large manufacturing firms, but also from the other trend. French products appeared consistently side, so to speak, from a new kind of artist- superior, and, to a growing extent, English ones, designer. The Meister had to watch, but was not too. We now enter the familiar Arts and Crafts- able to understand, the meteoric rise of Jugendstil Modernist trajectory. It is not the purpose of this and Secession furnishings which dominated the contribution to rehearse its main tenets and those new smart journals, where those designers-and of subsequent Modern design; on the other hand, the firms who made the pieces-received free it is impossible to understand the meaning and advertising, and attracted the highest patronage. aims of twentieth-century Handwerk and It seemed all the more paradoxical, as in many Kunsthandwerk without bearing Modernism in ways the smaller class of Handwerker and the mind. From the 186os-70s onwards it was the new smart designers were sharing the same plat- organizers of the Applied Art museums, the form of anti-machine and anti-industry. What the 'Kunstgewerbemuseen', who provided the tone Handwerker did not want to understand was an of the discussion and who pushed arguments actual need for a designer; had he not always forward. In their wake, the writers on the applied produced useful and beautiful cabinets whereby arts, merging into what today would be called the act of designing was integral of the whole design criticism, began their powerful dis- process? courses,9 appearing mainly in a new type of The second complicating factor was the way in publication, the arty kind of applied arts journal. which our new group of critics rediscovered, as in The key term was 'Reform'. Reform meant, of England, what they saw as the old traditions of course, aiming for the new, but it also aimed at Handwerk. When we say in German 'das tradi- the assurance, or reassurance of quality, artistic tionelle Handwerk', we come close to the English merit and a high cultural ranking. term 'traditional crafts'. What this meant, in actual

The term Kunstgewerbe continued to be used; fact, was to project on to old work (as distinct after 1900 the term Kunsthandwerk slowly gained from contemporary work) certain values: a sym- prominence, though, as we shall see, it was not pathy for the more 'basic' kinds of craft practices until about 1930 that it acquired its full present- and 'simple', 'traditional' ways of life. This was day use. The well-known key date for all German- done under the banner of 'Volkskunst'. Folk art speaking countries was 1897. In 1897 Jugendstil and folk crafts, for instance 'peasant furniture', members of the Munich Secession, the breakaway suddenly, from around 1890 onwards, appeared artists' group founded in 1893, initiated the eminently attractive in terms of outline and colour 'Miinchner Werkstatten'. This represented a two- and its quaint, often sparse, motifs of decoration. pronged attack on the older and the late nine- Furthermore, this furniture was described as teenth-century kinds of manufacture of the 'practical', rationally constructed, it was held to applied arts. The choice of the term Werkstdt- possess a 'sense of the material', honesty. Com- ten-as such a perfectly good German term- pared with this, the ordinary Handwerk of the was very probably influenced by the English day appeared stuck in the depths of 'meretricious'

88 Stefan Muthesius



late nineteenth-century ornamentation and copy- The new group of critics, artists and also some ism. Thus, paradoxically, the new art movement, manufacturers then began to use an evocative especially in interior design, would throw in the term, by combining the ring of the powerful works of the contemporary, the 'ordinary' cabi- 'traditional' word Werk with the even more arch- netmaker-Handwerker with 'bad taste' and the aizing term 'Bund', which means a close-knit, unoriginality of late nineteenth-century mass-pro- brotherly group. Like the term Bauhaus a duced items.10 decade or so later, these artificially constructed

By about 1905 a strong polarization can be but seemingly natural names stick in everybody's observed. There was avant-garde Modernism in mind, although, taken literally, they say little and design, and there were the forces of the old- may even be misleading. The Deutsche Werk- fashioned, the remnants of the nineteenth century bund's platform was that the vast majority of [2]. This was the line taken by Hermann Muthe- German products, whether Handwerk or indus- sius who gathered most of the avant-garde try, were bad from the point of view of art or taste designers behind him. As a critic put it in the and even in their practical functionality. 1920s: 'The Handwerker is stubborn [ein Dick- It must be noted that all these controversies kopf]; he wants to make everything beautiful, and were conducted, on both sides, among a small that means he adds ornament . . . [through] elite; there was a broad spectrum of producers up imitation ." By 1907-1o the situation was further and down the country who created work which complicated by the way in which many of the new was never dealt with in the critical press. On the artist-designers united with the very newest ideas other hand, there were the numerous professional in design reform, namely that machine work associations, mentioned earlier, who saw it as could be good, if it were appropriately designed, their task to discuss publicly the new problems. such as with the 'kunstlerische Maschinenmbbel' Some of those who did not adopt Modem styles of designed by the top Munich artist-designer design and did not belong to the Werkbund Richard Riemschmid in 1905. The next catchword united and protested. For the Handwerker, a of this group was 'Typenmobel'-type furniture.12 redefinition of his or her role and values was

305n be- 13crebittiSt-fuiftel;uti q 2 Caricature from Der Simplicissimus of 1914, relating to the Cologne Werkbund Controversy over the role of the designer in industry and manufacture:

ii 'Van de Velde created the individual chair, Muthesius the type-chair, Carpenter/joiner Heese the chair to sit on'

1Du bea3ll CM Cfl f ben filbiwbibuee:t 3tulI - 9nutgrfJfuz bie tAu1-tge- b C 5drelnermeifter eecec bell Ctf,,1 whn




now imperative. Under the banner of Kunst, here, There was, besides all this, much production of too, a process of stratification took place. We are furnishings in the 'Volkskunst' style, based on henceforth concerned with the somewhat separate some of the ideas of the Volkskunst revival of group of those trades which concerned them- 1goo, mentioned a while ago-or in the 'Heimat- selves with interior design. The fact was-and stil' (using the German evocative combination of this needs much further investigation-that at home and homelands); but this now acquired, in least the domestic furnishing branch of Handwerk conjunction with greater precision in folklore consolidated itself to a large extent during the studies, a more specific and thus restrictive regio- years 1910-25. This demonstrated a new openness nal ethnic categorization. Looking at English- in two directions: firstly, there was no need to speaking countries, there was, and is, a vast condemn outright the use of machines; in wood- amount of 'Crafts-Shop' crafts in Germany (for a work, for instance, their use for the roughest kinds long time, and confusingly, this branch of work of work would not harm the image of quality. continued to be referred to by the nineteenth- Secondly, some of the larger firms had begun to century term Kunstgewerbe). employ some of the new designers on a free-lance To sum up: from 1920 until almost the present basis. Furthermore, many of the ideas of the once day there are a number of principal strands in the assertive early Jugendstil phase were now being production of interior design and objects of daily rejected by new avant-garde trends, and their use: i) volume, or mass manufacture; 2) localized designers had had to shed some of their pride. small-trade manufacture, called Handwerk, quasi

Above all, Handwerk managed to consolidate its image by catering for the higher and the highest segments of the market. It gave itself an image of t

absolute quality. By the early 1920S, both Hand- werk and much designer Kunstgewerbe demonstrated a certain reversal of the 1goo radical ., / / NIj position-unornamented = artistic = high-class- and a return to a more traditional hierarchy of ( decoration. An expensive interior of 1920 would be praised for its 'nobel' and restrained decor. This was then coupled with an emphasis on 'craftsmanship' or 'fine craftsmanship'; the Germans __

introduced a more official-sounding term, 'handwerkliche Qualitdt' (craftsman-like quality). - 'Quality', pure and simple, had been one of the >.. Werkbund's watchwords; but there seemed no .

absolute, indivisible quality; each group of producers could add the prefix that suited them. Occa- sionally, 'handwerkliche Qualitat' could actually .9. be used in the negative sense, namely by those who meant 'only handwerkliche Qualitdit', in contrast to top-class industrial design. Handwerklich meant high dexterity, finish and, especially during the 1920S, the demonstrative use of expensive materials-in other words, 1920S 'art deco', a term that had not yet arrived on the scene. Hand- werk's aspiration to high culture was underlined 3 'Nobility and Beauty'; Credence by E. Wenz, Deutsche

by the term 'Handwerkskultur'. 'Nobel', 'vor- Werkstatten Munchen An example of top-of-the-range furniture of the kind shown at the Munich Deutsche Gewer-

nehm' were the German equivalents of 'refined', beschau in 1922, from Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, vol. a key value in France and England, too [3].13 XXVI, December 1922,P. 171

90 Stefan Muthesius



anonymously producing many of the same goods central position of Modernism around 1930 which as l); 3) furnishings by named designers from the for various reasons ('Zeitgeist', 'education of the Modernist art movements; 4) a more limited range masses') went for all-out industrial design. On the of mostly smaller kinds of products under -the other hand, the values of Handwerk, of 'tradi- banner of folklore; 5) the beginnings of the Arts tional' Handwerk were also reiterated more and and Crafts-minded workshops or individuals more frequently. A Werkbund publication of 193i making a very limited range of goods; in other by the art historian Georg Friedrich Hartlaub was words, the beginnings of Kunsthandwerk in the entitled Das ewige Handwerk im Kunstgewerbe der narrower, studio-crafts sense of the word. Gegenwart. Beispiele modernen kunsthandwerklichen

Kunsthandwerk slowly acquired today's mean- Gestaltens.15 Its catch-all phrases are indicative of ing in complex debates with other strands of the wobbliness of all those terms. There is: 'the Modernism. One of the purposes of the noted present', but also 'the eternal'; there is the by then, Werkbund Exhibition of 1924 and the ensuing strictly speaking, meaningless term Kunstge- book of 1925 entitled Die Form ohne [without] werbe-'applied' art-at any rate, something Ornament was to please both the industrial that Hartlaub does not deal with; there is the design faction and the Handwerk faction.14 most important new term, Kunsthandwerk; 'Form' is a powerful word in German twentieth- there is, for good measure, Handwerk itself. century art debates and even a brief definition is And there is a newish term-'Gestalten/Gestal- difficult. It means, as the title of the 1924 under- tung'-which means literally, to give something a taking indicates, that there is an artistically valu- 'Gestalt', Gestalt (a fairly common German word) able element in the 'body' of a work, of an object, being synonymous essentially with shape. with the ornament left off. Furthermore, form- Another term of the same period is 'Formgebung' 'the deepest expression of inner forces .. . inescap- (giving). The meaning of these terms is, of course, able necessity and the best proof for a liveliness nothing other than that of the international and the health of the times'-also implied the Romance term designing. It is only since 1970 or choice of the right style. But what matters most so that Germans have commonly used 'design' to the authors is that the term form, and especially and pronounced it in the English way, with the 'simple form', can be applied and can serve as a German words having disappeared. Perhaps the system of value for both industrial form, here terms 'form-giving' and 'gestalten' were too com- called 'technische Form' and for its opposite, prehensive, signifying, as they do, both making here called 'primitive' or 'natural' form. It is the and designing. There was, incidentally, yet latter we are most interested in; we read of the another paraphrase of Kunsthandwerk, the more 'warmen bilden aus der Hand ... wachstuemliche seldomly used 'Werkkunst'. Turning the German Form-warmly creating from hand . .. the feeling- term for work of art, Kunstwerk, on its head, it for-growth form'. There is a further characteriza- illustrates again the well-known German procliv- tion of technical form as being simple, but 'raffi- ity for producing endless combinations of words, niert'-here the German word is much closer to to as well as the desire to sound important by the French 'raffine' than the English 'refined'. sounding basic. Crafts' form, on the other hand, is 'primitive', The book by Hartlaub again admits to the then simple; what is more, examples of 'primitive 'popular technoid form' but its chief aim is to form' are almost all by women, whereas the best preach the preservation of the 'ewige (eternal) examples of 'technical form' are by men. Predic- Handwerk' and to pinpoint those forms and tably, we are told that we need both types of form values which are tied to the hand or to Handwerk and that they complement each other.`5 kinds of production. This now leads to a severe

It is, again, important that at this juncture both reduction of activities; only a tiny fraction of the industrial design and crafts were seen as equally sphere of 'traditional' Handwerk is admitted into valid spheres of art. The debates went on for Kunsthandwerk. It means, first of all, a produc- many years and are best known from accounts tion of individualized pieces for individual con- of the Bauhaus. On the one hand, there was the sumers. These individual producers can no longer




be part of the general run of anonymous commer- modern vs. revivalist; internationalist/technoid cial, local Handwerk producers, but the style were largely eliminated; there were no Kunsthandwerker is usually a specially trained competing groups, no Handwerk vs. International artist. Only a few materials are under considera- Modern industrial design, etc. All design policies, tion: glass, enamelling, stone-cutting, ceramics, whether industrial or Handwerk, were pro- batik, certain textiles, silversmithing. A crucial nounced by state or party agencies. At the same exclusion at this point is furniture. Clearly, the time, an unproblematic, seemingly natural hier- definition of Kunsthandwerk now approaches the archy from ornate state representation down- narrow 'studio crafts'-a term without direct wards was upheld. The term design was taken German equivalent. Thus by now the essential care of, as well as Handwerk, by the formulation set of definitions of the twentieth century-Hand- 'gestaltendes (form-creating) Handwerk'-the werk, Kunsthandwerk and industrial design latter not an invention of the Nazis. Theorems (although the terms for the latter were only in returned to the eminently simple: 'form, function, their infancy)-had been arrived at. materials', or the 'unconscious feeling for rules

To close with a few remarks about later dec- and scale'.17 ades: with regard to the later 1930s it has been After the Second World War the debates of the emphasized by Joan Campbell that the Nazi inter-war period were reopened, international dictatorship did not mean a very significant Modernism had a voice again; on the other break with previous German design policies. hand, divisions between various branches of pro- Under the Third Reich, writers continued to rail ducers appeared less severe, or controversial, than against kitsch, against anything termed dishonest in the early decades of the century. Handwerk or pretentious. The main characteristic of Nazi survived as previously defined, or, as most would pronouncements was simplification; the question say, in its 'traditional' structures. Kunsthandwerk, of quality seemed solved by simply stating that the full notion of studio crafts, now became finally production by Germans was German 'Wertarbeit' established and institutionalized: 'A Kunsthand- (quality work). Quality work was, furthermore, werk is taking shape which neither wants to serve linked with the concept of the 'enjoyment of as model to industrial design, nor does it want to work'. There was less concern now for designer serve as Handwerk's alternative to industrial names, consultancies, etc. Debates of 'style', about design; Kunsthandwerk means a lebensnotwen-

:. A A . ..... 11 4 'The good side of the middle class',

..

.r.

| 11 _ I | l l __ _ r =_ Ludwig Erhard (Economic Minister of the Federal Republic and 'Father of the Wirtschaftswunder', the German economic miracle) at the Munich Handwerks Fair, 1954

92 Stefan Muthesius



diges [life-necessary] supplement' (to the other spheres)."8 This is followed by the well-rehearsed juxtapositions: organic/technoid, etc. We now witness the foundation of pressure groups, the organization of prizes and exhibitions for Kunsthandwerk, some by the state, others as co- operatives. In some cases, such as at the renowned Munich Handwerker Messe [41, this support wras, and is still organized under the umbrella of the powerful bodies of Handwerk itself. To 'learn a Handwerk', and that means going through the age-old process of becoming a Meister, is consid- ered the basis for all activities, but does not suffice for the Kunsthandwerker; there has to be subsequent training at an art academy. The Kunsthandwerker sees himself or herself primar- ily as a 'freischaffender' (free-creating), a free- lance artist.'9 Lastly, it has to be emphasized again that party politics did not play much of a role: the development in the GDR was not very different from that in West Germany with regard to Kunsthandwerk and even Handwerk. Much of the organizational structure of Handwerk was preserved, although the central state now had a far greater say. West Germans remarked that this was due to the fact that the still privately run old Handwerk provided efficient services which com- munist state-run industries were unable to deli- ver. Apart from a short phase in the mid-195os, when a return to ornament was demanded and certain mildly folksy styles were revived, Arts and Crafts/Modernist notions of 'form', and, later, 'design' prevailed in the GDR, too.20

There is thus little problem in translating present-day German Kunsthandwerk into stud io- crafts, while the divergencies and contrasts, as well as the similarities, of 'das Handwerk' remain. Most important, however, seems the ring of romantic and Modernist mysticism which is contained in both. The role of the Arts and Crafts movements was crucial in both countries, in fact in all Germanic-language countries. Some of its origins lay with early nineteenth- century German and British Romanticism. In the early twentieth century the various interest groups took these mysticisms into the market place. In support of their claims of quality they conducted discourses in which they tried to max- imize the impact of powerful basic words, espe-

cially of Werk, in all its combinations. Werk's, or work's impact lies in the way it denotes both the process of devoted working and the satisfying results of working. In the end, two kinds of questions arise from the concerns of this article on terminology. Firstly: what will be the future of the terms work/craft vis a' vis design and art; secondly: what fate awaits rich national and regional terminologies within the increasing glo- balization of languages?

STEFAN MUTHESIUS

University of East Anglia, Norwich

Notes

1 Cf. C. Muller, Das Grosse Fachwbrterbuch ffir Kunst und Antiquitlten, Deutsch, Englisch, Franzbsisch, Welt- kunst Verlag, Munich, 1982.

2 Cf. W. Tatarkiewicz, History of Aesthetics, The Hague, 1970.

3 J. Campbell, Joy in Work: German Work: The National Debate 1800-1945, Princeton, 1989.

4 E.g. Kohlenbergwerk/coalmine. 5 S. Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in

Germany: The Urban Master Artisans 1873-1896, Princeton, 1978.

6 A. Zelle, Das Handwerk in Deutschland, under the editorship of the Zentralverband (central association) des deutschen Handwerks, published by the Presse und Informationsdienst der Bundesregier- ung, Bonn, 1953. This pamphlet contains a comprehensive rationale of the term. There were, in West Germany and West Berlin, 720,000 Handwerk/ trades businesses, with a total of 3.8 million working in them. The offical list contains 124 kinds of trades. We are assured that the differentiation between industry and Handwerk is fairly clear and has been well rehearsed, yet there are several attempts to put it before the reader, e.g.: 'While, typically, an the industrial firm is tied down to/is aiming at mass-production, through its specialized machinery and its mostly only semi-skilled [angelernt] work- force, a Handwerk business can, typically, do justice to manifold and high and individual demands' (p. io). There is also a category 'gestaltendes Hand- werk', designing Handwerk (cf. below), whose task is to supply patterns or models to industry. Throughout, there is a strong sense of promotion of the virtues of Handwerk as such. The literature concerning the history of Handwerk is considerable. Cf. P. Schnitker (ed.), Der goldene Boden, Gedanken




tiber das Handwerk, Stuttgart, 1987. As regards com- parable elements in industrial education in England, one might cite the late nineteenth-century attempts to revitalize some of the guild spirit in the City of London Guilds examinations.

7 B. Mundt, Das deutsche Kunstgewerbemuseum im i'.

Jahrhundert, Munich, 1974; H. M. Wingler (ed.), Kunstschulreform 1900-1933, Berlin, 1977; for the development of German design ideas and policies and for the English influence, see S. Muthesius, Das englische Vorbild, Die deutschen Reformbewegungen in Architektur, Wohnbau und Kunstgewerbe im spiteren 19. Jahrhundert, Munich, 1974; J. Heskett, Design in Germany, 1870-1918, London, 1986; M. Schwartzer, German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity, Cambridge, 1995.

8 A. Riegl, 'Kunsthandwerk und kunsthandwerkliche Massenproduction', Zeitschrift des Kunstgewerbever- eins, Munich, 1895, p. 6. See S. Muthesius, 'Riegl and the folk art revival', in R. Woodfield (ed.), Alois Riegl (Series: Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture), G+B Arts International, forthcoming, 1998.

9 E.g. Julius Lessing (Director of the Berlin Kunstge- werbemuseum), Handarbeit, Berlin, 1887.

10 B. Deneke, 'Die Beziehungen zwischen Kunsthand- werk und Volkskunst um 1900', Anzeiger des Germa- nischen Nationalmuseums Nfirnberg, 1968, pp. 140-61; S. Muthesius, Das englische Vorbild; R. Mielke, Volks- kunst, Magdeburg, 1896. There was, again, some English influence at play here, this time directly through the writings of Morris, Ruskin and Walter Crane and their utopian socialist views. The term Volkskunst was chosen partly because the term 'social' was politically taboo for most the whole of the German middle classes. Walter Crane's chapter 'Art and Social Democracy' (in his book The Claims of Decorative Art, 1892, translated into German literally as Die Forderungen der Dekorativen Kunst in 1896) was rendered as 'Kunst und Volkstum'.

ii J. Campbell, The German Werkbund: The Polictics of Reform in the Applied Arts, Princeton, 1978; F. J. Schwartz, The Werkbund, Yale University Press, 1996; H. Obrist, 'Der "Fall Muthesius" und die Kunstler', Die Kunst, vol. i8 (i.e. vol. XI, Dekorative Kunst), 1908, pp. 42-4; See S. Hubrich, Hermann Muthesius: Die Schriften zu Architektur, Kunstgewerbe und Industrie in der 'neuen Bewegung', Berlin, 1981. 'Dickkopf . . . ', Dr Lotz-Hanau, 'Kunsthandwerk und Kunstindustrie', Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, vol. 55, October 1924-March 1925, p. 73.

12 'Kunstlerische MaschinenmoSbel' (produced by the Dresdner Werkstatten fur Handwerkskunst), Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, vol. XVII, October

1905-March 1906, pp 247-64; 'Typenmobel', Dekora- tive Kunst, November 1908, pp. 86-95; March 1909,

pp. 258-64. 13 The Werkbund's main 'enemy' was one of the major

trades associations, comprising the 'older' (from the Werkbund's perspective 'uncritical') forces of Hand- werk, industry and some nineteenth-century Kunst- gewerbe organizations, the Verband ffir wirtschaftliche Interessen des Kunstgewerbes (Association for the economic interest of the Applied Arts); see K. Junghans, Der Werkbund: Sein erstes Jahrzehnt, Berlin, 1982, p. 2; A. Koch, Das neue Kunsthandwerk in Deutschland und Oesterreich unter Berticksichtigung der Deutschen Gewerbeschau in Mfinchen 1922, Darmstadt, 1923 (some of the exhibits were also published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekora- tion, 1922-3, (see [31); E. Redslob, 'Handwerkskul- tur', Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, vol. 59, October 1926-March 1927, p. 234; see Campbell, The German Werkbund.

14 Series: Biicher der Form, vol. 1, Stuttgart, Berlin, Leipzig, 1925; cf. G. Naylor, The Bauhaus Re-assessed, London, 1985.

15 Die Form ohne Ornament (Series: Blicher der Form), pp. 6, 9. The most important material at this point for 'free forming' appears ceramics, e.g. the extre- mely rough work by the otherwise unknown Dorkas Hdrlin, Stuttgart.

i6 The Eternal Crafts in the Applied Arts of the Present: Examples of Modern Arts and Crafts Design, Werkbund Buch, Berlin, 1931. Included are textiles by the Handweberei Sigmund von Weech, Munich and Metalwork by Waldemar Rdmisch, Berlin.

17 Campbell, The German Werkbund, pp. 243ff.; see also B. Siepen, Deutsche Wertarbeit, Veriffentlichungen Vortragsreihe Wiirttembergisches Landesgewerbemu- seum , Stuttgart, 1938; W. Passarge, Deutsche Werk- kunst der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1937. The organizing body of all production was the Deutsche Arbeits- front, for design its Sektion Schdnheit der Arbeit (German work brigade(s), Section beauty of work).

i8 F. Kampfer & K. W. Beyer, Kunsthandwerk in Wandel, Berlin (East), 1984, pp. 8-9.

19 The most important regular shows are held in conjunction with the Internationale Handwerksmesse in Munich and with the Frankfurter Herbst Messe (Autumn Fair), there a Haus des Deutschen Kunsthandwerks was built and the prestigious Hes- sische Staatspreis ffir das deutsche Kunsthandwerk has been given out (from 1951). See H. W. Hege- mann (ed. by Hessisches Ministerium fur Wirtschaft und Verkehr), Preisgkrbntes Kunsthandwerk, Wiesba- den, 1965. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft des deutschen

94 Stefan Muthesius



Kunsthandwerks, by 1976, had eleven regional groups, comprising a total of 1200 Kunsthandwer- ker. Most of them were also members, i.e. Meister of a branch of Handwerk; 6o% were working in a full- time regular job, 40% called themselves 'freischaffender Kiinstler', Cat. 125 Jahre Bayerischer Kunstge- werberein Munchen, Exh. Cat. MUnchner Stadtmuseum, Munich, 1976, p. 291. In the above- mentioned booklet by Zelle we read that 'The Kunsthandwerk is a part of Handwerk as a whole, although it is a particularly valuable one. It presents the handwerkliches Kbnnen (dexterity, capability) in its highest form. As in the Middle Ages we [may] still find the Handwerker who, following his own

creative ideas creates products in an independent way [frei gestaltet] and who combines purpose/ function [Zweck], Material, Form and colour into a harmonious unity' (Zelle, Das Handwerk in Deutsch- land, p. ii). See Catalogues: s.Triennale 99go/9g, Zeitgendssisches deutsches Kunsthandwerk (contrib. by S. Runde et al.), Munich, 1992; 6.Triennale Zeitgends- sisches deutsches Kunsthandwerk, 1994/5, Grassi Museum, Leipzig/Frankfurt-am-Main Museum ffir Kunsthandwerk.

20 See Zelle, Das Handbuch in Deutschland, pp. 35-6; see above Kampfer & Beyer, Kunsthandwerk in Wandel; Deutsches Kunsthandwerk; Veroffentlichungen Institut ffir Angewandte Kunst, Dresden, 1956.




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