the prophet the world of karl wilhelm diefenbach - Wien Museum

Hermesvilla, Lainzer Tiergarten, 1130 Vienna
Vienna, February 2011
THE PROPHET
THE WORLD OF KARL WILHELM DIEFENBACH
An exhibition by Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, in cooperation with Wien Museum
Opening Event: Wednesday, 6 April 2011, 6.30 p.m.
Venue: Hermesvilla, Lainzer Tiergarten, 1130 Vienna
Duration: 7 April 2011 to 26 October 2011
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, including public holidays,
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Press photos: www.wienmuseum.at/de/presse
“Let me die rather than deny my ideals!”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913) was an eccentric artist and outsider who first caused a
sensation in Germany in the 1880s: as a barefoot vegetarian in a cowl, as a "life reformer" advocating
nudism, as a self-styled prophet who preached peace, and not least as a painter of monumental
pictures in late symbolist style, which he used to advertise his ideas.
In 1892, Diefenbach and his children moved from Munich to Vienna, where he exhibited his paintings
– and was ridiculed as a "kohlrabi apostle", just as he had been before in Germany. Although he
suffered an existential crisis following a conflict with the artists' association Wiener Kunstverein, he
decided to stay in the city, founding the highly controversial "Himmelhof" commune where he ruled in
authoritarian style. His restless life eventually led Diefenbach to the island of Capri, then a popular
spot with artists and Bohemians. After his death there in 1913, he soon faded into oblivion.
Rare items from private collections
The exhibition now on show at Hermesvilla has been curated by Diefenbach expert Claudia Wagner
and was a great success at Villa Stuck in Munich, where it first went on display under the title Karl
Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913). „Lieber sterben, als meine Ideale verleugnen!“ (“Let me die rather
than deny my ideals!”). It includes about 30 paintings by Diefenbach, most of which have never been
displayed in public before; many of them are on loan from private collections around the world. Also on
show are the most important parts of his magnum opus, the 68-metre frieze Per aspera ad astra,
which Diefenbach painted in Vienna. Some space has been reserved for Diefenbach's disciples,
among them the well-known artist František Kupka, the "revolutionary" Gusto Gräser and Hugo
Höppener, alias Fidus, a later sympathizer with Nazi ideology. Many photographs and private
documents offer insights into the personal lifestyle and environment of Diefenbach, a key figure of the
"life reform" movement in Europe around 1900.

“The exhibition offers a remarkable juxtaposition of micro and macro perspectives,” says Wolfgang
Kos, Director of Wien Museum. “We get a close-up, monographic view of Diefenbach's life and work
with its inherent conflicts and contradictions, but also a sweeping panorama of all the novel doctrines
of salvation that were so trendy around 1900 and gave mainstream society ample opportunity for
gossip and outrage. This is why we decided on the subtitle ‘The world of Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach’ for
the exhibition.” Commenting on the exhibition venue, Kos points out: “Hermesvilla is located on the
fringes of the Vienna Woods. From here, a 20-minute walk along a footpath will get you to Himmelhof,
where Diefenbach’s group of social dropouts took up residence. Originally built as a refuge where
Empress Elisabeth could drift off into a symbol-laden dream world, Hermesvilla provides a fitting
genius loci for the Diefenbach exhibition.”
Milestones in the life of an outsider
Diefenbach was born in Hadamar, a small town in the German state of Hesse, where he grew up in a
provincial Catholic household of moderate means. In 1872 he began to study painting at the Munich
Academy of Fine Arts. After a severe bout of typhoid fever, Diefenbach renounced the consumption of
tobacco, alcohol and “lumps of animal flesh”. He engaged in free love relationships early on and left
the Catholic Church (an “institute of satan”) in 1881. The following year, he married Magdalena
Atzinger, with whom he already had a son; two more children were to follow. Deserting his bride on
their wedding night, Diefenbach walked up the Hohenpeißenberg mountain in Upper Bavaria, where
he experienced a spiritual awakening while watching the morning sunrise. This inspired him to pen the
ode Sonnen-Aufgang (“Sunrise”), a kind of literary credo in which he called upon man to “know
yourself [...] God is within YOU [...] Recognise, humanity, your mother – NATURE”.
From then on, Diefenbach let his hair grow long, wandered the streets of Munich’s Bohemian
neighbourhood Schwabing in sandals and a cowl and gave highly controversial lectures on how to live
in harmony with nature. He founded his first commune in the Höllriegelskreuth quarry in 1885, where
the Art Nouveau painter Hugo Höppener, alias Fidus, was one of his closest companions. Höppener
also organised the first Diefenbach exhibition in Munich, but the latter’s authoritarian personality soon
gave rise to serious quarrels between the two friends. Diefenbach also came under attack from
government authorities on charges of “neglect of his children”, and after members of the commune
were observed to be sunbathing in the nude, he had to defend himself in the first “nudist trial” in
German history. On top of these problems, his financial situation was becoming more and more
untenable.
A fiasco in Vienna
Diefenbach therefore accepted an invitation from the Österreichischer Kunstverein, an Austrian artists’
association that wanted him to supply “sensational paintings as quickly as possible” for an exhibition in
Vienna – a financial rescue operation for the Kunstverein, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. The
eccentric artist painted eleven large murals which, although not quite the erotic-voyeuristic stuff the
organisers had hoped for, managed to attract 78,000 visitors within five months. Nevertheless, the
exhibition culminated in a fiasco for Diefenbach, as Kunstverein board members embezzled money
from a loan which Kunstverein had taken out using his paintings as collateral. Eventually, the ten
biggest paintings were sold at auction, but Diefenbach came away empty-handed and was forced to
register with the authorities as a homeless person of no means.

After a hiking tour through the Alps and a brief “flight” to Egypt, Diefenbach founded the rural
commune “Himmelhof” in Ober St. Veit, on the outskirts of Vienna, in 1897. With a mixed population of
eccentrics and proletarians, numbering up to 24 in its heyday, the commune became a forerunner of
innumerable reform-minded “alternative” living and working communities in the 20 th century.
Diefenbach again ruled the commune in exceedingly authoritarian style, with a system of iron rules
and regulations; among other things, all members had to submit journals of their daily activities to the
“Master”. This resulted in tension and conflicts within the group, and members repeatedly dropped out
of the commune. It was in this period that Diefenbach painted his monumental 34-panel frieze Per
aspera ad astra. Heralded as the artist’s “painted manifesto”, the frieze was first put on public display
in 1898. However, the provocative lifestyle of the Himmelhof commune triggered an avalanche of
invective in the press. Under the headline “The master of doing nothing yet living nonetheless”, the
daily Neuigkeits-Weltblatt fulminated “against the ‘immoral’ activities of the company of ‘scroungers’
and ‘fools’ at ‘Himmelhof’, which constitute a ‘public danger’ and abuse the charitable nature of the
Viennese, engaging in ‘whimsical ... charlatanry,’ in ‘a life of shameless idleness’.”
When the commune went bankrupt in 1899 and was dissolved as a result, Diefenbach intended to go
on a journey to the orient; after a brief sojourn in Trieste, however, he ended up on the island of Capri,
where he spent his last years without achieving a breakthrough as an artist. He tried to get celebrities
such as industrialist Alfred Krupp, physician Axel Munthe and writer Maxim Gorki interested in his
paintings, but these attempts failed.
Diefenbach and the “life reform” movement around 1900
Diefenbach is regarded today as an influential forerunner of reform movements around 1900, whose
protagonists in Vienna included figures such as writer Peter Altenberg and Florian Berndl, the “father
of the [public bathing institution] Gänsehäufel”. Diefenbach was not the only reformer who engaged in
“free love” in his communes and walked around in shapeless garments in practical application of his
teachings about liberation from physical restraints. However, his rather harmless naked sunbathing
was enough to land him in the dock in 1888 in the first “nudist trial” in German history. With his attacks
against the Church and rejection of the notion of a Christian redeemer-god, he shared the ideas of an
influential contemporary: philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, author of Thus Spake Zarathustra.
With respect to nutrition and personal lifestyle, the rejection of tobacco, alcohol, coffee and meat,
combined with the practice of nudist sunbathing, were an amalgamation of various strands of
vegetarianism. According to the teachings of naturopathy, this lifestyle would heal all ills of mind and
body. Later on, arguments for vegetarianism were increasingly based on ethical considerations,
focusing on respect for all living beings. At the same time, vegetarianism began to tend towards a
more generalised pacifism, aiming at a state of conflict-free coexistence of all humankind, not just of
man and beast: vegetarianism would help prevent war, it was argued. The most prominent thinkers of
this period were Magnus Schwantje, who founded the “Bund für radikale Ethik” (“Society for radical
ethics”) and Eduard Baltzer of the “Deutscher Verein für natürliche Lebensweise“ (“German
Association for a natural lifestyle”), both of whom engaged in frequent exchanges with Diefenbach, as
did peace activist Bertha von Suttner.

Hermesvilla, Lainzer Tiergarten, 1130 Vienna
Vienna, February 2011
THE PROPHET
THE WORLD OF KARL WILHELM DIEFENBACH
An exhibition by Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, in cooperation with Wien Museum
Opening Event: Wednesday, 6 April 2011, 6.30 p.m.
Venue: Hermesvilla, Lainzer Tiergarten, 1130 Vienna
Duration: 7 April 2011 to 26 October 2011
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Sundays, including public holidays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Press photos: www.wienmuseum.at/de/presse
Admission fees: Adults € 5, concessions € 3.50 (senior citizens, Vienna Card and Ö1
Club card holders, persons with disabilities, groups of ten and more)
or € 2.50 (apprentices and students up to 27 years of age).
Admission is free for schoolchildren and students under 19.
Free admission for all visitors on the first Sunday of each month!
Introductory tour: Sundays and public holidays, 2 p.m.
To book tours for groups, please call: (+43 1) 505 87 47- 85180, or
mail to: service@wienmuseum.at
Visitor information: Phone (+43 1) 505 87 47-0, www.wienmuseum.at
e-mail: service@wienmuseum.at
Curator: Claudia Wagner
Wien Museum curators: Michaela Lindinger, Monika Sommer
Exhibition production: Bärbl Schrems
Exhibition design: Dzengel+Osten
Accompanying book: Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913). Lieber sterben, als meine
Ideale verleugnen! Michael Buhrs and Claudia Wagner (eds.). Edition
Minerva, 240 pages / € 25.
Main sponsor of Wien Museum: Wiener Stadtwerke
Press contact: Peter Stuiber, Wien Museum
Phone (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 84019, Fax (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 7201
e-mail: peter.stuiber@wienmuseum.at
Barbara Wieser, Wien Museum
Phone (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 84068, Fax (+43 1) 505 87 47 - 7201
e-mail: barbara.wieser@wienmuseum.at
www.wienmuseum.at