Göttinnen des Jugendstils: Frauen als Instrument der Verführung in der sich ändernden Bildsprache um 1900

In the late nineteenth century, a dominant visual culture developed that increasingly supplanted the authority of the ancient culture of the word. The modern natural sciences, in combination with new technology, led to industrial mass production, which created something completely new: mass consumption. That mass had been gradually but steadily building up in nineteenth-century Europe. The total population of Europe rose from 140 to 250 million between 1750 and 1850, and from 250 to 450 million between 1850 and 1914. This led to an increase in scale that we first recognise in the growth of cities and industrialisation. But it was a much broader development, which we can see in world exhibitions, metro lines, mass attractions such as panoramas, dioramas, shopping boulevards, theatres, cinemas and stadiums. These were both breeding grounds and showcases of 'modernity' and the new mass culture.

The period around 1900 is a tumultuous one, in which a new century is announcing itself, but in which the cultural traditions of the past century are still reverberating strongly. It was a time of great scientific discoveries that had a great social impact. The natural scientific insights literally unleash a new energy: electricity as the source of the new industry. We are witnessing a faster growing contrast between city and countryside, between a traditional, conservative rural community on the one hand and a highly industrialised, urbanised society on the other. The socio-economic dynamics shift from the countryside to the cities. Around 1900, this is a complex social process in which the well-to-do middle class is clearly emerging throughout Europe. In the same period, a more widely accessible educational system also drives the rise of new elites.