ECKMANN, Otto

German designer, illustrator and painter. He studied at the Kunst- und Gewerbeschule in Nuremberg and from 1885 attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. His early paintings were naturalistic landscapes, but around 1890, he shifted towards SymbolismGLOSSARYAn artistic movement that arose in France toward the end of the nineteenth century, primarily in literature, in opposition to the reigning schools of Realism and Impressionism. Symbolism rejected objectivity in favour of the subjective, and turned away from the direct representation of reality in favour of a synthesis of many different aspects of it, aiming to suggest ideas by means of ambiguous yet powerful symbols. Among the artists associated with the movement were Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes in France, Fernand Khnopff in Belgium, Jan Toorop in Holland, Ferdinand Hodler in Switzerland, Gustave Klimt in Austria, and Giovanni Segantini in Italy.. In 1894, he decided to devote himself to the decorative arts. He studied the Japanese woodcutGLOSSARYA print made from a wood block. The design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and then cut out, leaving the design standing up in relief the design to be printed. The person who carved the woodcut often worked to a design by another artist. collection at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. Using traditional Japanese techniques, he began producing his own woodcut designs in 1895. Eckmann's woodcuts, as well as ornamental borders, vignettes, bookplates and other graphic designs, were illustrated in such periodicals as Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Jugend and Pan. In 1899-1900, he collaborated with Karl Klingspor at Rudhardsche Schriftgiesserei, Offenbach, to develop a new typeface named Eckmann.

Eckmann's Art Nouveau designs are characterized by strong colours, undulating lines, the tense interplay between surface and decoration, and a formal vocabulary abstracted from nature. He worked alongside manufacturers to gain a thorough knowledge of materials, methods and technical processes involved in shaping his designs. Driven by creative frenzy and exacting discipline, he expanded his repertory as a craftsman, designing stained glass, ceramics, furniture and metalwork.

In the 1890s, Eckmann was one of several artists, including Hermann Obrist, Richard Riemerschmid and August Endell, who exhibited in two rooms of modern decorative arts at the Munich Glaspalast exhibition of 1897. Eckmann was especially praised for such lighting fixtures as the wrought-iron 'Narcissus' candlestick (1896-97; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg), manufactured by Josef Zimmermann & Co., Munich. Eckmann designed carpets and tapestries for such firms as H. Engelhard of Mannheim and the Smyrna-Teppich-Fabrik, Berlin. His most famous tapestryGLOSSARYAs historical climatologists have not shown that Renaissance Italian winters and springs were warmer than they are now, it is puzzling that Italy did not fabricate tapestries to decorate and draught-proof the stony rooms of its palaces until 1545, when Cosimo I set up a manufactory in Florence. To hardiness or stinginess (tapestry was by far the most expensive form of wall decoration) we owe the existence of such secular frescoed decorative schemes as the labours of the months in the castle at Trent (c. 1407), the Arthurian scenes of Pisanello and the courtly ones of Mantegna in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the delicious calendar fantasies of Cossa and others in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara - and, doubtless, many others that await liberation from whitewash or later panelling. These are all in situations where northern patrons would have used tapestries. These were imported, chiefly from Flanders, into Italy. The influence of their hunting and ceremonial scenes in particular registered on Italian 'gothic' painting or illumination and stained glass, and in literature. But the Italians did not make them. The most famous of all 'Italian' tapestries, those for the Sistine Chapel designed by Raphael, were made in Brussels from the full-scale coloured patterns, or cartoons, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Nor is it clear whether imported tapestries were used habitually or simply to add grandeur to special occasions. Even when Cosimo's manufactory was in being, and working from designs by court artists of the calibre of Bronzino, Salviati and Allori, his own headquarters, the Palace of the Signoria (now the Palazzo Vecchio), was being decorated with frescoes. The subject is underexplored., Five Swans (1896-07, of which approximately 100 examples were woven, was produced at the Scherrebek tapestry workshops in Schleswig-Holstein (now Skærbaek, Denmark).

In 1897 Eckmann was appointed Professor of Ornamental Painting at the Königliche Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin. His designs became more stylized and abstract, and shortly before his death from tuberculosis in 1902, he returned to landscape painting. He is also remembered through Lovis Corinth's portrait of him (1897; Kunsthalle, Hamburg).