Unsinnsgesellschaft
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The Unsinnsgesellschaft (Nonsenses Society) was a brotherhood of artists in Vienna that met regularly from April 1817 to the end of 1818. Its members included important artists of the Biedermeier period such as August von Kloeber, Johann Nepomuk Hoechle, August Kopisch, Josef and Leopold Kupelwieser, and Franz Schubert.[2][3][4]
All 25-30 members but one, the proprietress of the inn where they met, were men. Although two took women's names within the club, of which still-life painter Johann Carl Smirsch was known for dressing in women's clothing and wearing peacock feathers.[4]
Archiv des menschlichen Unsinns
The members met once a week, on Thursdays, in the inn "Zum rothen Hahn" at Landstraßer Hauptstraße 40 in Vienna.[5]
The handwritten, weekly club magazine Archiv des menschlichen Unsinns - ein langweiliges Unterhaltungsblatt für Wahnwitzige (Archive of Human Nonsense - a boring entertainment magazine for the insane) contained various texts, essays, short plays and illustrations (such as watercolours). Because many members were talented painters, the resulting pictures are an important part of the overall artistic production. Among other things, they also travesty the academic painting of the time. The illustrations of two elaborately designed parties provide insight into the exuberant young artistic community. 29 booklets (out of 86) have been preserved.
The texts contain numerous allusions to current affairs, political events, parodies of classics as well as a comic epyllion in elegiac distichs (Die Unsinniade by Joseph Kupelwieser).[6] By means of partly crude jokes, ambiguous puns and metaphors, but also comedies, sarcastic texts and absurdist plays, they mock the private affairs of the association, and topics such as current events, new discoveries, art, literature and everyday life.
Size, layout and sections
The booklets - all in the same format with a picture - were passed around the circle.[5] They each start with a witty motto,[3] such as:
Take up the brushes, let's wax [or wank] bravely!
— Spitznabels Nudelino, 2. Jahrgang, Booklet Nr. 20, 28 Mai 1818, [7]
All booklets are divided into sections:[3]
- Politica or Politisches Allerlei
- Schöne Literatur: Short stories (f.e. Die Fee Musa oder die verwandelten Jünglinge), short plays (Barbarey ohne Größe oder Mord, Brand, Blut, Dolch und Frevel), poems
- Wissenschaftliche Gegenstände (Naturgeschichte des Bockes, Abhandlung über die Brüche)
- Avertissements (in the first year) or Intelligenzblatt (in the second year): Information, Classifieds, Advertisements
- Zum Kupfer: Description of the illustration (one watercolour or pen and ink drawing each)
Unsinniaden
Two big parties, so-called Unsinniaden, were planned in the first year and celebrated in private homes: New Year's Eve 1817 was celebrated at Peter Senft's ("Ephraim Spitznabel") and the first foundation anniversary party of the association on 18 April 1818 at Gottfried Beyer's ("the new quartermaster"). Both lived in the house of Café Wallner at Landstraßer Hauptstraße 32.
The festivities, or already the preparations for them, were announced in the booklets. In order to depict these "thrusting" days - as it is formulated in the description of the first feast - for posterity, the members produced the illustrated feast acts, which are now kept in the Historical Museum in Vienna. A third (smaller) celebration was the name day of the "Generalquartiermeisterin" (Therese Fellner) on Theresientag (15 October) 1818. On this occasion a poem, a drama, a picture and several smaller contributions - almost the entire booklet - were dedicated to her. On 3 December 1818, plans were already being made for the next upcoming New Year's Eve celebration. Because the last issues are lost, it is not known whether this actually took place.[11]
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