ABSTRACT
In 1900, a circle of bohemians dreaming of this kind of world emerged in Munich. The mythologist and writer Karl Wolfskehl discovered Stefan George’s magazine in 1892: Blätter für die Kunst, which advocated the defence of art for art’s sake, symbolic poetry and the advent of a new world. In 1898, Wolfskehl married Hanna de Haan, daughter of a conductor in Darmstadt. At the time, a cultural colony was forming in Darmstadt, promoting Jugenstil, or art nouveau, and architectural references to antiquity, as well as music, sculpture, the ‘arts & crafts’ movement, and lithographs to celebrate nudity and nature. Elizabeth Duncan founded her school of dance in this city. Karl Wolfskehl and his wife moved to Munich, where their apartment became a meeting place for intellectuals and artists, much like the Tuesday salons of Stéphane Mallarmé. It was in this Munich apartment in 1900 that Karl Wolfskehl, Alfred Schuler, Ludwig Klages, Stefan George and Albert Verwey founded the Cosmic Circle
