Viktor Mataja, “Geleitwort” (1926)

This file is a brief signed foreword to a larger illustrated study of the historical “development of advertising.” Mataja’s purpose is not to narrate that history himself, but to authorize the project, explain its intellectual usefulness, and draw from it a professional and ethical lesson for practitioners of advertising.

Ich glaube nun, daß schon der Entschluß, die „Entwicklung der Reklame“ zu schildern, Beifall verdient.

English translation: I believe that the very resolve to portray the "development of advertising" already deserves applause.

The central claim is that advertising deserves historical treatment because its practical omnipresence has not been matched by adequate historiography. Mataja frames “Reklame” as an object with a past, but also as a field whose past has been insufficiently written.

Die Reklame ist reich an Geschichte, weniger reich an Geschichtsschreibern.

English translation: Advertising is rich in history, but less rich in historians.

He therefore legitimates advertising history as more than trade curiosity. Its development touches economic life, public institutions, technology, and art, so its study becomes culturally and socially instructive.

Die Entwicklung einer so vielseitigen Einrichtung, wie es das Werbewesen ist, zu verfolgen, ist aber angesichts seiner steten und mannigfachen Berührungen mit Wirtschaft, Staatsleben, Technik, Kunst lehrreich, nützlich, verdient vielseitige und gründliche Behandlung.

English translation: To trace the development of so many-sided an institution as the advertising business, however, is—in view of its constant and manifold points of contact with the economy, public life, technology, and the arts—instructive and useful, and deserves thorough and many-sided treatment.

Structurally, the foreword moves from praise of the undertaking, to an account of the book’s method, to comments on its illustrations and research difficulties, and finally to a normative exhortation. Mataja especially values the book’s organization by individual advertising media. This method prevents the smaller or more modest forms of advertising from being swallowed by grand synthetic history.

Es löst seine Aufgabe vor allem in der Form der Vorführung des Entwicklungsganges der einzelnen Reklamemittel.

English translation: It accomplishes its task above all by presenting the course of development of the individual advertising media.

For Mataja, this analytic division still permits a larger pattern to emerge in the reader’s mind. The history of advertising is read as a movement from simple and limited devices toward mass, complexity, and the use of technical and artistic achievements.

Er stößt eben ohne Schwierigkeiten auf zahlreiche Gleichförmigkeiten, auf sehr allgemein zu verzeichnende Fortschritte, die vom Einfachen, Beschränkten, Kunstlosen zum Zusammengesetzten und Massenhaften, zur Ausnützung der Errungenschaften von Technik und Kunst führen.

English translation: He easily encounters numerous uniformities and very general lines of progress, leading from the simple, limited, and artless to the composite and the mass-produced, and to the exploitation of the achievements of technology and art.

A key conceptual move of the foreword is to join historical knowledge to practical application. By tracing the “coming and going” of particular advertising means, the reader can draw conclusions useful for contemporary practice. Mataja also stresses the value of visual evidence, treating illustration as essential to understanding a visual and material culture of persuasion.

Besonderen Dank muß man aber wissen für die wahrhaft reiche, bildliche Ausstattung des Buches.

English translation: Particular gratitude, however, is owed for the truly rich pictorial presentation of the book.

The relevance of the work also lies in its sense of research labor. Advertising history is international, long-term, and dispersed across many kinds of sources, making it difficult to assemble. Mataja’s praise is therefore scholarly as well as promotional.

Wer auch nur einigermaßen in den Gegenstand eingedrungen ist, weiß, wie zerstreut die Quellen sind, aus denen man schöpfen muß.

English translation: Anyone who has even to some extent penetrated the subject knows how scattered are the sources from which one must draw.

The foreword ends by transforming history into responsibility. Advertising’s accumulated inventions, efforts, and skills should encourage further development not only technically and artistically, but ethically.

Das Werk läßt deutlich erkennen, welche Summe von Gedanken, Einfällen, Mühen, Kunstfertigkeiten schon in den Dienst des Reklamewesens gestellt worden ist und damit seine Ausbildung beeinflußt hat. Möge die deutliche Erkenntnis davon allen, die mit ihm zu tun haben, ein Ansporn sein, an der fachlichen, künstlerischen, ethischen Fortentwicklung mitzuarbeiten, wo sich Gelegenheit dazu ergibt.

English translation: The work makes clearly apparent what a sum of thoughts, ideas, exertions, and skills has already been placed in the service of the advertising business and has thereby shaped its development. May the clear recognition of this fact be a spur to all who deal with it to collaborate in its professional, artistic, and ethical advancement wherever the opportunity arises.

Mataja’s closing thesis is that advertising has a “rich past” and broad importance beyond commerce. The foreword thus presents advertising history as a foundation for professional self-consciousness: to know the past of advertising is to see both its cultural weight and the obligation to shape its future responsibly.