Jugend Magazine was a cultural weekly publication. It soon became a style-setting icon that launched the German art nouveau movement, named Jugendstil after the magazine. Within its slim 20-page-or-less weekly format, Jugend published works on art and literature, reproducing paintings, drawings, and other fine artworks by up-and-coming young artists whom the editors favored.
Among them, Ernst Barlach (one of the great Jugendstil sculptors and illustrators), Julius Klinger (a German artist of Jewish descent who worked for Jugend from 1896 to 1903), Peter Behrens (a German architect who did a good deal of art for Jugend in the early years of the publication) and Hans Heinrich Christianson (well known as a graphic designer, painter, commercial artist, and decorative artist) amongst others.Though to the modern eye, the artwork seems vastly dissimilar in style, there were common elements throughout, and the style of art selected by the Jugend editors as a whole came to be known as Jugendstil. This style was distinct from the other arts and crafts movements in that it focused on Germanic themes and mythologies, reinforcing the unification of the German states. (ASTG)