From rococo to neoclassicism
Encouraged by the Church, the Baroque movement arrived late in Vienna, at the beginning of the 18th century. Today, the city is full of baroque sculptures that adorn facades and squares, such as the Donner-Brunnen fountain in the "Neue Markt", erected around 1739 by Georg Raphael. During this century, Austrian painting became more distinct from the German school. The rococo painter Daniel Gran (1694-1757) was a perfect representative of the academic trend in Vienna at the time. Characterized by the clarity of his vast compositions, he painted the ceiling of the Schwarzenberg Palace.
The neoclassical period is exemplified by the Viennese artist Friedrich-Heinrich Füger (1751-1818), who was trained by a renowned German artist. It is in the art of the miniature and the portrait that his talent is fully revealed. Portraiture flourished in Vienna during the first half of the 18th century, thanks to commissions from the aristocracy. The masters of the genre were Jean-Baptiste Lampi father and son, who possessed a personal style unlike most painters of the time who were content to execute works "à la manière de". The third popular genre of this century is the landscape, of which Joseph-Anton Koch (1768-1839) is the most inspired author. His magnificent panoramas, inspired by his native Tyrol and mythological figures, are painted with impressive meticulousness of execution.Pictorial ruptures
After the Nazarenes, who renewed religious art through the study of Italian and German masters, it was not until the end of the 19th century that Viennese painting experienced a golden age with the Secession movement. A group of artists rose on the international scene with the idea of breaking with bourgeois classicism. However, a few isolated careers foreshadowed a turning point in artistic aspirations. The Viennese painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865) always kept his distance from academic or romantic currents and imposed an individual style based on a scrupulous observation of nature. This is why he remained one of the greatest Austrian painters. After graduating from the Academy of Vienna, where he was a pupil of Lampi, he travelled to Rome and Paris and studied Dutch painters. In 1857, he denounced the misdeeds of academic education and thought of founding a society of free artists, which the Secession did ten years later.
The Vienna Secession
At the end of the 19th century, a group of artists founded a movement that broke away from the Academy. At its head were Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele, both protégés of Gustav Klimt. A new era opened, under the sign of total art. Conventional representations are shattered. The movement, which died out in 1907, left remarkable works, some of which can be seen at the Belvedere Palace: Moser's Self-Portrait, Egon Schiele's Der Rainerbub or Klimt's The Kiss and Judith I
.Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), from a modest family, entered the School of Applied Arts at the age of 14. In 1883, he opened a decoration workshop with his brother and then gradually detached himself from academism, under the influence of his friends Khnof, Arnold Böcklin and Auguste Rodin. Thanks to the success of his frescoes in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, he received a ministerial commission to decorate the three faculties of the University of Vienna. His allegorical paintings Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence were completed in 1908 but caused a scandal. A petition demands their withdrawal, following which Medicine
will be destroyed in 1945. In 1897, he founded the Vienna Secession, supported by forty artists. The Beethoven Frieze was first presented by Gustav Klimt in 1902, during the fourteenth exhibition of the Secession. This 34-metre-long mural depicting the Ninth Symphony is approved by Gustav Mahler himself and greeted by Rodin.Viennese Expressionism
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), trained in Vienna, settled in Berlin where he frequented the avant-garde circles gathered around the magazine Der Sturm. After seeing an exhibition of Kokoschka's work in 1911, Archduke Franz Ferdinand declared, "This man deserves to have all his bones broken." At age 22, Kokoschka published his first novel, The Dreaming Boys, followed by a few poems and dramas. In 1912, he had an unhappy affair with Alma Mahler. He painted her in numerous pictures. A series of portraits from this period, grimacing and distorted, reveals the artist's desire to express the hidden psychology of his models. Seriously wounded during the First World War, he devoted himself from 1919 to 1924 to teaching painting in Dresden. There, he took sides with the workers' movements, while he polemicized in the press with John Heartfield and George Grosz, whom he considered too far to the left. In England, where he took refuge during the Second World War, he painted works against the Anschluss and fascism. Recognized as one of the most important expressionist painters, in 1953 he founded a painting school in Salzburg, called the School of the Gaze. Modest, unlike Schiele, he declared about his painting: "I am an eternal beginner". Mirages du passé
was published in the collection "L'Imaginaire", by Gallimard. Admired during his lifetime, the expressionist painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918), whose career was as brief as it was dazzling, never ceases to disturb. It is not surprising that his nude, grimacing women have difficulty in appealing to a wide audience. Schiele's work is not limited to these disturbing nudes, however. She also explored the techniques of portraiture, landscape and symbolism. His father went mad and died in 1905, leaving his family destitute. Despite the opposition of his guardian and uncle, his mother succeeded in presenting Schiele to the competition of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1906. He was admitted as a guest for a year, while a fellow countryman, a certain Adolf Hitler, was expelled for "poorly drawn composition". At the age of 17, his meeting with Klimt marked the beginning of a mutual friendship and admiration. Klimt invited the young Egon to the 1909 Exhibition (Kunstschau). At the age of 19, after three painful years of academic training, the discipline of which he could not bear, Schiele was able to follow his vocation. He managed to survive thanks to the support of an influential art critic, Artur Roessler, who convinced collectors to buy his paintings. He moved to the countryside and was expelled from two villages because of his unconventional lifestyle. He was even arrested in 1912 for moral violations and the corruption of minors. He remained in prison for only twenty-four days and was therefore not the martyr that the legend presents. Upon his release, Schiele the rebel aspired to a bourgeois life, but without accepting its conventions or constraints. He settled in Vienna and became involved with a girl from a good family, whom he married in 1915. Having managed to avoid the fighting of the Great War, he was assigned to an office job in a prison camp, then to the Royal and Imperial Army Museum. His marriage makes his inspiration more serene and seems to free him from his inner demons. When his friend Klimt died in 1918, Schiele became the darling of the Viennese public and his exhibition at the Secession was a success. This year, 1918, was the year of artistic recognition, but the euphoria did not last. His wife, suffering from the Spanish flu, died. He survived for three days.
