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Lot Essay
'....die uns umgebende Natur, unsere Zeit Sitte ist es, welche wir in unsern Kunstschoepfungen zur Anschauung bringen muessen.'(F.G. Waldmller, Das Bedrfniss eines zweckmássigeren Unterrichtes in der Malerei und plastischen Kunst. Angedeutet nach eigenen Erfahrungen von Ferdinand Georg Waldmller, 1874, p. 14)
The combination of realistic and idealistic elements in the art of the Biedermeier period -- particularly its characteristic depictions of scenes taken from everyday life - was not a purely stylistic movement: it was also an attempt to represent in some way the ineffable spirit of the age, the Lebensgefhl.
Waldmller and his fellow students of the Wiener Akademie and the Kunstschule were trying to interpret and recreate the work of their Dutch seventeenth century predecessors: amongst Waldmller's earliest known oil paintings, for example, are copies of works by Jan van Huysum and Rachel Ruys.
Aside from the Dutch seventeenth century masters, Waldmller was also heavily influenced by the fashionable European eighteenth century taste for art rich in sentiment and, frequently, humour, evident in the public enthusiasm for the stage comedy and the pictures of Chardin and Greuze in France and Hogarth in England.
The quintessential precision of Biedermeier art and the premium it awarded painterly finish - the particular legacy of the Leiden fijnschilders - meant that many artists concentrated their attentions on one particular field. Waldmller, however, was amongst the most notable artists to practice his art outside one individual area, turning his hand to portraiture as readily as to still-life or interiors. His visit to Italy in the mid 1820s amplified further his pictorial imagination and interest in the play of light on the landscape. The apparent felicity with which Waldmller tackled the many challenges of differing genre meant that works such as Vorfrhling im Wienerwald, with its rich fusion of styles, was made possible.
The present work is one of five versions of a figure group in the same location in the Wienerwald that the artist executed in the early 1860s, three of which are now housed in major public collections. Two versions were painted circa 1861 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich and the Belvedere, Vienna). Another version was executed in 1863 and the final version of 1864 is in the National Galerie, Berlin (fig.1). The same valley motif, with its recognisable foreground tree, was used in all five versions of the work and also in some earlier works and was characteristic of Waldmller's stated dedication to study closely from nature itself - indeed his landscape exhibits at the Akademie often bore the subtitle Studium nach der Natur and frequently the actual topographical location. All the versions of the present work depict different seasons made identifiable through Waldmller's careful rendition of seasonal flowers sprouting from the forest floor, evincing his sensitivity in his art to the details of nature that had grown significantly since the 1840s.
From the 1850s Waldmller's art displayed a marked increase in the brightness of palette and the intensity of sunlight with a greater emphasis on the dramatic possibilities of the light-dark contrast. Also apparent in the later works is an increasing precision of line, rendering what had been already precise draughtsmanship even more exacting and was, in part, due to the artist's reaction to his failing eyesight. In the extensive landscapes of this later period, such as the present work, Waldmller revels in the communion of man and nature - the inhabitants of his world are at once agents and symbols of a simple, rustic harmony.
The early 1860s saw increasing recognition for Waldmller in both professional and personal spheres. In 1862, the year of the present work, he exhibited at the International Art Exhibition in London, and in 1861 he was awarded den Roten Adlerorden III. Klasse followed by, in 1863, the Ritterkreuz des Franz-Joseph Ordens.
The combination of realistic and idealistic elements in the art of the Biedermeier period -- particularly its characteristic depictions of scenes taken from everyday life - was not a purely stylistic movement: it was also an attempt to represent in some way the ineffable spirit of the age, the Lebensgefhl.
Waldmller and his fellow students of the Wiener Akademie and the Kunstschule were trying to interpret and recreate the work of their Dutch seventeenth century predecessors: amongst Waldmller's earliest known oil paintings, for example, are copies of works by Jan van Huysum and Rachel Ruys.
Aside from the Dutch seventeenth century masters, Waldmller was also heavily influenced by the fashionable European eighteenth century taste for art rich in sentiment and, frequently, humour, evident in the public enthusiasm for the stage comedy and the pictures of Chardin and Greuze in France and Hogarth in England.
The quintessential precision of Biedermeier art and the premium it awarded painterly finish - the particular legacy of the Leiden fijnschilders - meant that many artists concentrated their attentions on one particular field. Waldmller, however, was amongst the most notable artists to practice his art outside one individual area, turning his hand to portraiture as readily as to still-life or interiors. His visit to Italy in the mid 1820s amplified further his pictorial imagination and interest in the play of light on the landscape. The apparent felicity with which Waldmller tackled the many challenges of differing genre meant that works such as Vorfrhling im Wienerwald, with its rich fusion of styles, was made possible.
The present work is one of five versions of a figure group in the same location in the Wienerwald that the artist executed in the early 1860s, three of which are now housed in major public collections. Two versions were painted circa 1861 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich and the Belvedere, Vienna). Another version was executed in 1863 and the final version of 1864 is in the National Galerie, Berlin (fig.1). The same valley motif, with its recognisable foreground tree, was used in all five versions of the work and also in some earlier works and was characteristic of Waldmller's stated dedication to study closely from nature itself - indeed his landscape exhibits at the Akademie often bore the subtitle Studium nach der Natur and frequently the actual topographical location. All the versions of the present work depict different seasons made identifiable through Waldmller's careful rendition of seasonal flowers sprouting from the forest floor, evincing his sensitivity in his art to the details of nature that had grown significantly since the 1840s.
From the 1850s Waldmller's art displayed a marked increase in the brightness of palette and the intensity of sunlight with a greater emphasis on the dramatic possibilities of the light-dark contrast. Also apparent in the later works is an increasing precision of line, rendering what had been already precise draughtsmanship even more exacting and was, in part, due to the artist's reaction to his failing eyesight. In the extensive landscapes of this later period, such as the present work, Waldmller revels in the communion of man and nature - the inhabitants of his world are at once agents and symbols of a simple, rustic harmony.
The early 1860s saw increasing recognition for Waldmller in both professional and personal spheres. In 1862, the year of the present work, he exhibited at the International Art Exhibition in London, and in 1861 he was awarded den Roten Adlerorden III. Klasse followed by, in 1863, the Ritterkreuz des Franz-Joseph Ordens.