FRIEDRICH VON AMERLING, Portrait of a Girl, 1839 © Leopold Museum, Vienna, Donation from a Private Collection, Photo: Leopold Museum, Vienna
Viennese Stories – The Leopold Museum Blog
Role Models
Being a Woman in Vienna around 1900
Ebony-black hair adorned with flowers frames the fair complexion. The softly rounded cheeks are touched with a delicate blush. The sideways glance of the young girl radiates charming gentleness. Dreamily, her small hand plays with the softly shimmering, pale pink silk ribbon that has fallen from her demurely styled hair. Her rounded shoulders are enveloped by a delicately soft fur trim. A barely perceptible hint of eroticism lingers around this childlike face with its large eyes and button nose. Friedrich von Amerling accentuates the flawless skin of the femme fragile, the child-woman, and with this portrait of a girl, he establishes a lasting ideal: suspended between helpless naivety and beguiling sensuality, the young being draws all eyes—on the one hand, as a prime example of a modest, Biedermeier-conforming creature, on the other, as a projection of male desires and needs.
Late Classicism is far from defeated. Some sixty years later, society ladies still have themselves staged in a similar manner by painter-princes such as Hans Makart: Theodora von Gözsy, in her youthful pose, simultaneously demonstrates the self-confidence of a representative of Vienna’s rising bourgeoisie. From the darkness of a richly furnished salon, the nobility of the grande bourgeoisie flashes forth – her hair pinned up, clad in rustling black silk, with an ideally corseted waist.
The naked body of the Amazon sits tensely astride the galloping horse. Mistress of life and death, she holds her spear at the ready. With this work, Franz von Stuck creates an archetype of the femme fatale, albeit not without exaggerating and ironizing female sensuality. Almost at the same time, however, critical female artists are taking entirely different paths.
With inimitable laconicism, Broncia Koller-Pinell depicts the body of her nude model, Marietta. The woman in the painting meets the gaze of the viewer with unwavering calm. Seldom has female nudity been shown so self-assured and unperturbed. There is not a trace of lasciviousness – it simply is what it is: the seated body of a woman forced to earn her living by displaying her bare form. Marietta’s slightly lowered head is positioned before a square halo – an almost paradoxical sacralization, given the demands of the first women’s movement. The feminist, social worker, and salonnière Marie Lang fights alongside other prominent figures such as Auguste Fickert, Marianne Hainisch, and Rosa Mayreder for fundamental rights. These are women who articulate their concerns clearly and advocate for changes in social power structures.
Marie Lang campaigns for maternity protection and the rights of illegitimate children. She also opposes the regulation of prostitution and fights for the abolition of the Lehrerinnenzölibat – the rule that required female teachers to resign and forfeit their pension rights upon marriage. Mayreder, in her philosophical and sociological writings, was an early critic of traditional gender roles and the degradation of women into mere sexual objects.
ERWIN LANG, Grete Wiesenthal in a Landscape, undated © Familie Konrad Lang in Altmünster
It was in Marie Lang’s salon that Broncia Pinell, who came from an assimilated Jewish family, met her future husband, the industrialist and art patron Hugo Koller. Her own salon would later become one of the intellectual hubs of a world shaped by liberal ideas. Marie Lang’s son, the painter and graphic artist Erwin Lang, created posters and stage designs for his wife Grete Wiesenthal, a key figure in modern dance in Vienna.
With a psychologically incisive gaze, Max Oppenheimer reveals the facets of a personality known for her intensity, overwhelming stage presence, dazzling dramatic talent, and political engagement. The actress Tilla Durieux, originally from Vienna’s ninth district, is a star in Berlin. Her portrayals of powerful, seductive female figures such as Salome or Circe are charged with both electrifying eroticism and psychological depth. However, Oppenheimer presents the wife of gallery owner Paul Cassirer as a seeker, a thinker, someone transparent in her struggle for expression – an interpreter of human experience whose inner turmoil becomes palpable. Tilla Durieux is a stage star who performs in Berlin’s public parks for free, bringing art to those who cannot afford theater visits. The sophisticated, elegant, self-assured, and politically engaged woman – this, too, is a modern role model.
Article by Markus Hübl
