The Leopold Museum is home to some of the most eminent examples of Austrian painting of the Biedermeier period, Realism, and Atmospheric Impressionism. The present exhibition features over 100 works from an extremely diverse century of Austrian art, some for the first time.
The parcours starts with portraits and genre scenes from the pre-March era. Invariably situated at the point of intersection between verism and trivialization, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s paintings captivate with their intense colors and masterful light direction. His contemporary Friedrich Gauermann expressed his veneration of nature by capturing rare, dramatic-looking weather conditions. Watercolor art also experienced a heyday during the Biedermeier period. Landscapes by Thomas Ender and late, but nevertheless meticulously executed works by Rudolf von Alt are presented in a separate room.
From the middle of the century, artists increasingly focused on rendering the landscapes of Hungary, Italy, Dalmatia and the Netherlands. The exponents of Atmospheric Impressionism turned to painting en plein air in the 1870s. The artistic loner Anton Romako chose a different path: his idiosyncratic colors, seemingly unrealistic light conditions and the psychological depth of his pictorial worlds had a decisive impact on early Viennese Expressionism.
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