The unfashionable art of the Biedermeier period – which reflected the cosy tastes of the German and Austrian bourgeoisie in the first half of the 19th century – is having a moment. The Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865) is often regarded as a Biedermeier artist, but he didn’t always play it safe. After painting portraits and copying Old Masters in his youth, in his thirties he took up landscape painting. Views of the Salzkammergut and the Vienna woods capture the greenery and grandeur of the Austrian landscape in ways that seem somewhat idealised, but Waldmüller’s meticulously detailed depictions of nature set him at odds with Austria’s artistic establishment; he was dismissed as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna for criticising its teaching methods. The National Gallery brings together 13 paintings, including views of Sicily and several Austrian landscapes influenced by Waldmüller’s time in Italy, to make a case for an artist unfamiliar to London audiences (2 July–20 September).
Find out more from the National Gallery’s website.
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