Visual Arts & Architecture
Vienna is one of the world’s most interesting capitals when it comes to the visual arts and architecture. The Habsburg monarchs fostered and patronised the arts in grand style, leaving us a legacy of fine historic paintings, sculptures and buildings, complemented by modern and contemporary works, all of which are visible at every turn when you walk through the streets today.
Unwittingly, the Ottomans helped form much of Vienna’s architectural make-up seen today. The second Turkish siege was the major catalyst for architectural change; with the defeat of the old enemy (achieved with extensive help from German and Polish armies), the Habsburgs were freed from the threat of war from the east. Money and energy previously spent on defence was poured into urban redevelopment, resulting in a frenzy of building in the baroque period in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
Learning from the Italian model, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723) developed a national style called Austrian baroque. This mirrored the exuberant ornamentation of Italian baroque with a few local quirks, such as coupling dynamic combinations of colour with undulating silhouettes. Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt (1668–1745), the other famous architect of the baroque era, was responsible for a number of buildings in the city centre.
Rococo, an elegant style incorporating pale colours and an exuberance of gold and silver, was all the rage in the 18th century. It was a great favourite with Maria Theresia, and Austrian rococo is sometimes referred to as late-baroque Theresien style.
Fresco painting in Austria dates back to the 11th century, and the oldest secular murals in the capital, from 1398, are the Neidhart-Fresken. The dizzying heights of fresco painting, however, were reached during the baroque period, when Johann Michael Rottmayr (1654–1730), Daniel Gran (1694–1757) and Paul Troger (1698–1762) were active in Vienna and across the country.
Rottmayr is Austria’s foremost baroque painter, spending his early years as a court painter to the Habsburgs in Salzburg before moving to Vienna in 1696, where he became the favoured painter of the architect Fischer von Erlach. He worked on many of von Erlach’s projects and is often compared to the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, bringing together Italian and Flemish influences.
Like Rottmayr, the fresco painter Daniel Gran studied in Italy, but his style reined in most of the extravagant elements you find in Rottmayr and offered a foretaste of neoclassicism – best illustrated in a magnificent ceiling fresco in the Nationalbibliothek.
It’s hard to turn a corner in the Innere Stadt without running into a baroque wall. Much of the Hofburg is a baroque showpiece; In der Burg square is surrounded on all sides by baroque wings, but its triumph is the Nationalbibliothek by Fischer von Erlach, whose Prunksaal (grand hall) was painted by Daniel Gran and is arguably one of the finest baroque interiors in Austria.
Herrengasse, running north from the Hofburg’s Michaelertor, is lined with baroque splendour, including Palais Kinsky at No 4. The Peterskirche is the handiwork of Hildebrandt, with frescoes by Rottmayr, but its dark interior and oval nave is topped by Karlskirche, another of Erlach’s designs with Rottmayr frescoes – this time with Byzantine touches. The highly esteemed Schloss Belvedere is also a Hildebrandt creation, which includes a large collection of masters from the baroque period, featuring works by Rottmayr, Troger, Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–96) and others.
Nicolas Pacassi is responsible for the masterful rococo styling at Schloss Schönbrunn, but the former royal residence is upstaged by its graceful baroque gardens.
The Habsburgs were generous patrons of the arts, and their unrivalled collection of baroque paintings from across Europe is displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Sculpture’s greatest period in Vienna was during the baroque years – the Providentia Fountain by George Raphael Donner and Balthasar Permoser’s statue Apotheosis of Prince Eugene in the Unteres Belvedere are striking examples. The magnificent Pestsäule (1692) was designed by Fischer von Erlach.
From the 18th century (but culminating in the 19th), Viennese architects – like those all over Europe – turned to a host of neoclassical architectural styles.
The end of the Napoleonic wars and the ensuing celebration at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 ushered in the Biedermeier period (named after a satirical middle-class figure in a Munich paper). Viennese artists produced some extraordinary furniture during this period, often with clean lines and minimal fuss. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865), whose evocative, idealised peasant scenes are captivating, is the period’s best known artist.
In the mid-19th century, Franz Josef I called for the fortifications to be demolished and replaced with a ring road lined with magnificent imperial buildings. Demolition of the old city walls began in 1857.
Magnificent buildings were created by architects such as Heinrich von Ferstel, Theophil von Hansen, Gottfried Semper, Karl von Hasenauer, Friedrich von Schmidt and Eduard van der Nüll. Some of the earlier buildings are Rundbogenstil (round-arched style, similar to neo-Roman) in style, but the typical design for the Ringstrasse is High Renaissance. This features rusticated lower stories and columns and pilasters on the upper floors. Some of the more interesting ones stray from this standard, however; Greek Revival, neo-Gothic, neo-baroque and neo-rococo all play a part in the boulevard’s architectural make-up.
The Hofmobiliendepot has an extensive collection of Biedermeier furniture, and more can be seen in the Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK). Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s Biedermeier paintings hang in the Wien Museum and Oberes Belvedere and one of the few uniformly Biedermeier houses is the Geymüllerschlössel.
Taking a tram ride around the Ringstrasse provides a quick lesson in neoclassicism. High Renaissance can be seen in Theophil von Hansen’s Palais Epstein, Gottfried Semper’s Naturhistorisches Museum and Karl von Hasenauer’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Von Hansen also designed the Ring’s Parlament, one of the last major Greek Revival works built in Europe. Von Ferstel’s Votivkirche is a classic example of neo-Gothic, but the showiest building on the Ring, with its dripping spires and spun-sugar facades, is Friedrich von Schmidt’s unmissable Rathaus in Flemish-Gothic. The most notable neo-baroque example is Eduard van der Nüll’s Staatsoper, though it’s also worth having a look at Gottfried Semper’s Burgtheater.
While Franz Josef was Emperor he had a new wing, the Neue Burg, added to the Hofburg. Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) was instrumental in the planning of the Neue Burg and its museums, and the architect, Karl von Hasenauer, stuck very closely to a traditional baroque look, though there are some 19th-century touches – a certain heavy bulkiness to the wing – that reveal it is actually neo-baroque.
Vienna’s branch of the Europe-wide art nouveau movement, known as Jugendstil (‘Youthful Style’), had its genesis from within the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts). The academy was a strong supporter of neoclassicism and wasn’t interested in supporting any artists who wanted to branch out, so in 1897 a group of rebels, including Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), seceded. Architects, such as Otto Wagner, Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867–1908) and Josef Hoffman (1870–1956), followed.
By the second decade of the 20th century, Wagner and others were moving towards a uniquely Viennese style, called Secession, which stripped away some of the more decorative aspects of Jugendstil. Olbrich designed the Secession Hall, the showpiece of the Secession, which was used to display other graphic and design works produced by the movement. The building is a physical representation of the movement’s ideals, functionality and modernism, though it retains some striking decorative touches, such as the giant ‘golden cabbage’ on the roof.
Hoffman, who was inspired by the British Arts and Crafts movement, led by William Morris, and also by the stunning art nouveau work of Glaswegian designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ultimately abandoned the flowing forms and bright colours of Jugendstil in 1901, becoming one of the earliest exponents of the Secession style. His greatest artistic influence in Vienna was in setting up the Wiener Werkstätte design studio, which included Klimt and Kolo Moser (1868–1918), and which set out to break down the high-art-low-art distinction, bringing Jugendstil into middle-class homes. In 1932 the WW closed, unable to compete with the cheap, mass-produced items being churned out by other companies.
No-one embraced the sensualism of Jugendstil and Secessionism more than Klimt. Perhaps Vienna’s most famous artist, Klimt was traditionally trained at the Akademie der bildenden Künste but soon left to pursue his own colourful and distinctive, non-naturalistic style.
A contemporary of Klimt’s, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) is considered to be one of the most notable early existentialists and expressionists. His gritty, confrontational paintings and works on paper created a huge stir in the early 20th century. Alongside his sketches, he also produced many self-portraits and a few large, breathtaking painted canvases. The other major exponent of Viennese expressionism was playwright, poet and painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980), whose sometimes turbulent works show his interest in psychoanalytic imagery and baroque-era religious symbolism.
The last notable Secessionist – and the one most violently opposed to ornamentation – was Czech-born, Vienna-based designer Adolf Loos. Up until 1909, Loos mainly designed interiors, but in the ensuing years he developed a passion for reinforced concrete and began designing houses with no external ornamentation. The result was a collection of incredibly flat, planar buildings with square windows that offended the royal elite no end. They are, however, key works in the history of modern architecture.
As well as 35 of Vienna’s metro stations, Otto Wagner’s works include the Stadtbahn Pavillons at Karlsplatz, and the Kirche am Steinhof, in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital.
A prolific painter, Klimt’s works hang in many galleries around Vienna. His earlier, classical mural work can be viewed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, while his later murals, in his own distinctive style, grace the walls of the Secession, where you’ll find his famous Beethoven Frieze , and MAK. An impressive number of his earlier sketches are housed in the Leopold Museum, and his fully-fledged paintings are in the Leopold Museum, Wien Museum and Oberes Belvedere.
The largest collection of Schiele works in the world belongs to the Leopold Museum. More of his exceptional talent is on display at the Wien Museum, Albertina and Oberes Belvedere; Kokoschka can also be seen at the Oberes Belvedere and Leopold.
One of the most accessible designs of Loos’ is the dim but glowing Loos American Bar, a place of heavy ceilings and boxy booths. Also worth a look are his public toilets on Graben. The Loos Haus is his most celebrated work. The Wien Museum provides a look into the personal world of Loos, with a reconstruction of a room from the architect’s own house. Pieces by the Wiener Werkstätte are on display at the MAK and can be bought from Woka and Altmann & Kühne.
Otto Wagner (1841–1918) was one of the most influential Viennese architects at the end of the 19th century (also known as the fin de siècle). He was trained in the classical tradition, and became a professor at the Akademie der bildenden Künste. His early work was in keeping with his education, and he was responsible for some neo-Renaissance buildings along the Ringstrasse. But as the 20th century dawned he developed an art nouveau style, with flowing lines and decorative motifs. Wagner left the Academy to join the looser, more creative Secession movement in 1899 and attracted public criticism in the process – one of the reasons why his creative designs for Vienna’s Historical Museum were never adopted. In the 20th century, Wagner began to strip away the more decorative aspects of his designs, concentrating instead on presenting the functional features of buildings in a creative way.
The most accessible of Wagner’s works are his metro stations, scattered along the network. The metro project, which lasted from 1894 to 1901, included 35 stations as well as bridges and viaducts. All of them feature green-painted iron, some neoclassical touches (such as columns) and curvy, all-capitals fin-de-siècle fonts. The earlier stations, such as Hüttledorf-Hacking, show the cleaner lines of neoclassicism, while Karlsplatz, built in 1898, is a curvy, exuberant work of Secessionist gilding and luminous glass.
WWII brought an end not only to the Habsburg empire, but also the heady fin-de-siècle years. Vienna’s Social Democrat leaders set about a program of radical social reforms, earning the city the moniker ‘Red Vienna’; one of their central themes was housing for the working class, best illustrated by Karl-Marx-Hof. Not everyone was pleased with the results; some of Vienna’s leading architects, Adolf Loos included, criticised the government for failing to produce a unified aesthetic vision.
Since the late 1980s a handful of multicoloured, haphazard-looking structures have appeared in Vienna; these buildings have been given a unique design treatment by maverick artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser felt that ‘the straight line is Godless’ and faithfully adhered to this principle in all his building projects, proclaiming that his uneven floors ‘become a symphony, a melody for the feet, and bring back natural vibrations to man’. Although he complained that his more radical building projects were quashed by the authorities, he still transformed a number of council buildings with his unique style.
The municipality buildings of Red Vienna are scattered throughout the city. The most famous is Karl-Marx-Hof. Hundertwasserhaus attracts tourists by the busload, as does the nearby KunstHausWien, but Hundertwasser’s coup d’état is the Fernwärme incinerator; opened in 1992, it’s the most nonindustrial-looking heating plant you’ll ever see.
Of the 21st-century architectural pieces, the MuseumsQuartier impresses the most, with its integration of the historic and the post-modern into the city’s most popular space. Gradually taking shape on a 109-hectare site near Südtyroler Platz, Vienna’s Hauptbahnhof is as large as the Josefstadt district and goes beyond its functional role as a station to form a city district in itself for 30,000 people, with about 5000 flats, a large park, offices, schools and a kindergarten. A 70m-high Bahnorama platform affords views over the site.
Vienna has a thriving contemporary arts scene with a strong emphasis on confrontation, pushing boundaries and exploring new media – incorporating the artist into the art has a rich history in this city. Standing in stark contrast to the more self-consciously daring movements such as Actionism, Vienna’s extensive Neue Wilde group emphasises traditional techniques and media.
The artist Eva Schlegel works in a number of media, exploring how associations are triggered by images. Some of her most powerful work has been photos of natural phenomena or candid street shots printed onto a chalky canvas then overlaid with layers and layers of oil paint and lacquer; they manage to be enjoyable on both a sensual and intellectual level.
One of Vienna’s best-known contemporary artists, Arnulf Rainer, worked during the 1950s with automatic painting (letting his hand draw without trying to control it). He later delved into Actionism, foot-painting, painting with chimpanzees and the creation of death masks.