Early Spring in the Vienna Woods

Belvedere, Oberes Belvedere, 1. Obergeschoß (West), Raum SW1
Favorite
Share
Permalinkhttps://sammlungtest.belvedere.at/objects/513/vorfruhling-im-wienerwald
IIIF
Expand

Künstler*in Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793 Wien – 1865 Hinterbrühl)

Object typeGemälde
MediumOil on wood
Dimensions
52 × 66 cm
SignatureBez. unten rechts: Waldmüller 186[1]
Inventory number1501
Locations Belvedere, Oberes Belvedere, 1. Obergeschoß (West), Raum SW1
Snow is still on the ground, but violets and primroses are already in flower. Oversized and tantalizingly close, Waldmüller depicts them in the foreground. Some have been picked by the children. One girl bashfully offers her bunch to a boy. But this painting’s main motif is neither flowers nor children, but the landscape, captured by Waldmüller using only a few hues of blue, green, and brown—colors echoed in the children’s clothes. Light, which falls evenly on the figures and the landscape from the left, does not introduce accents but evokes atmosphere, and in this approach Waldmüller was well ahead of his times. His contemporaries responded with incomprehension or even harsh criticism.

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria