This morning I went to meet my parents at the Belvedere, one of the world’s finest Baroque landmarks. It is made up of the Upper and Lower Belvedere Palaces and was designed by Johann Lukas von Hildebrant for Prince Eugene of Savoy
The Belvedere art collection is one admired across the world.
My parents outside the Upper Belvedere Palace
The two temporary exhibitions that were being held were ‘Dynamik’ and ‘Egon Schiele self-portraits and portraits’. For me the most exciting was the ‘Dynamik’ exhibition which was showing a range of work from the Cubist, Futurist and Kineticist movements. I had studied these movements at school in art and history of art and my personal art work was and is, very much influenced by these and similar movements. Kineticism was the Viennese reaction to the Cubist and Italian Futurist movements which began to develop in Europe around 1918.
The works on display showed a range of interesting pieces, most focusing on movement in dance, theatre and travel. Franz Cizek was an important mentor and teacher to the Viennese Kineticist artists, he required art to express a dynamic sensation ‘Everything is moving, everything is flowing, it is all happening at terrific speed.’ The exhibition managed to achieve this with its 45 international masterpieces with highlights of the Austrian avant-garde. I particularly enjoyed the fact that many of the works I had never seen or heard of before but all were beautiful examples of the innovative movements. I was also interested in the range of presentation techniques used as when you looked more closely beyond the frames, I realised that many of the works were actually on bits of old cardboard, butter paper and a range of other materials. This gave a real essence of the artist’s process of working and revealed a range of wonderful techniques. The rhythm and movement of the pieces were an inspiration as each piece revealed a different story; the urge to return with my sketch book took hold.
A view looking towards the Lower Belvedere Palace and Vienna
We then moved onto the Schiele exhibition. The exhibition is the first to focus on his portraits and self portraits. Egon Schiele (1890-1918) began working in an academic style before exploring other techniques of drawing and painting. As he moves on from this, his work captures his model’s mental state in a way that is characteristic of early Austrian Expressionism.
The exhibition began with some of his early works which showed a more classic style of sketching and painting, this emphasized his progression and development of work on display. Many of the works I had not seen before and I was drawn into his unique and sometimes quite moving style. The self portraits highlighted his engagement with trying to discover himself and his forever shifting mental state. As I walked around the exhibition I noticed something particularly interesting that I had not thought about before; it was that In my opinion his greatest talent was in actually stopping and leaving his paintings in what some people may describe as an ‘unfinished’ state. The talent to be able to draw and paint certain elements and to leave the subject not only made the figures more powerful but meant that the composition was even more intriguing to the eye. This technique of knowing exactly what is needed as the piece develops; keeping the balance, without ‘completing’ it is astonishing. This is a mistake that I have made on many occasions, always adding and wanting to ‘complete’ my compositions (and a number of times actually spoiling it) when in fact sometimes only the most subtle of touches or elements are necessary.
Later that evening my parents took me out to a beautiful bar and restaurant on the top floor of the do&co hotel situated just next to St.Stephens Cathedral. This really was a special; the ambiance and stunning views of the cathedral were breathtaking. The food and drinks were delicious and to be able to spend the evening in Vienna
My parents returned to their hotel and I made my way home, it had been a very busy day and my favourite so far since arriving in Vienna
My parents and I at the do&co bar
