The Habsburg court always had a riding school, with horses used both militarily and recreationally. In 1562, Archduke Maximilian bred the Lipizzaner horses systematically to obtain the pure white color for a uniform look. The Lipizzaner horses were the most elite horses in the world, thus the horses were imported for the imperial court from Spain - hence the school's name. In 1572 there is the first mention of a riding school, and in 1580, Emperor Charles II of Austria founded the court stud Lipizza where he brought in horses from Spain. However, it wasn't until 1681 that Emperor Leopold I commissioned the design and construction of an official riding school. Emperor Charles VI rebuilt and restored the riding hall, commissioning Fischer von Erlach as its architect; the building which we see today is Erlach's design.
The morning practices themselves were neat - four sets of five horses and riders warm up and practice for 30 minute intervals, switching out and showing off. The horses, however, don't perform, but only practice techniques and such.
After the morning practices, I headed over to the Belvedere again, to more closely examine the art and follow the timeline of the artistic styles showcased. [Pictures were not allowed so all the following pictures are courtesy of Belvedere images.] The Belvedere was Prince Eugene of Savoy's summer baroque palace, with the upper Belvedere housing his guests and the lower Belvedere housing himself. Since Prince Eugene was honored and revered as the conquor of the Turks, he fashioned his guest house to reflect it. Turks captured as prisoners of war show up as motifs throughout the architecture of the upper Belvedere; they hold up walls and pillars, they are shown holding up the palace's main fountain, and they are shown agonizing under the weight of marble decorations. The upper Belvedere shows Prince Eugene as the warrior; however, the lower Belvedere shows Prince Eugene the art lover. The upper Belvedere as well is heavily baroque, emphasizing the grandeur of Prince Eugene; even the ceiling frescos are meant as optical illusions to create an elongation and dramatization of size and stature. Today, the lower Belvedere houses mainly medieval religious relics. However, the upper Belvedere houses medieval, baroque, and biedermeier art.
The lower level of the Upper Belvedere has an entire wing of medieval religious art work. The Znaim Altarpiece was one of the largest relics on display. It was created sometime between 1440 and 1445, and is one of only a few surviving large-winged retables of this time period. Its style shows early realism; the Sunday side shows high reliefs of the passion and an association with Bavarian art. The weekday side shows scenes from the life of Christ (from baptism to flagellation).
Works by Rueland Frueauf the Elder were also on display; an altar piece made between 1480 and 1491 with Mary's life depicted on the weekday side and Jesus' life and the passion depicted on the Sunday side resided once in a Salzburg church but is now at the Belvedere. His use of rhythm, color, and landscape made him a prominent artist during his time.
My favorite piece was by Johann Georg Platzer, titled Samson's Revenge; painted between 1730 and 1740, it crosses artistic lines by combining the heavy and dense details of the scene with the timelessness and objective lives of the carefree characters.
In another wing on the first floor are the buffs of Xaver Messerschmidt, referred to as the "crazy heads" since he himself never named them. Messerschmidt worked for Maria Theresia as a sculptor (late baroque period), and was trained in Munich by his uncle in the craft of sculpting. Alongside being the court sculptor, he taught at the Academy in Vienna.
His crazy heads were made in Bratislava, however, where he had bought a house. He was rumored to be schizophrenic, and he created these heads to scare away the demons and pain he felt in the night.The next floors contained works from Vienna in the 19th century - namely works of classicism, romanticism, biedermeier, historicism, and impressionism. Famous works of Monet's such as Garden at Giverny, Van Gogh's Wheat Fields Near Auvers, Renoir's The Red-haired Bather, and Digas' Harlequin and Columbine are shown.
Renoir's classical womanly figure was the epitome of beauty for the impressionists, and the landscapes depcted by both Monet and Van Gogh attempted at capturing the true essence of an experience or scene - realism was a top priority in their art. David's Napoleon Bonaparte also dominated one of the rooms, an example of the historicism which many artists desired to portray.
Renoir's classical womanly figure was the epitome of beauty for the impressionists, and the landscapes depcted by both Monet and Van Gogh attempted at capturing the true essence of an experience or scene - realism was a top priority in their art. David's Napoleon Bonaparte also dominated one of the rooms, an example of the historicism which many artists desired to portray.
In the next rooms, there was a large collection of works by Gustav Klimt (his work The Kiss among them), Koloman Moser, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Carl Moll. Klimt's works took up much of the exhibit. In all of his figure paintings, the woman's silhouette is outlined clearly and is positioned in the front; the man is always positioned in the back and he is less concrete and more abstract in form.
The Kiss was the only picture of people by Klimt which I liked - there was a tenderness there that was lacking in his other figures. However, his landscapes were very appealing. Their almost impressionistic style (more similar to pointillism) was beautiful, mixing blues and green into beautiful landscapes. Kokoschka's Prague Harbor was a combination between impressionist technique and the appearance of sketching. Schiele's focus on people with odd profiles and hardly any landscapes was definitely an form of expressionism within the modern boundaries.
Moser's Self-Portrait exhibited a direct use of color and purpose to communicate beauty through function rather that form. Finally, Moll's Twilight and Interior of the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene were created with an intense depth and meant to portray texture.
The final upper rooms were dedicated to the Biedermeier genre, where under Metternich's attempt at restoring the pre-Napoleonic years and implementing a conservative government through censorship and the secret police led to interior 'immigration'. The family unit was thus valued both at home and in art. Domestic scenes of the immediate family were in popular by the middle class during this time of urbanization and conservatism. Friedrich von Ameriling's portrait of a father and his three children remembering their mother is a perfect example of this notion of the closed family unit, as is Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller's Morning of Corpus Christi with the contrast between the peasants and the aristocracy manifested in the playing children.
Finally, Josef Danhauser's Game of Chess was the first painting to represent life within the salons and illustrates the domestic nature of the Biedermeier period. The constant notion of the woman over the man is prevalent throughout the painting, with the woman standing and the man sitting; the queen of chess on the board; the woman winning the game; and the sculpture of Hercules enslaved to Omphale.
Finally, Josef Danhauser's Game of Chess was the first painting to represent life within the salons and illustrates the domestic nature of the Biedermeier period. The constant notion of the woman over the man is prevalent throughout the painting, with the woman standing and the man sitting; the queen of chess on the board; the woman winning the game; and the sculpture of Hercules enslaved to Omphale.
The entire Belvedere was quite large and overwhelming, but using the Wien Museum as a guide through each culture and artistic period of Vienna's history, the floors and paintings were easier to understand and comprehend.
I turned on the TV for the first time since being here in Vienna and was watching CNN (they don't have many English options over here...). Surprisingly, it wasn't much different from CNN back home - many of the same programs were aired, including interviews with Anderson Cooper and a special on the heros of Hurricane Katrina. The only difference seemed to be that there was a greater ethnic diversity among the channel's news broadcasters and that the commercials seemed to all be promoting or associated with the Arab world. There was not one commercial which did not try and promote a business in Dubai or did not deal with the region of Saudi Arabia. This is not as surprising as it may seem due to Saudi Arabia's wealth and obvious vicinity to Europe since Europe is its closes Western neighbor. It seems that for as conservative culturally and religiously as Saudi Arabia may be, it is definitely making a concerted effort to include itself among Western economies and business markets.
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