This blog post is dedicated to my visits to the Kunshistorisches Museum, the Belvedere, and the Leopold Museum. In other words, this entire blog post is going to be me professing my love for art and art history.
The moment that really sums up why I love art history occurred at the Belvedere. Gretel, our guide, explained the Biedermeier Movement’s influence in visual art as we entered a room full of works of art created during the Biedermeier period in Austria. She said that in this era of intense censorship and strict legal systems, artists had to be sneaky and strategic in order to put covert messages and societal criticisms within their paintings. The paintings during this period are seemingly wholesome, family and child-oriented, and nationalistic in terms of the local culture, but they contain thought-provoking themes of criticism for society. For example, Friedrich von Amerling’s painting Rudolf von Arthaber with His Children at first glance looks like an idyllic scene containing a father and his three children. When you look at the painting more closely, you can see that one of the boys is playing with a toy gun and making eye contact with the other young boy, while the girl is holding a doll. In the background of the painting, you can see the outline of a portrait of a woman; we can presume that the woman is the children’s mother who is dead because she is missing from the scene. Although on the surface, this painting appears innocuous, these objects come together to create a covert message that criticizes the society that these individuals live in, where the boys will soon go off to war, the daughter will have children of her own, and the cycle of loss will begin again. Although I can’t explain this symbolism with as much eloquence as Gretel did, this explanation blew my mind and I hope others can at least appreciate it. I love learning the motives and meanings behind art pieces as well as the society that art pieces were created within.
As I walked through all of the museums, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed because of the architecture. It is truly amazing that human beings are able to produce such beautiful buildings to house such amazing works of art, also created by humans. By the end of my visit at each museum, I was equally in awe of the buildings and the masterpieces inside them. A side note, Lisa, one of our other guides commented that the Kunhistorisches Museum is a beautiful building, but a terrible art museum because the building is so stagnant and permanent. When she said that, all of my feelings that I had when I visited the museum multiple times throughout the program came together. I was completely in awe of the architecture of the building every time I visited, but every time I visited, I had an itching feeling that this amazing building wasn’t the best place to house an art collection, but I couldn’t figure out why I felt that way.
Throughout this past academic year, I was toying with the idea of art history as a major or a minor after taking two art history classes and really enjoying them. I think this program has influenced me to pursue a minor in art history along with my double major in Sociology and History. If that doesn’t work out, at the very least, I want to take a few more art history courses during my undergraduate career. Through our various visits to art museums and cultural sites, my passion for art history has been ignited once again and I think I should pursue studying it in some capacity since it interests and excites me so much.
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