Fast & Fluid. The Fascination of the Oil Sketch, Belvedere, Vienna: 23 May-8 September 2019

This is archived material. It is for reference purposes only.

The exhibition Fast & Fluid. The fascination of oil sketch, planned at the Belvedere Museum in summer 2019, focuses on the evolution of the role of sketches  between the beginning of the 19th century and the 20th century.

It is during  this period, that the role of the  sketch began to change slowly. At first, the sketch was only considered as a useful tool for the final work but  around 1900 it gained a new autonomy and began to be appreciated for its direct bond with the artist’s hand. The draft reveals  the procedure that leads to the final work and is the tangible evidence of the painter’s study and effort. And for this reason, artists stopped  thinking of the sketch as a mere transitional stage, an outlined and unfinished work. Rather they started glimpsing its potential as a work within itself and esteeming its new potential.                                                                                            

So, the sketch started to be used to express things that needed to be deciphered in a hurry, or temporary and transient situations such as clouds, landscapes and light changes. At the threshold of the 20th century, the sketch found a new audience and of course, a new market.

The exhibition gathers works from the museum collection and includes creations by Caspar David Friedrich, Adalbert Stifter, Friedrich Gauermann, August von Pettenkofen, Wilhelm Busch, Hans von Marées, Anton Romako, Theodor von Hörmann, Hans Makart, Emil Jakob Schindler, Olga Wisinger-Florian, Tina Blau, Carl Moll and Koloman Moser.

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Upper Belvedere

 Prinz Eugen-Straße 27, 1030 Vienna

Caspar David Friedrich, Cloudy Evening Sky, 1824 © Belvedere, Vienna
Caspar David Friedrich, Cloudy Evening Sky, 1824 © Belvedere, Vienna
Theodor von Hörmann, Field of Sainfoin near Znaim (Znojmo) II, um 1893 Photo: Johannes Stoll © Belvedere, Vienna
Theodor von Hörmann, Field of Sainfoin near Znaim (Znojmo) II, um 1893 Photo: Johannes Stoll © Belvedere, Vienna

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