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August von Pettenkofen

Vienna, 1822 - 1889, Vienna

BiographyPettenkofen is considered by Feuchtmüller to be the "pioneer of Austrian Impressionism." He began his career at the academy where he studied with Leopold Kupelwieser. As an officer in the Austrian army, Pettenkofen became well-known as a painter of military scenes and battles. His concentration on the portrayal of masses, composed in a more realistic, less swashbuckling style than previous battle paintings, caused his works to be considered for their painterly qualities as well as their narrative evocations. While in the field, Pettenkofen discovered the Hungarian countryside; he painted his best works around the market town of Szolnok, which, with his encouragement, became an artists' colony comparable to Barbizon among French artists. His scenes of the marketplace here were not romanticized views of the peasants; instead, he concentrated on a portrayal of its color and brilliant light. His scenes of poor people, especially gypsies, were also more documentary than idealized, a new step for Austrian artists of the time. His studies in the early 1850s in Paris made him aware of modern French developments of which other Austrians were ignorant. Despite this awareness, Pettenkofen's style always strove for a compromise between tradition and a modern aesthetic; in many ways, his works, almost always small in format, show a closer affinity to Biedermeier works and the color studies of Gauermann than to any French model. His lithographs, Wiener Bilder, depict moments from the 1848 revolution, incorporating the best elements of the Biedermeier illustrative tradition. His influence was immense on the generation of Austrian artists who incorporated naturalism and Impressionist technique to forge the intimate landscape style associated with Schindler and his group.

Erika Esau, Pre-Modern Art of Vienna 1848-1898, Edith C. Blum Instutute of Bard College, 1987.

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