Akademie Der Bildenden Kunste

Our second Jugernstil (Art Nouveau) walk led us past the Secession museum and into the Naschmarkt before getting us to the Linke Wienzeile...but we knew that the Academy of Fine Arts was just a block or two away and that it contained the Bosch Last Judgement triptych. Indeed, we'd seen the Judgement in 2010 (no fotos!), and seen Cranach's copy of it last month in Berlin. Any Bosch will do for us, but the triptychs, with all their myriad, lurid details are best. Putting our Jugendstil interest on pause, we made our way to the Akademie, which has, as one might expect, a fine collection of European painting in addition to all its other collections. It is a fine arts institution of higher education with a short but illustrious history. Before getting to the Bosch, I'll post a few pix from the Akademie's painting collection, which were on display as part of a special exhibition of student work juxtaposed against the masters. (The student work has not stood the test of time...).

The Akademie, beautiful neo-classical building

Lecture hall: pretty formidable!

Ceilings throughout done in Pompeii style

Never miss a Claude Lorraine: Forest Lane with Herd and Herdsmen,
1633

Van Ruisdael, Forest Glade, 1646

One of several nice Rembrandt inks, Landscape with Haybarn and
a Flock of Sheep, 1652

Rembrandt, Portrait of Someone Other Than Himself,
1632

Cranach, Lucretia, 1532

Rubens, Venus Freezing, 1614; OK, if she's freezing, why doesn't
she put on some clothes? Compare Venus Frigida, here

The Biggie, Bosch's Last Judgement, c. 1482; details at 10...

Nice Botticelli tondo; oops, didn't get the title nor date

Detail

Joos van Cleve, Holy Family, c. 1520; I guess
Joseph is wearing glasses so as to look old and
decrepit and ...

Durer engraving, The Holy Family with Dragonfly,
1495; I maintain, of course, that Durer would have
been far more highly esteemed as a painter had he not
spent so much time fiddling around with that printing
press scheme...

Hans Baldung Grien, Holy Family in the Meadow,
1512; rather a different depiction of Mary than
we're accustomed to seeing...

Another Durer, Virgin and Child Seated by a
Tree, 1513

Cranach workshop, Mother and Child with Grapes, 1540

In the park, Goethe  overseeing it all

Added bonus: pretty Mother and Child, right? It's a 1913 oil painting
by one Adolf Schicklgruber (aka Hitler), whom the Academy rejected as
a drawing student in both 1907 and 1908; Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's 2001
novel The Alternative Hypothesis explores what might have happened
had the selection committee admitted him and he stayed in the art world
rather than becoming a politician...something to think about if you're on
an admissions or hiring committee...and also consider this...

Jugendstil Walk 2

The second Jugendstil walk day was pretty much like the first: another 300 pix, some of Vienna's great public parks and monuments, some of the Naschmarkt, some from the Academy of Fine Arts, and even a few of the Jugendstil buildings we set forth to see. As with the previous walk's pix, I'll just post the Jugendstil items here, leaving the rest for separate posts. After nine days here, the "out-takes" folder is already bursting.

We decided this was a Jugendstil bridge over the Vienna River

The Vienna River--somewhat like the LA River, only far more
picturesque

The walk included several Otto Wagner subway station entrances;
think of Wagner as the Hector Guimard of Vienna

Another

Interior

Not sure what this was...possibly not Jugendstil

All this only a few hundred meters from the city center

Klimt's Beethoven frieze left us cold, so we avoided...

The Secession Museum, which we'd seen in 2012

We're now doing the Naschmarkt (later posts), but noticing the
grand buildings lining the boulevard

Another

And now, the prize, the Linke Wienzeile buildings, both designed
by Wagner; sort of a Block of Discord

The Medallion House

Detail; Wagner sold the plan for these apartment buildings to the city
council with his famous "form follows function" dictum; which is
mystifying to us...

And the Majolika House, perhaps the most famous Jugendstil

And a neighbor, not Jugendstil, but pretty nonetheless;
with a caryatid, too

Anchor Clock

"Anker" was a major insurance company (still is: Helvetia Insurance AG) and in the early 1900s invested in the famous Jugendstil Ankeruhr clock, a sort of bridge between their two buildings at the Hoher Markt. Sort of an advertising stunt, the design of painter and professor Franz von Match and clock-maker to the King und Kaiser, Franz Morawetz. Many other firms and individuals were employed in fashioning all the many components of the clock.  In addition to keeping and displaying the time, it features a parade of historically-significant Viennese personalities, one at the top of each hour and then all twelve at high noon. Always bargain-conscious, we were there for the full parade. Each figure is accompanied by appropriate music, too. The clock had its debut just prior to WWI, was turned off for those years, and then had its assorted Habsburg items removed after the war. It was damaged in WWII and did not resume operation until 1956. As usual, Wikipedia has a fine article on it all.

Warning: best fix yourself a cup of very strong coffee before embarking on this post (eine Tasse kaffee...).

Our route had us approach the clock from its rear, so you get to see
a wealth of features not to be seen on other blogs

For example, these toddler caryatids/atlantines...

Why are both girls facing inward?

And these...praying...thinking...

Munching on a golden apple...and...huh?

Obviously there is some deep Jugendstilly symbolism here beyond our
understanding

Underside of the bridge

Proper side of the Anchor Clock...very Art Nouveauy; we arrived
15 minutes early and had plenty of time to explore

Can't tell the players without a program...

And so, at precisely 12:04, the show begins; there's Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, who used to hang out here; we're in a crowd of a couple
hundred, and Vicki is going to video the whole thing; the whole
thing moves rather slowly, and she never got to #2; didn't want to
use up her whole storage allotment on Google

Charlemagne; yes, these all will be on the quiz

Leopold VI

Walter von der Vogelweide...leading German poet of the Middle Ages;
also best male actor/singer in a supporting role in Tannhauser, with one
of Wagner's greatest hits

King Rudolf

Hans Puchsbaum; master architect, associated with St. Stephens;
died after falling from scaffolding; something about a pact with the
Devil...

Emperor Maximilian

Mayor Johann Andreas von Liebenberg

Count Ernst Rudiger of Starhemberg

Prince Eugene of Savoy

Empress Maria Theresa; and hubs Franz I of Lorraine

Lastly, and somewhat surprisingly, Josef Haydn, who composed
the national anthem; personally, I think they missed a great opportunity,
that of playing the second movement from Haydn's "Clock" Symphony,
#101, which I know from my days as last oboist in the Miami Symphonic
Society (if no one else was there, I was first oboist); here's a great 
analysis and exposition from the London Philharmonic, including 
some notes on Haydn's place as father of classical music

Thanks, Anker!