The latest chapter in the series launched in 2023 at the Graphic Arts Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, our exhibition is one of the exhibitions that place recent works in the context of the collection and in dialogue between contemporary and classical art. At the core of the exhibition, with around 70 works, are portraits by Josef Kriehuber (1800-1876), acquired over the past decade, but the exhibition also includes works by Franz and Jakob Alt, Miklós Barabás, Markus Schinwald and Dia Zékány.
The works on display are typical documents of the Biedermeier period’s way of thinking. The democratisation of the portrait as a genre allows us to see how the first half of the 19th century thought about the individual and the relationship between the individual and society. During this period, bourgeois homes were filled with portraits of the family in an unprecedented abundance. The middle and lower middle classes, who had been cautious in making their voices heard in the political arena, made a spectacular effort to emulate the upper classes in their lifestyles. Following the example of the portraits of the aristocracy, it became common to portray not only the head of the family but also the rest of the family. A special section of the exhibition is devoted to small portraits, depicted as ‘picture in a picture’. This collection of miniature portraits has been shown only once in the last hundred years. They are presented as a tribute to their passionate collector, the generous donor Olga Perlep Procopius.
The display of personality and social position was also characteristic of another genre of the time, the interior or room portrait. For a moment, this period made us believe that the peace of home was not just an illusion. However, the Central European idyll, oblivious to tensions, social injustices, oppressors and oppressed, was shattered in an instant by the events of 1848-49.
His Biedermeier portraits – with their homes of wealth, young men with perfect smiles, gentle-faced girls and old men with wise looks – are attempts to embellish reality. Mirrors of desires, in which we glimpse the dreams and dreamers of an age. If we look at these works with this in mind, they can become a faithful record of an era.
Biedermeier is a long-gone mode of expression, but its themes have not lost their relevance. The contemporary artists in our exhibition – Markus Schinwald and Dia Zékány – show how to draw inspiration from the past and how a once popular genre can express valid ideas in today’s language. The dialogue between classical and contemporary works thus creates a medium of interpretation that updates the achievements of the past and makes the issues of the present timeless.