To all Viennese and Vienna lovers among you –the stunning Belvedere Palace in the Austrian capital currently houses an exhibition called “Inspiration Photography – from Makart to Klimt”. It was opened on June 17 and will last until October 30, 2016, located in the Orangerie in the Lower Belvedere.
The topic of this exhibition is the fascination and the horror that photography, which was invented in 1938, caused at the beginning in the community of painters. Many portrait painters were scared of a dramatic decline in their business while others created photographs in order to make cheap reproductions of their own works and sell them to the people.
Others again used photographs as souvenirs and actual templates, they learnt to take pictures on their own or they employed professional photographers for their purposes. In the beginning the handling of photography was playful and creative, whereas the openness and dedication to that new medium got lost at the very time when the Vienna Secession displayed lighting images as independent works of art.
The exhibition in the Orangerie now compares photographic templates and completed paintings directly, which turns out to be a thrilling undertaking for every observer, as when taking a closer look you can, for instance, notice certain inconsistencies with regards to the use of light. Beyond that you get an insight into which artists were using the medium of photography from very early on for their purposes, such as Gustav Klimt.
The Belvedere offers a very exciting and well-structured exhibition for all those interested in art, painting lovers and people who are into photography.
