Vienna – Austrian Art in the Baroque Belvedere

Vienna has many palaces and art museums worth seeing making it a challenge deciding which ones to see or not on a short trip. The most famous palaces are the imperial residences in the Hofburg and Schloss Schönbrunn but many other palaces that once housed the considerable number of noble families who congregated around the Viennese court survived to the present day. None is more splendid than the two Baroque palaces at Belvedere.

The Belvedere was constructed during the early 18th century by Austrian Field Marshall Prince Eugene of Savoy as a summer residence outside the then city borders of Vienna. (Nowadays, it is in the very central third district!) The complex consists of two palaces – the Upper and Lower Belvedere palaces – and an enormous baroque garden. The palaces presently house the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (Austrian Gallery Belvedere), one of Vienna’s most important art collections.

The Oberes (Upper) Belvedere is a Baroque masterpiece – its exterior alone is worth a trip. It houses nineteenth and early-twentieth century works with special emphasis on local artists such as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, and Gustav Klimt. This palace also has a café – the only venue in the complex where food and drink is available. Belvedere Torte is the house specialty.

The Unteres (Lower) Belvedere is also a well-proportioned Baroque palace. It served as the actual residence of the prince while the more glamorous Oberes Belvedere was exclusively used for representational purposes. This palace now houses the Baroque collection of paintings, sculptures, and several marvelous original decorations. In the adjacent Orangery is the Medieval collection, which gives a good overview of Austrian art from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.

Between the two palaces is a huge Baroque garden. It obviously has a formal layout with a huge number of statues, fountains, well-trimmed trees, neat paths, and manicured lawns.

Quick Tips:

All three collections in the Belvedere complex are considered good examples of especially Austrian art and are worth seeing in their own rights. However, the highlights are the works of the Austrian Secession painters such as Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele. For that reason, consider seeing the Upper Belvedere last. We did it the other way round, and frankly, medieval altarpieces seemed a bit stale after first seeing the nineteenth and twentieth century, as well as the baroque collections.

Brief guided tours are conducted in English in the Upper Belvedere on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 11:30am. These tours focus on a few select works rather than giving a broad overview of the gallery. The same tour is available in German at 11am.

Best Way To Get Around:

The Belvedere complex is easily reached by public transportation. It is located in between the Ring (trams 1, 2, 71, D) and the Gürtel (trams D, 18). The main entrance to the Oberes Belvedere is across the road from the Südbahnhof railway station, while the entrance to the Unteres Belvedere is within easy walking distance from the Ring, or one stop on tram 71.

The gardens are open for free but admission to the palaces and art collections is €7.50. This includes admission to all collections in the Oberes and Unteres Belvedere as well as the Atelier Augarten Center for Contemporary Art. Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm.

Café Schwarzenberg is a very pleasant traditional coffee house with a grand époque interior. It is the oldest of the Ringstraße cafés that came into being when the grand ring road around central Vienna was erected in place of the former medieval defense walls. Like most of Vienna’s traditional coffee houses, the Schwarzenberg has also metamorphosed into a café-restaurant. Visiting in the late afternoon, we decided to stick to what a coffee house do best: coffee and cake!

As we visited on a gloriously sunny day, we selected to sit outside. The views from here are grand: apart from the trams, cars, and pedestrians on the busy "Ring", we also had a good view of the Karlskirche (Charles Church) and the Schwarzenbergplatz. At the center of this large and very busy square is an equestrian statue of Field Marshal Karl Philipp Prince Schwarzenberg, the victor over Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations (Leipzig, 1813). At the far end of the square is the palace that belonged to Schwarzenberg family. It is still owned by the family and part of it is the very classy Hotel Palais Schwarzenberg. In between the palace and the statue is the Befreiungsdenkmal (Liberation Monument) – a monstrosity that the Russians donated and built prior to the end of occupation in 1955. (Berlin has a similar "gift".) For not immediately obvious reasons the Viennese have not bulldozed it yet.

Back in Café Schwarzenberg, the waiter is impeccably dressed in a tuxedo and the service correct – professional and not overly friendly, reserved but definitely not sultry. I ordered a Wiener Werkstatt Jause, which included a Wiener Melange and a square chocolate covered cake with the name of the café in the style of the Wiener Werkstatt (WW). Architect Josef Hoffman, founder of the WW, was Stammgast (regular) in this café, and a 10% discount coupon for the nearby Wiener Werkstatt Shop is available. As expected both the coffee (€3.50) and cake (€3.20) were excellent, and prices average for this kind of establishment.

Café-Restaurant Schwarzenberg Kärntnerring 17 1010 Wien Tel: 022-512-8998

Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736) was French-born, but after being refused a promotion in the army of Louis XIV, entered into the services of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. He assisted in relieving Vienna from the Turkish siege in 1683 and became a field marshal in the Austrian army at age 25. Real fame followed his conclusive victory over the Turks at the Battle of Zenta (1697). He was acclaimed the "savior of Christianity in Europe" and became a close confidant of successive Habsburg emperors. He was appointed a senior minister and was Austrian chancellor or even emperor in all but name. A highlight in his illustrious diplomatic career was concluding the Treaty of Rastatt (1714) with Louis XIV who had spurned his services early on. During the time of Prince Eugene, the Habsburg Empire reached the zenith of its territorial might.

Although Prince Eugene was showered with honors, the real money – his share of the booty from the victory over the Turks – was only passed on to him more than a decade after the battle. He used much of the money in constructing two marvelous Baroque residences: one inside Vienna as winter residence and the Belvedere, his summer residence just outside Vienna’s boundaries. The winter palace in Himmelpfortgasse 8, close to the Opera, is currently being used by the Ministry of Finance and although the interior is thus off limits, the marvelous façade is worth a short detour.

The Belvedere complex consists of two Baroque palaces designed by Lukas von Hildebrandt. The smaller and older Unteres (Lower) Belvedere was completed in 1716 as the prince’s summer residence. It is beautifully proportioned with the interior an especially fine sample of Baroque art and architecture. Originally, a gloriette similar to the design at the imperial summer residence Schloss Schönbrunn was planned for the hill at the far end of the garden. However, fame and fortune intervened and the marvelous Oberes (Upper) Belvedere was erected instead. This Baroque masterpiece served exclusively as a ceremonial venue for receptions and functions hosted by Prince Eugene. It was completed in 1722 with construction taking only a year.

When French political philosopher Montesquieu visited Vienna, he remarked after seeing the Hofburg imperial palace and the Belvedere that it is a marvelous country where the subjects are housed better than the sovereign.

Prince Eugene never married and a very fortunate niece, Viktoria of Turin, inherited his estate. She sold his 15,000-volume library (now in the Nationalbibliothek at the Hofburg) to the ruling Habsburgs and his huge art collection was scattered all over Europe. Maria Theresa acquired the palaces in 1752, mainly to display the imperial art collection.

Ever since, the palaces have mostly functioned as public art galleries. Although Prince Eugene never lived in the Upper Belvedere, it was used as residence during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Famous residents included composer Anton Bruckner, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (of World War I fame), and pre-Second World War chancellors.

In the early eighteenth century, Prince Eugene of Savoy constructed two marvelous baroque palaces as summer residence outside the city walls of Vienna. Even today, when these palaces are very much in the heart of Vienna, the views from Belvedere are still marvelous.

The simpler Unteres (Lower) Belvedere palace served as residence, while the far more impressive Oberes (Upper) Belvedere was purely for ceremonial purposes, such as receptions, balls, and diplomatic conferences. It is considered one of the best examples of Baroque architecture in the world.

Nowadays, many visitors enter the Belvedere complex from the north via the Unteres Belvedere due to its proximity to the public transportation friendly Schwarzenberger Platz. More by luck than design, tram 18 was more convenient from our rental apartment and we could enter the complex from the south as its original creator intended. Passing through the impressive, crowned iron gate, we saw the Belvedere in all its splendor.

Although the portico, with its marvelous mascarons, survived to the present, this original main entrance was closed off when Archduke Franz Ferdinand used the palace as residence during the early-twentieth century. The palace is almost as splendid when viewed from the garden, but the main façade behind the huge reflection pool shows off the typically baroque architectural features the best.

The axis clearly allows plenty of light into the piano nobile – this was after all a ceremonial palace and nothing but well-lit reception rooms would do. Being a Baroque building, the pilasters of the piano nobile are naturally not plain but the piers of the attic storey are even more decorative. The modillion runs around the building with sufficient acroterions for the vast number of statues and ornaments that any respectable Baroque palace requires. The palace has a typically weathered green mansard roof with lucarnes in the lower and steeper part of its double slope. Cowls in the upper part of the roof confirm that eighteenth century architects understood the basics of ventilation. The domed roofs of the outer pavilions remind of Turkish tents – less anyone forgets why Prince Eugene became famous! Before passing on either side of the building to the gardens, from where the present entrance leads into the building, note the height of the socle and compare it with that on the northern façade.

The huge formal garden separates the two palaces. It is filled with formal style elements and a huge number of statues. Most impressive are the large sphinxes in the upper garden area. These statues with the body of a winged lion and the head (and breasts) of a woman represent strength and intelligence – Prince Eugene had both in abundance.

I was surprised and delighted to see the wealth of dandelion in the lawns of the Belvedere (and at Schloss Schönbrunn for that matter). I promptly declared my battle with this weed in my garden over.

The Oberes Belvedere houses the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ collection of the Österreichische Galerie (Austrian Gallery). Although the emphasis is on Austrian painters, works by famous non-Austrians such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Caspar David Friedrich are also on display. The more interesting parts of the collection are the Historicism, Realism, and Impressionism sections usually displayed on the first floor. Although the Classicism, Romanticism, and Biedermeier sections on the second floor have excellent works, these genres, not unjustifiably, seem to be of lesser interest to the general public.

The Belvedere’s role in Austrian history is not confined to the days of Prince Eugene. On 15 May 1955, the end of the occupation of Austria by the four allied powers was confirmed here and the Austrian Republic declared in the Marble Hall. Visiting in mid May 2005, one might have expected a special exhibition to commemorate this event, and one would not have been disappointed. Visiting in the last week of April, preparations for such exhibition were in full swing and half the museum was closed.

The closed parts usually contain the works that most people travel to the Belvedere to see: the Historicism, Realism, and Impressionism sections, which include the fin de siecle works by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele. To make up for the disappointment, a selection of the more famous works was on display on the ground floor – no reduction in admission price was offered. On display were works by amongst others Schiele, Kokoschka, Munch, Renoir, Monet, and Van Gogh.

The highlight, of course, was the works by the Viennese-born Gustav Klimt. One room had six large paintings, mostly nature scenes with very bright colors. The Kiss, arguably his most famous and most powerful work was in an adjacent room. I was surprised by the physical size of the work – the two figures are life size. This image is omnipresent in Vienna – on posters, postcards, t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads, fridge magnets – I came back from changing the baby to discover we owned one. We even had a poster of The Kiss hanging in the lounge of our rental apartment.

I was not surprised to have found the Classicism, Romanticism, and Biedermeier sections of lesser interest. We spent only a few minutes in these rooms before heading for the small museum café. The cake to order here is the Belvedere Torte – a chocolate-nut cake with marzipan icing. We complemented it with an Esterházy Torte – a white cake with five layers of cake separated by icing and topped with marzipan – named after the very prominent Hungarian noble family that stayed loyal to the Habsburg emperors. Although the cakes and great coffee somewhat made up for the disappointment of the closed galleries, I still felt somewhat robbed. My wife felt doubly so – our toddler gobbled up three quarters of her cake.

The Unteres Belvedere houses the Baroque art collection in the main building and the medieval collection in the adjacent Orangery. The Unteres Belvedere maintained much of its original interior and is thus a splendid setting for these mainly Austrian works of the eighteenth century.

The most impressive room in the palace is the two story marble room with a fine ceiling fresco by Martino Altomonte depicting the Apotheosis of Prince Eugene. Most of the room is filled by the original lead figures from the Providential Fountain by Georg Raphael Donner. The voluptuous maidens and sexy males of this fountain enraged Maria Theresa’s public morals’ commission to such extent that the fountain had to be removed. Although the work was condemned to be destroyed, it was fortunately saved. A copper copy is in use at Neuen Markt.

Another highlight of the collection is the heads by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. These sculptures of funny faces look far more modern than the late-Baroque period. The museum has 49 of the original 69 faces. According to some, Messerschmidt pulled faces in the mirror for inspiration but other sources claim he depicted people who spoke evil of him in court. The statues of Maria Theresa and her husband Francois, Duke of Lorraine, in the marble room are also his work – not a muscle pulling skew here.

I was somewhat surprised to suddenly find myself face to face with the very well known painting of Napoleon on the St Bernhard Pass. This huge work of Napoleon on his white horse by Jacques Louis David would clearly have been more at home in Paris. The color of Napoleon’s bright red coat and detailing of his uniform are as vivid as I recall from pictures of this painting in history books.

The final highlight in the collection is the last room in the palace: the Gold Room. This room is High Baroque and decorated with gilded carved woodwork and mirrors. In the center of the room is a huge statue – the Apotheosis of Prince Eugene – sculptured by Balthasar Permoser. Prince Eugene personally ordered this work from the Bavarian born, Viennese trained artist who was working at the Saxon court in Dresden at the time. The statue reflects several times in the various mirrors – vanity clearly was not in short supply.

A door from the final hall leads via open paths to the Medieval Collection in the Orangery – presumably, the guard here catches up on sleep on rainy days when visitors had to deposit their rain gear at the main entrance. On our visit, he found it necessary to closely follow our troupe, so for his benefit I spent extra time at the largely unprotected better-known works. Although the collection is a fine selection of Austrian religious art from the Late Gothic period, it is somewhat unexciting coming at the end of a morning that included the magnificent and more exciting works in the other collections.

Die Nackte Wahrheit – Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka und andere Skandale (28 January to 24 April 2005)

In preparation for our trip, I visited this special exhibition in Frankfurt’s acclaimed Shirn Art Space just days before driving to Vienna.

The Naked Truth is an exhibition of works by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, and contemporaries who worked in Vienna early in the twentieth century. In this exhibition, works are placed against the social backdrop of their time. The works were not only controversial but actually scandalized high society. The artists were accused of indecency – some were even briefly jailed. The Schirn emphasized the radical quality of these works and thereby illustrates how these artists helped to introduce Modernism.

Vienna at the start of the twentieth century was a conservative city. Although the Austrian Empire was long past its peak of power, Vienna seemed richer than ever; despite personal tragedies, the Habsburg imperial family seemed solidly in power. Vienna is a city marked by pomp and splendor. In art, conservative themes highlighting the achievements of the empire are the norm. In architecture, no building façade is left unadorned from detailed ornamentation. However, some artists are ready to rebel and shock Viennese society to its core.

In this city, Gustav Klimt’s work came as a shock. His "Nuda Veritas" introduced a phase now sometimes referred to as the naked truth, where a more realistic portrayal of human nudity became the norm. Debates on Klimt’s works raged in newspapers, society’s meeting places, and even the national parliament. One critic had nothing against nudity in paintings but did his women have to be that ugly?

Klimt’s contemporaries such as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, and Anton Kolig went even further and obsessively painted tabooed themes such as homoeroticism, masturbation, and sexuality and power. Women with legs, amongst other things, wide open were a favorite theme. The line between art and pornography is fine and often blurred…

Not only the artists, but also the architects of the period shocked Viennese high society. Adolf Loos designed a building with a façade devoid of ornamentation and had it built on Michaelsplatz, which faces the Hofburg imperial palace in Vienna. In protest, the furious emperor ordered the curtains permanently drawn on all palace windows facing the scandalously naked building.

Culture and art are favorite pastimes of middle class Germans and they do not let their children miss out. A group of around eight-year-old children was traipsing through the galleries on a guided tour. Wheeling my one-year-old through said exhibition, I did not bat an eyelid, but some of the other visitors were surprised, to say the least. I saw the group again later, still enthralled by the guide’s story while studying a painting of a man with an enviably huge penis.

The Schirn is open daily from 10am to 7pm, closing at 10pm on Wednesday and Thursday. Admission was €8.