The portrait in Vienna and Europe

Second week of a two part course at the National Gallery looking at the current exhibition “Facing the modern : the portrait in Vienna 1900” and putting the works into context.

This week concentrated on the wider context of portraiture in Europe at the time drawing parallels with the Impressionists, Van Gogh and Picasso drawing on the National Galleries own collection. It was fascinating to consider whether Vienna was unique or whether it was responding to more general trends in art.

We also looked at earlier works but I found this less useful as somehow comparing a Viennese portrait of 1900 with a Vermeer seemed a bit tenuous. I am sure it had a influence but this section seemed more to be exploration of portraiture in the collection. It was interesting but didn’t seem to connect to the subject in hand. 

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