Driven by drama

The artist only Vienna remembers, Hans Makart balanced the want of audience acceptance & artist’s integrity

The most famous painter in northern Europe in the 1890s was not Gustav Klimt, not Egon Schiele, not Edvard Munch, but an Austrian named Hans Makart,” wrote eminent art critic Robert Hughes (The Decline of the City Mahagonny/ June 25, 1990/The New Republic). “His studio in Vienna, a huge hangar of a place full of antlers, Persian rugs, and palms, was a shrine of pilgrimage for collectors from all over Europe. There he hung his enormous paintings — battle scenes, varied with bits of mythology for gentlemen who preferred nymphs. Public belief in Makart’s genius was second only to his own. Journalists hung on his table talk… And today he is almost wholly forgotten — except in Vienna, where he remains a curiosity of its Belle Epoque.”

A celebrity symbol within the high culture of Vienna, Hans Makart (1840 - 1884) had earned many nicknames including ‘prince of painters’, ‘the divine magician’, and ‘magician of colours’. Such was his star status and popularity with high and mighty that a period in Western art history (1869 - 1884) came to be known as the ‘Makart Era’. While his galvanising personality and flair for publicity made him a household name at home, his paintings travelled in European and American cities, garnering international attention. Besides art, Makart’s influence extended to contemporary taste in theatre, interior design, and fashion.

Before he became the acknowledged leader of the artistic life of Vienna, Makarat, son of a chamberlain at Mirabell Palace, initially trained at the Vienna academy. He then moved to Munich to be tutored by Karl Theodor von Piloty, a leading exponent of German Realism.

After travelling to London, Paris and Rome to study art to hone up his skills, he returned to Vienna in 1869 on the invitation by Emperor Franz Joseph. Setting up his studio in the city that was beginning to grow into a bustling world metropolis, Makart steadily rose in bourgeoisie hierarchy, eventually attracting collectors from all over Europe.

Scenes of the unseen

“This little visionary… forced the world to see things as he saw them,” recalled Viennese art critic Ludwig Hevesi, way back in 1900. “It is not an exaggeration to say: Makart was the most suggestive painter our German century has seen… The theatrical Makartstil asserted itself in such a multifaceted way… that no one could escape it.”

Makart was a prolific painter who completed about 700 paintings in a relatively short career. He hung his enormous paintings in his studio, which quickly became a focal point of Viennese high society. It is said that his admirers and fans queued outside his studio and even paid an admission fee to enter it. It was in his studio that Makart not only flaunted his social status, but also cultivated his image and marketed his art.

At the height of his popularity, every room in central Europe wanted to look a tiny bit like Makart’s studio, every aristocratic lady wanted to model for his paintings. While portraying high-society ladies and gentlemen in historical costumes, he set them against a variety of rich textiles and exotic props like glittering jewels, floral displays and sculptural pieces that he meticulously collected over the years. “The interior of Makart’s studio derived its visual impact from the sheer accretion of eclectic objects,” explains art historian Eric Anderson. “He pushed the idea of the antiquary’s interior to a fantastic extreme, combining oriental carpets, Baroque architectural fragments, Turkish stools and Renaissance chairs in deliberate juxtapositions of different times and places. Every surface was laden with patterned fabrics, gilded trinkets, animal skins, and dried palm fronds.”

Makart’s art was characterised by the free and bold use of colours, and a flair for the theatrical. Stylistically, he considered himself to be a history painter in the tradition of 17th-century Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. While bringing his unique flamboyance to portraiture, he remained flexible in his techniques. He painted quickly and used light to evoke strong emotions.

Highly experimental in nature, he explored new reproduction techniques to promote his works. He often painted over reproduced photographs to get an accurate feel of composition and framed his images inspired by photography.

Inherent drama

Historians have pointed out how for Makarat, everything was theatre, and how his art was about feelings, not ideas.

Evidently, he seemed less concerned in depicting the likeness of the subjects and more concerned on grand compositions that highlighted an inherent drama. He was not averse to including erotic elements in his images.

“Makart was a phänomen (phenomenon),” says art historian and curator Alexander Klee. “He had the ability to influence people from all classes through his paintings. In the 20th century, artists became rebels or outcasts, but Makart represented the fin de siècle image of an artist who wanted acceptance from his audience. At the same time, however, he only did what he wanted to do.”

Explaining why some of his images became controversial images, Klee explains that part of the scandal came from erotic features in his paintings. “Adults kissing, loose-fitting clothing, an uncovered ankle, monks receiving sexual favours, gold backgrounds inspired by church paintings with nudes in the forefront, depictions of sex and crime — these were all scandalous and sometimes almost blasphemous compositions… He had to survive as an artist. Painting was expensive, so he had to create drama in order to keep his audience interested in coming to his exhibitions.”

Makart died of syphilis when he was just 44. He was accorded a ceremonial funeral; more than 200 artists carrying torches took part in the funeral procession. However, he soon seemed to fade away from public attention due to changing perceptions and tastes.

One interesting aside is that Adolf Hitler, who systematically looted art that he admired, was an ardent admirer of Makart’s art. He supposedly assembled a collection of Makart paintings for his planned Führer Museum in Linz. A historical photograph shows Hitler presenting Makart’s painting The Falconer to his confidante and co-plunderer, Hermann Goering, as a birthday present!