«Zimmerbild» as a scenography of the style of an epoch in the oeuvre of the Austrian Empire artists

Abstract

The Zimmerbild genre («room painting») represents a visual interpretation of the Biedermeier era style (1815–1848) in the art of the Austrian Empire. The purpose of the study is to clarify the distinctive features of the works of this genre in the Viennese (metropolitan) center and to identify its regional transformations in the territories of the crown lands of the state, in particular the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Methods. The methodology of the work includes general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, systematization, generalization), historical and cultural method and art historical methods (iconographic, iconological, compositional, coloristic analysis). Results. It has been established that the Zimmerbild of the Biedermeier era is not reduced to a variety of interior painting, but appears as a kind of scenography of the style of the era, in which the objective world performs the function of a narrative carrier. In the Viennese artistic center (artists Johann Stefan Decker, Rudolf von Alt, Peter Fendi, etc.) Zimmerbild functions as an autonomous genre of paintings and graphics that were in demand among representatives of the imperial court and the aristocracy. In the reception of masters who worked in the territories of the historical Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (Alojzy Reichan, Józef Rejchan, Jan Kanty Maszkowski, Martin Jabłonski, etc.), Zimmerbild as an autonomous genre is almost not distinguished, but its imagery (careful fixation of furniture, textiles, and decorative surroundings) is assimilated in chamber portraits of townspeople, forming a special version of the «portrait-interior» synthesis. Such a “home portrait” reveals the specificity of Biedermeier in the eastern Galician lands as a form of regional reception of the Viennese «canon». Conclusions. Zimmerbild as a cultural and artistic phenomenon of the Biedermeier era corresponds to the concept of «portrait-interior synthesis» within the everyday genre of fine art, in which a detail of furniture, textiles and decorative surroundings begins to function as a representative of the social identity of the customer.