VIENNA.- Landscape painting flourished across Europe during the nineteenth century. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865) was part of this development, capturing people’s yearning for the natural world in his intimate portraits of trees, sweeping landscapes from the Vienna Woods, and influential views of the Salzkammergut. The show also features trailblazing works by contemporaries, such as John Constable and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, inspiring us to explore Waldmüller’s realistic images of the natural world against the backdrop of wider European artistic developments.

General Director Stella Rollig: “Is it even possible to find new aspects to spotlight in Waldmüller’s work? It is indeed! Waldmüller’s popularity and the Belvedere’s extensive holdings of his paintings make him one of the key artists in the museum’s collection. By juxtaposing his landscapes with works by other European artists, this exhibition promises fresh perspectives—even for enthusiasts and experts.”

In the first half of the nineteenth century, progressive artists across Europe issued a clarion call for art to be true to nature. At the same time, they increasingly concentrated on their native landscapes. Accompanying this was a more general trend of people wanting to spend more time in the natural world, to learn about it, and to bring nature into their homes in the form of pictures. Political upheavals, social change, and advancing industrialization were the forces behind this cultural shift.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, a major Austrian painter from the Biedermeier period, made it his goal to paint “the nature that surrounds us, our time, our customs.” His true-to-life portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes polarized opinion. Waldmüller was—and still is—best known for his realistic portraits and scenes from everyday life. Real, observed landscapes only appear as backgrounds early on in his career. This changed in the 1830s, and Waldmüller began placing the natural world at the forefront of his work, producing numerous views with striking naturalism. From that point onward, landscape assumed a decisive role in his art—an interest that remained with him until the end of his life.

Waldmüller was one of the few artists of his time to be equally successful in portraiture, genre painting, and landscape. His naturalistic landscapes—appearing both as backgrounds and as independent images—reflect a broader interest in the natural world in Europe. By placing Waldmüller’s landscapes in the context of works by his European contemporaries, new perspectives on his oeuvre unfold, positioning it as a distinctive example of naturalism in Europe, said curator Arnika Groenewald-Schmidt.

Although rooted in a shared ideology, distinct strands of naturalism emerged in different countries, partly interconnected and partly parallel developments. Significant variations in style and approaches to representing the natural world reflect differing methods of training, cultural backgrounds, and topographies. The exhibition offers the chance to explore Waldmüller’s engagement with landscape in his views from the Prater in Vienna and the Vienna Woods, the region around Salzburg, and from Italy. Meanwhile, works by European greats, such as John Constable, Johann Christian Dahl, and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, place Waldmüller in the context of his time.

In summer 2026 the National Gallery will present the first ever UK exhibition of paintings by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. Waldmüller: Landscapes (2 July – 20 September 2026), additionally the first devoted solely to his work as a landscape painter, is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Belvedere, which is lending most of the works on display.

Nature Takes Center Stage

Gnarled trees in the Vienna Prater, the snowcapped Dachstein mountain, a sun-drenched path near Mödling: Real, observed landscapes play a central role in the work of Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. For this major Austrian painter from the Biedermeier period, landscape was not only a backdrop for portraits and scenes from everyday life but also a subject in its own right. He always sought to depict his motifs with maximum truth to nature—an approach that polarized opinion.

“Truth to nature” was a goal of progressive artists throughout Europe in the first half of the 19th century. Rather than composing idealized landscapes emulating classical models, they were interested in depicting what they saw. Exploring their own surroundings was of key importance. Ongoing industrialization prompted a yearning for a return to simplicity. Coupled with the growing popularity of Alpine tourism, authentic views from the natural world were a welcome addition to the homes of wealthy city-dwellers.

But what image of nature does Waldmüller present, and how do his paintings convey the idea of people’s altered relationship with their environment? This exhibition explores Waldmüller’s engagement with landscape in the Vienna Woods, the Prater, the Salzkammergut, and in Italy. It also features works by fellow artists such as John Constable, Johan Christian Dahl, and Théodore Rousseau.

Tradition and Innovation

Landscape painting first flourished in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael painted scenes from their surroundings, liberating nature from its function as a background and making landscape a theme in its own right. In the 19th century, these compositions inspired pioneers of realistic depiction, including John Constable in England, the Barbizon School in France, and Waldmüller. They spurned idealized academic compositions and showed authentic views of their environment.

Waldmüller’s pictures of forests and monumental trees in the Vienna Prater from the 1830s onward typify this transition, as individual trees were transformed from objects of study into subjects of painting.

Identification with the Landscape

Following the Napoleonic Wars, new patriotic awareness emerged across Europe. Characteristic views of real landscapes became popular. After Salzburg joined the Habsburg monarchy in 1816, the Alpine landscape became symbolic of the empire. From the 1820s onward, the region developed into a vacation destination for the wealthy.

Waldmüller’s portraits featuring Alpine backdrops not only depicted desirable locations but also signaled social status and regional identification. While the nobility posed before their estates, the aspiring middle class chose idyllic mountain landscapes.

Art and Tourism
From the late 1820s, Ischl’s brine baths and the beauty of the mountains attracted wealthy Viennese. Artists followed to meet demand for recognizable landscapes. Views of the Dachstein, Lake Hallstatt, and the Gastein waterfall became iconic and still shape how we imagine these regions today. Waldmüller also painted intimate, less spectacular places, reflecting urban longing for “unspoiled” nature.

Southern Light

After intensive engagement with Alpine motifs, Waldmüller sought inspiration in Italy. In 1841 he traveled to Lake Garda and Venice, and from 1844 spent three autumns in Sicily. There he discovered painting in direct sunlight, influencing his work permanently. As elsewhere, his focus was precise observation, especially of light and shadow.

Light Painting and Genre

Inspired by Italy, Waldmüller later painted rural scenes in the Vienna Woods, straddling reality and idealization. While European artists moved toward atmospheric brushwork, he maintained a lucid, detail-focused style. Critics compared his work unfavorably with photography, and his bright colors were described as “garish.” Yet his approach paralleled the Pre-Raphaelites in Britain, who also valued vivid color, rich detail, and outdoor study.