Katereck (Dorf Ahorn gegen Loser)

The present work, painted in 1833, is an exceptional example by Austria's leading painter of the Biedermeier Period. Though primarily known for his genre paintings, Waldmüller considered an artist’s highest calling to be the representation of nature. He wrote in 1846: ‘nature must be the only source and sum total of our study; there alone can be found the eternal truth and beauty, the expression of which must be the artist's highest aim in every branch of the plastic arts' (quoted in A. Roessler, G. Pisko, Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller: Sein Leben, sein Werk und seine Schriften, Vienna, 1907, vol. II, p. 9).

Katereck (Dorf Ahorn gegen Loser) belongs to a notable sequence of landscapes painted in the Salzkammergut, an area where Waldmüller spent his summers from 1829 until 1843. This period is regarded as the climax of his development as a landscape painter and by 1834 the majority of his artistic output consisted almost entirely of landscapes painted in the Salzkammergut. These sojourns in the mountains seem to have given him the opportunity to liberate himself from the formal portraiture which had dominated his career so far. He quickly became fascinated by the untouched and pristine nature of the surrounding landscape. 'Waldmüller was captivated by the pristine green wilderness in its summery growth, the narrowly limited segment of nature with its cool shadows and the grasses and stones, branches and leaves, glowing in warm, sunlit colors…The lack of aerial perspective in the high mountains favored Waldmüller’s artistic intentions, making the faraway mountain chains and forest slopes appear as clear and as tangible as the foreground motifs, with no loss of definition in the distance, which for Waldmüller was an essential requirement' (B. Grimschitz, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Salzburg, 1957, p. 47).

Based on his own observation from a real vantage point, Katereck (Dorf Ahorn gegen Loser) reveals Waldmüller’s ability to create a remarkable sense of recession and depth using an extremely precise technique reproducing both the smallest background details and the principal foreground elements without losing definition. The clarity he saw before him in the mountains, unobstructed by arial perspective, is exactly replicated on the canvas. The present work displays the hallmarks of Biedermeier landscape painting through its luminosity, contrast of light and shadow, symphony of color and just the one small rooftop visible through a gap in the trees to remind the viewer of human existence. Waldmüller’s jewel-like plein-air landscapes from this period can be regarded as a milestone on the way to modernism, and demonstrate the power and beauty that can result from an artist exploring what he believes to be his art’s highest calling.