Children at the Window

genre

Chubby-cheeked, happy children in their Sunday best are crowded at the window, watching with interest what is going on outside. With friendly smiles, the smaller of the two boys and the sister follow the movement of their brother's arm as he points out of the picture with his index finger. Merry peasant children, depicted without any suggestion of social criticism, were a popular motif when this painting was executed in 1853.

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About the Artist

Fedinand Georg Waldmüller

1793 – 1865

One of the leading Austrian painters of the Biedermeier period. He studied at the Vienna Academy. He lived in Bratislava, then worked as a teacher of art in the house of Count Gyulay. After his return to Vienna, he copied pictures of old masters, and painted portraits, genre subjects, and still-life, but is perhaps best known for his landscapes, which in their loving attention to detail illustrate his belief that the close study of nature should be the basis of painting. He became the most significant representative of Biedermeier: he was second to none in depicting nature in delicate colours. His many genre-pictures are also significant. He became a teacher of the Vienna Academy. However, his views were in opposition to the official doctrines of ideal art promulgated by the Vienna Academy, and after he had published his works on art education, he was forced to retire in 1857. He was rehabilitated in 1863.

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