Abstract (eng)
The master's thesis is dedicated to the work of the Austrian painter Hans Makart (1840-1884), who played a significant role in shaping Vienna's art and cultural scene in the 1870s. With his convention-defying reinterpretation of history painting, he attracted international admiration but also sharp criticism and his work continues to be received ambiguously to this day. Starting with a contextual summary of the development of history painting in the German-speaking world, the paper examines, using the early works “Moderne Amoretten” and “Pest in Florenz”, the image strategies oscillating between tradition and innovation. Additionally, the paper describes Makart's transformation from a subversive bohemian to an academic master in his later years. The focus of these analyses is on the various sources of inspiration from earlier and contemporary art and culture, which reveal the creativity and complexity of Makart's eclecticism. The paper also attempts to understand the modern design principles and reception aesthetic, highlighted by Makart's work, as an artistic phenomenon within a transforming capitalist modernity. After the formal-aesthetical analysis, a critical overview of the alternating history of reception examines the aesthetic categories and terminology, as well as the associated conceptions of art, which continue to influence Makart’s art historical classification. Finally, the findings are integrated into a final discussion about the potential, but also the limits, of Makart’s modernity. A comparison with selected works of contemporary art is also intended to show that the work of the historicist "old (salon-)master" contains an often-overlooked relevance on both a formal and a programmatic level.