The Burton Family: Vienna, week 3

Another fun week in Vienna! Here are just a few things we saw. I'll post more later!

Secession Building

Vienna is of course most renouned for its musical heritage--Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern are just the highlights of composers who spent large portions of their careers (if not their entire lives) in this city. But Viennese culture is not void of great visual artists. Perhaps the most important visual art movement to come out of Vienna was the Secession. Led by the painter Gustav Klimt, the Secession was a group of rebel painters, sculptors, and architects who in 1897 unified against the artistic establishment to embrace aesthetics outside of their contemporary, academic art world. The Secession Building, designed by architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, is emblematic of the movement. Here I am infront of it. The words on the facade read (in German), "To every age its art, to art its freedom."

Karlskirche

This breath-taking church was built between 1715-1737 to show gratitude to God for delivering Vienna from the plague. The pillars are particularly ornate. The kids were a bit restless, so we didn't go inside...maybe next time.

The Soviet World War II Memorial

We stumbled onto this between Karlskirche and the Belvedere Palace. It's a memorial to the Soviet soldiers who died liberating Vienna from the Nazi regime. The kids loved the getting wet from the fountains.

The Belvedere

These two palaces were built in the early 1700s. They were commissioned by a Habsburg general, Prince Eugen of Savoy, with the money he was rewarded for victoris in the Spanish Secession. Like other palaces, here, it is gorgeous with beautiful gardens.

The front of the Upper Palace

A fountain in the garden

Looking up the path at the back of the Upper Belvedere

Eden loved the sculted bushes.

More fountains

Racing up from the Lower Belvedere

The palaces are used as art galleries today. They house great works from many countries and periods. But the biggest draw is the Secessionist exhibit. They have "The Kiss," Klimts most famous work--I'm sure you recognize it. It is astounding in person--enormous, with vibrant colors and textures. They have several other Klimts, we posted images of a couple below.

"Judith and the Head of Holofernes"

One of my favorites: "Field of Poppies"

Here are two works by another Secessionist, Egon Schiele. We had never heard of him before, but all of his works were amazing.

And here's the ceiling of one of the main rooms in the Upper Belvedere

The Natural History Musem
We had planned to spend today hiking in the Alps. But a rainy forecast changed our plans. So we spent the morning in the Natural History Museum. The outside of the museum is itself worth seeing.