Vienna School of Fantastic Realism

also: Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus

school movement 1946-present Austria Europe

The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism was founded in Vienna in 1946 by a group of young painters - among them Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter and Anton Lehmden - who had studied under Albert Paris Gütersloh at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Gütersloh's insistence on Old Master technique gave them a meticulous, early-Flemish craft with which they pursued dream, myth and esoteric imagery: a naturalistic surrealism pitched against the era's dominant abstraction. The critic Johann Muschik coined the school's name in the 1950s, and its first exhibition opened at the Belvedere in 1959. Fuchs, Hausner, Hutter, Brauer and Lehmden - 'the Big Five' - then showed internationally. The fusion of visionary subject matter with hard-won technique made the school a lasting catalyst for fantastic and visionary art.

Arik Brauer during the opening of the exhibition Arik Brauer und die Bibel ( Arik Brauer and the Bible ) on the occasion of his 80th birthda
Arik Brauer during the opening of the exhibition Arik Brauer und die Bibel ( Arik Brauer and the Bible ) on the occasion of his 80th birthdaCC BY-SA 3.0 (credit: Manfred Werner - Tsui) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Meticulous Old Master technique - smooth glazing and fine drawing - beneath visionary subjects
  • Dream, myth, religious and esoteric imagery rendered with naturalistic precision
  • Luminous, jewel-like color and staged, otherworldly light
  • Dense hallucinatory detail: hybrid bodies, architecture and ornament fused in one field
  • Figurative naturalism deliberately pitched against contemporary abstraction

Key figures

  • Ernst Fuchs (1930-2015) — Co-founder and leading painter of the school, who spread its technique through international exhibitions and teaching
  • Rudolf Hausner (1914-1995) — The 'psychic realist' whose self-portrait-based dream imagery made the school's inwardness explicit
  • Arik Brauer (1929-2021) — Painter, stage designer and muralist whose richly colored visions exemplify the school
  • Wolfgang Hutter (1928-2014) — Painter and stage designer of artificial paradises and fantastical fairytale scenes
  • Albert Paris Gütersloh (1887-1973) — Teacher at the Vienna Academy whose Old Master emphasis grounded the school's craft

Example works

  • Turm aus gebrannter Erde — Arik Brauer (1962/63)
  • Der Regenmacher vom Karmel — Arik Brauer (1964)
  • Arik-Brauer-Haus (façade murals), Vienna — Arik Brauer (1993)

Sources

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