Autumnal Path, 1900 - 1905

Already during her lifetime, the trained concert pianist and painter Olga Wisinger-Florian (1844–1926) received numerous awards for her sought-after landscapes and flower depictions. The plein-air painter was a pioneer among women artists, who actively furthered the emancipation of women in art and culture in Vienna. Training as a private pupil under Emil Jakob Schindler (1842–1892), the exponent of Atmospheric Impressionism embarked on study trips within Europe. In the painting Autumnal Path, created in 1900/05, she rendered a gloomy and abstract landscape using thick and overlapping layers of oil paint applied with a palette knife. It shows a rosy path leading into a thunderstorm looming dark gray and ominous in the background. The path is lined with the bent branches of a tree, dynamically scratched into the paint layers, its red autumnal foliage ruffled by the oncoming storm. What is particularly striking about the composition is the artist’s love of experimentation, evident both in the expressive paint application and in her considerable detachment from representationalism.

RR, 2023