Girl in a Garden, 1906

It is not only in title but also in style and composition that Hans Böhler’s (1884–1961) Girl in a Garden and Richard Gerstl’s (1883–1908) portrait Mathilde Schönberg in the Garden, dated two years later, have much in common. Painted in thick, gesturally applied colors, the two women in wide reform dresses appear to be floating amid the greenery of the gardens around them. However, the mood conveyed is entirely different: While Mathilde stoically strides out through the wildly luxuriating vegetation around her, the girl rather looks like a blithesome dancing fairy. Passing through the leaves of the trees around her, the incident light illuminates parts of her dress which seems to be dissolving into sheer airiness. In his depiction, Böhler invokes the questionable ideal of the “child-woman” or “femme fragile” that was so popular in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

RR, 2021