22 Facts About Hans Makart

Hans Makart was a 19th-century Austrian academic history painter, designer and decorator.

Hans Makart was the son of a chamberlain at the Mirabell Palace, born in the former residence of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg, the city in which Mozart had been born.

Hans Makart was initially trained in painting by Johann Fischbach at the Vienna Academy between 1850 and 1851.

Hans Makart, who was a poor draughtsman but had a passionate and sensual love of colour, was impatient to escape from the routine of art school drawing.

Hans Makart went to Munich, and after two years of independent study attracted the attention of Karl Theodor von Piloty, under whose guidance he developed his painting style between 1861 and 1865.

Hans Makart's fame became established during the following year with two works: Modern Amoretti and The Plague in Florence.

Shortly after this, his painting Romeo and Juliet was purchased for the Vienna Museum by the Austrian Emperor, and Hans Makart was invited by the aristocracy to go to Vienna.

Hans Makart gradually turned it into an impressive place full of sculptures, flowers, musical instruments, requisites and jewellery that he used to create classical settings for his portraits, which were mainly of women.

The opulent, semi-public spaces of Hans Makart's atelier were the scene of recurring rendezvous between the artist and his public.

Hans Makart became the mediator between different levels of society: he created a socially ambiguous atmosphere in which nobility and bourgeoisie could encounter one another in mutual veneration of the master, and aestheticised the burgeoning self-awareness of the bourgeoisie by means of historical models drawn from the world of the aristocracy.

Hans Makart became the acknowledged leader of Vienna's artistic scene, which in the 1870s passed through a period of feverish activity.

Hans Makart not only practised painting, but was an interior designer, costume designer, furniture designer and decorator, and his work embellished most of the public spaces of the era.

Hans Makart's work engendered the term "Makartstil", or "Makart style", which completely characterised the era.

Hans Makart's festivals became an institution in Vienna which lasted up until the 1960s.

Hans Makart's painting The Entry of Charles V into Antwerp caused some controversy, because Charles V was depicted arriving in a procession surrounded by nude virgins.

Hans Makart designed for him a dreamworld decoration as a large painting that is still extant.

Hans Makart frequently introduced asphalt into his paint in order to enhance the impact of his colours, which has led to some deterioration in his paintings over the years.

Hans Makart was deeply interested in the interaction of all the visual arts and therefore in the implementation of the idea of the "total work of art" which dominated discussions on the arts in the 19th century.

The 1879 Hans Makart Parade was the culmination of all these endeavours.

Hans Makart was a friend of the composer Richard Wagner, and it could be argued that the two developed the same concepts and stylistic tendencies in their differing art forms: a concern for embedding historical and mythological motifs in a framework of aestheticism, making their respective works historical pageants.

Hans Makart was considered the Austrian equivalent of the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

The entire decorative focus of the Secession, the Austrian Art Nouveau of which Klimt was a part, arose in an environment in which Hans Makart had prioritised the decorative aspects of art.