Around 1900, Vienna became one of the most important centres of culture in Europe. New artistic movements became the focus of people’s interest. With the foundation of the Secession in 1897, an aspiring generation of artists found their artistic home. Gustav Klimt was voted the first President of the new association, Carl Moll the Vice President. This sense of new beginnings and the winds of change affected all areas in art. The date when this picture was painted, 1903, was also the year when the Wiener Werkstätte was founded. That same year there was a major Impressionist exhibition at the Secession which had a lasting impact on the Austrian art scene. Moll played a major part in realizing the show. Light and its influence on the colours of nature were at the forefront of artistic interest.
The painting shows the Pfarrplatz in Heiligenstadt with the Beethoven House on the left. In 1907 Carl Moll based his woodcut ‘Heiligenstadt, Pfarrplatz 2’ from the portfolio Beethoven Houses, published by the Wiener Werkstätte, on this oil painting. This indicates that the artist regarded the composition of this oil painting as very successful. Ludwig van Beethoven spent the summer of 1817 in this old wine-grower’s house on the corner of Pfarrplatz/Eroicagasse.
This peaceful square is bathed in the atmosphere of evening. The street lamp in front of the Beethoven House is lit up. The waning light of the setting sun has tinged the walls of the house a pale pink and the plaster shimmers in shades of grey and turquoise, creating the impression that we are gazing at the surface of water. The picture’s subject has been pushed up to the top and the bottom half of the picture is filled with an empty square, structured only by the curbs of Probusgasse as it leads into the Pfarrplatz. In this way Moll emphasizes the tranquillity of the evening scene. It calls to mind the meadows of flowers or the early Attersee pictures by Gustav Klimt with their high horizon – a composition typical of Austrian Jugendstil. The pastel shades are also characteristic of Secessionist painting as is the preference for square formats. This oil painting is an important and typical work of Austrian Jugendstil.

Sophie Cieslar

Literatur: Tobias G. Natter, Gerbert Frodl: Carl Moll (1861 – 1945). Salzburg 1998, Abb. S. 32 (Blick in den Saal IV der 17. Ausstellung der Wiener Secession mit Bildern von Carl Moll), vgl. Abb. S. 123 (Holzschnitt „Heiligenstadt, Pfarrplatz 2“).