Winter Courtyard Carl Moll

Having abandoned his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Carl Moll became a private student of Emil Jakob Schindler, who taught him to paint the kind of atmospheric landscapes that helped free him from the constraints of plein air naturalism. In 1897, he was one of the founders of the Vienna Secession and was even its president in 1900–1901. As a member of the radical, experimental group of friends that gathered around Gustav Klimt, he played an active role in the creation of an independent institutional system for the fine arts and in the renewal of artistic forms.
In 1901, Moll, together with the celebrated Secessionist architect of the Vienna Secession, Josef Hoffmann, designed a villa for the Hohe Warte district of Vienna, which became a place of pilgrimage among progressive artists. This work shows the snow-covered garden of the villa, with part of the building in the background. The balanced harmony and lyrical mood of the painting’s tonality can be attributed to the influence of Schindler. At the same time, the tightly balanced composition adheres to the aesthetic principles of revolutionary Viennese architecture, which, with its insistence on clean lines and strict internal arrangement, also had a powerful impact on contemporary painting.

Ferenc Tóth