August 15

Today was awesome! We went to the Upper Belvedere, and as a bonus (partly due to my stupidity for getting the wrong ticket), I got to see the Lower Belvedere as well!

The Belvedere has art from all sorts of eras throughout history, from Medieval Times to contemporary times. 

One example of art displayed in the Belvedere was Biedermeier art. The Biedermeier period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and the arts began to appeal to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and ended with the onset of the Revolutions of 1848.

Among the art that we saw were some of the legendary artworks of Gustav Klimt, an artist well known throughout Austria and the world for his unique art style. His art is presented not just in the Belvederes, but also at other museums too, like the Kunshistorisches Museum and the Leopold Museum (which we’ll visit later on). 

At the Lower Belvedere, I saw a lot of art from the Dada Movement, an avant-garde art movement that emerged from existentialism and a rejection of logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalism, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. One notable artist whose work was displayed at the Lower Belvedere was the works of Hannah Höch, who was known for her collage-style artworks.