Art Blogging: Hans Makart

Hans Makart (1840-1884) was an Austrian Academic painter. He studied in Munich, London, Paris, and Rome. Makart was immensely popular in Vienna, where he built a grand home and atelier. He composed portraits, architectural renderings, but most importantly, huge sprawling works of the the grandiosity that only an empire in its death throws is sufficiently self-deluded enough to embrace. He painted immense canvases from classical themes and courtly life in a way reminiscent of Boucher and French Rococo on the eve of the guillotine's arrival.

The Anniversary Parade: Hunting Party with Treasure Wagon (1879) at the Historical Museum of Stadt Wien in Vienna.

Abundantia -- The Gifts of the Earth. (1870) at the Musee D'Orsay. All of the delightful absurdity of Rococco conveyed through Neoclassical norms.
Snow White Sleeping (1872) also, at the Stadt Wein. Makart was not immune to the revival of European folklore that swept the 19th Century.