Gezicht op Schladming 1888

Friedrich Simony made this print of Schladming, likely in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The image presents a bird's-eye view of a small town nestled in a valley, dominated by the imposing mountains behind. The neat rows of houses, the church steeple, and the surrounding landscape evoke a sense of order. But what might this kind of ordered view mean within the social and cultural history of its time? In the 19th century, the rise of tourism and the cult of the picturesque fueled a demand for such idealized views. The Alps, in particular, became a popular destination, and images like this catered to the desires of urban dwellers seeking an escape from the industrialized world. Simony's print, like many of its kind, contributed to the construction of a romantic vision of the Austrian countryside, a vision that often obscured the realities of rural life. To fully understand this image, we might turn to travel guides, landscape paintings, and other visual and textual sources that shed light on the cultural values and social practices of nineteenth-century Austria. Only then can we see how the making and viewing of art like this were deeply embedded in the social and institutional contexts of their time.