Waldstraße bei Schärfling

This picture represents a major work of the Viennese painter Emil Jakob Schindler. With great care, he depicted partially-lit plants, sunspots on mossy boulders, and the light shining through the trees. On the lighter parts on the left side, the painter was able to almost seamlessly merge the effects of illumination into the rendering of depth of space. The furrows of the road stretch in the background, where workers are seen with their carts. Nature reproduced here has therefore not gone entirely untouched. “In order to know Austria’s nature, one needs only to see the pictures of my father [...] then one may understand it,” wrote Schindler’s daughter Alma in her memoirs. His techniques of realistic painting led to romantic results, which he categorized as “poetic realism.” He remained throughout his life on the search for a way to illustrate feelings.