An official artist with ties to the Austrian emperor, Ender specialized in polished, picturesque views of Austria. Commercially successful, his landscapes contributed to shaping the country's self-image in the middle decades of the 1800s. Ender's later work became increasingly personal in subject and experimental in style--as in this representation of an Alpine river surrounding a rocky outcropping. While the central area of the composition is highly controlled and clearly descriptive, its periphery is treated so loosely that it verges on abstraction.