Wooded River Landscape in the Alps

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.