Ferdinand Brunner began his artistic education as an apprentice in the studio of court theatre painters Brioschi, Burghart and Kautsky in 1884, designing and executing stage decorations for seven years. After a brief study trip to Carinthia, he started studying at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1891 under Eduard Lichtenfels. In 1901 he became a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. He undertook frequent travels, his preferred destinations being Italy, Germany, the dominions of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as well as Upper and Lower Austria. Brunner’s oeuvre was highly acclaimed both in Austria and abroad, a number of exhibitions were held in his honour and he received many awards, among them a prestigious national gold medal in 1910. Brunner was a very unique landscape painter. His wide expanses and vast skies, often clad in heavy clouds, his farm-houses neatly nestling into the landscape, his solitary trees on a hill or quiet country lanes suggest a sense of greatness, generosity and monumentality without so much of a trace of pathos. Brunner depicted what he saw in a simplified, stylised manner, omitting small details. This approach, coupled with his extraordinary feel for soft, lyrical tones resulted in landscapes of poetic splendour.
Literature
Ferdinand Brunner, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Vienna 1970, with a introduction by R.Feuchtmüller; Ferdinand Brunner, in: Der getreue Eckhart, Vienna 1930, Heft 9; H.Fuchs, Ferdinand Brunner, Vienna 1979; Lexica: Eisenberg, Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Schmidt, Müller-Singer, Busse Nr.11161