International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

Studio-Talk

pious respect for the memory of
their deceased friend.


It is now some twenty years
since Wilhelm Bernatzik first ap-
peared before the public at the
Genossenschaft Exhibition. He
had then newly arrived from
Paris, where he had studied
under Leon Bonnat, and interest
at once arose in the young artist
who showed so much talent.
But, spite of his Paris sojourn,
Bernatzik remained an Austrian,
full of the strength and also the
robustness of his race, combined
with a fineness of feeling, poetic
judgment and true love for
colour which he everywhere shows
in his work. As a member of
the Secession he also showed
this same robust energy by the
manner in which, at short notice,
he collected in Paris the materials
for the exhibition of works by the
Impressionists and their followers
in 1903, an event which marked
so great an era in the history of
the Vienna Secession.

In his early days Bernatzik
painted religious pictures, for
which he found his motives in
the old cloisters of Heiligenkreuz,
near Vienna. His picture, The
Vision of St. Bernard, is now
in the Imperial Gallery. The
Emperor also acquired others of
the artist’s religious works, the
Monche am Kalvarienberg in
Heiligenkreuz among them.
Everything he painted was done
from nature, which offered him a
rich store of her abundance.
His early landscapes were suffi-
cient proof of this, and the young
artist quickly earned recognition.
He also painted interiors of the
old Biedermaier period, full of
poetic form for those who seek,
and Bernatzik was one of the
first of the many who sought to
read in this book. His water-
colour, Am Schreibtisch (At the
67

THE FAIRY LAKE

BY WILHELM BERNATZIK