Delicacy of Painting
Masterpieces of Johann Georg Platzer
September 19, 2007 – January 13, 2008
Opening: Tuesday, September 18, 7pm
Alte Galerie at the
Landesmuseum Joanneum
Schloss Eggenberg
Eggenberger Allee 90, 8020 Graz
T +43-316/8017-9770
altegalerie [at] museum-joanneum.at
Johann Georg Platzer is one of the most important Central European rococo society painters. He is the epitome of delicacy in his delightful, exquisite and astonishingly small format paintings that are of the highest technical ability and chromatic virtuosity.
In this presentation of 40 paintings the Alte Galerie at the Landesmuseum Joanneum is once again performing a pioneer task: despite the fact that they fetch the highest prices on the art market, the paintings of Johann Georg Platzer (1704 -1761) are relatively unknown to research in the history of art. This may have to do with his epoch: this was the period of the rococo with its light-footed and sensually motivated feel for life that is frequently written off as frivolous and superficial. This new lust for life replaced the monumental unfolding of power and greatness in the gestures of the Baroque; and its painting is often confronted with the charge of being kitsch. The paintings are peopled with social table rounds, pleasant garden scenes and relaxed concert parties; the serious call to a strict moral sense that formerly accompanied revels of this kind, are pushed into the background –pleasure, absence of constraints and luxury also make their appearance in the focus of the pictorial statement that is presented in the most sumptuous execution. The painting becomes a luxury object.
It is in this period that the work of Johann Georg Platzer is also embedded. Born in South Tyrol his work achieves the highest technical standard in painting, he is a virtuoso in colour, possesses an enormous talent for composition and pleasure in detail. Following the fashion in art and the demands of his wealthy, largely upper class clientele, Platzer dedicated himself primarily to the field of society painting — he painted scenes of light hearted assemblies, suggested an earthly paradise in his informal garden parties richly filled out with the props and accessories of mythological feasts of the gods. He ironised moral warnings and pathetic figures, frequently presented the themes of the artist and art and his motifs also extended to the world of faith. His small format paintings are largely on copper, underlining their exclusive quality and giving an exquisite glow to Platzers frequently provocative colouration.
The paintings presented include work on loan from the Alte Pinakothek Munich, the German National Museum Nuremberg, the Schloss Fuschl Collection and the Dresden state collection; nine works are from the gallery’s own collection.
