Krieau im Prater 1902

Tina Blau painted ‘Krieau im Prater’ in Austria. The Prater, a large public park in Vienna, was the former imperial hunting grounds before being opened to the public. Blau’s landscape represents a distinctly modern vision of the natural world. In the late nineteenth century, the rise of the middle class and the expansion of urban centers led to a new appreciation for nature as a source of leisure and recreation. Landscape painting became a popular genre, reflecting this growing interest in the natural world. Blau studied at the Vienna Academy, but as a woman, she was not granted the same opportunities as her male peers, such as studying the nude. Her dedication to landscape painting can be seen, in part, as a way to circumnavigate this institutional barrier. To better understand this artwork, we can look at the ways Austrian artists at the time engaged with questions of national identity in the face of modernization. By looking at historic exhibition reviews, and biographies of the artist, we can develop a clearer picture of the artwork’s historical meaning.