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Lot Essay
Sigmund Walter Hampel’s work sought to bring together Symbolism and Art Nouveau against the artistic backdrop of the Vienna Secession. Hampel was an early member of the Hagenbund group of Austrian artists and a companion of Gustav Klimt. Like Klimt, he spent his summer months at Lake Attersee and both artists had studios in the immediate vicinity on Hietzinger Hauptstrasse.
Hampel’s interior scenes create an other-worldly symbolist effect thanks to the imaginative movement prompted by his stimulating brushstrokes. This can be seen in The Priest’s Sunday Coat, 1903 (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna). Whilst a cooler muted palette than the present work, similar brushstrokes bring an almost animated movement to the otherwise still interior. As with the work of Hampel’s contemporary, the Danish Interior painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, pictures are displayed on the walls but a closer reading of each work is deliberately obscured thanks to the artist’s style.
Similar themes re-occur in Hampel's Interior. Whilst the bright golden toned palette illuminates the scene, Interior contains elements of mystery - the shrouded object in the foremost room is balanced by the disappearing female figure in the next. Three receding doorways – geometric lines which are offset by the curved back of a chair in each room – invite us deeper into the scene whilst showing us less of each interior space. With such a composition, Hampel uses receding lines and obscured objects to invite us into his world, whilst at the same time keeping a deeper understanding of that world hidden from our view.
Hampel’s interior scenes create an other-worldly symbolist effect thanks to the imaginative movement prompted by his stimulating brushstrokes. This can be seen in The Priest’s Sunday Coat, 1903 (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna). Whilst a cooler muted palette than the present work, similar brushstrokes bring an almost animated movement to the otherwise still interior. As with the work of Hampel’s contemporary, the Danish Interior painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, pictures are displayed on the walls but a closer reading of each work is deliberately obscured thanks to the artist’s style.
Similar themes re-occur in Hampel's Interior. Whilst the bright golden toned palette illuminates the scene, Interior contains elements of mystery - the shrouded object in the foremost room is balanced by the disappearing female figure in the next. Three receding doorways – geometric lines which are offset by the curved back of a chair in each room – invite us deeper into the scene whilst showing us less of each interior space. With such a composition, Hampel uses receding lines and obscured objects to invite us into his world, whilst at the same time keeping a deeper understanding of that world hidden from our view.