¡°Vienna on the Path to Modernism¡± at The National Museum of Art, Osaka, is essentially an illustrated history of sociopolitical developments leading to the city flourishing as one of the world¡¯s great cultural centers from the mid-18th century. The principal chronology begins with the Viennese Enlightenment, followed by the Biedermeier period (1815-48), then the Grunderzeit phase of the mid-19th century. The Viennese modernist path terminates with a smattering of expressionist paintings among the 300 exhibits.
Eighteenth-century Enlightenment values were received in Vienna by absolutist monarchs as a means to effective state governance. Public schools were reformed, new technologies emerged, like that seen in the 1784 print ¡°Johann Stuwer¡¯s Hot Air Balloon in the Prater,¡± and institutions such as Vienna¡¯s main general hospital were inaugurated.
Authoritarian protocols proceeded apace with censorship and the monitoring of the city¡¯s inhabitants, increasingly regarded as capital resources. As an operatic contest between light and dark, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart¡¯s ¡°The Magic Flute¡± (1791) captured something of the period¡¯s quandary, between Enlightenment ideals and their practical implementation. Freemasonry¡¯s Viennese luminaries, Mozart among them, constitute a small section of the exhibition.
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