FISCHBACH, Johann - b. 1797 Grafenegg, d. 1871 München

Austrian painter. He studied in Vienna at the Akademie der bildenden Künste with Joseph Mössmer (1780-1845). He made a study tour in Germany and Switzerland in 1825. He joined the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna in 1836. He was in Rome in 1837. Between 1840 and 1860 he stayed in Salzburg where he joined the committee promoting the foundation of the Salzburg Arts Society in 1844. He ran a “small academy” for art-loving amateurs, and he gave painting lessons to the young Hans Makart (1840-1884). He moved to Munich in 1860.

He was a landscape and genre painter, he created small-scale paintings of charming Biedermeier scenes in which his depiction of light was lyrically atmospheric. His rural genre scenes with huntsmen and poachers were very popular at the time. He painted also portraits and illustrations.

View of Salzburg with the Kapuzinerberg

Fischbach, the successful landscape and watercolour painter, who settled in Salzburg between 1840 an 1860, chose for this painting the motif of the view of the right bank of the Salzach river with the Kapuzinerberg and the Capuchin monastery. The depiction of the town is characterised by attention to detail and, compared with the landscape, the town seems to be painted in miniature. A watercolour study for this work dating from ¹⁸⁴²⁄₄₃ is to be found in the Graphische Sammlung of the Residenzgalerie in Salzburg.