(1875-1945)
The Dachstein glacier, signed and dated ERWIN PENDL 1903, watercolour, gouache on paper laid down on cardboard, 64,5 x 88 cm, mounted, framed, and: coloured offset print of a lithograph of Dachstein glacier, Lith. Anst. v. Karl Prochaska in Teschen, Publisher v. A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn in Vienna, 65,5 x 88,5 cm, unframed, the margins reinforced, creases, the label Geograph. Charakterbilder aus Österreich-Ungarn von A. Gerasch und E. Pendl, Dachsteingletscher von E. Pendl, Verlag von A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn, Wien on the reverse, (2) (BH)

The term “Charakterbild” (character picture) presumably goes back to Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who in his "Ansichten der Natur" (Views of nature; first published in 1807, 3rd expanded edition in 1849) wrote "Vom Charakter einer Landschaft” (Of the Character of a Landscape). In Austria, Friedrich Simony (1813-1896) was one of the first ones to use the term Charakterbild from 1865 onwards at the latest. He tried to achieve landscape representations which aimed at setting clearly in scene empirically ascertainable characteristics, like rock or vegetation occurrences or in addition, geological landscape formations, in order to make possible a kind of "type determination" on the basis of the picture.

We are grateful to Katharina Falser M. A. for the scientific support.

The geographical “Charakterbilder” published by A. Pichler Witwe & Sohn were intended as illustrative pictures in the form of wall charts for geographical teaching. Erwin Pendl and his workshop provided the painterly model-image for the lithograph