Michael Powolny, Monk, c. 1906, at the Leopold Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Vienna is a city of many things: of cafes and tortes, of Freud and Habsburgs, of museums and cathedrals and music and art and opulence and death. But perhaps above all it is a city of faces, especially faces that jettison idealism in favor of expressiveness, realism, or character. Whether within a gallery’s walls or lining public streets, these emotive visages are woven into the city’s physical and psychological spaces, endlessly engaging passersby with their unspoken, unrealized narratives.
Detail of one of the two fountains on Michaelerplatz, Vienna. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Detail from Frans Floris the Elder’s Last Judgement, 1565, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Early 16th century pulpit by Anton Pilgram (c. 1460–c. 1516) in Stephansdom, Vienna. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Lowered Head, 1912, at the Leopold Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
There is still a clear gender divide when it comes to ideal vs expressive faces, with women typically (although not always) portrayed as beautiful. Architectural detail from Stephansplatz. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Detail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559, at the Kunsthistorishes Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Jean Fouquet’s The Court Jester Gonella, c. 1440–45, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
From the ceiling of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Detail of Jan van Eyck’s The Goldsmith Jan de Leeuw, 1436, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Fountain on Michaelerplatz, Vienna. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Self-portrait of Michaelina Woutiers (1617–89) in her painting Bacchanal from 1659, now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Roman sculpture of an infant boy with a goose (after a Hellenistic bronze original from the early 3rd century BCE) in the Römermuseum, Vienna. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Detail of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Sibylla, Emilia, and Sidonia von Sachsen, Princesses of Saxony, c. 1535, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Detail of Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), painted in the 1650s by David Ryckaert III (1612-1661), in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.
Architectural detail in Vienna. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.