When winter reduces cities and countryside to a few muted tones and gray shadows dominate daily life, places that offer light and color gain special appeal. Visitors to Vienna's Lower Belvedere can currently find such a refuge in the exhibition "Cézanne, Monet, Renoir: French Impressionism from Museum Langmatt." More than 60 masterpieces from one of Europe's most significant private Impressionist collections bring the light effects and color moods of this era back to life, demonstrating how fascinating and illuminating this painting style remains 150 years after its creation.
French Impressionism, represented by its most important figures including Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, and Cézanne, does exactly what winter often takes away: it provides light, color, and warmth. As an art of the moment, it focuses not on grand historical narratives but on the fleeting interplay of light and color. Much of what characterizes this painting style emerges from attention to small changes: the shimmer on water surfaces, the wandering of shadows, or the moment when white suddenly appears warm or cool.
The Impressionist painters frequently worked outdoors, seeking natural light and capturing what would quickly change again in the course of nature. While gray skies and reduced sensory impressions dominate outside these days, Impressionist paintings at the Lower Belvedere open a gateway to a more intense, colorful world. The visible, almost sketch-like brushstrokes capture the impression of movement as we experience it when seeing. Pure colors often lie unmixed next to each other, combining only in the viewer's eye to create vivid transitions.
Instead of heroic scenes, Impressionism shows the immediate: still lifes in brilliant colors, atmospheric scenes by water or in gardens, and simple everyday situations that gain special intensity through their respective lighting moods. Paul Gauguin's "Still Life with Fruit Bowl and Lemons" from around 1889/1890, which entered the Brown family collection as early as 1909, exemplifies this approach with its vibrant arrangement of oranges, lemons, a cup, and cloth on a table before a window.
Camille Corot's "Ariccia, the Chigi Palace" from 1826/27 combines architectural precision with finely graduated light and green nuances. The art collectors Jenny and Sidney Brown purchased this painting in 1938. Auguste Renoir's "The Boat" unfolds a quiet, almost dreamlike scene: a young woman in white sits in a small boat, surrounded by dense greenery, while a cool blue accent in the background makes the composition shine.
For the painting "Meadow in Éragny in Autumn" (1899), Camille Pissarro set up his easel on the meadow below his own garden. From there, he had a view of his residence, whose silhouette appears at the upper edge of the image. The interplay of ice, water, and evening light on the Seine inspired Claude Monet in 1893 to create "Ice Floes at Twilight," a work that entered the Browns' collection in 1910.
The strong connection to nature in Impressionism acts as a real mood lifter, especially during winter months. Its open painting style, fine light nuances, and immediate coloring invite contemplation that has something almost meditative about it. Nothing intrudes, nothing is over-emphasized, yet a wealth of impressions unfolds that enlivens the gaze without overwhelming it. In a season that often appears colorless, this art makes the diversity of seeing perceptible and directs attention to small changes.
The Museum Langmatt possesses four works by Edgar Degas that represent different creative phases and fit harmoniously into the collection. The acquisition of the pastel "Female Nude" around 1885/1886 marked the beginning in 1912. The Lower Belvedere presents selected works from Villa Langmatt in Baden, Switzerland, one of Europe's most significant private Impressionism collections, until February 8, 2026. The exhibition brings together outstanding works by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Camille Corot, providing insights into the world of art collectors Jenny and Sidney Brown.
It was precisely this immediate, light-infused perception of the world that so fascinated Sidney and Jenny Brown about Impressionism in the early 20th century and prompted them to collect. The wealthy Swiss couple from Baden belonged to that generation of art-enthusiastic collectors who recognized French Impressionism as something radically new: painting that no longer sought the sublime or historical but the light of the moment, the living, the immediate. The Browns particularly responded to this new form of perceptual art, appreciating the freshness and openness of the Impressionist color world that seemingly effortlessly captured nature's flickering light.
The couple Jenny and Sidney Brown were among the co-founders of the electrical engineering company Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC), later ABB. Their economic success opened the world to them, and on international travels, they discovered their passion for the then still young Impressionist painting through visits to galleries and art dealers. With fine instincts for current social developments, they bought works by Monet, Renoir, or Cézanne long before these artists were celebrated in major museums. Over decades, a remarkable collection emerged into which the couple invested considerable sums.
The Art Nouveau Villa Langmatt was for Jenny and Sidney not only an elegant residence but a place of leisure: a space where their art enthusiasm could become visible. During their lifetime, however, the collection remained largely private. Only after the death of their son John Alfred Brown in 1987 did his testamentary disposition make Villa Langmatt and the collection accessible to visitors. The decisive impulse for the visionary collecting direction of the Brown couple occurred in May 1908 with the purchase of Cézanne's "Peaches, Carafe and Figure."
Additionally, there was a personal concern: the Browns wanted the light-flooded, color-intensive pictures in their immediate vicinity. Impressionism was for them an art that doesn't explain emotions but makes them tangible. Particularly Renoir's warmth and human-centeredness captivated them; his handling of color conveyed optimism and harmony, so that the Browns acquired a total of 22 works by him. And not least, Impressionism offered the Swiss couple exactly what collectors seek: an art that was both aesthetically sensual and culturally forward-looking. The Browns recognized early that Impressionists revolutionized painting and wanted to be part of this new modernity.
The Museum Langmatt in Baden, Switzerland, houses one of Europe's most impressive private art collections of French Impressionism. The elegant Art Nouveau villa, once the home of Jenny and Sidney Brown, was simultaneously the framework for an unusually visionary collecting passion. Today, the Langmatt Collection not only conveys the story of an art-enthusiastic collecting family but also stands as testimony to how early and passionately the Brown couple devoted themselves to French Impressionism. The Museum Langmatt will reopen its doors after a renovation phase in spring 2026.
The exhibition "Cézanne, Monet, Renoir: French Impressionism from Museum Langmatt" at Vienna's Lower Belvedere demonstrates how powerful light, color, and shimmering brushstrokes can be. Visitors not only experience the beauty of French Impressionists but simultaneously do something for their well-being: studies prove that conscious art viewing reduces stress and can even alleviate symptoms of depression, dementia, or loneliness. Those who linger before a work by Cézanne, Monet, or Renoir, following the brushstrokes and letting the colors affect them, grant body and mind a valuable timeout. Thus, in Impressionism, aesthetics and well-being merge into an experience that is particularly enriching during the gray winter months.
