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Rudolf von Eitelberger and Leopold Carl Müller 305 lief that the isolation of the Metternich era had been disastrous for artistic development. It had benefitted from the social experience of an intensified inward ‘Gemeinschaft’. “Das Genrebild”, Eitelberger insisted, “muss an das Volksthümliche, an das Erlebte an- schliessen ; es muss Situationen schildern, die man mitempfinden kann, die man nicht erdenken, sondern nachempfinden muss.”50 As “die lebende Schilderung des actuellen Volkslebens [liefert das Genrebild] auch einem künftigen Culturhistoriker vollgiltiges Material […], um die Zeitgenossen und das Volksleben in treuen, lebensvollen Darstel- lungen wiedergeben zu können.”51 For this reason, he deplored historical genre, which he considered to be an oxymoronic concept, “keine Geschichte und […] auch nichts wirklich Erlebtes.”52 Müller, who had been compelled to paint two Venetian Renais- sance scenes out of financial necessity, would have fully concurred. In a letter to Lauf- berger, he characterized historical genre as “eine Theaterlüge” while Laufberger regarded it as an “unbegreifliche Verirrung  – eine Krankheit unserer Neuzeit”53. Eitelberger lamented that genre in Vienna no longer existed because the painters had gone abroad to places like Hungary, Italy, and the Orient  – a pointed reference to Müller and Pettenkofen  – and because the Viennese Volk had lost a sense of “ihren einheitli- chen Charakter” and artists had splintered into their national identities as Germans, Magyars, Poles, and Czechs.54 Nonetheless, Eitelberger clearly considered painters like Müller and Pettenkofen as the modern heirs to the tradition of Biedermeier natural- ism. He described Müller’s art as filled with “Leben, Naturwahrheit und Charakter”, adjectives very similar to words of praise he applied to Waldmüller  – “Natürlichkeit, Wahrheit und Lebendigkeit”  – whom he judged as the best genre painter of his gen- eration.55 Eitelberger’s concept of genre as empathetic cultural historical documents of daily life and essentialized character also had potentially important implications for Orientalism. If transferable to foreign cultures by artists sufficiently immersed in those communities, then genre paintings could mitigate alterity and foster an anti-Imperialist stance of commonality and understanding. These were attitudes that Eitelberger actively 50 R. Eitelberger von Edelberg, Das Wiener Genrebild vor dem Jahre 1848 [1877] in : Gesam- melte kunsthistorische Schriften, vol.  1 (cit. n.  22), pp.  37–60, esp. p.  49. 51 Ibid., pp.  50 f.. 52 Ibid., p.  50. 53 Müller to Laufberger, 7  June 1877 and Laufberger to Müller, 10  June 1877, in : Zemen (ed.), Leo- pold Carl Müller (cit. n.  2), p.  301 and p.  303. 54 Eitelberger, Das Wiener Genrebild (cit. n.  50), p.  59. 55 Eitelberger, Leopold K. Müller (cit. n.  4), p.  406 and R. Eitelberger von Edelberg, J. Dan- hauser und Ferdinand Waldmüller [1877] in : idem, Gesammelte kunsthistorische Schriften, vol.  1 (cit. n.  22), pp.  73–91, esp. p.  88.