By the time of the turn from the 18th to the 19th century the naturalist Josef Augustus Schulte travelled to the Salzkammergut. It was him who invented the word „österreichische Schweiz“ (Austrian Switzerland).
Moreover his travelogue about the Salzkammergut led to public interest with the result that tourism became an important economic source of income.
He was followed by artists of the Biedermeier period like Franz Steinfeld, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Jakob Alt and Rudolf von Alt.
Abstract from the book by Rupert Feuchtmüller, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller:
In the year of 1832 a trip lead Ferdinand Georg Walmüller to the „Vorderer Gosausee“, one of the most popular motives of the alp painting art during the Biedermeier period.
He may have been one of the last artists of this generation who came to the lake. His artistic goal differed from other artists too.
He was not interested in the life in an alpine hut like the young Gauermann, neither interested in any setting-like lighting effects like Steinfeld painted his pictures. He did not have a narrative idea of a painting but to him it was nature and the view from the Gosausee to the Dachstein what it was all about. Gauermann prefered to choose the soft, evocative morning light, while Waldmüller decided to paint the evening sun which lights the snow covered field of the Dachstein.
The evening sun dives the rock into a red light which forms a contrast to the dark shadows, more or less to the black, bluegreen colored lake which lets the mirrior picture of the mountains dissolve.
Every detail of the rocks can be found in his structure of light and shadow which he elaborated significantly.
He made short but powerful lines with the paintbrush that cause this illusion.
Considering this artistical liberty, he had expressed something kind: Reality it was and nothing else.
Waldmüller repeated the drawing on the small wood sign exactly.
In 1834 Waldmüller cam to the lake again and painted the picture at the same place, but with warmer colors than the bluegreen. He avoided to paint the mirror pictures again which are popular among photographers today.
It seems undersatndable that Waldmüller´s paitings are unsurpassed.
· 
