Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Normally though, the highlights include Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo pieces
(wonderful silver and ceramics), along with Jugendstil and Art Deco objects,
particularly furniture. Strong too are collections from the Middle Ages to Early
Renaissance, including some sumptuous gold pieces. Look out for Lüneburg's
municipal silver and the treasures from the Stiftskirche in Westphalian town Enger,
which include an eighth-century purse-shaped
reliquary
that belonged to Duke
Widikund, leader of the Saxon resistance to Charlemagne. More modern pieces include
a small but great assembly of Bauhaus furniture, glittering contemporary jewellery and
a display on the evolution of product design.
Gemäldegalerie
Tues, Wed & Fri-Sun 10am-6pm, Thurs 10am-8pm • €10 or €12 with Bereichskarte (see p.96) •
W
www.smb.museum • U- &
S-Potsdamer Platz
he jewel of the Kulturforum, the
Gemäldegalerie
(Picture Gallery) holds a
stupendous collection of early European paintings. Almost nine hundred are on
display, arranged in chronological order, and subdivided by region.
German work
from the Middle Ages and Renaissance includes the large
Wurzach
Altar
of 1437, made in the workshop of the great Ulm sculptor Hans Multscher; its
figures' exaggerated gestures and facial distortions make it an ancient precursor of
Expressionism. Otherwise some of the best works here are by Albrecht Altdorfer,
one of the first fully realized German landscape painters, and Holbein the Younger,
represented by several superbly observed portraits. Notable among the many examples
of Cranach are his tongue-in-cheek
he Fountain of Youth
, and his free reinterpretation
of Bosch's famous triptych
he Garden of Earthly Delights
.
Religious subjects receive a lighter treatment in the
Netherlandish section
, featuring
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century work. Jan van Eyck's beautifully lit
Madonna in the
Church
is crammed with architectural detail and has the Virgin lifted in the perspective
for gentle emphasis. Petrus Christus is thought to have been his pupil, and certainly
knew his work, as
he Virgin and Child with St Barbara and a Carthusian Monk
reveals;
in the background tiny Flemish houses and street scenes carefully locate the event in
Bruges. he parts of the collection from the sixteenth century include the works of
Bruegel the Elder, whose
Netherlandish Proverbs
is an amusing, if hard-to-grasp,
illustration of more than a hundred sixteenth-century proverbs including “armed to
the teeth”, “banging a head against a brick wall” and “casting pearls before swine”.
he later
Dutch and Flemish collections
, with their large Van Dyck portraits,
light-bathed Vermeer paintings and fleshy Rubens canvases, are another high point.
he highlights are several paintings by
Rembrandt
: though
he Man in the Golden
Helmet
has been proved to be the work of his studio rather than the artist himself, this
does little to detract from the portrait's elegance and power.
Finally, the
Italian section
, spanning the years from the Renaissance to the eighteenth
century, is particularly strong on works from the Florentine Renaissance, including,
most importantly, two paintings by Botticelli:
Madonna with Saints
and
Mary with the
Child and Singing Angels
. Other noteworthy painters here include Caravaggio (
Cupid
Victorious
, heavy with symbolism and homoeroticism), Poussin (the important
Self-Portrait
), Claude and Canaletto.
Kupferstichkabinett
Tues-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat & Sun 11am-6pm • €6 or €12 with Bereichskarte (see p.96) •
W
smb.museum • U- & S-Potsdamer Platz
Sharing its main entrance with the Gemäldegalerie, the
Kupferstichkabinett
(Engraving
Cabinet) holds an extensive collection of European medieval and Renaissance prints,
drawings and engravings. Founded by William Humboldt in 1831, the collection
includes Botticelli's exquisite drawings for Dante's
Divine Comedy
. he museum hosts
temporary exhibitions on all aspects of print-making, drawing and related design.
FROM TOP
KULTURFORUM
P.94
; TIERGARTEN
P.101
; BAUHAUS ARCHIVE
P.100
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