Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie)
This gallery, behind the Neues Museum and Altes Museum, is designed to look like a Greek
temple. Spanning three floors, it focuses on art (mostly paintings) from the 19th century:
Romantic German paintings (which I find most interesting) on the top floor, and French
and German Impressionists and German Realists on the first and second floors. You likely
won't recognize any specific paintings, but it's still an enjoyable stroll through German cul-
ture from the century in which that notion first came to mean something. The included audi-
oguide explains the highlights.
VisitingtheMuseum:
Startonthethirdfloor,withRomanticcanvasesandartoftheGo-
ethe era (roughly 1770-1830), and work your way down. Use the audioguide to really delve
into these romanticized, vivid looks at life in Germany in the 19th century and before. As
you stroll through the Romantic paintings—the museum's strength—keep in mind that they
were created about the time (mid-late 19th century) that Germans were first working toward
a single, unified nation. By glorifying pristine German landscapes and a rugged, virtuous
people, these painters evoked the region's high-water mark—the Middle Ages, when “Ger-
many” was a patchwork of powerful and wealthy merchant city-states. Linger over dreamy
townscapes with Gothic cathedrals and castles that celebrate medieval German might. Still
lifes, idealized portraits of tow-headed children, and genre paintings (depicting everyday
scenes, often with subtle social commentary) strum the heartstrings of anyone with Teutonic
blood.TheDüsseldorfSchoolexcelledatRomanticlandscapes(suchasCarlFriedrichLess-
ing's
Castle on a Rock
). Some of these canvases nearly resemble present-day fantasy paint-
ings. Perhaps the best-known artist in the collection is Caspar David Friedrich, who special-
ized in dramatic scenes celebrating grandeur and the solitary hero. His
The Monk by the Sea
(DerMönchamMeer)
showsalonefigurestandingonasanddune,ponderingavast,turbu-
lent expanse of sea and sky.
On the second floor, you'll find one big room of minor works by bigger-name French
artists, including Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Monet, and Rodin. Another room is devoted to
the Romantic Hans von Marées, the influential early Symbolist Arnold Böcklin, and other
artists of the “German Roman” (Deutschrömer) movement—Germans who lived in, and
were greatly influenced by, Rome. Artists of the Munich School are represented by natural-
istic canvases of landscapes or slice-of-life scenes.
On the first floor, 19th-century Realism reigns. While the Realist Adolph Menzel made
his name painting elegant royal gatherings and historical events, his
Iron Rolling Mill (Das
Eisenwalzwerk)
captures the gritty side of his moment in history—the emergence of the In-
dustrial Age—with a warts-and-all look at steelworkers toiling in a hellish factory. The first
floor also hosts a sculpture collection, with works by great sculptors both foreign (the Itali-
an Canova, the Dane Thorvaldsen) and German (Johann Gottfried Schadow's delightful
Die
Prinzessinnen,
showing the dynamic duo of Prussian princesses Louise and Frederike).
