Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cost and Hours:
Covered by €8 Kulturforum combo-ticket, Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu
until 22:00, closed Mon, audioguide included with entry, clever little loaner stools, great
salad bar in cafeteria upstairs, Matthäikirchplatz 4.
Self-Guided Tour:
I'll point out a few highlights, focusing on Northern European
artists (Germans, Dutch, and Flemish), with a few Spaniards and Italians thrown in. To go
beyond my selections, make ample use of the excellent audioguide.
Thecollection spreadsoutononevastfloorsurroundingacentral hall.Innerroomshave
Roman numerals (I, II, III), while adjacent outer rooms are numbered (1, 2, 3). After show-
ing your ticket, turn right into room I and work your way counterclockwise (and roughly
chronologically) through the collection.
Rooms I-III/1-4 kick things off with early German paintings (13th-16th centuries). In
room1,lookforthe1532portraitofwealthyHanseaticclothmerchantGeorgGiszeby
Hans
Holbein the Younger
(1497-1543). Gisze's name appears on several of the notes stuck to
thewallbehindhim.And,typicalofdetail-richNorthernEuropeanart,thecanvasisbursting
with highly symbolic tidbits. Items scattered on the tabletop and on the shelves behind the
merchantrepresenthisloftystatusandaspectsofhislifestory.Inthevase,thecarnationrep-
resents his recent engagement, and the herbs symbolize his virtue. And yet, the celebratory
flowers are already beginning to fade and the scales behind him are unbalanced, reminders
of the fleetingness of happiness and wealth.
In room 2 are fine portraits by the remarkably talented
Albrecht Dürer
(1471-1528),
who traveled to Italy during the burgeoning days of the early Renaissance and melded the
artistic harmony and classical grandeur he discovered there with a Northern European at-
tention to detail. In his
Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher
(1526), Dürer skillfully cap-
tured the personality ofafriend fromNürnberg,right downtothe slytwinkle inhissidelong
glance. Technically the portrait is perfection: Look closely and see each individual hair of
the man's beard and fur coat, and even the reflection of the studio's windows in his eyes.
Also notice Dürer's little pyramid-shaped, D-inside-A signature. Signing one's work was a
revolutionary assertion of Dürer's renown, at a time when German artists were considered
anonymous craftsmen.
LucasCranachtheElder
(1472-1553),whoseworksareinroomIII,wasacourtpaint-
er for the prince electors of Saxony and a close friend of Martin Luther (and his unofficial
portraitist). But
The Fountain of Youth
(1546) is a far cry from Cranach's solemn portrayals
of the Reformer. Old women helped to the fountain (on the left) emerge as young ladies on
the right. Newly nubile, the women go into a tent to dress up, snog with noblemen in the
bushes (right foreground), dance merrily beneath the trees, and dine grandly beneath a land-
scape of phallic mountains and towers. This work is flanked by Cranach's Venus nudes. I
sense a pattern here.
