- Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art gallery in
Berlin ,Germany . It holds one of the world's leading collections ofEuropean art from the 13th through 18th centuries. It is located onKulturforum west ofPotsdamer Platz . Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists asAlbrecht Dürer ,Lucas Cranach ,Raphael ,Titian ,Caravaggio ,Peter Paul Rubens ,Rembrandt andJohannes Vermeer . It was first opened in 1830, and was rebuilt in 1998.The collection
The Gemäldegalerie prides itself on its scientific methodology in collecting and displaying art. Each room can be taken in as a single statement about one to five artists in a certain period or following a certain style. Especially notable rooms include the octagonal
Rembrandt room and a room containing five different Madonnas byRaphael .Other notable experiences include Flemish moralistic paintings which stretch across the north side of the museum, showing an interplay between the religious motives of the artists' patrons and the often sensual inspirations of the artists. In the
Renaissance section, for example,Caravaggio 's "Amor Victorious" is displayed alongsideGiovanni Baglione 's "Sacred Love Versus Profane Love". The two paintings are historically connected; after hearing of the scandalous portrayal of the theme "love conquers all" in Carvaggio's work, a Roman bishop commissioned Baglionne's reply, which mimics Carvaggio's style, including the features of "Amor".The tour
The collection is more or less chronological starting from the entrance and moving toward the farthest wall. Following the rooms as they are numbered takes the visitor first forward, then backward, in time. The numbering system starting on the north side of the museum yields mostly Northern European art, then British portrait art. A visitor following along the southern side will go through mostly Italian and Southern European art. The gallery contains 1200 works, with around 400 more downstairs. Complementary audio guides in English, French, and German are available.
Architecture and layout
The gallery sits in the southwest corner of the
Kulturforum , a modern-styled answer toEast Berlin 'sMuseumsinsel (Museum Island) which was inaccessible toWest Berlin ers when the city was divided by theBerlin Wall from 1961 through 1989. The gallery was designed byMunich architects Heinz Hilmer andChristoph Sattler . The building consists of 72 rooms providing a two-kilometer (1.25 mi) floor. Upstairs the rooms flow around a center hall the size of afootball (soccer) field; the hall sometimes displays sculpture. There are also works downstairs, a gallery devoted to frames, and a digital gallery.History
The collection was first located in the Royal Museum located near
Lustgarten onUnter den Linden , a famous Berlin street. The collection began largely with the collection ofFrederick the Great . The gallery's first director wasGustav Friedrich Waagen .Berlin's premier name in museum direction,
Wilhelm von Bode , served the gallery from 1890 to 1929. His leadership marked the rise of the Gemäldegalerie to international prominence.In 1904 the Gemäldegalerie was largely a collection of Renaissance art when it moved to the newly built
Kaiser Friedrich Museum , later known as theBode Museum .The museum was badly damaged during
World War II , however most of the collection survived the war in shelters across Germany. At the end of world war II however, 400 art pieces were destroyed in a fire of a Flak tower that served as bomb shelter. Furthermore, several hundred paintings looted by Russian as well as American soldiers or confiscated and never returned by the red army. The rest of the collection was divided between East Berlin (mostly at the Bode Museum on Museumsinsel) and West Berlin inBerlin-Dahlem .Looted art
*In June 2006 a painting missing since 1944 by
Alessandro Allori was returned by the British journalist Charles Wheeler. [Harding, Luke. " [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/arttheft/story/0,,1787559,00.html Renaissance woman returned to gallery] ". "The Guardian",01 June ,2006 . Retrieved on12 October ,2007 .]Notes
External links
* [http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objectId=5&lang=en Staatliche Museen zu Berlin | Gemäldegalerie]
* [http://www.freundeskreise-berliner-kultur.de/kfmv/ Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein] Association of the friends of the "Gemäldegalerie"
* [http://www.kulturforum-berlin.com/ www.kulturforum-berlin.com] Information about all cultural institutions at the "Kulturforum" in Berlin
* [http://www.internationalcircuit.com/berlin-germany/tourism-1.php Review of Gemäldegalerie]
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