Spirit of an Age: Nineteenth-Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300090188 ISBN 13: 9780300090185

Publisher: National Gallery London, 2001

Synopsis

This magnificent book traces the development of nineteenth-century German paintings through the story of a remarkable institution--the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, one of Germany’s most important collections. In their substantial general essays, Françoise Forster-Hahn surveys the social and political background to art and culture in Berlin in the nineteenth century; Claude Keisch and Angelika Wesenberg discuss the reception of German painting in Germany itself; and Peter-Klaus Schuster provides a historical overview of the Nationalgalerie.

The authors focus on some seventy paintings, from the sublime canvases of Caspar David Friedrich and other Romantic painters early in the nineteenth century to scenes of industrial Berlin and the brilliantly observed works of the naturalists of the 1840s and 1850s, ending with the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist innovations of French and German artists that so startled Berlin around 1900, when the Nationalgalerie acquired them against the wishes of the highly conservative and anti-French Kaiser. Richly detailed cityscapes by Eduard Gaertner and Johann Erdmann Hummel provide wonderful views of mid-century Berlin, and powerful works by Max Beckmann and Lovis Corinth announce the Expressionism of later decades of the twentieth century.

Claude Keisch is Senior Curator at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Peter-Klaus Schuster is Director General at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Françoise Forster-Hahn is professor of the history of art, University of California. Angelika Wesenberg is Curator at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

Published by National Gallery Company

Distributed by Yale University Press

This book is published to accompany an exhibition at the National Gallery in London and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
 

Published by National Gallery Company Distributed by Yale University Press

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Reviews

Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie was established in 1876 as a repository of contemporary German art. Like much of the city, it suffered under the Third Reich, but the reunified German capital is again asserting its status as a preeminent cultural capital and renovating this and other state museums. Once its neoclassic building is upgraded, the Nationalgalerie will be the place in Berlin to see the many forms of 19th-century German painting. Until then, 77 of the museum's finest paintings are traveling to America and the United Kingdom. This companion to the exhibition is made up of large reproductions accompanied by short but densely informative commentaries by the curator-authors. Most of the works selected are by artists rarely seen outside Germany, though others, such as the operatic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and chiaroscuro still lifes by Adolph Menzel, will be more familiar to U.S. audiences. A chronology of German arts and history from 1800 to 1914 provides a solid armature for the general essays on 19th-century culture, which comprise the main text. A good primer on an important epoch; recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: National Gallery London
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300090188
• ISBN 13: 9780300090185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Keisch Claude