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

Claude Keisch (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2001

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

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.

From the Publisher

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: National Gallery London (May 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300090188
• ISBN-13: 978-0300090185
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 10 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,576,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All They Ever Painted, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Spirit of an Age: Nineteenth-Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin (Hardcover)

In 2001, the National Gallery of London and the National Gallery of Art in DC exhibited about 70 of the most important 19th-century paintings from the Nationalgalerie of Berlin, Germany. The SPIRIT OF AN AGE catalogue grouped them, as Romantic landscapes; Nazarenes and late Romantics; Color, light and air; Biedermeier realism; the Kaiserzeit; Escaping to Italy; Pure painting; Embracing the French avant-garde; and Secession.

Caspar David Friedrich was at the core of German and European landscape traditions. His first landscape, The cross in the mountains or Tetschen altarpiece, was of a mountain, on top of which the sun's rays shone on a crucifix, above the trees.

In 1810, Friedrich Overbeck and Franz Pforr went to the Franciscan monastery of Sant'Isidoro on Monte Pincio, Italy. There, they and 3 others were known as Nazarenes, for their Biblical-style clothes and devoutly communal lifestyle. They favored friendship pictures and reciprocal portraits, such as Overbeck's The painter Franz Pforr.

Color, light and air were what Carl Blechen's 3 fishermen on the Gulf of Naples was about. The trio became dreamy white notes in a red, white and blue fanfare. The brilliant blue sky gave airy space and light undimmed by clouds to the darker blue sea.

Gottlieb Biedermeier was a minor literary character standing for middle-class values. So Biedermeier art meant keeping things simple, as in Johann Erdmann Hummel's grinding and installing of a great granite bowl.

With the Kaiserzeit, the German present became an obsession. Huge reparation payments from victory over France in the Franco-Prussian war went into rapid industrialization, as in Adolph Menzel's The iron-rolling mill.

Escaping to Italy was what young German artists did so well. One of these German Romans was Anselm Feuerbach. He painted characters from antiquity, as his Medea, in a beautiful Italian seascape. He also painted Italian common people, such as his mistress Nanna Risi, as Iphigenia and Madonna.

Gustave Courbet's visit to Munich in 1869 brought on Pure painting. Young painters tried his directly applied painting out on domestic portraits, humble still-lifes and simple local landscapes. So without preliminary drawing and with broad, short brushstrokes, Leibl brought the Burgomaster Klein's face to life just by the play of light over it. A few sure brushstrokes formed the hands just by fine shades of color.

By century end, artists ran secession movements, for progressive art, such as Fritz von Uhde's Little heathland princess. He painted, close-up and full-length, a country girl about 6 years old. Holding her hands behind her back and her upper body straight, she seemed to stare back at the viewer. What a way that would have been to end the exhibition!