I was out of the apartment by 9:25, and by U-bahn and S-bahn the few stops to Friedrichstraße. The next M1 tram was still 7 minutes away, so I walked briskly east in the cold morning air past the Deutsches Historiches Museum and over the river towards the Alte Nationalgalerie, diverting briefly into Lustgarten – the open and today empty space fronting the austere Berliner Dom and Schinkel’s Altes Museum – for a couple of photos of the cathedral.
After another photo-pause outside the Alte Nationalgalerie I went inside to warm up and buy my ticket for ‘The Romantic Middle Ages: Architecture and Nature in Painting after Schinkel’. This was an excellent exhibition on the top floor of the gallery, bringing together paintings from a roll-call of Romantics: Gaertner, Carl Blechen, August Haan, Elasser, Karl Friedrich Lessing, and the Dresden painter Oehme – a friend of Caspar David Friedrich – among others. The great Friedrich himself and the architect and painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel were there too of course; the Alte Nationalgalerie has a good selection of works from both men in its permanent collection.
Architectural painting experienced a revival in the first half of the 19th century, when medieval architecture in Germany became rather emotionally charged; buildings were destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars, and the secularisation of Germany in 1803 left churches, monasteries and castles facing demolition. But the old buildings invoked feelings of nationalism, patriotism and romanticism, becoming an integral part of Germany's cultural heritage. Medieval castles and forts were a popular motif in literature and painting. The aim of this exhibition was to show such architectural paintings from the time of Schinkel, and from the following years.
Schinkel allegedly made his career change from painting to architecture – with remarkable and wonderful results – after seeing the work of Caspar David Friedrich and deciding he could never be as good. But the few late Schinkel paintings on display in this collection were superb, often using what I would consider photographers’ techniques: for example full contre jour with the bright sun hidden directly behind a central tree.
Overall a superb exhibition, which kept me entertained for an hour and a half or more.
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