2013/03/29

Berlin: Kulturforum - Gemäldegalerie (Gallery of Paintings)




Normally, the asset of Kulturforum (located just 10 minutes from the Potsdamer Platz if you follow the river) is that there are many museums and galleries in one place, kinda like the Museum Island. However, the "art in daily use" (Kunstgewerbemuseum) is moved for the time being, most problably to increase the sales of public transport tickets. Still, much better than the sugar museum (completely closed for now) or the museum of natural sciences (the big exhibition about DNA starts in 2 weeks so at the time I was in Berlin, it had no interesting temporary expos). Anyway, for my Berlin stay this year, I chose the following moto:

"A museum a day
keeps stupidity away"

And therefore I picked C/O gallery for Friday (will be described in a future post) and Gemäldegalerie for Saturday. I was super lucky, because 10 minutes after I had arrived, a guided tour about fashion accessorries in paintings was supposed to begin! So, I decided to show you photos of the gallery and also of the paintings I liked in this article, and in a future post I'll talk about the guided tour and the accessorry history from the perspective of paintings.






The gallery is HUGE and slightly maze-like. As you can see in the following pictures, the paintings are one next to another in about a gazillion of rooms. I swear I must have walked half a marathon for sure. Most of the art is sacral; and frankly, unless you know a lot about Christianity or you're a big gothic art fan, you might get a little overwhelmed. The paintings from this era look very alike and there are hundreds of them, so I admit I pretty much run past most of them. Also, unless you come for a special family-tour, I think your kids are gonna hate you if you make them go there - it's not just the topic, but the paintings are hung pretty high, so a little kid couldn't even see them properly. I noticed lots of zombie-like children sitting on benches in the dark corners and praying for their parents to move faster.




Interesting "windows" in the ceiling


Beautiful painted ceiling in one of the side hallways


Also, the gallery has an underground floor, so be sur eto check it out too, I think most people don't know about it, as I was the only visitor there.

Now, onto the paintings I really liked:

Note to self: If I ever wanna be a model, I have to travel back in time for my wide hips to be appreciated (at least for reasons other than easy delivery).



Some painters sure had scary imagination.




A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!








Not to be confused with the Czech Kosmas, the famous author of the Czech Chronicle.





What a beautiful frame, right?


(BTW, I have a horrible itching to tell you right now everything and all the details, but if everything goes the way it's been going until now, there will be some major, extremely happy and life-changing events in... well, my life. But I'll wait a bit more until everything is confirmed, but wow, if I succeed at these secret (for now) things, it's gonna be so big I'll probably have to make a video to tell you guys, because I'm super excited!)
Yours truly,
Vita

8 comments:

  1. *_* Už mi hrozně chybí nějaké kulturní vyžití... V Teplicích se touhle dobou nic neděje. :-/

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    Replies
    1. Tak v Praze se toho sice děje hodně, ale to zas nějak nestíhám T___T.

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  2. I live right next to the museum district in Houston and I love visiting them. What is the description of that sculptural installation you featured? The one with metal poles coming out of the ground. It looks really interesting.

    Brittney

    anotherbeautifulthing.blogspot.com

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    1. Really? That's cool! Well it didn't have any name I think, it was just a part of the main hall from which you could enter the rooms with paintings.

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  3. It's a very interesting and great post. Very artistic too. These paintings are absolutely beautiful.
    J'adore la première peinture.

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  4. Ooh, I have actually been there! Loved that gallery!
    And good luck with everything! I hope everything will turn out in your favor! :)

    callmemaddie.blogspot.com

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  5. I love museums but this type of art is actually not my favorite because they are so depressing :s I know this may sound childish and I am a huge art fan but this is not my style :\ anyway, some details on the paints are amazing, like the flowers and those book pages, the detail is really something.

    I just remembered I do like Vermeer paitings, in fact there are some paintings here that remind me of his paintings, do you like Vermeer? (:

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