149 Paintings You Really Should See in Europe — Germany and Austria

By Julian Porter

This chapter from Julian Porter’s essential companion to all the major European museums and galleries discusses some of the greatest paintings to be found in the museums and galleries of Germany and Austria. His passion for art began with the seven years he spent as a student tour guide in Europe. In this segment he visits Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, and Munich and discusses works by masters such as Rembrandt, Watteau, Raphael, Van Eyck, Dürer, and many more.

In the usually pretentious arena of art connoisseurs, Porter’s voice stands out as fresh and original. He finds the best of the best, which he describes with entertaining irreverence, and spares you hours of sore feet and superfluous information.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Oct 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781459723870

Julian Porter

Julian Porter is a litigation lawyer whose other passion in life is art. He’s had a lot of fun looking at art and wants to share his enthusiasm with others. He has lectured in galleries from Madrid to St. Petersburg. He lives in Toronto.

Book preview

7

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

---

There is an extra dimension to viewing art in Germany and Austria. Many of the galleries you will visit, and the cities in which they are located, were devastated in the Second World War. In some places, you will find buildings that have been lovingly restored; in others, survivors from the past; in still others, completely new creations — in all, a unique combination of old and new.

Contemporary Berlin is a city of stunning modern architecture, and its Gemäldegalerie a beautiful gallery, newly built. It may be the most logical gallery of any, with a striking long hall that forms the spine of the building. It has the effect of a mosque, the Alhambra without colour and stripes. It is a long oasis of tranquillity with quiet water in the middle, pillars throughout, and circles of light from cupolas. Schloss Charlottenburg, also in Berlin, is a palace amidst a beautiful park of trees and water. Bombed in the war and now restored, it contains a wing that comprises the most marvellous example of rococo.

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden is in the Zwinger, an area that houses the palace of 1710–30, entirely rebuilt after the Allied bombing and obliteration of Dresden in February 1945. The exact rebuilding of the gallery to its prior state is eerie. As you view the palace surroundings of the art gallery, you hear the music of Handel.

In Munich — city of beer halls, a spring asparagus festival, and lederhosen, all surrounded by ice cold lakes and frosted mountains — the Alte Pinakothek is a gallery of great space and multicoloured, disciplined rooms. In Vienna, the Ringstrasse in the centre of the city is a streetcar on a dedicated track, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum is en route. Built by the Hapsburgs in 1891, it is palatial in appearance and scope.

Finally, take a train trip to Würzburg through a storybook countryside of rolling hills, wheat fields, great copses of trees, and the occasional church spire — an idyllic path on the Bavarian romantic road. At your destination you will find — in addition to Tiepolo’s amazing ceiling — a city that has been entirely resurrected after being bombed flat in the Second World War, all the old edifaces rebuilt faithfully or with interesting modern variations. It is a lesson on how, with architecture and spirit, a city can be recreated.

THE PAINTINGS

---

93. Moses Destroying the Tablets of the Law

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, 1659

Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany

Photo: bpk, Berlin / Staatliche / Anders / Art Resource, NY

Using a technique of thick and heavy paint application, Rembrandt has created