"Spirit of an Age: 19th-Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin"
2001-03-07 until 2001-05-13
National Gallery
London, , UK United Kingdom

Berlin is once again assuming its role as the capital of a reunited nation. Accordingly, its great museums, formerly divided between East and West, are undergoing major renovation and reorganisation. As part of this process the Nationalgalerie is currently closed, and this has created a unique opportunity for the National Gallery in London to show a collection of its finest paintings, ranging from Romanticism to Expressionism

The Nationalgalerie was designed to provide a showcase for contemporary German art. Today it is arguably the world's greatest collection of 19th-century German paintings. It is part of Berlin's remarkable Museum Island, the museums of which were constructed during the 19th century to display Germany's greatest cultural treasures.

An incomparable collection of works by 19th- and early 20th-century German masters are included in this exhibition, including works by Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Adolph Menzel, Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Beckmann. The exhibition also brings to London a small but distinguished group of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. Purchased in the late 19th century, these extremely controversial acquisitions were among the earliest Impressionist paintings bought by any museum.

IMAGE:
Claude Monet,
St-Germain-l'Auxerrois, 1867.

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