Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, Part 2
By Rick Steves
We dropped this chapter (and the Munich one) from the last edition of Mona Winks: Self-Guided Tours of Europe's Top Museums (now known as Rick Steves' Best European City Walks & Museums). But this is still a great museum. If you're going to Vienna, print this and stick it in your rucksack. This is a few years old and I haven't included the maps, but it's still helpful. If you can't find a particular work, ask a staff member by pointing to the German names listed below. For more info on Best European City Walks & Museums and all my other books, see the Travel Store.
— Happy Travels, Rick Steves
Northern Art
Northern art is so simple, direct and down to earth that you wonder why the luxury-loving Hapsburgs ever bothered with it. But to us it's a strong jolt of good coffee after the saccharine excesses of Italian Baroque. Remember that the Low Countries were once part of the Hapsburg empire. Art-hungry aristocrats bought up Northern paintings almost literally by the gross and sent them home to Vienna.
Northern artists always had a great eye for detail. The Northern "Renaissance," brought on by the economic boom of Dutch and Flemish trading, wasn't so much a "rebirth" of classical styles as it was a perfecting of the medieval attention to detail. The joy of Northern art is in lingering over canvases that are chock-full of fun, funny, finely-crafted details.
The first Northern room is "Saal VIII" located at the exact opposite side of the staircase from the bookstore. Inside, find the large triptych (three-paneled painting).
Early Northern Art — Medieval Piety (Before 1500)
Most medieval art was religious. The church paid artists to decorate churches and paint Bible scenes. The purpose wasn't to paint something "beautiful," but something that taught a moral or stoked goodness. The works in this room are a far cry from the ultra-pretty art we saw from the Italian rooms.
Roger Van Der Weyden — Three-paneled altarpiece ("Kreuzinungsaltar")
The solemn air of the crucifixion scene in the central panel is typical of simple Northern piety — again, a far cry from the emotionalism of Italian Baroque (even if there are a few winged angels). Notice the exceptional attention to detail in the robes and the expressive faces.
Nearby, in a glass case, is the much smaller diptych (two-paneled) altarpiece...
Hugh Van Der Goes — Fall and Redemption ("Sudenfall und Erlofung")
Remember Mantegna's "St. Sebastian," the pincushion saint that looked like a Greek statue? Contrast that with the scrawny Adam and Eve in this altarpiece. These naked people ("nudes" is hardly the word) are not heroic Greek gods but fragile human beings. Notice their conveniently covered crotches, a clever touch of medieval modesty. What's amazing is that this "medieval" work was done at roughly the same time as Mantegna's Renaissance masterpiece.
But what these scenes lack in Renaissance three-dimensionality and symmetry they make up for in natural detail. Get close and step into the Garden of Eden, full of tiny little pleasures. The flowers, the shell at the lower right, the blue bird, Eve's shimmering knee-length hair, the intricate muscles of her arm as she reaches for the apple, the serpent with webbed feet, a tail, scaly body and woman's head — this is a true paradise of minute detail. Northern artists meant to have their paintings lingered over, so linger longer.
Exit Saal VIII to the left. In the small room, find the small painting...
Bosch — Christ Carrying the Cross ("Kreutzragning")
Hieronymous Bosch (rhymes with Gosh!) crowded his works with details — human details. How many people are there in this tiny little picture? And each one is a little vignette. Some of Bosch's works are ten times this size, but the figures aren't any bigger — there's just ten times as many of them!
Supposedly, this is Christ Carrying the Cross, and Jesus is the center of the composition, but he's hardly the center of attention. You could frame off any six-inch section at random and it would stand on its own, a separate painting you could linger over for hours. Like the criminal in the foreground right confessing to a monk. Is that the executioner standing over him? And is he comforting him? Is that a big tear in his eye, or did Hieronymous bosch it?
Bosch's bizarre details and medieval symbolism are often a mystery to us today. The one that really gets me is the shield in front of Christ — what is that on there, a crucified frog?!
Exit the small Bosch room into a large gallery. Italians painted Madonnas, saints and angels, the Northern artists painted... food. On the left- hand wall is a painting whose title I forget but whose subtitle must be "Madonna of the Chickens."
Stroll counter-clockwise around the room, watching scenes of everyday peasant life and more food. This is "meat and potatoes" art, literally. Finally, exit into the next large gallery and have a seat.
Brugel — Norman Rockwell of the 16th Century
The undisputed master of the slice-of-life village scene was Peter Bruegel the Elder. This room contains the largest collection of Bruegels in captivity. His works were little known in his day and were quickly forgotten, but the centuries have proved him among the great painters of all time. If we're going to do any major lingering on this tour, let's do it here.
Bruegel (pron. BROY-gull, c.1525-1569) was a city slicker who liked to dress up like a peasant to observe country folk at play (a trans-fest-ite?) in their native habitat. He poked fun at them not because they were hicks, but because they exemplified weaknesses found in all people.
Near the center of the main wall, you'll find...
Brugel — The Peasant Wedding ("Bauernhochfest")
His most famous work is not really about a wedding at all but about — what else? — food. There's a whole lotta shovelin' and guzzlin' going on as the barnful of wedding guests scramble to get their fill of free eats.
The tray of fresh pudding has just been brought in. One guy is grabbing and passing the bowls along, taking our attention with them. We look down the table at people absorbed in eating. In the foreground a child in a drooping red cap licks the bowl with his fingers. The bagpipers have stopped playing to look at the new food brought in. In the midst of this feeding frenzy, look who's been completely forgotten — the demure bride sitting in front of the green cloth.
Besides being a humorous look at village life, Bruegel is making a comment on human greed and gluttony without being heavy-handed. He subtly turns a painting of men into a statement of mankind.
One thing. Is it just me or does the guy carrying the front end of the food tray have one more foot than the standard model? Is he stepping forward with his right or his left — or both?
Just to the right...
Brugel — The Country Dance ("Bauerntanz")
Speaking of two left feet, these peasants are happily and clumsily clogging to the tune of a bagpiper who wails away while his pit crew keeps him lubed with wine. The main dancer is going at it while his wife struggles to keep up. Two children are dancing together. Another guy is dragging his reluctant partner out the door to join him. Notice the kissing couple at left. Like with Bosch, we are meant to explore the canvas for hidden human treasures.
While Italian art was bought by popes, kings and bishops, Northern art like Bruegel's was bought by middle class merchants, as simple decoration for their homes. They liked pictures of what they liked — food, humorous scenes and pretty landscapes. Above all, nothing heavy or too preachy. There are fewer religious paintings because most of the North became Protestant in the 1500s, turning away from Catholic-style devotion to saints and the Virgin.
Look a few paintings to the left...
Brugel — The Hunters in Snow (Winter) ("Die Jager im Schnee")
This snowy landscape scene is just what it looks like — a calendar picture, part of a series of six (the other seasons are to the left). It's a slice of winter life. Three dog-tired hunters with their tired dogs return home with only a single fox to show for their efforts. Notice the fun details like the people at the warming fire and the sign over the door dangling from one hinge.
What looks like a simple snapshot of a random scene is actually a careful composition. The left half contains all the dreary work of winter, while the right half is the exhilaration of play. Contrast the haggard hunters with the frolicking skaters playing hockey and curling. And notice how the grove of bare trees suddenly opens up to the spacious landscape on the right — the true "subject" of this painting — with a glorious distant scene of mountains. The soaring bird is in direct contrast to the weary hunters. It gives a feeling of great freedom, of emerging from the woods after a long journey, of flying forever through infinite the space.
Brugel — Christ Carrying the Cross ("Die Kreutzragung Christi")
This isn't so much a religious painting as a political one. Like Bosch's similar work, Christ is buried in a festival of figures, and we soon see that this isn't ancient Jerusalem, but 16th century Flanders — see the windmill? And Christ's tormenters in red uniforms aren't Roman soldiers but... Hapsburgs! Bruegel, a fervent nationalist, was bitterly opposed to the Austrians who ruled his land.
Bruegel's will ordered his wife to destroy this painting in case it should fall into the wrong hands and cause the Hapsburgs to take revenge on his family. Sure enough, it did end up in Hapsburg hands — and they loved it! and paid a small fortune for it! Leave it to an Austrian aristocrat to put beauty over politics.
Take a seat on the bench.
A Bruegel's-eye view
Be a Bruegel for a second. Sit on the bench and watch people watching Bruegel. One of the most entertaining things about the Bruegel room is the Kunst security system. You may have noticed the electric eyes that buzz when people get too close. It's especially obvious here with Bruegel as people lean in to look or point at details. It's funny to find people who don't realize it's them tripping the buzzer.
Every painting in this room is worth a look — find your own favorite Bruegel and linger. Check out the "Tower of Babel" built by King Nimrod who wanted to shake hands with God. Notice their cranes powered by human treadmills. And spend some time watching "Peasant Children at Play" and their parents at play during Fasching, the Austrian Mardi Gras. Get close. They're all full of fun details worth at least two buzzes each. Linger. I mean it. Linger, I'm in no hurry.
Exit into the smaller room in the direction of the windows.
Durer and the Deutsch (1500-1550)
Albrecht Durer (pron. DEWR-er) was the premier German Renaissance painter. And "Renaissance" really applies here not only because he studied in Italy at the height of the Renaissance but also because he was an all-around Renaissance Man — the "Leonardo da Vinci of the North" — an architect, engineer, author... and painter.
The large painting on your left...
Durer — Altarpiece of the Trinity ("Die Anbetung der hl. Dreifaltigkeit")
Durer combines Northern detail (he was the son of a goldsmith and a renowned engraver) with Italian Renaissance symmetry. At first glance, this altarpiece overwhelms us with a mess of figures — what would you say, a hundred of them? — a la Bosch or Bruegel. But on closer inspection, what looks to be a pig-pile of saints turns out to be a neat, geometrical Renaissance composition — a la Raphael.
Durer has made this painting a series of triangles — appropriate for a painting about the Trinity. The crucified Christ in the center is in the shape of a triangle; the clouds that frame him are also triangular; God the Father is a triangle as are the crowded crowds of people to the left and right of the central figures, and so on.
Durer learned from the Italians how to paint like an artist, but he also learned how to act like one, to carry himself like an aristocrat and not a common laborer as most Northern artists were considered to be. He practically invented the self-portrait as an art form, and here he includes a small likeness of himself — he's the one earthling in this heavenly vision (bottom right). The plaque announces that he, Albrecht Durer, painted it in 1511.
Just around the corner to the right are more Durers, including his otherworldly "Blue Madonna" ("Maria mit dem kind") — well worth a peek.
From Durer, keep the windows on your right and pass through three rooms. In the fourth...
Cranach — Crucifixion ("Die kreuznigung")
Contrast Durer's powerful, serene, Renaissance-style Christ with this crucified Christ — twisted, bleeding, scarred... and vomiting blood! His robe is whipped furiously by the wind as the storm clouds roll in. Obviously, Cranach isn't interested in showing us the geometric perfection of a Renaissance Man on a cross. He's communicating with very human details the agony of a tortured man.
Next to the Crucifixion are two works...
Altdorfer — Entombment ("Die Grablegung Christi") and Resurrection ("Die Anferstehung Christi")
These are by another contemporary of Durer (and Titian and Raphael). They show Christ's tomb at two different times. Jesus was buried on Good Friday, then came back to life on Easter Sunday. In both scenes, Altdorfer misses no chance to strike at our religious emotions.
The Resurrection especially looks like a gaudy poster for a bad horror film — "EASTER SUNDAY III. He's back from the dead... and he's ticked!" The surreal colors of the morning sky (are the clouds on fire?), the burning halo around Christ's head and the wind-whipped cloak are all emotional elements that would never find their way into, say, a Raphael Madonna. Yet this was the means for expressing medieval-tinged spirituality, the painter's equivalent of Gothic gargoyles.
In the next room are more medieval-looking works by Cranach. His "Garden of Eden" ("Das Paradies"), with several scenes in one, is especially interesting — notice God's disembodied head spying on Adam and Eve from the clouds.
More Northern Art
The Kunst has so many great works by "lesser" Northern artists that we'll have to pass many by. But in your stroll through the next few rooms, here are some pleasant stops along the way.
Exit the Cranach room, keeping the windows on your right. Follow the map.
Holbein — Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was one of the VI wives of Henry VIII. Here she is, the former lady in waiting: bland, modest and trying very hard (though unsuccessfully) to look like a queen. To the right are portraits by Holbein of other members of Henry's court.
Arcimboldo — Summer ("Das Feuer")
Also known as "Fruit Face." This charming fantasy is one of a series portraying the four seasons as people.
The funny-looking machines on the walls
You must have noticed the funny boxes placed around the museum that look like seismographs or EKG charts. They're monitors of relative humidity to make sure the paintings are well-preserved. Blow hot breath on one and watch the needle twitch.
Brueghel — The Big Flower Bunch ("Der Grosse Blumentraub")
Still lifes — paintings of everyday objects like fruit, pans or flowers — were a Northern specialty. This vase of flowers was done by Jan Brueghel, the son of the famous Bruegel we just saw. Papa Bruegel had two sons who followed in his footsteps, adding luster and an "h" to his name.
Jan Brueghel was famous for his flowers. Other artists called him to come in and paint flowers for their paintings. This is not a painting from nature, by the way. These are flowers that bloom in all different seasons thrown into one pot. And, you'll notice that each flower is arranged perfectly, shown at its best angle and chosen to give a colorful symmetry to the whole piece.
Leaving the simplicity of Northern Art — small canvases, small themes, attention to detail — we're about to re-enter the big-canvased broad-stroked world of Baroque. But first, let's clear our palate with a look at where we've been.
Keeping the windows on your right, continue to the very last room along this side of the building. As soon as you enter, turn left to the first two paintings.
Teniers — Prince Leopold William in his Gallery in Brussels ("Erzerzog Leopold Wilhelm in Serner Galerie in Brussel")
This Hapsburg governor of the Netherlands was one of history's great collectors of art. Here he is with some of his purchases. Recognize any? There's Raphael's "St. Margaret" and Veronese's "Adoration." Others? Lots of Venetian stuff but very few Northern artists are represented — they're stored in the back room, no doubt.
Now return to the previous room. Find the portrait on the wall opposite the windows.
Rubens and Rembrandt (1600-1670)
Rubens — Self-portrait ("Selbstbildnis")
Stand here and share in the success of Peter Paul Rubens from Catholic- dominated Flanders (Belgium). He paints himself in his artistic prime: famous, wealthy, well-traveled, intelligent, the friend of kings and princes, an artist, diplomat, man about town, charming, witty and, as the painting shows more than anything else, confident.
Rubens was the greatest Baroque painter, even though he was a "Northern" artist. His patrons were wealthy kings and the wealthy Catholic Church whose tastes ran towards the bright colors, ample flesh and dramatic themes we saw in Italian art.
On the wall to the right...
Rubens — Portrait of Helene Fourment
At the age of 53, Rubens had everything... except a wife. He married this cute hometown girl of 16, Helene Fourment, who was to make the last years of his life among the happiest and most productive. Rubens called this painting "The Little Fur" for obvious reasons. That was also his pet name for Helene for reasons not so obvious, though I could take a guess. This painting was part of Rubens' own private collection. Helene's full form body was surely an inspiration to Rubens — he painted all the women of his last works with Helene's sweet face and dimpled proportions.
Enter the large gallery of large canvases.
Rubens
You get a sense of the variety of Rubens by just looking around the room: portraits, religious works, violence, tenderness, pagan myths. He runs the gamut (what is a gamut anyway?) from religious tenderness to Bacchic sensuality. This is the grandeur, motion, emotion and bright colors that appealed to Europe's Catholic rulers.
But, can we be sure it's Baroque? Ah yes, there it is in the large "Ildefonso Altarpiece" on the right — pudgy winged babies. It's Baroque all right.
Since this has been a lingering kind of tour, just stroll around the Rubens gallery and the one next door. There you'll see two enormous canvases (enormouser than the rest). How could Rubens paint all these in one lifetime? He didn't. He had so many orders that he kept a workshop of assistants busy painting backgrounds and minor figures. He oversaw the work, stepping in at the end to brush on the final touches. Next to the two big canvases done mostly by assistants are Rubens' original "sketches" they worked from.
Wherever you may have roamed, end up at the portrait to the left of the Ildefonso Altarpiece.
Rubens — Kaiser Maximilian I
This is the father of the Hapsburg Empire. He was no doubt a great man, but Rubens has done everything in his painterly power to make him greater. The huge, gleaming armour (which almost dwarfs mild-mannered Max), the rippling clouds in the background, the bright reds and blues, the powerful hand on the sword — all these were Baroque techniques to proclaim the power and authority of rulers like the Hapsburgs.
Just a few miles away from Rubens' workshop in Antwerp lived another great artist who also excelled in many different styles — but the two men were worlds apart.
From Maximilian, go left into the second Rubens gallery, then take an immediate right into the small room near the windows. On your left you'll see...
Rembrandt — Portrait of a Husband ("Mannliches Bildnis")
Compare this Rembrandt portrait with the Rubens we just saw. Rembrandt's subject is no emperor, just an ordinary guy sitting in an ordinary chair with a plain grey background and dressed in ordinary clothes (though they were probably his Sunday best). And Rembrandt has caught him at an ordinary moment, not posing. The man's cheerful personality shines through his red cheeks and he seems to be saying to us, "Hey, let me buy you a drink."
The Protestant middle class world of Holland called for a different kind of art from the Catholic royalty who bought Rubens' canvases by the yard. The merchants and burghers wanted no-frills portraits, pleasant landscapes and humorous slices of life. Nothing fancy, nothing heavy.
Continue into the next small room to the left with several Rembrandt portraits.
Rembrandt — The Large Self-Portrait ("Das Grosse Selbstbildnis")
Rembrandt always seemed to paint just what he wanted whether or not it was popular or lucrative to do so. Here we see the hands-on-hips, defiant, open- stance determination of a man who will do what he wants, and if they don't like it, tough.
And he did paint what he wanted. In this room are portraits of family members that surely weren't done for money, like the picture of his son Titus reading a book ("Der lesende Jungling"). In typical Rembrandt style, most of the canvas is a deep dark brown with only a few light spots glowing from the darkness (remember Caravaggio? Rembrandt did). To the right is a portrait of his mother ("Die Mutter des Kunstlers"). These weren't big money-makers but they merited Rembrandt's full attention.
Rembrandt — Self-portrait 1655 ("Selfbildnis 1655")
Rembrandt's mother died, his wife died, Titus died and the commissions for paintings dried up as his style veered from the common path. Rembrandt had to auction off paintings to pay debts and died a poor man.
His numerous self-portraits painted from youth till old age show us a man always changing. From wide-eyed youth, to successful portraitist to this disillusioned but still defiant old man.
Let's crown the tour with one last jewel that typifies Northern art so well. From Rembrandt continue down the hall (windows on right) to the next-to-last room.
Vermeer — The Artist in his Studio ("Allegorie der Malerei")
The Dutch painter Jan Vermeer quiets the world down to where we can hear our own heartbeat, to where we appreciate the beauty in common things. He creates his own small doll-house world with such detailed clarity that it's as though we were seeing these everyday items for the first time.
The artist in the painting — probably Vermeer himself — is painting a model dressed in blue; he's just starting with her flowery hat. The studio is its own little world squared off by the chair in the foreground and the wall in back. Then Vermeer has filled this space with the detailed gems he wants us to focus on — the chandelier, the map, the painter's costume. The curtain drawn aside makes us feel like we're peeking in on this intimate scene.
And throughout it all, the diffused lighting sets a quiet tone, accentuated by cool blue colors, that gives us the peace to meditate on these everyday objects.
Vermeer's paintings all have a quiet element of mystery. What is the map for? The mask on the table? The painting is also called, mysteriously, "An Allegory of Painting." Since the model holds the trumpet and book, traditional symbols of fame, perhaps we are seeing the artist as someone — his back to the public — earnestly and painstakingly trying to capture fleeting fame with a small sheet of canvas.
This is the end of the tour. However, we've seen only the "Kunst" (art) half of the Kunst-"Historisches" (history) Museum. Gluttons for punishment should head downstairs.
The Rest of the Kunst
The Picture Gallery on the upper floor should take up most of your time and energy. But the collections on the ground floor are among the best in Europe, and are interesting if only to show the eclectic, garage-sale, scavenger-hunting tastes of the eccentric Hapsburgs.
If you like ancient rubble and medieval curios, take some time to browse through the ground floor. Enjoy!