Munich's Alte Pinakothek
By Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw
Alte Pinakothek
("Old Art Gallery," pronounced "ALL-tuh pee-nah-ko-TAYK")
2008 Notes:
Bavaria's best painting gallery shows off a great collection of European masterpieces from the 14th to 19th centuries, featuring work by Fra Angelico, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael, Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, El Greco, and Goya (€5.50, €1 on Sun, open Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00, Tue until 20:00, closed Mon, last entry 30 min before closing, free and excellent audioguide — €4 on Sun, obligatory lockers, no flash photos, U-2 or U-8: Königsplatz, Barer Strasse 27, tel. 089/2380-5216, www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek).
1996 Text:
Orientation
Enter and have a seat in the lobby.
All the paintings we'll see are on the upper floor. Here on the ground floor are the bookstore, info desk, WCs, coffee shop (to the left of the lobby) and more paintings. The upper floor, containing the paintings we'll concentrate on, is laid out like a barbell. We'll start at one fat end and work our way through the "handle" to the other end.
The Pinakothek has paintings from the North (Germany, Holland, Belgium) and the South (mainly Italy, though even Bavaria has a kind of southern feel). In general, the Northern countries became capitalistic, democratic and Protestant, while Southern countries (including Bavaria) remained more feudal, aristocratic and Catholic. Since art reflects the society that produced it, we'll see two distinct styles.
Northern Renaissance
The Renaissance began in Italy (as we'll see), but the ideas seeped north. One of the most radical Renaissance attitudes was "humanism" — a confidence in the power of people to control their own destinies. This idea helped fuel the fires of the religious protesters ("Protestants") who were breaking away from the Catholic church that had dominated Europe through the Middle Ages. In art, this humanism brought a new way for artists to paint people — not as weak sinners before an angry god, but as strong, confident co-creators with God.
Bosch - Fragment from the Last Judgment ("Fragment eines Jungsten Gerichts")
Look at these puny little guys, tortured by demons. In the Middle Ages, man was seen as a plaything of supernatural forces, a victim of Satan's temptations and God's wrath. In this Last Judgment scene, naked sinners are condemned to Hell to be tormented by half-reptile/half-insect devils. Notice the woman (center right) being carried off by a rooster-like demon. And talk about the Torments of Hell! Catch the odious grey demon (top center) with a mouse's head, pink wings... and a big meal under his belt. Enough to make you beg for fire and brimstone.
Cranach - Crucifixion ("Klage unter dem kreuz")
Christ's twisted form -distorted, gruesome and unnatural — makes us feel the agony He went through. This is not a majestic Son of God triumphing over Satan, but an all-too-human, mortal and weak Jesus suffering for our sins... and reminding us none too subtly that ultimately it was sinful Man who sent Him to the Cross. Now contrast Christ's skinny, twisted and ugly body with the massive, majestic forms in Grunewald's painting.
Grunewald - Saints Erasmus and Maurice ("Die Hll. Erasmus und Mauritius")
These stately figures, painted about the same time as Cranach's crucified Christ, show the influence of the Italian Renaissance. Erasmus in his beautiful jeweled bishop's robes and Maurice in armor are fully three-dimensional, as big and solid as Roman statues. Even more important than the sheer mass is their stately bearing, proud and confident, not cowering before supernatural forces.
Durer - Four Apostles ("Johannes und Petrus" and "Paulus und Marcus")
These four robed apostles (early followers of Jesus) are even more monumental than Grunewald's. Their faces, though, aren't those of idealized Roman statues but of real men with very real human weaknesses. John (at left) seems to be brooding about his receding hairline while Peter wishes he had a hairline to brood about. In the right-hand panel, bushy-headed Paul looks like a common laborer who just stepped off the rugby field while Mark eyes the world with fear and suspicion.
The saints we saw by Grunewald were powerful and well-dressed Catholic saints, but these apostles by Durer are symbols of a brand new and radical religion — Protestantism. Just a few years before, the German monk Martin Luther had defied the Church, been excommunicated by the pope, and started his own church. In the same way that Luther rejected Catholic wealth, worship of saints and authoritarian Church structure, Durer, in this painting, strips these saints of rich costumes, haloes (contrast with Grunewald's saints) and trappings of authority. These are real, intense, ugly but honest men — the kind to build a new faith on. Durer was a child of the Renaissance, open to new ideas, and when Luther's Reformation came along, he joined right in. He painted this work for free, making it a kind of profession of his new faith, complete with an inscription at the bottom warning German rulers to follow the Bible rather than the orders of Catholic Church leaders. That was quite a statement to make in a time when religious belief was literally a life and death matter. The figure of Mark, looking out suspiciously at the far right, is a fitting symbol of these dangerous times — a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other.
Durer - Self-portrait in Fur Coat ("Selbstbildnis im Pelzrock")
... Jesus Christ? Almost. No, this is Albrecht Durer himself in the most famous of several famous self-portraits. Solemnly gazing out at us, with his right hand poised almost as though giving us a blessing, this is the ultimate image of Renaissance humanism — the artist as Savior of the World!
It's no accident that Durer posed himself this way. He'd studied in Italy where artists were treated like kings, not lowly blue-collar workers. But posing yourself like Jesus Christ?! Isn't that a bit much? Not really. Durer, a religious man, wouldn't have seen this as a blasphemy against God but as an assertion of Man. He saw humans (especially artists) as instruments of God's continued creation, working under divine inspiration to make beautiful and useful things — co-creators with God.
Durer's style combines Renaissance solidity with typical Northern attention to detail. Get close and enjoy the incredible intricacy of the plaited hair, the skin texture and especially the fur collar. To the left of the head is Durer's famous monogram — "A.D." in the form of a pyramid. With Albrecht Durer, Renaissance humanism peaked in the North.
Altdorfer - The Victory of Alexander ("Schlacht bei Issus")
The humanism of the Renaissance met the reality of war... and lost. In 1529 the Moslem Turks were at the gates of Vienna. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, Catholics and Protestants were hacking away at each other with a ferocity that can only happen when each side is convinced that the enemy is Satan himself. By the time the dust settled a century later, Europe was devastated. One out of every three Germans had been killed. The battle Altdorfer portrays here between Greeks and Persians actually took place a thousand years before, but it served as an allegory for the confusion and destruction of what has been called the first "world war."
The battle's outcome is uncertain — as the battles were in Europe when Altdorfer painted it. The masses of soldiers are swept along in the currents and tides of a war completely beyond their control, their confused motion reflected in the swirling sky. We see the battle from a great height, giving us a god-like perspective. The armies melt into a huge landscape, leaving the impression that the battle is being continued into infinity. This is not really a battle scene — it's the picture of a whole world covered with war.
(In the most recent World War, Munich was flattened by Allied saturation bombing. The Pinakothek still bears visible scars on its exterior. It's rather unsettling to realize that a fraction of a modern bomb could dissolve the entire Pinakothek in a fraction of a second.)
Italian Renaissance
The Renaissance — the "rebirth" of interest in the art and learning of ancient Greece and Rome — blossomed in Italy around 1500, spreading from there to the rest of Europe. In art, the Renaissance style meant capturing the realism, three-dimensionality and balance found in classical statues. Italian Renaissance painters learned to paint these three-dimensional figures on a two- dimensional canvas. Their works show a humanistic outlook, even when painting religious subject — they saw God in the beauty of His greatest creation, the human form. *(We'll return to this room of Renaissance greats in a second, but let's first glance at some of the equally-great predecessors to the High Renaissance. Enter the smaller room by the windows. On the left-hand wall...)
Giotto- Christ on the Cross ("Christus am kreuz")
Compare this stately crucifixion with the grotesque crucifixion we saw by Cranach. This Christ is serene and triumphant, not twisted in agony. The mood is enhanced by the symmetry of the painting — Christ is framed on either side by the dripping blood, the angels, the two groups of standing figures and the kneeling figures that balance each other out. Giotto (pron. ZHOTT-oh) was the first great Renaissance pioneer, though he painted this some two centuries before the High Renaissance.
Fra Angelico - Burial of Christ ("Grablegung Christi")
This is even more serene despite the tragic subject of Christ's burial. Again, it's the Renaissance balance and symmetry that create the mood. Christ in the center, his luminous body framed by the black mouth of the tomb, is also framed on either side by two mourners. They in turn kneel and bend, echoed by the sloping rock behind them. Even the colors of their robes balance out — each wears matching blues, pinks and gold.
Leonardo da Vinci -Madonna with the Carnation ("Maria mit dem Kinde")
This Virgin Mary with her baby Jesus has no halo, a revolutionary thing at the time. She doesn't need one. We know she's holy and pure simply because she's so beautiful. Tenderness and maternal love radiate from her. This is pure humanism — expressing the divine through the human form.
Leonardo da Vinci, the epitome of the well-rounded Renaissance Man, makes Mary a solid mountain of motherly love, a stable pyramid balanced on either side with Renaissance-arch windows. He brings these divine characters down to a very human level. Baby Jesus reaches out to play innocently with a red carnation, unaware that it's a symbol of the blood of the Passion and his eventual death.
Raphael - The Holy Family ("Die Hl. Familie aus dem Hause Cagnigiani")
The Madonna of the Curtain ("Die Madonna della Tenda")
The Madonna Tempi
Like his idol Leonardo, Raphael could combine Renaissance rules of symmetry with the human touch. Compare these three Raphaels with some of the other paintings of Madonnas around the room, for example the one on the far wall to the right with Mary flanked on either side by a saint. Dullsville. Raphael took Leonardo's pyramid form and ran with it. His "Holy Family" is perfectly balanced without being static and unnatural. Father Joseph is at the peak of the pyramid with his staff forming a strong central axis. Mary and Jesus are to the right of this, balanced by Elizabeth and baby John the Baptist on the left. Within this large pyramid of security are two smaller ones formed by the two mothers with their children.
Raphael's other two Madonnas are also pyramid-shaped compositions, but it's never too obvious or heavy-handed — just enough to give us the subliminal (and sublime) sense of the divine order. Raphael represents the high point of Renaissance style and humanistic lifestyle. Within a few decades after his death, Europe would be plunged into the religious wars that would soon drain away so much creativity. The warning signs were already apparent in Raphael's lifetime.
Botticelli - Lamentation over Christ ("Die Beweinung Christi")
Florence was the cradle of Renaissance free-thinking, the hometown of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Giotto, Fra Angelico and Botticelli. Then into town rode a charismatic monk named Savonarola preaching medieval fire and brimstone. He took control of the government and ordered that "pagan" books, clothes and paintings be burned. Botticelli, known for his happy-go-lucky lifestyle and worldly paintings, was deeply affected by this religious revival. He burned some of his earlier works and became an ascetic. Later works like this one have a repentant mood.
It looks like Botticelli started to build these figures into a solid Renaissance pyramid a la Raphael... only to have the center collapse and the walls cave in. Mary tries to hold her dead son's body up, but she too has fainted from the enormous weight. The tomb grins darkly behind them, the colors are deathly and surreal, and there's an atmosphere of irretrievable loss. The Renaissance was dying.
Titian - Christ Crowned with Thorns ("Die Dornenkronung")
Even Titian, the great Venetian painter of nudes and mythological subjects, was affected by the clampdown on Renaissance ideas. This work — done when he was, get this, 99 years old — is anti-Renaissance in both mood and style. There's no symmetry, no pyramid form and no central figure with balancing figures on the sides. The brushwork is messy and "Impressionistic," the colors dark. The only Renaissance feature is the arch in the background, and it looks cavernous and menacing. Christ with his powerful, statuesque body, sits like a captured Renaissance Man, silently taking the abuse of uncivilized fanatics.
Rubens and Baroque
The religious wars split Europe in two — Protestants in the Northern countries, Catholics in the South. (Germany itself was split, with Bavaria remaining Catholic.) The art style of the Catholic countries is known as Baroque, characterized by large canvases, bright colors, lots of flesh, rippling motion, wild emotions and grand themes. Baroque art served as propaganda for the sophisticated nobility and Catholic bishops — to impress the masses and keep them loyal to Church and State.
Titian and his fellow Venetians were the jumping-off point for Baroque painters. Glance around the room at the large and colorful proto-Baroque canvases.
Now enter the next gallery noticing the even bigger canvases, lusher colors, more skin, rippling movement... and pudgy winged babies, the sure sign of Baroque. Don't be too impressed yet. Continue on into the following, larger gallery containing the work of Rubens. Now be impressed. In the far corner are three autobiographical works.
Rubens - Rubens and Isabella Brant
Peter Paul Rubens of Catholic Flanders (Belgium) is almost universally recognized as the greatest painter ever. Period. Whether he was also the greatest ARTIST is quite another matter, and many people find his work gaudy and superficial. But his command of the brush, of portraying the human figure on canvas from every conceivable angle, is unsurpassed.
Rubens was equally famous in his own day, and here we see him in his prime with his first wife, both of them the very picture of health, wealth and success. They lean towards each other ever so slightly, unconsciously, as people in love will do. The center of this unusually (for Rubens) restrained composition is their two hands, clasped tenderly together in mutual and unpossessive affection.
Rubens - Helene Fourment
When his first wife died, Rubens found a replacement, the youngest of seven sisters famous for their beauty. Helene was only (gulp) 16 when she married the 53-years-young Rubens ("But Your Honor, she said she was 19, looked 18, and heck, she's almost 17..."), but by all accounts they lived happily ever after. This wedding picture, showing Helene dressed and seated like a queen, was part of Rubens' own private collection.
Rubens - Pastoral Scene ("Schaferzene")
Recognize a couple of familiar faces? In this scene of a passionate shepherd with his mate, we see Rubens as the lusty old goat seducing the young, beautiful and only somewhat reluctant Helene.
Helene was the model for many of Rubens' women — you can recognize her in the large "Das Apokalyptische Weiss" on the wall to the left. Her blonde hair, blue eyes and small mouth were certainly attractive, but Rubens especially loved to paint her full, robust and healthy body. "She never blushed when I took up my brush," Rubens explained. In his own way, Rubens carried on the humanistic tradition of the Renaissance, glorying in the pure, honest beauty of the naked human form.
Rubens - Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus ("Der Raub der Tochter des Leukippos")
This has many of Rubens' most typical elements — fleshy, emotional, rippling motion, bright colors and a classical subject (Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, are taking brides by force from the neighboring Sabines). You'll see many of these features in other paintings around the room. Looking closer at this swirling mess-terpiece we can see Rubens' standard "X" composition. A diagonal line of motion running from lower left to upper right along the women's flailing arms is crossed by a diagonal from upper left to lower right running down Romulus' cape and continued in the woman's flowing blond hair. In other words, the intricate counterbalancing of opposite motions — like the weaving counterpoint in a Baroque fugue — is based on a solid, balanced, Renaissance structure.
Rubens -The Big Last Judgment ("Das Grosse Jungste Gericht")
At the Last Judgment, Christ will raise the righteous up to Heaven and damn the sinners to Hell. Rubens portrays this as a great cycle of souls, a Christian mandala, with the good people swirling up at left (the right hand of Christ) and the wicked circling down to everlasting torment at right. The only breather for the eyes in this tangle of nudes — by the way, the monastery that commissioned the work rejected it as obscene — is the donut-hole landscape in the center. Compare this Big (or, the more appropriate German word, "Grosse") Last Judgment with his two "Small Last Judgments" here in the spill-over room. There's such a jumble of figures that it begins to look like an abstract design. In fact, many modern artists work in exactly this fashion — they accentuate the overall compositional outlines (like these circles of colorful figures) and de-emphasize the specific realistic details.
With that in mind, glance over your left shoulder, out the window, to the statue on the lawn about 50 meters away. This abstract work by Henry Moore is a 20th-century version of a full-figured, reclining Rubens nude.
Northern Protestant Art
Rubens made a fortune painting for kings, princes and the Catholic Church. But most Northern countries were Protestant and middle class. Protestant churches didn't buy much art — Protestants looked down on the pomp, ceremony and "graven images" in Catholic worship. Instead, Northern art was bought by middle class merchants and traders, and the subjects reflect it. Saints and Greek gods were out; portraits, landscapes, still-lifes and scenes from everyday life were in. We'll see examples of each of these subjects.
Brouwer - Tobacco ("Der Geschmack") and Brandy ("Der Gerlich")
This is a complete about-face from grandiose Rubens to small canvases, natural colors and scenes of everyday life. Adriaen Brouwer also lived a completely different kind of life from his more famous contemporary.
At age 16, Brouwer ran away from home to Holland where he studied art and quickly gained a reputation. He lived a bohemian life, constantly in debt, hanging out in the cheap inns which became his favorite painting subject. He became addicted to tobacco ("Der Geschmack") and brandy ("Der Gerlich"), both of which were practically narcotics in those days due to the method of preparation. (The paintings confirm this — do these guys look Geschmacked, or what?) He died, burned out from his excesses, at age 32.
Brouwer's style was as radical as his lifestyle. He was one of the first artists to paint the "other side" of life, a kind of 17th-century Kerouac chronicling life in society's underbelly. He wasn't afraid of ugliness, and he never prettified or glorified the world the way, say, Rubens did. Ironically, Rubens was one of his greatest fans, buying 17 of his works. Take some time here — it's the best collection anywhere of this long-neglected artist.
Elsheimer - The Flight into Egypt ("Flicht Nach Agypten")
Three refugees — Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus — flee for their lives, adrift in a wide, dark, dangerous world. The true subject isn't the people but the few glimmers of light that they navigate by — the campfire of the shepherds at left (friends or enemies?), Joseph's flickering torch, the Milky Way slanting above, and most of all, the moon with its reflection trapped in water. In this immense night whose dawn is far from inevitable, we sense the fragility of human beings, tiny sparks in a dark world.
So what are those funny measuring devices, about two feet off the floor, that you find throughout the museum? Seismographs? EKG machines? Try this. Bend over (when the guard's looking away) and blow into the box, as warm and wet and sexy a breath as you can muster (try thinking of Helene Fourment, or Rubens, or both), and watch the needle twitch on the lower drum. See if you can get it above 62, my personal record. Of course, the lower drum measures relative humidity and the upper one temperature in degrees Celsius, to keep the art in proper atmospheric conditions.
Delff - Still-life with Metal Pans and Dead Duck ("Stilleben mit Metallgefassen")
Still-lifes are paintings of everyday objects. By portraying them in perfect detail, artists make us see these common objects as though for the first time. We see the sheen of the pans and the texture of the duck's body, things that we're usually too busy to notice (like the direction the water always swirls when you flush a toilet — is it clockwise or counter-clockwise?). By raising the mundane to the level of Art, the artist shows us the beauty residing in all things.
Van Ruysdael - Landscape ("Flusslandschaft mit Fahre")
Rubens would have found this scene boring. But again, the artist gives us the commonplace in all its natural splendor.
Rembrandt - Six paintings from the life of Christ
Not every Northern artist was content to paint pots, pans and trees. Rembrandt, the greatest Dutch painter, explored some of the same big themes as his contemporary, Rubens. He matched Rubens for emotion and drama, but always in an understated and human way. He was a Protestant painting for Protestants.
These are six down-to-earth looks at supernatural events. The "Adoration" could just as easily have taken place in a 17th-century Dutch barn as in ancient Bethlehem. Rembrandt often used poor, plain-looking people as his models, even for Mary and Jesus. A true humanist, he saw the divine spark in common folk. Rembrandt's most typical dramatic trick is strong contrasts of dark and light. The "Adoration" canvas is a moody brown except for one bright patch of light. Where's the light coming from? Certainly not from the dim lantern at left. No, it can't be coming from anywhere else but the baby Jesus himself -literally the "light of the world" shining into the drab existence of everyday people.
In the "Deposition" ("Kreuzabahme") the light again bounces off Christ onto his mother Mary like the sun lighting the moon, showing how his death also hurts her. The drama is underplayed, with subdued emotions. Almost unnoticed is that this work has a dramatic "X" composition — a la Rubens.
Rococo
Boucher - Madame du Pompadour ("Marquise de Pompadour 1756")
In the 1700s, Baroque art developed into a lighter, frillier style known as Rococo. It appealed to wealthy aristocrats with highly refined tastes — like Madame du Pompadour — who had nothing better to do with their time than dress up and redecorate their palaces. With her dress of pastel colors and surrounded by frilly objects, this mistress of France's Louis XV is Rococo incarnate.
Boucher - Reclining Girl ("Ruhendes Madchen")
If he'd lived to the age of 150, Rubens would have married this girl. She's both innocent and erotic, the kind of girl to read the Sunday comics in bed with. The pink sheets accentuate her pink skin and fresh, wide-eyed baby face. On the other hand, the rumpled bedding and her suggestive, expectant position make us wonder if maybe we're just seeing a break in the action. Did her lover just slip out for a second to buy her a Slurpee?
Fragonard - Girl with Dog ("Madchen mit Hund")
In another lecherous "boudoir picture," the artist invites us to ogle a pretty young nymph, looking between her legs at her furry pooch.
Chardin - Woman Cleaning Turnips ("Die Rubenplitzerin")
God forbid that we end on that note, so contrast the decadent luxury of the Rococo world with this woman cleaning turnips. This is French art with a twist of Northern sobriety. While lords and ladies cavort in their boudoirs, this honest working woman pauses from her labors to ask, "Is this all there is to life?" No, ma'am, it isn't. There's also beer, and that's where I'm headed.