In a major special exhibition, the Neuhardenberg Castle Foundation is bringing visitors closer to a special period of Berlin's heyday: Berlin Classicism around 1800, an era of cultural renewal. Aufbruch 1800 ('1800 – the dawning of a new era') Art and society during the emergence of Berlin classicism opens on March 29.
It is one of Berlin's many important historical phases: Berlin Classicism around 1800. In politically turbulent times, marked by strict press censorship and the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon's troops, cultural life flourished: In salons, clubs or theaters, artists, architects, musicians, philosophers and poets engaged in an exceptionally intense exchange. In the period from 1786 to around 1815, the city of Berlin experienced a cultural heyday and developed into an internationally renowned center of artistic renewal. In an extensive special exhibition, the Schloss Neuhardenberg Foundation provides detailed insights into the unusually rapid rise of a city. Around 100 exhibits from 19 lenders, including the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Musikinstrumenten-Museum des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung, the Stadtmuseum Berlin and important private collectors, can be seen in Aufbruch 1800 ('1800 – the dawning of a new era') Art and society during the emergence of Berlin classicism. The exhibition runs from March 29 to August 10.
In order to do justice to the dialog as a central force of Berlin Classicism, the show is conceived as a presentation of pairs of people from different disciplines. These are the architects Friedrich Gilly and his pupil Karl Friedrich Schinkel as well as Johann Gottfried Schadow and Carl Gotthard Langhans. Other pairs are the writers Rahel Varnhagen and Henriette Herz, the poets Adelbert von Chamisso and Karl Philipp Moritz, the artisans Gottfried Mieth and Carl August Mencke and the composers Carl Friedrich Zelter and Carl Friedrich Fasch.
Among the items on loan are discoveries not previously on public display, including a previously unknown portrait of the young Karl Friedrich Schinkel painted around 1811 by Ernst Friedrich Bussler, as well as a secretary attributed to Karl Friedrich Schinkel from 1805-1815 from the estate of Lucie von Hardenberg. In its architectural austerity, this secretary is unmistakably in the tradition of the Berlin classicist architecture of Heinrich Gentz or Friedrich Gilly, which was inspired by French revolutionary architecture. The traces of Gilly and Schinkel are also visible in Neuhardenberg: Gilly designed the Bärwinkel estate and Schinkel designed the church, the castle and parts of the village of Neuhardenberg in their current neoclassical form.
With her reflections on painting and art-historical traditions, Kerstin Brätsch has become an important voice in contemporary art. On December 11, her exhibition MƎTAATEM opens at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, featuring over 100 works.
She is a national heroine in Finland, but has only become known internationally in recent years: Helene Schjerfbeck fascinates with her original, simple style. For the first time, a major museum in the USA is presenting her work: Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck opens on December 5 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
