Not every European city has such a glorious and tragic fate as the German Dresden experienced. This unique city was inspired by the name of Florence on the Elbe, and not only because of its magnificent geographical position in the Elbe River Valley and luxurious Baroque architecture. The air itself is saturated with the spirit of art, which is in the city art museums. One of them is the world famous Dresden Gallery, the official name of which is the “Gallery of Old Masters”.
Pride of Germany
The art gallery, which stores the best examples of ancient European painting, is located in a three-story building with a dome. It is part of the residence of the Saxon imperial princes (Electors) Zwinger and is part of the architectural ensemble that combines this palace and the theater square of Dresden.
You can familiarize yourself with the history and the collection, which the Dresden Gallery is so famous for: the museum website kindly provides the necessary information in German and English. Those wishing to visit the museum can get here any day of the week, except Monday (day off). Children are allowed on display for free.
Exposition history
The Dresden Gallery began with a cabinet of rarities - a Kunstkamera, which brought together various wonders from the natural world and human inventions. Along with rare samples, the courtyard collected canvases by famous masters. The Frederick the Wise, who ruled at that time, ordered the works of Dürer and Cranach. The works of these artists adorned the walls of the palace, and today are the pearls of the exhibition, which is famous for the Dresden Art Gallery. More than one generation of the Saxon electors acquired canvases, prints, coins, porcelain, but a truly grandiose replenishment of the museum awaited under Augustus the Strong. For several decades, the collection was so replenished that the castle was not able to accommodate all the exhibits. The gallery was transferred to a specially restored building of royal stables.
The heyday of the princely collection
The descendant of Elector August III finished his father’s work, turning the court collection into the greatest repository of painting, which made up the golden fund of world art. Augustus purposefully and persistently collected the best examples of European painting without stinting funds. He organized a whole network, whose employees attended all sales and auctions in Europe, agreed to purchase both individual paintings and entire collections. In 1741, the Dresden Gallery was replenished with a large collection of paintings bought from the Duke of Wallenstein. A few years later there was a collection of Francesco III d'Este with the masterpieces of Velazquez, Correggio, Titian. In 1754, the great “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael was also brought from the monastery of St. Sixtus in Piacenza to Dresden (the painting was bought for twenty thousand Cecins). Almost all the works of Rembrandt were acquired at that time by the Dresden Art Gallery. The paintings reflected the tastes and artistic predilections of the aristocracy, among them there were many portraits and paintings of religious subjects.
After seven years of war
In 1756, a crushing seven-year war broke out, and collecting activity was interrupted for a hundred years. In 1845, the city authorities decided to build a special building for the museum and invited the architect Gottfried Semper for this purpose, who proposed a project that harmoniously fit and complement the medieval Zwinger. The Dresden Gallery was opened in 1855, at that time it contained more than two thousand paintings. The collection began to actively replenish with the works of masters of the new time. However, in the 1930s, paintings by the Impressionists and their followers were transferred to other museums, and only the masterpieces of the old masters remained in the Dresden vault.
The difficult fate of the gallery
At the end of World War II, Dresden was brutally bombarded by American and British aircraft. From the incomparable architectural ensemble of Zwinger there are only charred ruins. However, the collection escaped by being hidden in limestone mines. Despite the fact that the tunnels were equipped with ventilation and heating, the system failed, and the water entering the shelter significantly spoiled the paintings. When the Soviet soldiers found the famous masterpieces, they needed an urgent restoration. The restoration of the great cultural heritage was carried out by the best specialists of the Soviet Union. In 1955, at the insistence of N.S. Khrushchev rescued works of art were returned to Dresden. The gallery was finally restored by 1964. Today, in fifty rooms, about three thousand canvases of recognized geniuses of painting are exhibited.
Masterpieces
Old canvas, which is carefully preserved by the famous Dresden Art Gallery (some of the photos are presented in the article) make it freeze in mute delight. Here is the painting of the artist of the
Early Renaissance Antonelo de Messina "Saint Sebastian", in which the Christian martyr is depicted in a stoicly monumental perspective, which inspires the idea of a feat conquering suffering.
Here is the stunning Raphael Sistine Madonna in a host of angels, in front of the radiant, divine beauty of which the Russian soldiers, who discovered a masterpiece in one of the drawers, silently took off their caps. This is a work of the High Renaissance. Titian’s unsurpassed painting “Caesar's Dinar”, with amazing insight, demonstrates a collision of moral choice, proposed by Christ , unexpected for secular understanding.
An example of the Late Renaissance - the painting of the Parma painter Antonio Correggio "Holy Night" - gently and lyrically narrates the touching worship of the Magi to the newborn Christ. Dutch painting is presented in the Dresden Gallery by the works of Jan van Eyck. The gallery exhibition is decorated with unsurpassed
Dutch still lifes and landscapes.
On the antithesis of the ever-renewing nature and the inevitable finiteness of human life is the painting of Jacob van Reisdal's “Jewish Cemetery”.
The exposition of the gallery is adorned with the “hunting” canvases of the Flanders artist Rubens and genre paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder. France is represented in the Dresden Museum by paintings by Nicolae Poussin. The famous “Chocolate Girl” by Jean-Etienne Lyotard found a place here. The paintings of Murillo and Velazquez represent the Spanish school of painting.