thaumazein: ROMANTICISM AT THE GERMANISCHES NATIONAL MUSEUM, NÜRNBERG

Romanticism at the GNM

Portrait of the Boy Xaverio as St. John the Baptist, by Johann Friedrich Overbeck

Biedermeier

Chocolate cup with saucer. Meissen Porcelain (ca. 1860) — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

Meissen Porcelain: Images from 'Sorrows of Young Werther' — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

Farm With Black Sky: Franz Radziwill 1927 — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

Steinway Hammerklavier (Hamburg, 1922) — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

The Cult of Goethe (bare-chested)

The Guillotine: In Germany, symbol of the Revolution, admired by the intellectuals, except Goethe

THE NAZARENES

Portrait of the Boy Xaverio as St. John the Baptist, by Johann Friedrich Overbeck. One of the German Romantics exiled in Rome, Overbeck traveled there in 1810 with Pforr and Vogel, to create a new “patriotic” art through a return to medieval religiosity. These painters in exile were not seeking ancient Rome there, but the Rome that became the capital of Christendom. In the monastic seclusion of San Isidoro, they strove for a “simple,” heartfelt and intimate art, which was to address all people equally.

NOSTALGIA FOR ITALY

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, Alpine Landscape. (1818) — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

BUCOLICS

Friedrich Philipp Reinhold, Midday Rest (Salzburg Landscape) 1831 — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

The Dürer kitsch Cult

The Nürnberg Dürer Celebrations held on April 6, 1828, to mark the 300th anniversary of the artist’s death brought together a large number of artists from all of the German states to participate in a “genuine German national celebration.” They dreamed then of a German national state. The stained glass window is the work of Franz Joseph Sauterleute, entitled Portrait of Albrecht Dürer and Scenes from his Life ( 1829-30) — at Germanisches Nationalmuseum.