Monday 26 September 2011

Renaissance art in Berlin

Some of the most beautiful faces in the world 

THE portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the 16-year-old mistress of Ludovico Sforza (also known as Ludovico il Moro), Duke of Milan from 1489 until his death in 1508, is not only captivating—popularly known as "Lady with an Ermine" (pictured)—but the most valuable work of art in Poland. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci, it hardly ever leaves the country. But the Bode Museum in Berlin has been able to include it in a fascinating show, "Masterpieces of Renaissance Portraiture". This despite the painting’s fragile state and the fact that German Nazis stole it when they invaded Poland in 1939. The American Allies returned it to the Krakow Czartoryski Museum in May 1945.

This exhibition is sensational. More than 150 portraits, sculptures and medals from the early Italian Renaissance are on view. Thanks to its curators, Stefan Weppelmann from Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) and Keith Christiansen from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, we can now admire all at once outstanding centuries-old works by Sandro Botticelli, Leon Battista Alberti, Desiderio da Settignano, Filippo Lippi, Pisanello, Gentile Bellini, da Vinci and others. The list of lenders includes the Britain's Royal Collection, the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi in Florence and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
 
 
After downloading the show’s app on my smart phone, I was perfectly equipped to see and learn. It was a charming juxtaposition of modern technology and 15th-century art. Hoping to avoid the long queues, I waited some weeks to see the show. I still had to wait for about an hour for my ticket and then another two hours for my time slot. But thanks to a well-organised mobile-notification system (which informs visitors of their time slot via text message), I was able to while away time at the nearby beach bar.

The light in the exhibition rooms is deliberately dim, and no more than 300 visitors are allowed in at a time, to preserve some intimacy with the works. Yet the colours of the paintings are amazingly bright and as clear as photographs. One of my favourite paintings (which I first saw as a child in a book and later the original at the Dresden Picture Gallery) is Andrea d’Assisi’s "Portrait of a Boy" (pictured), painted around 1495 or 1500. I am still captivated by the way he thoughtfully looks out across the centuries. Lady with an Ermine is the sensation at the end of the tour. If you don't see her here, you might be able to get a glimpse in London, where a Leonardo exhibition is due to open on November 9th.
 
“Gesichter der Renaissance” (“Renaissance Faces – Masterpieces of Italian Portraiture”)
is on view at the Bode Museum until November 20th; it will then travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from December 19th to March 18th 2012

Article from: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/09/renaissance-art-berlin

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