Worlds of Romanticism - The Romantic Search for the Transcendental
What was important for the artists of Romanticism and who were the main players? Museum Albertina director Klaus Albrecht Schröder leads us through Romanticism on the occasion of the exhibition "Worlds of Romanticism".
Worlds of Romanticism highlights an antagonism in this art movement, according to director Klaus Albrecht Schröder, it is the contrast between the Nordic-Protestant and the Catholic-Austrian variety in painting.
The period after the French revolution is the show’s initial point, an era where the European continent was plagued by war and dissolution. In this divided Europe, artists turned away from the established predominance of rationalism, and the aesthetic ideals of antiquity were replaced by a new interest in metaphysics, mythology and medieval aesthetics.
The start of the exhibition already illustrates the mood of that era, with famous works like Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters or the Colossus from the Prado museum, for a long time attributed to Goya as well.
160 exhibits in eleven exhibition halls confront the interpretations of motifs like landscape and nature by northern Germanic romantic painters to those painted by the Viennese romantics. One major subject are the painters of the Nazarene movement (as they were called because of their long hair) who seceded from Vienna’s academy, turned towards Catholicism and moved to Rome. Paintings, etchings and drawings by Ludwig Schnorr, Moritz v. Schwind, Friedrich Overbeck or Peter Cornelius testify to this Viennese contribution to Romanticism.
These so-called Nazarenes of the self-proclaimed Brotherhood of St. Luke were a main focus of Duke Albert of Saxonia’s collection. Many of the works that were scattered all over the world in the aftermath of the First World War were brought back to Vienna for the purpose of this exhibition.
The exhibition was curated by Christof Metzger and Cornelia Reiter, who passed away in summer. This cooperation between the Albertina and the Graphic Collection of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna is dedicated to her memory.
Albertina Museum | www.albertina.at
An exhibition portrait by CastYourArt | www.castyourart.com
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