09.10.2009 to 10.01.2010
Carl Gustav Carus was a physician and painter, philosopher and scientist. A friend of Alexander von Humboldt, he exchanged letters with Goethe and made drawings with Caspar David Friedrich. The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) proudly hosts the exhibition 'Carl Gustav Carus - Nature and Ideas' with the aim of presenting this prominent figure of German Romanticism in his entirety and highlighting the special role he occupied for art and science in his day.
Alongside more than two hundred paintings and drawings by Carus himself and art works by well known contemporaries of his such as Caspar David Friedrich and Johan Christian Dahl, medical instruments, anatomical specimens, exhibits from the world of natural history and anthropology, as well as texts by Carus will all also be on view. The themes of 'nature' and 'ideas' thus signify the poles between which Carus the universalist moved. At the heart of his work was a multidisciplinary concept which celebrated 'art as the pinnacle of science' and served as a model alternative to the trend towards specialization that arose in the early 19th century.
Organizer
