06.09.2018
Alte Nationalgalerie
Just one and a half weeks before its closing, Senem Görken became the 150,000th visitor to be welcomed at the exhibition "Wanderlust. From Caspar David Friedrich to Auguste Renoir” in the Alte Nationalgalerie.
Today, Senem Görken and Björn Hangebrauck from Bochum were welcomed at the Alte Nationalgalerie. They decided to visit the exhibition during their two-week trip to Berlin. At 1 pm they were received by Ralph Gleis, head of Alte Nationalgalerie, and Birgit Verwiebe, curator of the exhibition. They handed the lucky visitors a copy of the richly illustrated exhibition catalogue. Afterwards, they received an introduction into the exhibition by Birgit Verwiebe and Gabriel Montua, co-curator of the exhibition.
With "Wanderlust" the Alte Nationalgalerie attends to a surprisingly central theme of nineteenth century art. Caspar David Friedrich's famous painting "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog", an exceptional loan from the Hamburger Kunsthalle, is the starting point of this special exhibition.
With Rousseau’s call to get “back to nature!” and Goethe’s Sturm und Drang poetry, wandering around 1800 became the expression of a modern awareness of life. As part of a reaction against the rapid social changes that began in the French Revolution, a new form of decelerated self- and world knowledge developed, whose presence can still be felt today.
Since the Romantic period, artists have discovered nature for themselves, exploring it on foot and looking at it from new angles. Wandering, in art, came to stand for life’s journey, for symbolic pilgrimage. For the traveller, the self-determined journey on foot brought with it a new, intensified encounter with nature and a form of world-appropriation that was both sensual and physical.
The works shown in the exhibition, including masterworks by Caspar David Friedrich, Carl Blechen, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Johan Christian Dahl, Richard Wilson, Christen Købke, Gustave Courbet, Iwan Kramskoi, Ferdinand Hodler, Auguste Renoir, Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix and Ernst Barlach, show just how powerful and fruitful the motif of the wanderer was in art throughout the nineteenth century, not only in Germany but in many places, from France and Great Britain to Denmark, Norway and Russia. The exhibition is arranged in themed sections: The Discovery of Nature; Life’s Journey; The Artist’s Wanderings; The Promenaders; Italy – Land of Longing; Landscapes of Wandering North of the Alps.
Significant loaned works from important museum collections in Europe and the USA will complement selected works from the collection of the Nationalgalerie, resulting in a large show of more than 120 exhibits.
A catalogue (in German language) has been published alongside the exhibition by Hirmer Verlag (ca. 290 pages, ca. 190 images, 29 Euro). Available at the museum or online.