The Old National Gallery in Berlin's Mitte district is part of the
building ensemble of the Museum Island and is therefore a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. Planned by Friedrich August Stüler from 1862 on behalf of
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, it was executed by Johann Heinrich Strack in
the classicism and neo-Renaissance style by 1876. It is currently home
to paintings and sculptures from the 19th century from the National
Gallery's collection. On the outside staircase is the equestrian statue
of Friedrich Wilhelm IV created by Alexander Calandrelli.
In
2019, the Alte Nationalgalerie recorded 376,000 visitors.
Position
Together with the Old Museum, the New Museum, the Bode
Museum, the Pergamon Museum, the James Simon Gallery, the Berlin
Cathedral and the Lustgarten, the Old National Gallery forms the complex
of the Berlin Museum Island. It is located in the middle of the island,
between the tracks of the Berlin Stadtbahn and Bodestraße, on the
eastern shore. To the west is the Pergamon Museum, to the south are the
New Museum, the Old Museum and the Berlin Cathedral.
The building of the Old National Gallery combines architectural
elements of different building types. The gable facade and the
semi-columns surrounding it are borrowed from a temple, the monumental
staircase from a castle or theater and the attached apse from a church.
In this combination, the building should architecturally illustrate the
unity of nation, history and art. In addition to the outside staircase,
the Old National Gallery used to be accessible at ground level via a
carriage passage. On the outside staircase is the bronze equestrian
statue of Friedrich Wilhelm IV with the pedestal figures "Religion",
"Art" (poetry), "History" (history) and "Philosophy", created between
1875 and 1886 by Alexander Calandrelli based on a design by Gustav
Blaeser .
The base floor, together with the first exhibition
floor in the rusticated base, provides the desired height effect of the
temple. Above this is the second, nobler exhibition floor. This is
indicated on the facade by attached half-columns. In addition, both
floors have high windows, which also shape the facade. The third
exhibition floor, on the other hand, cannot be recognized from the
facade. This floor receives natural light through a glass ceiling. The
facade and the outside staircase are made of Nebra sandstone (Triassic);
the colonnades of Silesian sandstone and Elbe sandstone (both from the
Cretaceous period). Stylistically, the building stands between the late
Berlin classicism and the beginning of the Neo-Renaissance. The exterior
of the museum has been preserved in its original state, while the
interior has undergone several renovations and conversions to adapt to
the needs of the exhibition.
Emergence
As early as 1797, Frederick
Gilly had planned a temple with colonnades for a monument in honor of
Frederick the Great. In doing so, he influenced the architecture in
Berlin in general and especially that of his student Karl Friedrich
Schinkel. He dreamed of realizing a group of temple buildings in a
landscape. Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who was an
architecture student and Schinkel's interlocutor, drew inspiration from
the first sketches that formed the basis for the building of the Old
National Gallery.
The first ideas to set up a national gallery
arose around 1815 and intensified in the 1830s. However, they did not
include a building of their own. The first concrete plans to set up the
National Gallery came up in 1841, but were not subsequently implemented.
In that year there was also a plan by Friedrich August Stüler, which
envisaged building a temple north of the Old Museum. However, it did not
get beyond the preliminary stage and was not further specified.
In 1861 the banker Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener died. He left an
extensive collection of paintings as a gift to King Wilhelm I of
Prussia, combined with the wish that the collection should be "preserved
unseparated" and "displayed here in Berlin in a suitable location and
made accessible to all artists and art lovers at all times". Wilhelm I
accepted the donation. This provided the basis for equipping a national
gallery. In the tradition of his predecessor, Wilhelm I allowed
Schinkel's pupil, Friedrich August Stüler, to continue working on the
plans. The Wagener collection of paintings was shown to the public until
1876 as the Wagenersche and Nationalgalerie in the rooms of the Academy
of Arts on Unter den Linden.
Planning
and construction
Friedrich August Stüler began planning the National
Gallery building in 1862. Stüler's planning in 1862 still included the
Academy of Arts and artists' studios. As a result, the plans were
further revised, but the basic features of the later realized building
could already be seen in them. Above all, this should house a gallery in
which contemporary art should be shown. Two years later, Stüler
presented the third plan, which was also approved. In 1865, after Stüler
had died, Carl Busse continued to work out the details.
Stüler
and, after his death, his successor Johann Heinrich Strack planned many
of the details of the building in great detail. For example, when
planning the cornice, the profiling, the effect of light and shadow, the
volume, the lines, the material and the color were very precisely
coordinated. The execution drawings indicate every dimension and also
the manufacturing technology. Another example of precise planning are
the doors, which vary from floor to floor. The door leaf and the reveal
were varied with many small elements, even if they were only designs for
the museum's secondary rooms.
In 1866, according to a royal
cabinet order, the commission for the construction of the National
Gallery was founded, which was to oversee the construction. After older
buildings on the site, including the old orangery house and the
so-called Welpersche Badehaus, had been demolished, the foundation stone
was laid in 1867 and with it the start of construction.
The
construction took place under the direction of Johann Heinrich Strack.
The roof truss was completed in 1872 and the interior work began. This
included two skylight halls in which large-format cartons with stories
by Peter von Cornelius were to be exhibited. In 1874, Eduard Bendemann
and his pupil Peter Janssen the Elder were commissioned to paint these
halls with ceiling paintings. The opening of the museum building took
place on March 22, 1876 in the presence of the Emperor. The building was
praised as fireproof due to the modern iron structures and brick
ceilings. Together with the large-area roof glazing, which was only
possible for a short time, the museum showed the status of what was
structurally possible.
Destruction and
reconstruction
After Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, Ludwig Justi
was dismissed as director of the National Gallery. He was succeeded by
Eberhard Hanfstaengl, who held the post until 1937. He also planned
further museum redesigns and had several renovations carried out. His
successor was Paul Ortwin Rave, who remained director until 1950. When
the Second World War began in September 1939, the National Gallery was
closed.
During the Second World War, the building of the National
Gallery was badly damaged by bombing, shelling and ground fighting
towards the end of the war. It has not yet been clarified which works of
art were destroyed during this period and which ended up in the Soviet
Union as looted art. The Museum Island was now in the Soviet sector of
Berlin.
As early as 1945 there were initial efforts to obtain money for
the reconstruction of the National Gallery building. In 1946, Justi
took over the management of the former State Museums as Director
General. Clearing work began in 1947 and reconstruction in 1948. In
1949, parts of a building on Museum Island were made accessible to
the public again, first in the National Gallery. By 1955 all
showrooms had been rebuilt. In them, the works of art of the 19th
century were exhibited together with contemporary art. The rest of
the restoration work on the building was completed by 1966.
In the spy film Torn Curtain (1966) by director Alfred Hitchcock,
the museum was the scene of some essential scenes, but only as
dummies, since permission to film was not obtained.
In the
course of the division of Germany, the collection of the National
Gallery was also divided between East and West according to the
storage locations. Important works in West Berlin were initially
exhibited in the Orangery of Charlottenburg Palace and from 1968 in
the New National Gallery, a new building at the Kulturforum. In
1986, part of the exhibition was relocated to Charlottenburg Palace
as the Romantic Gallery.
Reunification
and redevelopment
After German reunification, the collection,
previously divided between East and West, was reunited, and works
from the 19th century returned to the Museum Island. The National
Gallery, previously located in East Berlin, was now called the Old
National Gallery - the New National Gallery in former West Berlin
had already opened in 1968.
Although it had been planned
since the 1980s, the necessary general repairs were not carried out
in the GDR era. Only work that could not be postponed and minor
restorations had been carried out. After the German reunification,
the already existing plans for the general renovation were revised
in 1990 and included in the considerations about a museum concept
for all the State Museums in Berlin. They were largely confirmed,
but adapted to the latest technical possibilities. The following
year, the utmost urgency of the redevelopment was established.
From 1992, restoration and renovation work was carried out on
the outside of the building. The redesign of the entrance area, the
installation of two halls for the works of Caspar David Friedrich
and Karl Friedrich Schinkel as well as the integration of the
building services required by today's standards were the most
important tasks in the context of the general renovation, for which
the German architect HG Merz was responsible. In 1998 the museum
closed for the works inside the building. On December 2, 2001, the
Old National Gallery was reopened as the first building on Museum
Island.
After Bernhard Maaz (2003-2009) and Philipp Demandt
(2012-2016), Ralph Gleis has been in charge of the house since May
2017.
Past Collections
Max Jordan was the first museum director to
take office in 1874. When it opened in 1876, the National Gallery
contained relatively few works. The foundation was formed by the
collection of the banker Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener,
consisting of 262 paintings by German and foreign artists, which was
previously housed in the Academy of Arts. In addition to Wagener's
collection of paintings, initially only a collection of boxes by
Peter von Cornelius was shown, which had been bequeathed to the
Prussian state and which the latter now wanted to house in a
dignified manner. The task of the National Gallery was to collect
modern, initially mainly Prussian art, since Berlin did not have a
museum for contemporary art at that time.
In 1896, Hugo von
Tschudi succeeded Max Jordan as museum director. Tschudi acquired
Impressionist art for the National Gallery. In doing so, he risked
conflict with the Kaiser, since the focus of the National Gallery on
German art was thereby removed.
After Ludwig Justi became
Tschudi's successor in 1909, he expanded the collection to include
expressionist works of art. Justi exhibited modern art in the
Kronprinzenpalais after the November Revolution. Since then, a
distinction has been made between the National Gallery I and the
National Gallery II.
Today's Collections
The Old National
Gallery shows the most important works from the 19th century from
the collection of the National Gallery in Berlin. Classicist
sculptures and "Paths of Realism" are shown on the first exhibition
floor, including sculptures by Johann Gottfried Schadow, Christian
Daniel Rauch, Antonio Canova and Ridolfo Schadow, paintings by John
Constable, Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon School and - in the rear
transverse hall and the apse cabinets – the paintings of Adolph
Menzel such as The Balcony Room (1845), Frederick the Great’s Flute
Concerto in Sanssouci (1852) and Iron Rolling Mill (1875).
On
the second floor of the exhibition, works of Romanticism, Realism
and Impressionism are shown. These include works by Carl Spitzweg,
Arnold Böcklin, Hans von Marées and Anselm Feuerbach. There are also
works of French impressionism such as In the Winter Garden, Country
house in Rueil and The Bouquet of Lilacs by Édouard Manet, The
Church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Houses in Argenteuil, View of
Vétheuil and Meadow in Bezons by Claude Monet, In the Summer by
Pierre- Auguste Renoir, as well as pictures by Edgar Degas and Paul
Cézanne. Works by the German Impressionists by Max Liebermann and
Lovis Corinth and the sculptures of Auguste Rodin can also be found
here.
Works from the time of Goethe and Romanticism are shown
on the third exhibition floor. These include works by Caspar David
Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Carl Blechen, the Nazarene
(including Peter von Cornelius, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow and
Friedrich Overbeck). The so-called group of princesses, a double
statue, is exhibited by the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow. Next
to it is the marble tomb of Count Alexander von der Mark from 1790,
also created by Schadow, which was originally located in the
Dorotheenstadt church. After it was destroyed in World War II, it
was given to the Alte Nationalgalerie as a permanent loan by the
municipality.
Special exhibitions in the Alte Nationalgalerie often attract over 100,000 visitors, most recently Wanderlust. From Caspar David Friedrich to Auguste Renoir (2018), Gustave Caillebotte. Painter and Patron of Impressionism (2019) and Struggle for Visibility. Female artists in the Nationalgalerie before 1919 (2019). With 245,694 visitors, the exhibition Impressionism – Expressionism. Kunstwende in 2015 was the most successful show ever held in the Old National Gallery. In 2019, the Alte Nationalgalerie broke new ground with the digital mediation offer Mit dem Mönch am Meer: Visitors were able to experience one of the key works in the collection, the Mönch am Meer by Caspar David Friedrich, via a virtual reality application.