Andy's Germany Adventure: Day 7

Dresden, Sunday, 16 January 2011.

When you are in Dresden, I thoroughly recommend a Saturday evening in Brauhaus am Waldschlöβchen (little castle in the woods). It is a tavern and restaurant with its own brewery, housed in what was originally a hunting lodge (http://www.waldschloesschen.de/eng/index.html). They serve their own beer, on Saturday, live music and hearty German food: I had Geschetzeltes - pork in thin strips in mushroom sauce with almond broccoli and a type of German noodle.

Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day today, so I took the camera for a walk around the Neustadt (New Town, the part north of the river Elbe - it was 'new' in 1736) and the Alstadt (Old Town). They have a little more water than they want in the Elbe at the moment but it is not as bad as the disastrous floods of 2002, which put many famous monuments under water. Dresdners, it seems, love to go out for a promenade on a Sunday - the Terrace along the Elbe was quite busy, as you can see from the pictures below.

Then back to art: I spent the afternoon in the Albertinum, which houses the "New Masters" state art collection from the Romantic period (early 19th century) to the present day. This choice of period is itself interesting; whereas in the UK we typically take 'modern' art to be from about 1870 (Manet et al), here they start with Romanticism, which started in Dresden under the leadership of Casper David Friederich in the 1800s. The local aristocracy took a great interest in what was then contemporary art, so patrons were available, and the collections eventually passed into the imperial and then the state collection.

The Saxon state art collection has had a chequered history: works confiscated by the Nazi's in their campaign against 'degenerate' art, losses to second world war bombing by the allies, restrictions on artists under the communists and the 2002 flooding of the gallery. But now things are looking up: they have completely restored the Albertinum gallery after the 2002 floods; it re-opened in its current form in 2004. The central courtyard was covered not only with a roof but, suspended above it, a new storage facility out of the reach of any future floodwaters. Just as I found in Essen and Leipzig, they have taken great care to manage the infiltration of daylight, combined with artificial light, to optimise display conditions in what is now a world-class art museum.

The Albertinum New Masters museum displays a very representative collection from the Romantic period (e.g. Friederich), 19th century realists (e.g. Ludwig Richter), German impressionists (e.g. Max Liebermann) and expressionists (Kirchner's 'Die Brücke' movement started in Dresden), and late 20th century works (notably Gerhardt Richter). Since 1991 they have been buying western art as well, so now have a decent international collection of painting and sculptures right up to the current day.

Just brilliant!

Tomorrow the galleries are closed, so I am going to take a look for myself at some of the Saxon countryside much painted by Friederich and local artists ever since.