Berlin part III

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I’ve got so much to show you! Berlin has a lot to offer and so much diversity when it comes to museums. I bought a museum pass that you can get for only 12 euros when you’re a student and I did a LOT of museums. I’m going to show you the highlights of different museums and tell you my overall thoughts about them.

First museum I did was the Gemäldegalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, it houses European art from the 13th to 18th century. There are masterpieces by every famous painter you could imagine; it goes from Rembrandt to Titian, Rubens and Caravaggio. What I love about the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin is that you always get one of those audio guides included in the price of the ticket. You’ll probably won't remember a lot of all the explanations about the different paintings but you will end up knowing fun anecdotes or see things you wouldn’t have noticed before.

My favourite works of art were the portrait of a young lady by Petrus Christus and the portrait of a yound lady with a pearl necklace by Jan Vermeer.

Petrus Christus

What I love about this painting is the look on the girls face, her eyes are the most beautiful ever and the way she is painted with such delicacy is amazing. It is not visible on the picture but when you look close enough you see that her dress is ornate with a transparent veil, the Petrus Christus’ precision is unbelievable.

Vermeer

How can you not love Vermeer? How can you not love his famous room and his beautifully painted girls, his typical blue and yellow colour scheme?

The next two museums were a bit of a disappointment especially the Kupferstichkabinett, the collection of the museum is based on 550.000 prints and drawings of the most famous artists, the thing is they were not on display. I only had access to the temporary exhibition, now I don’t know if I was there on a bad day or whatever and you normally have access to the collection… but okay, the temporary exhibition was about dogs so if you like dogs well you’ll probably like it but I just expected more.

The Kunstgewerbemuseum is a museum with a collection of applied art, it has “stuff” from the Middle Ages until the 1920s. All I can say is that it was pretty weird; it was interesting though especially the part about the middle ages. When I visited the museum was deserted, which made it a little bit creepy too, they have this huge collection of arms reliquaries and others that are both bizarre and interesting.

This next item was another beautiful reliquary; it looked like a small church with a dome that was beautifully decorated with ivory and gold. All these reliquaries are part of the Guelph Treasure and date back from the 12^th and 13^th century.

Domed reliquary from Guelph treasure

Next museum is something completely different! Bergruen was a rather small museum but with an amazing collection of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, Matisse and others. What I loved is that there is a lot of non-cubic work of Picasso, some beautiful portraits he made which only show even more how a talented painter he is.

 Picasso

Giacometti en Matisse

Last but not least is the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg museum which collection was mostly made of surrealism and symbolic works of art. It was a beautifully haunting museum with a lot of “mysterious” works of art. If you find yourself in Berlin I definitely recommend you this one!

Alfred kubin and Edvard munch

 Gustave Moreau

Odillion Redon

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