Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin

March, 2005
Celebrating of the 15th anniversary of the reunification of Germany,
Germany in Japan 2005/2006.
Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
–Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art–
The Tokyo National Museum, The Asahi Shimbun and TBS are proud to present as one of the highlight
cultural events of the “Germany in Japan 2005/2006” celebrations, Masterpieces of the Museum Island,
Berlin - Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art , which will be held at the Heiseikan of the Tokyo
National Museum (Ueno Park) from April 5 to June 12, 2005.
The year 2005 is not only the year the governments of Japan and Germany launch the “Germany in Japan
2005/2006” program but it also marks the 15th anniversary of the reunification of Germany.
Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin - Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art exhibition will
be the first exhibition in the world to showcase the reunified collection of Berlin’s Museum Island- a World
Heritage landmark that is presently undergoing extensive refurbishment and reconstruction.
Raphael(RaffaelloSanzio)
Head of Queen Tiyi ca.1360BC
Virgin with Child (the ´Madonna Colonna`)
ca.1508
.
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Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
Masterpieces of the world reunite at the World Heritage site, Museum Island-a museum complex,
comprised of five museum buildings-Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Altenationalgalerie, Bode Museum
and the Pergamon Museum.
The Museum Island sits on a sandbank in the Spree River in the former
East Berlin. The first public museum – now known as the Altes
Museum, or old museum – was completed on the island in 1830 to
exhibit collections of the Prussian royal family. The Altes Museum
became too small to house the growing collection and a second museum,
the Neues Museum (New Museum) was built behind the first followed
by the Altenationalgalerie, Bode Museum and lastly the Pergamon
Museum, which opened its doors in 1930. In a period of 100 years,
spanning from the rule of the Prussian Monarchy to the German
Empire, Berlin’s “sanctuary of art” -Museum Island was completed. The
Museum Island offered an overview of the artistic heritage of mankind
not found even in Paris or London at the time, and Berlin thus won the
attention of all of Europe. But as the Nazis gained power in the early 20th century, many of the modern
European paintings branded “degenerate art” were confiscated and sold. When World War II broke out the
artworks either were relocated to save them from the fires of war or became dispersed. After the war the
collections were returned but stored separately in East and West due to the partition of Germany. In
November 1989, the Berlin Wall that had divided East and West Germany was torn down. The Federal
Republic of Germany was officially founded the following year with Berlin as its capital. After almost half a
century of being divided, efforts began to comprehensively unite this great collection. In 1999 plans to
refurbish the Museum Island got underway; the same year the landmark was listed as a World Heritage site.
Presently the Museum Island project is in progress and is scheduled to be completed in 2015. The rebirth of the
Museum Island will once again give the world a “sanctuary of art” –a venue to rival the British Museum and
the Louvre.
Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin - Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art will present
approximately 160 selected artworks to convey the essence of the cultural landmark’s future image.
The exhibition will unfold by introducing the Altes
Museum which exemplifies the spirit which inspired
閉館中 2006年改築完成予定
Bode Museum : ボーデ博物館
the creation of the Museum Island, followed by
select artworks from the 10 collections- Pre-history,
開館中 2015年改築完成予定
Pergamon Museum : ペルガモン博物館
Ancient Egypt, Near Eastern Art, Greek and Roman,
Islamic Art, Coin Collection, Byzantine Art,
閉館中 2009年開館予定
Medieval European Sculpture, Old Masters, and
Neues Museum : 新博物館
European Modern Art, scheduled to be united on the
museum complex. The artworks, from ancient to
modern era, are linked by the underlining theme
2001年開館
Alte Nationalgalerie : 旧国立美術館
“Visions of the Divine”-an artistic journey through
mankind’s imagery of the divine complimenting the
一部開館 2015年完成予定
Altes Museum : 旧博物館
overall message of celebrating the creation of this
monumental “sanctuary of art”.
Indeed, Masterpieces of the Museum Island,
Berlin-Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art exhibition with its masterpieces, many of them shown for
the first time outside Germany, will give us the rare opportunity to preview the rebirth of Berlin’s Museum
Island, here in Tokyo, on the special occasion of the “Germany in Japan 2005/2006” celebrations.
＊ビザンチン美術＆中世ヨーロッパ彫刻
＆ヨーロッパ古典絵画＆コインコレクション
＊ギリシャ・ローマ美術＆古代西アジア美術＆イスラム美術
＊エジプト美術＆先史美術
＊ヨーロッパ近代美術（ドイツ絵画・印象派・彫刻）
＊ギリシャ・ローマ美術
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Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
General Information
Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
- Visions of the Divine in the Sanctuary of Art
Period: Tuesday, April 5 - Sunday, June 12, 2005
Venue: Heiseikan, Tokyo National Museum (Ueno Park)
Hours: 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays until 6:00 pm, Fridays until 8:00 pm
(last entry 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Mondays (except for Monday, May 2, 2005 )
Admissions: Adult 1,400 (1300/1200) yen, Student 1,000 (900/800) yen
* Prices shown in ( ) indicate advance-discount/group (more than 20 persons) tickets.
* Persons with disabilities are allowed free entry with one companion. Valid identification requested upon
entry.
* Advance tickets are on sale at the Museum ticket office (during museum hours) and the counters of JR
East, e-Ticket Pia and other major ticket offices by April 4, 2005 .
Access: 10 minutes walk from JR Ueno Station (Park exit) and Uguisudani Station
15 minutes walk from Keisei Ueno Station and Tokyo Metro Ueno Station and Nezu station.
Organizers: Tokyo National Museum, The Asahi Shimbun, TBS
With the Academic Support of: Prussian Cultural Foundation, State Museums of Berlin
With the Assistance of: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Embassy of the
Federal Republic of Germany in Japan, TBS Radio & Communications, Inc.
With the Special Sponsorship of: Shinko Securities Co., Ltd.
With the Sponsorship of: Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., Sompo Japan Insurance Inc.,
Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim Co., Ltd.
With the Cooperation of: East Japan Railway Company, The Swatch Group (Japan) KK Glashütte
Original, Lufthansa German Airlines, Lufthansa Cargo AG
With the Planning Support of: Toei Company Ltd.
General Inquiries: 0570-06-1234(Masterpieces of the Berlin Exhibition Dial, Japanese only)
03-3822-1111(Tokyo National Museum)
Exhibition Homepage: http://www.asahi.com/berlin/ (Japanese only),
http://www.tbs.co.jp/event/berlin/(Japanese only),http://www.tnm.jp/
Next Venue: Kobe City Museum Saturday, July 9– Monday, October 10, 2005
■■ Media Inquiries (media only)■■
Public Relations and Press Tokyo National Museum
13-9 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-8712
TEL：03-3822-1111 FAX：03-3822-0086
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Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
Highlight of the Exhibition
Head of a statue of queen Tiyi
【photo 2】
New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca.1360 BC, Height 9.5 cm
Besides the painted bust of Nefertiti this small head of her mother-in-law is
one of the great masterpieces of the Egyptian Museum Berlin and of
Egyptian sculpture in general. The highly individual features reveal the
strong personality of this queen known from many texts, reliefs and statues.
The Great Royal Consort of Amenhotep III outlived her husband by at least
ten years. This small portrait head reflects the alteration of her official
status at the death of the king. An original silver headdress, still visible at
the neck and over the forehead, and its rich golden outfit – uraeus snakes
and ear-studs – were hidden under a linen wig covered with tiny blue glass
beads. Together with the crown, combining cow-horns, sun-disk and
falcon-feathers (cf. cat. 10), this headdress is typical for deified queens. With Nefertiti’s accession to the
throne of the Great King’s Wife, Tiyi lost her political functions and became a living goddess. The contrast
of the realistic face and the solemn insignia makes this head a unique historical document and a great
work of art.
Glazed Brick Wall: Striding Lion【photo 6】
ca. 575 BC, Width: 230 cm, height: 107 cm
During the German excavations in Babylon (1899 – 1917)
several hundred thousand fragments of colourful glazed bricks
were recovered, which were pieced together later to reconstruct
the magnificent decorations on Babylonian architecture.
The striding lion is a detail of the frieze on the socle of the east wall of the Processional Avenue in Babylon.
It led from the north to the city wall and the monumental Ishtar gate, which likewise was decorated in
colourful reliefs of wild bulls and dragons. The avenue was flanked by over seven-meter thick walls,
which for a length of c. 180 meters were adorned with lion reliefs bordered by rows of rosettes.
Processional Avenue and the Ishtar gate were an essential part of the most important religious
celebration in Babylon: the New Year festival which celebrated the beginning of spring.
Cultic processions with the imperial deities passed along the street and through the colorfully
embellished city gate into the main temple of the city. The magnificent ornamentation of the walls was
symbol of the power and might of the metropolis of Babylon. The lion is the sacred animal of Ishtar, the
goddess of love and of war, the wild bull at the gate embodies Adad, god of weather, and the dragon
represents Marduk, the chief deity of Babylon. It is well imaginable that this was a place that enjoyed the
special protection of the Babylonian trio of deities. This can be perceived in the official name of the
avenue, adorned with c. 120 striding lions: “Aj-ibur-šapu” or “Enemy have no stand”.
Portrait of Cleopatra VII. 【photo 7】
ca.40 BC , Marble , H.29.5cm
No other queen of Egypt has ever been thus famous from antiquity until today
as the last one, Cleopatra VII. Born in 69 BC, she stepped on the throne being
only 17 and than tried to save the leading power of the Near East for more than
thousand years from being captured by the uprising Imperium Romanum.
Although she could win the great Gaius Julius Caesar in 48 BC and Marc
Antony in 41 BC, she finally lost in the battle against Octavian Augustus near
Actium on 2. September 31 and committed suicide in her palace at Alexandria in
August 30 BC.
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Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
Sandro Botticelli
Venus 【photo 10】
ca.1485 , Tempera on canvas, 158 x 68.5 cm (without frame)
Facing the viewer, the nude figure is silhouetted against a dark background. The
statuaric appearance of the body is emphasized by the stone basement and by the
figure’s classical pose, the so-called contraposto. In fact, the artist refers to an
antique Venus-statue – a type known as Venus Pudica, the shy or ashamed Venus
(the goddess tries to hide her nakedness with her hands, using her long hair like a
drapery). A classical statue of Venus Pudica is recorded by a written source as being
in a Florentine private residence already in the 14th century. This antique statue
might have served Botticelli as a model. He introduced this classical example with
slight modifications in several of his allegorical compositions. The subject of Venus,
because of the many connotations of the goddess, was extraordinarily in demand in
15th century Tuscany. In the neo-platonic writings of the time, Venus is regarded as
an image of the soul, thus representing divine beauty and love. It probably decorated
a private chamber in the palazzo of a Florentine noble family; several authors of the 16th century record a
great number of Botticelli’s female nudes in Florentine domiciles.
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)
Virgin with Child (the “Madonna Colonna”) 【photo 11】
ca.1508, 78.9 x 58.2 cm
Painted towards the end of Raphael’s stay in Florence, that is 1508, this Virgin
with Child is the latest one among five paintings by Raphael, which are the
property of the Gemäldegalerie. Perfectly consistent to the somewhat relaxed
and protomanneristic atmosphere shown by this masterpiece formerly in the
Salviati collection in Florence, is the so-called “Large Tempi Madonna” of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which in fact is signed and dated
1508. Both pictures share a similar domestic intimacy, enhanced by the liberty
taken by the Child in touching her Mother’s garment over the breast.
In that very year 1508, we could not yet make a point for the birth in Tuscany of the anticlassical
tendency called Mannerism. Nevertheless, a glorious specimen like Berlin’s “Madonna Colonna”
anticipate in part this very peculiar approach to external as well as psychological reality (the Child),
without denying the strong influence which still at this date Donatello’s reliefs could communicate. A
short break Raphael leaving to Rome where he was meant to create the fresco masterpieces which
established his renown as genius of the High-Renaissance.
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
Jacob’s fight with the Angel 【photo 12】
ca.1660, Canvas, 140.1 x 120.0 cm
The painting depicts the biblical episode of Jacob who, on the way back to his
brother Esau, encounters a man with whom he has to wrestle all night
(Genesis 32). Even though the man sprain Jacob’s hip, he is unable to bear
Jacob down. Only in the dawn he reveals himself as an angel sent to Jacob by
godfather. When the angel will leave, Jacob says to him: “I will not let thee go,
except thou bless me.”
Rembrandt gives in his painting an impression of both the struggle and the angel’s blessing. He showsthe
angel’s left hand bringing Jacob’s hip out of joint and at the same times a bright light and a mellifluous
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Masterpieces of the Museum Island, Berlin
smile on the angel’s head to insinuate the heavenly blessing.
Even if we don’t know the primary destination of the painting, we have to assume that it was dedicated
for a taller room. The shallow figures seen from below make clear that the painting has to be beheld from
a distance.
Casper David Friedrich
The Solitary Tree 【photo 13】
1822, Oil on canvas, Height: 55cm, width: 71cm
In 1822, the Berlin banker Joachim Heinrich Wagner, whose art
collection was to become the base of the National Gallery
(Nationalgalerie) in Berlin, asked Casper David Friedrich to paint a
diptych of the times of the day. Friedrich chose a wide field with trees,
villages and lakes, which stretches towards a mountain range at the back,
as the landscape of the morning.
A monumental oak tree offering a shady resting place to the shepherd is placed in the middle of this
scenery, growing beside a lake in which reflects the sky. Its majestic trunk had endured all weathers, but
the ends of the branches are dying. Above this huge tree cumuli are building up, towards which the
branches seem to reach out and into.
The oak tree as a nature element symbolizes life force and strength, yet its dying branches are suggestive
of a world beyond. As it stands deeply rooted in the earth and simultaneously reaches up into the sky, it
becomes a link between heaven and earth.
Edouard Manet
In the Conservatory【photo 15】
1878/79, Oil on canvas, height: 115cm, width: 150cm
The acquisition of this painting sparked a new revival and
inspiration of the National Gallery (Nationalgalerie) after decades
of stagnation. But the royalty greeted these new French paintings
with skepticism and in 1904 it was still target of verbal abuse as
an immoral and indecent work at the Prussian parliament. The
conservatory as a space, with its heated glass structure and lush
tropical plants, transmitted an erotic atmosphere, which was also the scene of such actions in many novels
written in those days. Yet in this painting, not much is happening: a woman is sitting on a bench, a man is
standing behind her leaning over. The symbol-laden pair of hands is situated exactly in the middle. Her
hand is relaxed and hanging down, whilst his hand obviously belongs to the more active one of them two.
The two hands that are so close to one another will nevertheless not touch each other, the cigarette alone
already prevents this. Manet chose his own friends, the married couple Guillemet, who ran a fashion shop
in the rue Saint-Honore in Paris, as his models.
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1. Overview of the Berlin Museum Island
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3. Altar Relief: Sun God Aten and Akhenaten’s Family
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14. Karl Friedrich Schinkel “View to the Heyday of Greece“
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15. Edouard Manet “In the Conservatory”
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