Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Hamburg

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Three Women in Church by Wilhelm Leibl)

    I’m not going to pretend that I’ve ever heard of Wilhelm Leibl, but I thought this painting had a bit of depth to it. He is apparently one of the most important German realist painters and he lived from 1844 until 1900, with this artwork being painted in around 1878 to 1882. The aim of the artist was to portray three different generations in a state of prayer and contemplation.

    I have no knowledge of this other than having read it on-line, but this is also the most important work which was painted by Leibl. The Kunsthalle obtained the painting in 1906 and it’s apparently a forerunner of the ‘neue sachlichkeit’ generation, or the ‘new objectivity’ movement.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Sturzacker by Caspar David Friedrich)

     

    This is part of my “paintings which look interesting to Julian” series, which is based on absolutely no artistic ability on my behalf. This painting is by Caspar David Friedrich, who according to Wikipedia (and of course therefore this must be entirely true) is “generally considered the most important German artist of his generation”. The German Post Office used his work on one of his stamps, an honour he’d have no doubt been thrilled with if he had been alive to see it.

    Friedrich lived from 1774 until 1840, with this artwork of a ploughed field having been painted in around 1830. Unfortunately, I can’t find out anything more interesting about this particular painting, other than the Kunsthalle obtained it in 1905.

     

  • Flights – Hamburg to London Heathrow T5 (British Airways)

    The boarding process for the British Airways flight to Heathrow T5 was smooth and better managed than usual. Groups were called through so that Group 1 went through first, then Group 2, then Group 3 and then everyone else, sometimes it’s not quite that organised. There were also a lot of passengers with status, so perhaps that’s why they take particular care. The staff at the boarding gate were polite, efficient and visible, so first impressions were all positive.

    My first minor irritation is that this is an A321 neo, which meant that my emergency exit row seat had transformed into a normal row. Not that it much mattered as I had an aisle seat and there was no-one sitting next to me so I had plenty of space. This is aircraft registration G-NEOP and it only came into service in March 2019, so it still nearly new.

    I was in row 11 so I was seated in a seat which is the same as British Airways have been using in other aircraft, but these seats only go back as far as row 14. They went that far back in case the Club Europe cabin ever justifies such a number of passengers, and both plug and USB sockets have been put into these first fourteen rows. I had one under my seat and it was already damaged and knocked out of its holder, so I didn’t trust it to charge my devices on. It’s not perhaps ideal for an aircraft that is so new.

    For row 15 and behind that, British Airways have introduced a new ultra-thin seat which doesn’t recline. Nearly nobody I’ve heard likes this arrangement, although handily I do. I hate seat reclines and I like the ultra-thin seats as I sit in a near bolt upright manner anyway. These seats just have USB sockets, so where possible, it’s best to be seated in the front fourteen rows when on this aircraft.

    As for the aircraft, I think British Airways have gone too far with their tinkering about. They’ve taken out a washroom from the rear of the Euro Traveller cabin and this caused an evident problem on this flight as they had passengers going up and using the Club Europe toilet. One of the advantages for Club Europe is that it’s a quieter cabin, so I’m not sure what the customers will think up in those seats when there’s a queue of people standing by their seats and they themselves have to wait to use the washroom.

    And British Airways have decided to remove the drop down screens, so I can’t get to watch the moving map, or more importantly, the flight safety announcement by Chabuddy G. The crew safety demonstration on this flight wasn’t really ideal, the crew member was giggling and it wasn’t entirely audible. This meant that I didn’t see many passengers actually listening to the demonstration.

    Other than that the service was efficient and polite, but I can’t help thinking that the interior of the cabin is more Wizz Air than British Airways. That’s fine, but I don’t see British Airways have any choice but to keep on their downwards spiral of pricing if they’re determined to keep cutting corners.

    And here was a little problem at Heathrow T5, although it caused a delay of around fifteen minutes when disembarking. The air bridge to the aircraft broken down near to the front door and couldn’t be moved. This meant that steps had to be brought to the rear door and then buses used to transport passengers to the main terminal. Given that this wasn’t expected, the delay didn’t seem too excessive to me, although there were inevitably complaints.

    Given that this was a reward flight saver, the price was very reasonable and so I’m probably one of the reasons that British Airways keeps trying to save money by taking out any hint of luxury from their cabin. The pilots sounded professional, the cabin was relatively clean and so overall it was a comfortable and easy flight.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (The Man of Sorrows by Lucas Cranach the Elder)

    The artist of this work, which has the longer name of the “Man of Sorrows between the Virgin and Saint John” lived between 1472 and 1553 and was also a friend of Martin Luther. One of the best known paintings of Martin Luther was painted by Cranach, and he became known as of the most important artists of the Reformation period.

    I’ve wondered why museums are quite cagey about the provenance of items in their collections, as when paintings such as this go on sale it’s often known where it has been for several centuries. All the gallery says about this one is that it was purchased in 1943 and was restored in 2015.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple by Hans Holbein)

    The theme of this painting is when Jesus Christ was taken to the Temple of Jerusalem for him to be inducted into Judaism. It was painted by Hans Holbein, the older one and not the younger one of Henry VIII fame, in 1500 or 1501 and is painted on a pine panel.

    The Kunsthalle acquired the work in 1912 and it was originally part of the high altarpiece of the Dominican Monastery in Frankfurt. I’d be interested to know where this artwork has been for centuries, as the monastery came under municipal ownership by the nineteenth century and it was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (The Man in Stocks by Ernst Barlach)

    Although I thought at first this was a bronze sculpture, it’s actually made out of oak. I hadn’t previously heard of Ernst Barlach, although it has transpired that there is a museum dedicated to him and his works which is located in the suburbs of Hamburg. If I come to the city again, I will certainly meander along down to see it.

    Barlach became anti-war following the First World War and this later set him on a collision course with the Nazis in the 1930s, who described his art as degenerate. They banned him from working as a sculptor and he could no longer be a member of art academies. He died in October 1938 after having seen many museums in the country have to remove, and sometimes destroy, his artworks in 1937.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Dripstone Machine by Bogomir Ecker)

    This must be one of the museum’s most optimistic projects, an artwork which will only be finished in five hundred years. The set-up, which is in its own room at the gallery, involves collecting rain water from a roof gutter which then goes through carbon dioxide and calcium carbonate before dripping onto a marble plate.

    The artwork was installed in 1996, so we’re already 23 years into the project, and the aim is to get the stalagmite to be five centimetres in height. The underlying context is to get visitors to think how much will happen over five hundred years, whilst very little is happening to this artwork.

    It’s rocketing along…..

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Glass on Paintings)

    I meandered around the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the city’s main art gallery, and wondered why nearly every single painting had glass in front of it. The gallery has had a brilliant idea in having a series of rooms explaining the scope of their collection and also answering why they have some of the policies that they do.

    And, to my surprise, they actually answered the question about why they have glass in front of paintings, so I imagine it’s been asked many times before. The answer is quite simple, they have been putting it there for decades as the smoke from the neighbouring train lines was causing a build up of soot and grime on their paintings from the steam engines.

    They do explain that from the 1970s they’ve made efforts to ensure that the glass is anti-reflective, colourless and offers protection from ultraviolet radiation. I’m not sure that they’ve got the anti-reflective glass quite perfect yet, but I’m just pleased that there’s a reason for doing it.

    But care has to be taken with glass, as the photo at the top of this post is of the glass which was in front of this painting. It seems that the glass was put on too soon in this case, but it’s still amazing how much of the image transferred to the surface of the glass.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Magpie Line by Richard Long)

    I think I like this, even though I have no clue what it is actually meant to be other than a large number of flints in a defined heap. The artist is though of international acclaim and there’s an interesting summary of his work on Wikipedia which reads:

    “Several of his works were based around walks that he has made, and as well as land based natural sculpture, he uses the mediums of photography, text and maps of the landscape he has walked over. In his work, often cited as a response to the environments he walked in, the landscape would be deliberately changed in some way, as in A Line Made by Walking (1967), and sometimes sculptures were made in the landscape from rocks or similar found materials and then photographed. Other pieces consist of photographs or maps of unaltered landscapes accompanied by texts detailing the location and time of the walk it indicates.”

    I like the idea of giving meaning to walking and its impact on the natural environment, so the underlying thought behind his works sounds intriguing.

    The only slight limitation I have with this is that I don’t have a bloody clue what this artwork is trying to tell me. Insomuch that I carefully stood there and searched for the artwork on-line it worked as I wanted to find out more, but I’m just a little disappointed that I can’t get any real meaning from this. I could add my own meaning, but I could do that to anything and it’d likely just involve me imagining it’s a road to Greggs which the walker cannot stray off of.

    The artist is still alive and, to my knowledge, exhibiting and creating artworks and I did think of going as far as contacting him and asking him about the work. But I couldn’t find any contact details and so I didn’t. Which is probably for the best, as I have no idea what I’m talking about at the best of times.

  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Pierre de Wiessant by Rodin)

    Since my expedition to the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia I’ve been intrigued by Rodin’s works, especially given how there are strict rules on how many copies can be made of each work. This sculpture is one of the individuals which formed the Burghers of Calais, aiming to capture a young man walking into what he thought would be certain death.

    There are different versions of this sculpture, one where the model is clothed and the other, like with this one, unclothed. There are other versions of the one at this museum at the Rodin Museum in France and at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.