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Brukenthal National Museum

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The Brukenthal National Museum ( Romanian : Muzeul Național Brukenthal ; German : Brukenthalmuseum ) is a museum in Sibiu , Transylvania , Romania , established in the late 18th century by Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803) in his city palace. Baron Brukenthal, governor of the Grand Principality of Transylvania established his first collections around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making the museum the oldest institution of its kind on the territory of modern-day Romania.

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41-740: Today, in its extended form, it is a complex comprising six museums, which, without being separate administrative entities, are situated in different locations around the city and have their own distinct cultural programmes. The Art Galleries are located inside the Brukenthal Palace and include a number of about 1,200 works belonging to the main European schools of painting, from the 15th to the 18th century: Flemish-Dutch , German and Austrian , Italian , Spanish and French Schools . The Galleries also include collections of engravings , books, numismatics , and minerals . The Brukenthal Library

82-490: A "meteoric rise" after 1501, when the first Asian cargos were landed by Portuguese ships. The theme of rich commodities arriving from distant and exotic parts of the world had a natural appeal to Antwerp merchant buyers, a large proportion themselves foreign. Many artists from around the Netherlands and further afield moved to the city to benefit from the boom, which saw large workshops "that grew into assembly lines", and

123-644: A court case in Utrecht in 1543, master-masons were prohibited from doing so there by guild restrictions. The fantastic and exotic costumes many characters wear were already a feature of Early Netherlandish painting in the previous century, and the Biblical Magi and their retinues gave one of the most typical settings for this. They seem to derive partly from theatrical contexts, such as tableaux vivants in royal entries and other pageants, which artists were often asked to design. Another influence

164-822: A few years, but the name suggests that it was a reaction to the "classic" style of the earlier Flemish painters , just as the Italian Mannerists were reacting to, or trying to go beyond, the classicism of High Renaissance art. The Antwerp Mannerists' style is certainly "mannered", and "characterized by an artificial elegance. Their paintings typically feature elongated figures posed in affected, twisting, postures, colorful ornate costumes, fluttering drapery, Italianate architecture decorated with grotesque ornament, and crowded groups of figures...". Joseph Koerner notes "a diffuse sense of outlandishness in Antwerp art, of an exoticism both of subject and means ... evoking

205-521: A great increase in the quantity of art produced, but also some fall in quality; this is especially seen among the minor figures grouped under this term. Many smaller works were produced without commissions, for sale from shop windows, at fairs, or to dealers, rather than for an individual commission, an indication of a growing trend in Netherlandish painting. The Antwerp Pand was a trade fair lasting six weeks, where many painters sold works, and

246-480: A more fluid form and an abundance of meticulously rendered details. Although one scholar has described Friedlander's label as "utterly inefficient as a stylistic guide", there are communalities. Their "essentially late Gothic style is characterized by calligraphically complicated compositions peopled with elongated, theatrically-dressed figures animated by improbable poses and repetitive gestures". According to James Snyder, "Receptivity, not originality, characterises

287-550: A non-localized elsewhere". The subject of the Adoration of the Magi was a particular favourite, as it allowed the artists to give free rein to their preoccupation with ornament and the simulation and imitation of luxury products. The Biblical Magi were also regarded as the patron saints of travellers and merchants, which was relevant for the painters' clientele in what had become Europe's main centre for international trade, in

328-430: Is a new figure, first proposed in 1995. There is evidence that some workshops developed division of labour, with different artists specializing in figures, landscape or architectural backgrounds, and dividing the work on a particular painting between them, and different workshops specializing in one or two subjects. Compositions were often copied, repeated or adapted; for example at least six versions of an Adoration of

369-580: Is also located inside the Brukenthal Palace. It comprises approximately 300,000 library units (manuscripts, incunables, rare foreign books, old Romanian-language books, contemporary books and specialised magazines) including the highly illuminated 16th-century Brukenthal Breviary , a book of hours . The Museum of History is part of a building which is considered to be the most important ensemble of non-religious Gothic architecture in Transylvania. The museum initially focused its activities on representing

410-493: Is in Viennese style. The exhibition is organized on the structure of a classical pharmacy that includes two laboratories, a homeopathic sector and a documentation sector. It contains over 6,000 ancient medical instruments and dispensing tools from the time when Sibiu was home to more chemists than anywhere else in Transylvania. At the front, a reconstructed shop is decked out with wooden counters and stacks of glass jars creating

451-519: Is sometimes described as using the "woodcut convention" or having the "woodcut look". Although "detailed underdrawing in the woodcut convention appears labor intensive, it simplified the production process and saved on costs". Apart from the Adoration of the Magi , many of the panels or triptychs produced by the Antwerp Mannerists depicted the major events in the Life of Christ , including

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492-556: The 16th-century response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries , as well as many continuities with the preceding Early Netherlandish painting . The period spans from the Antwerp Mannerists and Hieronymus Bosch at the start of the 16th century to the late Northern Mannerists such as Hendrik Goltzius and Joachim Wtewael at the end. Artists drew on both the recent innovations of Italian painting and

533-402: The Low Countries , any more than ruins from Roman architecture . The Mannerist painters show very little evidence of having visited Italy (where Jan Gossaert had been in 1508–09), and their idea of alla antica style must be derived from Italian prints, and sometimes drawings. At this period painters or other artists were the usual designers of buildings, especially their ornament, and until

574-573: The Nativity , and the Crucifixion. Larger triptych altarpieces for churches might have several small scenes on the reverses of the hinged wings, giving the "closed view" which was displayed most of the time, the wings only being opened perhaps on Sundays or feast days (or for visitors on a small payment to the sacristan ). A number of highly finished drawings in the Antwerp style, possibly copies of paintings, can be shown to have been used as

615-467: The Elder , with Bosch the only artist from the period to remain widely familiar, may seem atypical, but in fact his many innovations drew on the fertile artistic scene in Antwerp. Dutch and Flemish painters were also instrumental in establishing new subjects such as landscape painting and genre painting . Joachim Patinir , for example, played an important role in developing landscape painting , inventing

656-597: The Italian Renaissance, although some Venetian prints of the same period show a comparable degree of fantasy. The Romanists were the next phase of influence, adopting Italian styles in a far more thorough way. After 1550 the Flemish and Dutch painters begin to show more interest in nature and beauty "in itself", leading to a style that incorporates Renaissance elements, but remains far from the elegant lightness of Italian Renaissance art, and directly leads to

697-648: The Magi triptych composition by Joos van Cleve and his workshop are known, though varying considerably in size, with the widths of the centre panel ranging from 56 to 93 cm. It has been possible to identify some of the artists. Jan de Beer , Jan de Molder , the Master of 1518 (possibly Jan Mertens or Jan van Dornicke ) and Adriaen van Overbeke are some of the identified artists who are regarded as Antwerp Mannerists. The early paintings of Jan Gossaert and Adriaen Isenbrandt (in Bruges ) also show characteristics of

738-737: The Magi (as in some illustrated here). The large costumes were also useful in concealing deficiencies in the artists' figure drawing, which the complicated poses would otherwise have exposed. The artists liked "chromatic" colouring, as was becoming fashionable in Italy, and coleur changeante transitions between colours in fabrics, imitating silks (called cangiante in Italy). Compositional elements, especially figures, are often taken from outside sources, especially prints, but also drawings which appear to have been passed around within and perhaps between workshops:"Thus background groups are endlessly repeated,

779-415: The Netherlands only after a gap of about fifty years after Antwerp Mannerism declined in the 1530s, and after the next stylistic wave of Romanism , heavily influenced by Italian painting, as seen in the later works of Gossaert . The term Antwerp Manierists was first used in 1915 by Max Jakob Friedländer in his work Die Antwerpener Manieristen von 1520 , in which he made a first attempt to put order in

820-537: The Northern Netherlands. Although attempts have been made to identify the individual artists that were part of this movement, most of the paintings remain attributed to anonymous masters as the paintings were not signed. This anonymity has contributed to a lack of knowledge about or popularity of their works. Only a minority of the works have been attributed. The makers of the altarpieces have been given notnames based on any external knowledge about

861-508: The atmosphere of an 18th-century apothecary . A valuable collection of wooden pharmaceutical jars, marked with paint, is also featured. The Museum of Natural History began to take shape in 1849, through the foundation of the Transylvanian Society of Natural Sciences ( German : Siebenbürgischer Verein für Naturwissenschaften ), which had as members important local and foreign figures in science and culture. The collections of

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902-531: The collections Witting and A. Spiess, the last one comprising 1,058 items acquired in 1963. Opened for the public in 1966 in Spiess House, the exhibition contains now over 1,500 units. Some traditional hunting procedures are also exhibited, including contemporary engravings. Aspects of the animal life and suitable times for hunting them are also presented here. Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents

943-424: The compositional type of the world landscape , which was perfected by Pieter Bruegel the Elder who, followed by Pieter Aertsen , also helped popularise genre painting . From the mid-century Pieter Aertsen , later followed by his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer , established a type of "monumental still life " featuring large spreads of food with genre figures, and in the background small religious of moral scenes. Like

984-403: The group strictly to Antwerp and the time period to circa 1520, even though he was of the opinion that most of the "pseudo-Bles' works originated from Antwerp and Antwerp workshops. Friedländer placed the works attributed to the group in a time period between 1500 and 1530. Despite the name Antwerp Mannerism the style was not limited to Antwerp. The style also appeared in the north of France and

1025-425: The growing number of works from the Netherlands that were catalogued under the "name of embarrassment 'pseudo- Herri met de Bles ' " (usually now "Pseudo Bles" or "Pseudo-Blesius"). Friedländer used the term Antwerp Mannerism here as synonymous for "Antwerp style". Even though he added the location 'Antwerp' to name the artists and placed them in the year 1520, Friedländer made it clear that he did not intend to limit

1066-507: The historic characteristics of Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben, present Sibiu ) and its surroundings, but in time it has come to reflect the entire area of Southern Transylvania. The Museum of Pharmacology is located in an historical building dated 1569, where one of the oldest pharmacies in present-day Romania was located. It is the basement of this house where Samuel Hahnemann invented homeopathy and developed his version of treatment. Some of his phials and plans are on display. The furniture

1107-475: The latest ideas were exchanged and diffused. Although sometimes spoken of as the "subterm "Antwerp Mannerism" as part of "Northern Mannerism in the early sixteenth century", the movement is better distinguished from the Northern Mannerism of later in the century, which developed from Italian Mannerism . There was very little continuity between the two, with Northern Mannerism proper developing in

1148-485: The local traditions of the Early Netherlandish artists . Antwerp was the most important artistic centre in the region. Many artists worked for European courts, including Bosch, whose fantastic painted images left a long legacy. Jan Mabuse , Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. Pieter Brueghel

1189-560: The mostly smaller paintings that have survived; these were no doubt still in private houses. The Sack of Antwerp or "Spanish Fury" of 1576, by unpaid Spanish troops caused much further destruction. Elsewhere in the Netherlands, artists in the large workshop of Cornelis Engebrechtsz. in Leiden seem to have pulled their reluctant master in the Mannerist direction, and at least the extravagant clothes and architectural settings are seen in

1230-435: The museum comprise over 1 million exhibits (including mineralogy - petrography , palaeontology , botany , entomology , malacology , the zoology of the vertebrates , amphibians , reptiles , as well as ichthyology , ornithology , and the zoology of mammals ). The Museum of Arms and Hunting Trophies reflects the evolution in time of weapons and hunting tools. Important is as well the collection of trophies belonging to

1271-451: The older style was remarkably persistent. Antwerp Mannerism is a term for painters showing some Italian influence, but mainly continuing the style and subjects of the older masters. Hieronymus Bosch is a highly individual artist, whose work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. Most of all it seems surprisingly modern, introducing a world of dreams that seems more related to Gothic art than

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1312-471: The otherwise more solidly based works of the Master of Delft and in Haarlem Jan Mostaert . The Antwerp workshop of Joos van Cleve (probably originally German) could work in the style, as well as others. The Antwerp Mannerists typically depicted religious subjects, which they interpreted generally in a more superficial manner than the Flemish artists of the previous century in favour of

1353-461: The peasant instead of the prince. The Fall of Icarus (now in fact considered a copy of a Brueghel work), although highly atypical in many ways, combines several elements of Northern Renaissance painting. It hints at the renewed interest for antiquity (the Icarus legend), but the hero Icarus is hidden away in the background. The main actors in the painting are nature itself and, most prominently,

1394-691: The peasant, who does not even look up from his plough when Icarus falls. Brueghel shows man as an anti-hero, comical and sometimes grotesque. Antwerp Mannerism Antwerp Mannerism refers to the style of a group of largely anonymous painters active in the southern Netherlands, principally in Antwerp , in roughly the first three decades of the 16th century. The movement marks the tail end of Early Netherlandish painting and an early phase within Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting . The style bore no relation to Italian Mannerism , which it mostly predates by

1435-410: The same repoussoire figures fill in a variey of empty corners, and stock poses answer many demands". The prints of Albrecht Dürer were the most common easily traceable source. Woodcut style also influenced the type of underdrawing revealed by special photography, "extremely detailed underdrawing with an elaborate system of shading (hatching and crosshatching) and broad, curling contour lines". This

1476-533: The style of Antwerp painting, resulting in a hodgepodge of modes that are nearly impossible to sort out... With some effort, a few basic tendencies can be discerned which include selective eclecticism and archaism in terms of style, Mannerism in matters of taste, and specialization in subject matter." The compositions typically include architectural ruins. The architecture is initially Gothic but later Renaissance motifs become dominant. The "antique" style appears in paintings when hardly any built examples existed in

1517-531: The style. The paintings combine Early Netherlandish and Northern Renaissance styles, and incorporate both Flemish and Italian traditions into the same compositions. A particular problem is that Antwerp was very badly hit by the Beeldenstorm of 1566, when a large proportion of the altarpieces in the churches were destroyed by iconoclastic rioters. Some of these are documented and probably many were signed, which would have helped greatly in attributing

1558-422: The themes of the great Flemish and Dutch Baroque painters: landscapes, still lifes and genre painting (scenes from everyday life). This evolution is seen in the works of Joachim Patinir and Pieter Aertsen , but the true genius among these painters was Pieter Brueghel the Elder , well known for his depictions of nature and everyday life, showing a preference for the natural condition of man, choosing to depict

1599-734: The works such as an inscription, a previous owner, the place where it was kept or a date found on the work. These include as the Pseudo-Bles, the Master of the Von Groote Adoration , the Master of Amiens, the Master of the Antwerp Adoration and the Master of 1518 . Works that cannot be attributed directly to a named master are attributed to Anonymous Antwerp Mannerist . The Master of the Lille Adoration

1640-535: The world landscapes, these represented a typically "Mannerist inversion" of the normal decorum of the hierarchy of genres , giving the "lower" subject matter more space than the "higher". Anthonis Mor was the leading portraitist of the mid-century, in demand in courts all over Europe for his reliable portraits in a style that combined Netherlandish precision with the lessons of Titian and other Italian painters. Italian Renaissance influences begin to show on Early Netherlandish painting around 1500, but in many ways

1681-683: Was the visit of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos and his 700-strong retinue to the Ferrara stage of the Council of Florence in 1438. They were drawn by Pisanello and others, and the drawings were copied across Europe. The emperor's stylish hat, with a long pointed peak in front, seen on the Medal of John VIII Palaeologus , was especially popular, and versions appear in a good proportion of paintings of

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