The Traditional Wallraf-Richartz Museum In Cologne, Germany Is Re-Visited By Our Editor

Written by Walter Calderon Monday, 05 March 2012 21:27

The Wallraf-Richartz Museum is one of the great traditional art galleries in Germany. It is located in Cologne, Germany and houses a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. Part of its collection was used for the establishment of Museum Ludwig in 1976. The museum lies at the heart of the Old Town, within view of the cathedral, right next to the historical city hall. Virtually every school of style and historical period of European painting is also represented here, from the Dutch masters to the late Impressionists of France. The Cologne merchant Johann Heinrich Richartz (1795-1861), who gave his name to the museum, supported the first public museum building which was opened in 1861. After the destruction of the building in the Second World War the museum was housed in 1957 in a new building designed by Rudolf Schwarz and Josef Bernard. After a few years in a modern museum building, which from1986 housed both the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and the Museum Ludwig, at the beginning of 2001 the museum moved into a new building designed by Oswald Mathias Ungers. A “permanent loan” of numerous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by the Swiss collector Gerard Corboud was made a short time later. The new building in the quarter between the town hall and Gürzenich stands on an important site in the history of art: In the Middle Ages this was the artistic centre of the cathedral city with the workshops of the goldsmiths and painters of Cologne. Once the museum moved into their modern new building in 2001 the name was changed for marketing purposes to: "Wallraf, The Museum." Visitors approaching the museum from the cathedral come up against a quiet façade of classical proportions, built on the basis of the ancient canons on a massive basalt base, marked with a series of windows. The facade is then developed toward the top as a blind wall with only a few panoramic windows all in a row in one corner. The smooth, clear upper wall, corresponding to the exhibition halls, is the result of geometric partitioning of the artistic work of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Rectangular slabs of slate arranged in two parallel rows are repeated at intervals all over the tuff block of the complex, revealing to passers-by the names of the artists whose works are kept in that area. On the western side, the building is divided into three staggered towers echoing the church bell tower: they house offices and a multifunctional hall and are clearly separated from the museum block itself. The entrance immediately evident from outside, follows the path of the old medieval road where artist Stefan Lochner lived and on the underground floor.

The organization of space inside is very simple: a large entrance hall offers access to the three exhibition floors, divided on the basis of strictly chronological criteria, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The atrium is developed on the basis of the template formed by square units, multiplied and divided over and over again against the luminous ceiling and made up of pillars forming an orderly grid. The works in this internationally prominent collection are not contained in a single hall, but in rooms of different sizes, arrangements and colors. Each floor has its own layout and a color identifying a period in history: terracotta for the Middle Ages, Verona green for the Renaissance, Carrara grey for the nineteenth century. A famous collection of art from the 13th to the 19th centuries occupies a postmodern cube designed by Cologne's own Oswald Mathias Ungers. Works are presented chronologically, with the oldest on the 1st floor where standouts include brilliant examples from the Cologne School, known for its distinctive use of color. Upstairs are Dutch and Flemish artists like Rembrandt and Rubens, Italians such as Canaletto and Spaniards including Murillo. The 3rd floor focuses on the 19th century with evocative works by Caspar David Friedrich and Lovis Corinth. Thanks to a permanent loan from Swiss collector Gèrard Corboud, there's now also a respectable collection of impressionist paintings, including some by heavyweights Monet and Cézanne. A donation by Swiss collector Gèrard Corboud in 2001 greatly expanded the museum's stock of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. The museum also have a 20th Century collection of American Pop Art Retrospective with works from artist like James Rosenquist. The museum carries out a permanent research and restoration program and on February 14, 2008, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum announced that “On the Banks of the Seine by Port Villez”, attributed to Claude Monet, was a forgery. The discovery was made when the painting was examined by restorers prior to an upcoming Impressionism exhibition. X-ray and infrared testing revealed that a "colorless substance" had been applied to the canvas to make it appear older. The picture was acquired by the museum in 1954. The museum, which will keep the forgery, still has five authentic Monet paintings in its collection. Visit website:_ www.wallraf.museum/

Exhibition of Alexandre Cabanel – The Tradition of Beauty - 4 February – 15 May 2011
One of the foremost artists of 19th century France, Alexandre Cabanel (1823 – 1889), will be featured in his first exhibition at the Wallraf in Spring 2011. In cooperation with Musée Fabre in Montpellier, the Wallraf in Cologne will present over 60 works by a man who rose from the rank of a lowly carpenter’s son to become court painter to Napoleon III. Alexandre Cabanel began his training in fine art at the age of 17 in Paris. In 1844 he was exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon. His breakthrough first came when he turned his brush to mythological themes and with that to the nude. The best example we know of this is his magnum opus "The Birth of Venus" dating from 1863 – a work of captivating beauty that now numbers among the highlights of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Apart from such powerful men as Napoleon III and Ludwig II of Bavaria, Cabanel also was very popular among the ladies of the aristocracy. They enjoyed having their portraits done by him. His skill in drawing was apparently evident by the age of 11. His father could not afford his training, but in 1839 his département gave him a grant to go to Paris. This enabled him to register at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts the following October as a pupil of François-Edouard Picot. Cabanel was also a successful teacher. His pupils (like those of his master, Picot) often won the Prix de Rome; among the best known are Jules Bastien-Lepage, Edouard Debat-Ponsan, Edouard Théophile Blanchard (1844-79), Henri Gervex and Lodewijk Royer. He was elected regularly to the Salon jury, and his pupils could be counted by the hundred at the Salons. Through them, Cabanel did more than any other artist of his generation to form the character of 'belle époque' French painting. Cabanel’s pictures were always drawn and painted with a high degree of academic virtuosity, combined with an undercurrent of strong feeling, as in the Death of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (1870; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay). This made him popular in his lifetime, but it was the wrong combination for the tastes of later generations.