Dürer! Me! Working!

Sometimes, at work, we just get totally awesome things. Last week we had two Dürer engravings. Two! Dürers! And I got to treat one!!!

When it comes to printmaking, German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) is The Man. Freakishly talented as a youngster, by his twenties he was noted across Europe for his mad printmaking skills, and since that time has been regarded as one of (if not the most) important artists of the Northern Renaissance.

Self Portrait, 1500 (painting, obviously)

Like most successful artists of the day, it would be highly unusual if he cut the woodblocks for the prints himself. Most likely he drew the images for his woodcuts and then had a lower-level somebody on his team actually cut them from the block.

My art history classes were years ago, and though one particular printmaking course hit Dürer really hard, I can't be certain if he made his own engraving plates... but I'm inclined to think yes, because he spent some quality time as some sort of apprentice to a goldsmith, which would have involved engraving metal.

The Four Riders of Apocalypse, 1497-98, (woodcut)

We had two engravings, belonging to a private client, which were in pretty good condition and needed only did minor treatments. How fabulous though, to spend two days six inches away from one of these! People would just drop by my bench to look at it. The photographer told me that she admired it for about ten minutes before shooting the before treatment photograph. Sometimes I just sat there and looked at it.

Dürer's works were revolutionary. And because prints are portable and so easily reproduced (compared to things like paintings), his influence was felt across Europe. You could roughly break the history of European printmaking into Before Dürer and After Dürer.

(Please note, these are examples of Dürer's work, not necessarily images of the ones we had in the lab).

Melancholia I, 1514

Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514

These last two match the tonality of the paper much better than the straight black-and-white images do. The paper is over 500 years old, so it's going to be yellow/brownish.

Adam and Eve, 1504

Saint Anthony at the City, 1513

Wien

That just makes me kind of laugh: "Wien".  It's the actual name of the city of Vienna, as written/spelt/pronounced by the natives.  The temporary digs here in Vienna have free internet!  Wooo!

Landlord, for reasons not to be elaborated on, is a huge jerk.  This was reaffirmed when we moved out of the apartment.

My baggage was so heavy, it hurt so bad.  Can you see how red and angry the skin on my shoulder/collarbone is?  Wahhhh.  I can't believe I'm going to haul it around Europe.  I am such an idiot.

I took an overnight train from Amsterdam to Vienna.  I'd never done this before, and it turns out that it is quite a Hogwarts Express experience.  You have a train compartment with either four or six beds (fyi, four is better, there is more head room for everyone involved).  Each compartment has a little door that you can close if you want.  I shared a compartment with three others, a silent German man, a friendly German woman, and a talkative and slightly crazy Austrian named Helmut.  

Some of the crazy things Helmut told me:

1). if he had been born a 14 days later, Hitler would have been his godfather

2). the first American was 'as black as a telephone'

3). the first people to come to America were the Ancient Egyptians

Sleeping on a train is not ideal, but whatever.  I'll  be home soon, and there will be time enough for sleeping in a real bed then.  I, and my baggage, arrived in Vienna all safe and sound.  I dumped my self-made albatross at the hostel where I'm staying, cleaned up, and headed out into the city.

Vienna, looking toward the Albertina.

From the balcony of the Albertina.

Museums visited include the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts), the Albertina, the Leopold Museum, and the MUMOK - which I think is a shortening of Museum of Modern Art, Kunst in German/Dutch.  I also went to the MAK, the contemporary art museum, but they didn't accept my get-into-museums-free card, so I left.  Contemporary art is, as previously stated, big on the misses and low on the hits.

I went to the MUMOK - a name which no doubt sounds terrible when vocalized - to see a show called, "Bad Paintings, Good Art".  The poster child for the exhibition was the following:

John Currin, Thanksgiving, 2003

I thought the exhibition would be cool, as John Currin's work is fabulously representational.  He works in a very old-school technique, but paints unlikely images, as you might be able to guess.  The show was just okay though, there definitely were lots of bad paintings, and some bad art as well.

More Vienna.

I walked around for quite a bit in this lovely park.

I also bought a hot dog from a street vendor, not counting on getting this monstrosity in return.  So far, I think it is the grossest thing I've ever taken a picture of.  The hot dog lady took a roll, cut the very tip off, and then jammed the whole thing onto a heated pike.  The she pulled it off, dumped ketchup and mustard into the hole, and jammed the giant wurst into it.  Then she took the whole thing and smashed it in a panini cooker.  The sausage was so big it stuck out the end for a good couple inches.  I felt totally ridiculous with it.

Hideous looking, but yummy.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum.

This museum was nice.  Several of their paintings needed some work though - old discolored varnishes and inpainting that no longer matched.  Don't get me wrong, everything was in good shape, but not in the tip-top condition that everything was at the Albertina.  More love is needed for the paintings at the Kunsthistoriches.  Their Greek/Roman/Egyptian collections were in spectacular condition though.  All the love is apparently going there.

Highlight - the Steinway-Haus.  It wasn't open, but I'm not sure I'd go in it it was.  I'm too plebeian for them, I'm sure.

The Cologne Cathedral

Visiting them, you can totally understand how the medieval peons were wild to have them built.  They're absolutely breathtaking, and inside it would be cool and quiet and clean, some things I imagine medieval peons did not often encounter.

The site of the cathedral has been the site of some sort of Christian gathering place since the Roman Era, but the first incarnation of a 'cathedral' where scholars know what it looked like (there are extant contemporary drawings of it) was in 870.  The current structure, the Gothic cathedral we see today, was begun in 1248, consecrated in 1322, and only completely finished in 1880.  It was hit by 14 aerial bombs in World War II, but managed to survive mostly intact.

Patron Saints: Saint Peter and the Virgin Mary

This week's Cathedral Candle was brought to you by Saint Anthony.  Saint Joseph's candelabra was full, and Saint Anthony was nearby, even though I originally mistook him for Saint Francis (I thought the child in his arms was a sheep... my bad!).  But really, who doesn't love Saint Anthony, Patron Saint of Lost Items?  Always good.

Schnitzel et al

For a late lunch today, I wandered around Cologne until I found a small, clean place with a sign outside indicating that beer was cheap.  This may sound rather frat-boy, but beer prices seem to be a good overall indicator of real food prices.  There were also a bunch of old people sitting around eating/drinking, and there is nothing better than a bunch of happy old people to let you know you've found a good inexpensive restaurant.

The beer was cheap.  Cheaper than the water.  I thought, "Today you are in Germany.  Be the German.  Get the beer."  The ordinary beer in Koln is Kolsch (insert umlauts).  Even though it is the run-of-the-mill here, it is way better than the ordinary beer you'd get at home.

I wanted to get something Really German to eat.  I thought about a wurst, but I'm not a big fan of wursts.  I had a terrible wurst, the stuff of nightmares really, in Rome (I was forced to eat the wurst, and there was no other food, it had to be... ugh), and have generally tried to avoid most of it since.  So I thought, "Schnitzel.  I don't know what that is.  Maybe a starch?  I'll get that."

Behold, the schnitzel.

Turns out schnitzel is a fancy word for chicken-fried.  Chicken-fried veal actually, though apparently anything can be schnitzelfied.  This was really good.  I could see the cook in the back making it while I waited.

I was feeling totally German and living up to my surname while eating this schnitzel and drinking beer.

Koln: Put an Umlaut Over the Only Vowel Available

This morning I woke up and thought, "I think I'll go to Germany today".

This is much easier than it may sound, for three reasons:

1). Eurail Pass

2). two hours and forty-five minute train ride to Cologne, Germany

3). no train reservations needed

So basically I show up and hop on the train, no money required.  Just me, my ipod, and my Eurail pass.  Golden.

Cologne is spelt Koln in German.  With an umlaut over the 'o'.  Because it's German like that.  The following two pictures are from the third story of a fantastic museum I visited.  One of the major sights in Cologne is the cathedral, called the Dom.  It houses what are believed to be the relics of the Three Magi.

Of course, these days I never seem to go anywhere without an ulterior motive.  The goal of today's visit was the Museum Ludwig.  Museum Ludwig is a large modern art museum, full of Pop Art (Warhol, Lichtenstein), one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe, and more Russian Suprematists works in one place than I've ever seen before.  But maybe that is because I've never been to Russia.

Note: I did not take this photo.  I took a day time one, but this night time one looks cooler: the Dom in the background behind the Museum Ludwig.  

One other museum I visited was the Wallraf-Richartz Museum.  I loved it.  I kept thinking that as I walked through it, "I love this museum."  The paintings were so well cared for, and whoever built the collection was a genius.  Exactly my taste in paintings.  Sometimes what I consider to be really fabulous museums are like that.  I also love the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston because she put the same paintings and objects into her collection I would have chosen.  

Madonna in the Rose Bower, Stefan Lochner, 1448.  

This is the Wallraf-Richartz 'signature' piece.  Lochner was a local artist and this painting was commissioned by somebody (whom I think is unknown) in Cologne as a personal devotional, likely as part of a diptych.  Sadly, the second half, the half with the person and his/her patron saint, is lost.  You can make educated guesses as to whether something was part of a diptych/triptych/etc if you study the imagery (is is a fragment of a larger story, ie the Passion of the Christ?), other extant examples (so what did personal devotional icons from 15th-century Cologne look like?), and the physical characteristics of the piece itself (joinery, tool marks, is the verso painted?).  

This is what you learn in conservation graduate school.  How to look closely.

There is a great river walk down by the Rhine, and I got an ice cream and walked along it.  Today was a rainy horrid day in Amsterdam (so Louise tells me), but in Germany it was beautiful!

The Rhine.

The river walk extends onto this bridge.  The bridge is also like seven lanes of train tracks heading directly to the station, and huge trains are crossing it every five minutes.  Despite how it sounds, this is not distracting or annoying in the least.

Looking back toward the center of the town.

Endpapers and Zeppelins

I've been spending the beginning of this week continuing to treat the Kaiser Wilhelm's photo albums.  (Or as Grandma Elva would say, "His albins.")  The subjects are usually one of the three categories:

1). War Games

2). State Visits

3). Ships

There have been a few notable exceptions, namely one album entitled German Children in Norway, which seems to detail an event in which a ship full of German children sailed to Norway in order to play summer-time outdoor games with Norwegian children.  The best page was as follows: on top a large landscape photograph of Norwegian mountains, below two smaller photographs, one of two boys wresting to the death, the other of the same boys with their arms around each other's shoulders smiling.  The caption was something like, "German and Norwegian children are friends."

Occasionally there are singular gems within an album.  Like the album with a table of contents.  My favorite listing was something like Luftballon, which I assumed to mean War Balloon, the idea of which is hysterical unto itself, but exciting because it mean there would probably be a photograph of a German War Zeppelin!

Oh boy!  A zeppelin!

Apart from these occasional treasures, I can always count on the albums themselves having some fabulous endpapers.  Endpapers, for ye who are not familiar with them, are the leaves in a book in the front before the title page and in the back after the text.  One half is pasted to the inside cover (a pastedown) and the other is free (a flyleaf).  They are what you see right when you open a book cover.  Historical endpapers are fab - below you can check out a selection of the Kaiser's albums' endpapers.

Note: the second one down is currently my favorite of the bunch.