All the Histories of Art: The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna
10.03.2008 - 01.18.2009
All the Histories of Art: The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna is divided into six sections corresponding to the quintessential genres of art history. An extensive selection of masterpieces featuring portraits; history, religion, and mythology; nudes; popular customs; still lifes; and architecture and landscapes offers an innovative overview of the collections housed in this important museum.
The section featuring portraits—one of the bestrepresented genres in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna collections—contains pieces from a variety of disciplines including coins and objects, which range chronologically from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity to neoclassicism, with works by artists such as Holbein, Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Velázquez.
The second section, dedicated to historical paintings, contains countless historical, mythological, and religious motifs depicted in paintings by Cranach, Dürer, Gentileschi, Rubens, and Titian, as well as sculptures sharing the same theme.
The selection of nudes includes works by Palma il Vecchio, Titian, Veronese, and Spranger, is the perfect genre for linking the preceding section with the popular scenes idealizing local customs depicted in the works of Magnasco, Strozzi, and David Teniers the Younger in the fourth section.
Still lifes, the fifth area, are represented by both paintings and objects from the Kunstkammer, the seed of the collections of some of these emperors, and by paintings by Arcimboldo, Brueghel the Elder, and De Heem.
In the gallery dedicated to rural, sea, and city landscapes, the work of prominent artists such as Patinier, Bril, Gainsborough, and Bellotowe, exemplifies how this genre has evolved from the early 16th century to the second half of the 18th century through . This encompassing exhibit offers a truly unique opportunity to explore All the Histories of Art.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio and his workshop ?)
Mars, Venus and Cupid, after 1546
Oil on canvas
97 x 109 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Picture Gallery, inv. nr. 13