The Art Of The Vienna Galleries
Cód:
491_9781443773959
PREFACE IF this book should induce art lovers to visit Vienna and view its museums, only devout desire would be fulfilled but also - which is of far greater importance - a distinct service would have been rendered to these art lovers. For the Vienna Galleries of paintings are, with the exception of the Hermitage Gallery in St. Petersburg, the least known of those in Europe but it may be said without exaggeration that they are among the most important. They are especially rich in the works of masters not generally known to art lovers, but of equal rank and often higher merit than those whose names are more familiar. The wealth of these Galleries may be estimated when we consider that the Imperial Museum shows over twenty-six hundred paintings the Academy Collection, twelve hundred the Liechtenstein, over eight hundred the Czernin, three hundred and fifty the Harrach, almost four hundred the Schonbrunn, one hundred and fifty and the Lower Belvedere Gallery, one hundred, or about five thou- sand five hundred paintings in all. Many of these v vi Preface are priceless jewels. Titian, Palma, Giorgione, Tintoretto, and some Flemish artists, notably Pieter Breughel, the Elder, are nowhere so abundantly represented. The older German school, so difficult to appreciate because its inasterworks are distributed over so many Germanic museums, may here be reviewed alinost completely. The famous Rubens Gallery of the Louvre is rivalled by a collection in the Vienna Imperial Museum of almost fifty undoubted examples of the masters work, in which he may be studied more coinprehensively than any- where else. Although there is a noticeable lack of the 18th century French artists, or of the Italian Quattrocenti, there are many interesting Trecenii, and an unrivalled display of the minor Dutch and Flemish painters. Waagen has well said that Vienna surpasses all cities of Germany in the importance of its art collections, and may in Europe be coinpared only with those of London, Rome, Pari
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