Monday, September 19, 2022

Neues Museum, 2022

Next up was the Neues Museum, the New Museum, where the really old stuff is, which we'd visited also in 2012, posting on the Troy bits and also the Egypt bits. Pride of the place is the Nefertiti bust; so much so that no pix are permitted.

But, standing outside the room, waiting for the guards to
turn their backs, I did get this one memorable shot

We spent rather more time with the Neantherthals,
the Neolithics, then the Celts, this time


Nice diorama of an elderly artisan fashioning 
a Venus from ivory

Cycladic figures--the Neolithics got around rather more than
one might think

Celtic ornaments

The great Golden Hat...Celtic, actually a device
for astronomical calculations


Among the scene-setting large paintings adorning the Neues Museum

Lions Gate replica from Mycenae

Now looking at Trojan loot, entering the Schliemann exhibit


Heinrich Schliemann, the great adventurer who made his fortune
in the California gold fields and who figured the best way to
find Troy was to read Homer...

Priam's Mask?...rather unclear how much loot was looted by the
Russians, how much was in Turkey or Greece...

More of the haul

Still the main draw...a photo of a photo


Pergamon Museum, 2022

September 15 was our big Berlin museums day, knocking off 4 or even 5 (depending on how you individuate museums): the Pergamon, the Neues, the Old National Gallery, the Panorama, and "The World of Heinrich Schliemann" at the James Simon gallery. All on Museums Island. All for 19€ per person, too.

The Pergamon is a large museum, a museum of large format stuff. The German archaeologists removed not just clay pots and tablets and statues and such, but whole temples and other buildings. Just keeping up with the Brits, you might say. The museum is under renovation presently, and its most famous holdings are closed until 2025. Fortunately, we had visited the Pergamon before, in 2012. See my post from then for a look at that for which this big format museum is most famous. We had also visited Pergamum itself, the ancient city in Turkey, and blogged about it too, in 2010. And also Miletus, too, parts of which now reside in Berlin.

The Kaiser and the Sultan of Ottoman Turkey were close personal
buds in the later 19th century, and thus it was open season for
German archaeologists and adventurers throughout Asia Minor; 
also, the Ottoman Empire was the "sick man of Europe" and looking
for some help; compare Britain's relationship with Greece...

The Official Story; "partage"?!

Helpful model of ancient Babylon

Including the Temple of Marduk, thought to have been the 
"Tower of Babel"

Now entering the processional road to the great hall in later
Babylon; just 100m of the 250m collected

Detail

Spare parts; actual crate used for transporting...

Definitely will be on the quiz


Cast of the Code of Hammurabi; source
of all the "thou shalt nots"

Impressive gold work

More monumental stuff

And you thought angels were strictly Christian

"You've come a long way, baby," except in the US, where
Republicans would like to set the clock back a few millennia

The smaller entry gate; the larger one (see model) was too large
to fit

Scale in the throne room


Helpful model of what you've been walking and looking at









































































































































Shazam! You pass through the gate and you're in Roman Miletus;
the signage here helpfully notes that 60% of the facade here is
original, the highest percentage of anything in the museum (!)

Nice mosaic...a door off to the right leads then to the now-closed
hall of Pergamon; see our 2012 post for pix of this

Perhaps the high point of this visit to the Pergamon was in its
nice restaurant, being served by robotic serveuse (go to my
YouTube channel...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnUKnSBY2Y&ab_channel=MarkSherouse

My north German sushi...raw herring and salad...the waiter asked
whether I understood what I was ordering..."Ach, ja, ja, ich
verstehe..."

Vicki's pizza

Wagner Monument In Tiergarten Park

So no sooner than I had posted about never having seen the Wagner monument in the depths (so I had imagined) of Tiergarten Park than we are riding in a bus right by it, Vicki exhorting me to get off and go see it. So we did. Route #200 from the Kulturforum if you're interested.

Painting of the dedication ceremony, 1890s; as seen last week at
the DHM

And there it is, suitably protected from the elements; also from
vandalism...

Appropriate megamaniacal pose, with
characters from the operas below; here,
Walter von der Vogelweide, from Tannhauser


Tannhauser, with the Pope's staff sprouting leaves,
signifying his redemption

Alberich, stealing the Rhinegold from the Rhinemaiden

Brunnhilde and the dead Siegfried from
Gotterdammerung

Helpful signage; and in English too

A helpful antidote to all this is What's Opera, Doc?, one of the
most honored cartoons ever...


Sunday, September 18, 2022

Gemaldegalerie, 3: The Out-Takes

"Really, Neptune, a conk shell for a condom?!
Not with me you won't!"

Happy Madonna and Bambino

Obviously has not yet gotten the memo about scourging, crucifixion,
etc.

"I drink and I know things; and I dance with dogs"

Yet another reason to prefer video to live poker

"Jesus of Nazareth, pleased to meet you" "Holy Shit! Boy howdy! Really?!
You're shittin' me" "No, I am The One" "Whoa! Let me get down
and grovel...would you like to be baptized?" "What would be the
point? I know Who I am" "Aw, come on man, it's my thing" "Well, if you insist..."


"How 'bout them apples?" or "A Disputation among Church
Doctors concerning Original Sin"

"How 'bout them apples?" or "A Disputation among Putti..."

"Come on, Mom, do I to have to limit your screen time?!"

"Well, Lord, we didn't mean it literally..."