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Ten astounding German paintings you have to see before you die

From distorted skulls to abstract strokes, this list compiles ten of German art's most famous and influential pieces.

Published: 19 December 2016 10:00 CET
Updated: 6 September 2017 10:13 CEST
Ten astounding German paintings you have to see before you die
Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer". Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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1. Rhinocerus (Rhinoceros) by Albrecht Dürer (1515)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Well, this first one isn’t strictly a painting, but a woodcut. And that's pretty important, because it meant that it could be printed time and time again, so it was seen by vastly more people than any painting was in the 16th century. It's one of the first “mass produced” pieces of art.

If you look a little closer, you’ll notice it’s not exactly an accurate drawing – there’s even an extra horn on the rhino's back. And that’s because Dürer never actually saw a rhinoceros, but he based it on a brief sketch and letter by an unknown artist.

Many Westerners continued to believe this was a true representation of the animal into the late 18th century. There are original prints of it in both London's British Museum and The Met in New York.

2. Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1526)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

They may not look it now, but Cranach's Biblical scenes such as this one were pretty raunchy and erotic for his time, especially in comparison with most of the art being painted for churches.

Cranach was also good friends with Martin Luther, famously painting him and many of the other leaders of the Protestant Reformation, which was happening at the time in Germany.

It’s on display at The Courtauld Gallery in London.

3. The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This painting is unusual as it has a peculiar, elongated shape protruding from the bottom. But when you look closer or from the side, it is actually a distorted skull – a reminder of death – right next to the two splendidly dressed ambassadors.

One of the most famous paintings of the Renaissance, The Ambassadors was actually painted in England. Born in Augsburg, Holbein was German, but also one of the painters that revolutionized art in Britain, bringing the country up to compete with the rest of Europe.

It's one of the most popular paintings in London’s National Gallery collection.

4. Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) by Caspar David Friedrich (1817)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We jump nearly 300 years to this next painting – perhaps one of the most recognisable German paintings there is.

Caspar David Friedrich is known for his huge romantic landscapes, and Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is certainly one of his most awe-inspiring scenes. Working at the same time as John Constable and JMW Turner in Britain in the early 19th century, he is perhaps Germany's equivalent landscape master.

Today this painting is often reproduced in magazines, books and adverts, making it one of the most iconic images from that period. It’s housed in the Hamburg Kunsthalle gallery.

5. Das Eisenwalzwerk (Iron Rolling Mill) by Adolph von Menzel (1875)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Whereas the “Wanderer” shows the natural side of Germany, this painting depicts the sweaty scene of a bustling industrial floor.

Menzel was famous for his historical paintings, often depicting grand battle scenes and military processions. But this painting instead depicts the workers at an iron rolling mill, part of the industrial revolution that was happening so rapidly in Germany in the late 19th century.

You can see it in Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie along with many other of Menzel's more traditional works.

6. Zwei Reiter am Strand (Two Riders on the Beach) by Max Liebermann (1901)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Max Liebermann is one of the most famous German Impressionist painters, a movement more associated with Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir from France than with German artists.

This is not only a wonderful painting, it also has a fascinating and complicated history. It was originally owned by a Jewish factory owner in the 1930s, but was seized by Nazi authorities after the Kristallnacht pogrom.

As Liebermann was Jewish, it was considered to be “degenerate” art and became part of Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt’s collection.

It was seized back by the Allies at the end of the war, before being returned to Gurlitt as he persuaded them he was its rightful owner. Then in 2012 it was famously rediscovered as part of his son Cornelius Gurlitt’s collection that had been stowed away in his Munich flat for decades.

It was one of the few paintings from the horde to be returned to its original owner, who then sold it at Sotheby's to a private collector in 2015 for $2.9 million. Sadly, it is not on public display at the moment, but will hopefully surface for public viewing in the not too distant future.

7. Mutter mit totem Sohn (Mother with Dead Son) by Käthe Kollwitz (1903)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Käthe Kollwitz is Germany’s most celebrated female artist. Living in the then poverty-stricken Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin (it's now one of the trendiest areas), she depicted the awful conditions of the poor in the neighbourhood.

Her life was shrouded in misery: she lost one of her sons in the First World War, a grandson in the Second World War, and then died in 1945 shortly before the war’s end.

This drawing of a mother holding her dead son is a moving depiction of pain, and one of her sculptures on the same subject now sits in the Neue Wache, a famous memorial to the victims of war in central Berlin.

8. Potsdamer Platz by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1914)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Kirchner is one of the most famous artists of the Expressionist movement, which originated in Germany before the outbreak of the First Word War. It was one of the most influential movements of the 20th century, aiming not to depict something accurately but to express emotion.

This painting shows two prostitutes on a roundabout in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, as potential clients cross the road. Kirchner painted many street scenes like this, showing a very different side to Germany's capital.

It is currently on show in the Kirchner exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery in Berlin, and is part of Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie collection.

9. Abstraktes Bild (599) by Gerhard Richter (1986)

 

A photo posted by @randomaway on Nov 21, 2016 at 3:55pm PST

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This abstract piece became world famous when it broke the record for the most expensive painting by a living European artist, selling for a whopping £30.4 million in 2015 at Sotheby's in London.

But Richter is not only known for bringing in the bucks. His abstract and photo-realist artwork is renowned across the world, and he was voted the greatest living artist by a Vanity Fair survey of art experts in 2013.

Others in Richter's series of abstract paintings often appear in temporary exhibitions around the world.

10. Die Ordnung der Engel (The Hierarchy of Angels) by Anselm Kiefer (2000)

 

A photo posted by @ashtangakalle on Oct 15, 2015 at 12:38am PDT

Anselm Kiefer is not a conventional artist either, using materials such as straw, ash and clay in his works.

His paintings often deal with Germany’s 20th century past, in particular with the Holocaust. The title of this work suggests something beautiful and traditional, whereas its colours and discarded clothes hint at something different, and much more menacing.

The work has been on display in exhibitions, but still belongs in the artist's private collection.

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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