Visit to the Kunsthistorische Museum with Dr. O.

August 9th 2012

     Today, our class took another tour of Vienna's great art and architecture with Dr. O as we went to visit the Hapsburg's royal art collection in the Kunsthisorische museum, or more plainly, the national are history museum. The museum itself is one of two nearly identical neoclassical buildings that mirror each other across Maria Theresa square. The Kunsthisorsche's sister building is the national science museum, which holds the Hapsburg's dynasty collection of natural treasures such as fossils, rare geological rocks, and other such things. The contents of the are museum are much more historically relevant than the buildings themselves, however the fact that the Hapsburg's were so personalty wealthy that that it took two huge museums to house all the things that were not important enough to keep in their treasury (which is all in an other museum) is still a fact worth consideration.
     Dr. O's tour gave us a personal look at a number of very famous paintings, including a number of original works by Renascence Masters such as Rapheal's Madonna of the Meadow, and works of another famous artist used inanimate objects to create faces. In fact, the Hapsburg's collection included so many of the famous pieces of art that I had recognized from books and paintings that I could barely go a few feet without recognizing something world famous. Despite the massive collection of artwork, Dr. O. had a limited amount of time, so she focused mainly on artwork relevant to the 16th and 17th century, as it's the period we are focusing on in our class. Two particular artists were very important for this time period, Rubin, a catholic painter who's art work played a major role in defining the Baroque style in art, and Rembrandt, a protestant painter who played a large role in defining the aesthetic and artwork of the Protestant reformation.
     Rubin's art style is just what one would expect from the Baroque era, with its bombastic display of Church figures, and its emphases on the glory of God and the Catholic Church. The first thing one would notice about Rubin's art is that it is mostly very big, as in it looks like it was sized to be hung off of a large church wall (indeed, many of his works were made for church's to display in worship and during ceremonies). The next obvious feature of Rubin's works are that they use very bright colors, and have figures with often exaggerated or dramatic expressions and stances. Moving beyond the sensory level, Rubin's most prominent pieces of artwork feature important people, who are often doing important things. Rubin painted his fair share of rich nobles, however many of his paintings depict saints and angles, and often tell a church story of a miracle or explain the life of a saint.
     Rembrandt, in contrast to Rubin, has a much more subdued style of painting. Rembrandt, and indeed Protestant artwork in general is much quieter than loud attention grabbing Baroque artwork of the Catholic counter reformation. Rembrandt tends to use dark colors in his work, often using a carefully balanced blends of blacks, grays, whites, and occasionally browns. This often stems from the subject matter of Rembrandt's works, which are often paintings of people of scenes of simple home life and everyday people. Unlike Rubin's works, Rembrandt's are about the size of what one would expect a typical painting to be, just a few feet in each dimension, rather than something that would take up a whole wall. There are also a lot less Rembrandt paintings than Rubin's simple because Rembrandt painted his own works, and Rubin had a workshop that produced Baroque works like a factory. Dr. O commented that every museum out there has a large Rubin collection because there are hundreds of "Rubin paintings" out there in the world. So in short, the artwork of Rembrandt and the protestant reformation are on a smaller scale than the Baroque.
     This is not because Protestants had limited resources or had to hide their faith, there were plenty of Protestant nobles and Protestant lands in Europe. Instead, the difference in artwork reveals difference in sensibilities that I believe run to the core of both the protestant reformation and the catholic counter reformation.  For example, Rubin's Baroque work reinforces the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and of the empire, as they either depict wealthy and powerful nobles in all their regalia and glory, or show the lives of divine Saints and other holy figures in the mist of divine glory and righteous greatness. Rubin's art makes important people in the Church and empire look as important, stately, divine, graceful, and fantastic as possible. Which are all great things to do in the Baroque periods when Catholics are trying to convince people that all the pomp and circumstance of the church, and all its associating powers, still matter.
     Rembrandt's and other protestant works instead reflected the Protestant notation of  equality implicit in the "priesthood of all believers" aspect of their faith by deeming everyday people and scenes of everyday life as being worthy of painting. There are no saints are super divine people to paint, as everyone is equal. Furthermore, the lack of bombastic style suggests that Protestant are sees no need to elevate people to a larger than live status through the use of art. Especially in the case of Rembrandt, there seems to be a deep reverence for humanity and the individual, as Rembrandt takes great care to express individual personality in his paintings. Dr. O described Rembrandt as being on of the great psychological painters of the world, and indeed, the subjects temperament, mood, and life story are expressed in his works in subtle ways that are complete absent from Baroque work.
     Just from examining the artwork, it is possible to infer information about the great religious movements of the period. Luther wanted the freedom of Christians, meaning spiritual liberation from Church hierarchic, allowing people to have an individual level of religious worship. The Baroque art, on the other hand, seems determined to preserve social hierarchies by asserting the greatness of the high ranking church and secular rulers.