Statens Museum for Kunst
Encyclopedia
Statens Museum for Kunst (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

: "Statens Museum" or sometimes "National Gallery of Denmark") is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

.

The museum collects, registers, maintains, researches in and handles Danish and foreign art dating from the 14th Century till the present day, mostly with their origins in western culture circles.

History

The collections of the Danish National Gallery originates in the Art Chamber of the Danish monarch
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...

s. When the German Gerhard Morell became Keeper of Frederick V
Frederick V of Denmark
Frederick V was king of Denmark and Norway from 1746, son of Christian VI of Denmark and Sophia Magdalen of Brandenburg-Kulmbach.-Early life:...

's Art Chamber about 1750, he suggested that the king create a separate collection of paintings. To ensure that the collection was not inferior to those of other European royal houses and local counts, the king made large-scale purchases of Italian, Netherlandish and German paintings. The collection became particularly well provided with Flemish and Dutch art. The most important purchase during Morell's term as keeper was Christ as the Suffering Redeemer by Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

.

Since then a great variety of purchases have been made. During the 19th century the works were almost exclusively by Danish artists, and for this reason the Museum has an unrivalled collection of paintings from the so-called Danish Golden Age. That the country was able to produce pictures of high artistic quality was something new, and a consequence of the establishment of the Royal Danish Academy of Arts  in 1754.

More recently, the collection has been influenced by generous donations and long-term loans. In 1928 Johannes Rump's large collection of early French Modernist paintings was donated to the Museum. This was followed by purchases of paintings and sculpture in the French tradition.

Buildings

The museum was designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup
Vilhelm Dahlerup
Jens Vilhelm Dahlerup was a Danish architect who specialized in the Historicist style. One of the most productive and noted Danish architects of the 19th century, he is behind many of the most known buildings and landmarks of his time and has more than any other single architect contributed to the...

 and G.E.W. Møller and built 1889-1896 in a Historicist
Historicism (art)
Historicism refers to artistic styles that draw their inspiration from copying historic styles or artisans. After neo-classicism, which could itself be considered a historicist movement, the 19th century saw a new historicist phase marked by a return to a more ancient classicism, in particular in...

 Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

 revival style.

In autumn 1998, an extension was opened designed by the architects Anna Maria Indrio and Mads Møller from Arkitektfirmaet C. F. Møller
Arkitektfirmaet C. F. Møller
Arkitektfirmaet C. F. Møller, internationally also known as C. F. Møller Architects, is an architectural firm based in Århus, Denmark. Founded in 1924 by C. F. Møller, it is today the largest architectural firm in Denmark based on number of employed architects. About half the revenue is earned...

. This new building was constructed in the park behind the original building and is connected to it by a glass-covered walkway, 'the street of sculptures'. The 'street' stretches along the full length of the museum, and within it concerts and dance performances are held.

The old and new buildings are connected by one large-scale amalgamation between past and present. Facing the front is the old building and from Østre Anlæg is a new and modern building - seen from the side is a glass-covered street that connects the old and new buildings.

Collections

The museum's collections constitute almost 9,000 paintings and sculptures, approx. 300,000 works of art on paper as well as more than 2,600 plaster casts of figures from ancient times, the middle-ages and the Renaissance. The major part of the museum's older collections comes from the art chambers of Danish kings.

Royal Painting and Sculpture Collection

The museum contains collections of art dating from the 12th century. The older Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an and Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 collections include representations by Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

, Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

, Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...

, Parmigianino
Parmigianino
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , also known as Francesco Mazzola or more commonly as Parmigianino or sometimes "Parmigiano", was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma...

 (Portrait of Lorenzo Cybo
Portrait of Lorenzo Cybo
Portrait of Lorenzo Cybo is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. It is housed in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark.-History:...

), Breugel, Rubens, Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their...

, Frans Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...

, Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert was a Dutch painter and printmaker in etching and engraving. He was one of the "Haarlem Mannerists" from about 1585, but in the new century altered his style to fit new Baroque trends...

, Gysbrechts
Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts
Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts or Gijsbrechts was a Flemish painter of still life and trompe-l'œil active in the second half of the seventeenth century.- Biography :...

 and Rembrandt.

The modern collection comprises works by Picasso, Braque, Leger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

, Matisse, Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...

 and Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...

. Local Danish painters are richly represented with the styles of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg was a Danish painter. He was born in Blåkrog in the Duchy of Schleswig , to Henrik Vilhelm Eckersberg, painter and carpenter, and Ingeborg Nielsdatter...

, Oluf Høst
Oluf Høst
Oluf Høst was the only member of the Bornholm school of painters who was a real Bornholmer. Although he had studied in Copenhagen, he returned to the Danish island of Bornholm in 1929 where he remained with his family until he died. Bognemark, the little farmhouse near Gudhjem was one of Høst's...

, Edward Weihe, Olaf Rude
Olaf Rude
Olaf Rude was a Danish painter who was born in Estonia. As a child, he moved with his family to Frejlev on the island of Lolland. He is remembered in particular for his paintings of oak trees at Skejten on Lolland, two of which can be seen at Christiansborg.In 1905, he studied at the Copenhagen...

 and Haral Giersing as well as the Danish sculptor Carl Bonnesen.

Modern art is a substantial part of the Royal Collection of Paintings and Sculpture. The collection is representative, not only of Danish art history, but also of foreign art which has influenced Danish artists. Thus the museum has a considerable collection of paintings by Emil Nolde and an important selection of American and German contemporary art.

Royal Cast Collection

The Royal Cast Collection consists of plaster cast
Plaster cast
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in palaeontology .Sometimes a...

s of statues and reliefs from collections, museums, temples, churches, and public places throughout the world. It is currently put on disply in Vestindisk Pakhus
Vestindisk Pakhus
Vestindisk Pakhus , located on Tolbodgade on the waterfront between Amalienborg Palace and Langelinie, is a former 18th-century warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was designed by Caspar Frederik Harsdorff and built from 1780 to 1781 for the Danish West India Company, a chartered company...

 on the waterfront, on Toldbodgade, half way between Langelinie
Langelinie
Langelinie is a pier, promenade and park in central Copenhagen, Denmark, and home of the statue of The Little Mermaid. The area has for centuries been a popular destination for excursions and strolls in Copenhagen...

 and Amalienborg Palace
Amalienborg Palace
Amalienborg Palace is the winter home of the Danish royal family, and is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It consists of four identical classicizing palace façades with rococo interiors around an octagonal courtyard ; in the centre of the square is a monumental equestrian statue of Amalienborg's...

. Here, you will find casts of sculptures from antiquity through to the Renaissance: Egyptian Kings and mythical beasts, Greek gods and human beings, Roman Emperors and scenes of battle and sacrifice. You will also find Christian imagery from medieval Romanesque/Norman and Gothic cathedrals. And the revival of the ideals of antiquity seen during the Renaissance is reflected in the works of Michelangelo - amply represented in this collection.

Parts of the Royal Cast Collection date back to the mid-18th century, where casts were used by art students in drawing classes at the newly established Academy of Fine Arts. During the period around the establishment of Statens Museum for Kunst in 1896, efforts to ensure the education and refinement of Danish citizens through classical art was the primary objective of the collection.

Today, the individual works of the collection are presented in close proximity to each other.

Prints and drawings

The Collection of Prints and Drawings contains about 300,000 works: copperprints, drawings, etchings, watercolours, lithographic works and other kinds of art on paper, dating from the 15th century to the present day. The first beginnings were made around the time of Christian II. In his diary from 1521 the German painter Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

 says that he has given the King "the best pieces of all my prints".

In 1843 the collection, which had so far been the king's private collection, opened to the public. When the present Statens Museum for Kunst was finished in 1896, the Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings was moved into the building together with The Royal Collection of Paintings and The Royal Cast Collection.

Although the collection contains a great number of foreign works, Danish art makes the main part of the collection. Nowhere in the world can you get such a detailed and broad overview over Danish art on paper from the 17th century until the present day. Some works from the collection are shown in the permanent displays and special exhibitions of the Department and the others may be seen in the print room
Print room
A print room is either a room or industrial building where printing takes place, or a room in an art gallery or museum, where a collection of old master and modern prints, usually together with drawings, watercolours and photographs, are held and viewed. The latter meaning is the subject of this...

of the museum.

Other departments

  • Children's Museum of Art
  • Egmont Knowledge Centre
  • u.l.k - Art Labs you can discover
  • Danish National Art Library

External links

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