Sunday, May 25, 2014

Neues Museum and Pergamon Museum

Yesterday, I went to Museuminsel (or Museum Island). I only went into two museums but those were the ones I actually wanted to see.

First, I went into Neues Museum, where is housed the Egyptian Collection and the Antiquities Collection.

So, first the Egyptain Collection...







So I didn't actually take this picture because photography of the Bust of Nefertiti isn't allowed, but I saw this and it's pretty freakin' incredible! I looked online for the best picture, but none of them can really show just how amazingly detailed and beautiful this bust really is. Although there was some damage to the bust before it's discovery in 1912, it is almost completely whole and still incredible. Just imagine standing in front of a relic that is over 3,000 years old and still looks this vivid and amazing! 

This is the Greek Courtyard. 

This Roman frieze depicts the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.


Now to head upstairs to the Antiquities Collection





These gargantuan statues stand like 15 feet tall...this statue is of a goddess, though which one, I do not know.

This statue depicts the god Helios.

 These are Gates of Paradise from Florence's Baptistery of San Giovanni. Lorenzo Ghiberti's ten panels depict the events of the Old Testament.

The following pictures were taken at the Pergamon Museum.

This is the Ishtar Gate, which stood in Babylon from 575 BC until its excavation and reconstruction in Berlin in the early 1900s.

This frieze depicting lions, dragons, and bulls made up the imposing Processional Way, a 75-foot (that's a guess) wide corridor meant to project the might of Babylon.



This is the Trajaneum Hall.

 This frieze depicts the god Eros.


This is the Market Gate of Miletus, it is one of the largest structures to be excavated and reconstructed in a museum.



The crown jewel of the Pergamon Museum, the Pergamon Altar.
You wouldn't believe how massive and beautiful this structure is. Although parts of the original frieze have been lost, it's an incredible sight. The frieze proceeds along the walls of this room in the same order they would have been set along the structure itself. 

This is what the structure originally looked like.

This frieze depicts the water gods including Nereus and Oceanus. 

This is a statue of Zeus.

The following pictures are from the Islamic Art collection at the Pergamon Museum.





This is the Mshatta Facade of the 8th century Umayyad residential palace of Qasr Mshatta.



This is a preserved reception room of a merchant's home in Aleppo.





This is the Alte Nationalgalerie, or the Old National Museum.

It houses a collection of Neoclassical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork.

I may visit this museum before I leave but I'm not sure.

For now, I just got pictures of the outside including this sculpture called "Prometheus Bound and the Oceanids"

And this one called,"Mercury and Psyche" by Reinhold Begas.


These are pictures of Humboldt University, the first with a sculpture of Alexander von Humboldt,

And the second with one of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Just because.


So that was my museum visit. Hopefully I'm not being too boring, but that's all I've got for now.
Auf Wiedersehen!