Lower Saxony State Museum
Encyclopedia
The Lower Saxony State Museum is a museum in Hanover
, Germany
. It is located opposite the New City Hall
. The museum comprises the State Gallery (Landesgalerie), featuring paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, plus departments of archaeology
, natural history
and ethnology
. The museum includes a vivarium
with fish, amphibians, reptiles and arthropod
s.
. Based in the present-day Hanover Künstlerhaus, it was later renamed the Museum of the Province of Hanover or Provincial Museum. The museum soon ran out of space for its art collections, prompting the construction of the current building, on the edge of the Maschpark, in 1902. It was designed by Hubert Stier in a Neorenaissance style. The building's relief
frieze
, titled "Key Moments in the Evolution of Humanity" (Hauptmomente in der Entwicklung der Menschheit), was created by the Hanoverian artist Georg Herting in partnership with Karl Gundelach and Georg Küsthardt.
It was renamed the State Museum in 1933, and finally the Lower Saxony State Museum of Hanover in 1950.
The cupola
above the central risalit
was destroyed by Allied bombs during the war. Extensive renovations and modernisations were carried out in the building's interior from 1995 to 2000. The reopening took place on 13 May as part of Expo 2000
.
and the Baroque
, 17th century Flemish and Dutch paintings, Danish paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. Constantin Hansen
), and a print room
featuring old German masters, Dutch drawings, 19th century printworks, and drawings by German Impressionists
. Some of the best-known artists include Rembrandt, Rubens and Albrecht Dürer
.
The gallery's other strengths include German and French Impressionist paintings, works by Max Liebermann
, Lovis Corinth
and Max Slevogt
, and major works from members of the Künstlerkolonie Worpswede group, such as Bernhard Hoetger, Fritz Overbeck, Otto Modersohn and Paula Modersohn-Becker
. Caspar David Friedrich
's four-piece Tageszeitenzyklus (The Times of Day) is the only complete such series by Friedrich in a single museum.
with more than 2,000 native and exotic fish, amphibians and reptiles. The model dinosaur, an iguanodon
, is not an accurate reconstruction by the standards of modern palaeontology, but has been integrated into an exhibition which shows the changing reconstructions of this species over time. The department also has zoological, botanical, anthropological, geographical and geological exhibits on the primeval history of Lower Saxony's regions, including the Harz
mountains, the heathlands
, and the North Sea
coast.
cultures to the blossoming of metropolitan life. The archaeology department is supported by the Lower Saxony State Society of Prehistory (Niedersächsischer Landesverein für Urgeschichte), and its working group "Arbeitskreis... STEINZEIT".
facility (a nitrogen chamber) for infested artworks and artefacts, for use by private citizens.
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It is located opposite the New City Hall
New City Hall (Hanover)
The New City Hall or New Town Hall in Hanover, Germany, is a city hall and was opened on July 20, 1913, after having been under construction for 12 years. It is a magnificent, castle-like building of the era of William II in eclectic style at the southern edge of the inner city...
. The museum comprises the State Gallery (Landesgalerie), featuring paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, plus departments of archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
. The museum includes a vivarium
Vivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
with fish, amphibians, reptiles and arthropod
Arthropod
An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...
s.
History
The museum's forerunner was the Museum of Art and Science (Museum für Kunst und Wissenschaft), inaugurated in 1856 in the presence of George V of HanoverGeorge V of Hanover
George V was King of Hanover, the only child of Ernest Augustus I, and a grandchild of King George III of the United Kingdom. In the peerage of Great Britain, he was 2nd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, 2nd Earl of Armagh...
. Based in the present-day Hanover Künstlerhaus, it was later renamed the Museum of the Province of Hanover or Provincial Museum. The museum soon ran out of space for its art collections, prompting the construction of the current building, on the edge of the Maschpark, in 1902. It was designed by Hubert Stier in a Neorenaissance style. The building's relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
, titled "Key Moments in the Evolution of Humanity" (Hauptmomente in der Entwicklung der Menschheit), was created by the Hanoverian artist Georg Herting in partnership with Karl Gundelach and Georg Küsthardt.
It was renamed the State Museum in 1933, and finally the Lower Saxony State Museum of Hanover in 1950.
The cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
above the central risalit
Risalit
A risalit, from the Italian risalto for "projection", is a German term which refers to a part of a building that juts out, usually over the full height of the building. In English the French term avant-corps is sometimes used. It is common in façades in the baroque period.A corner risalit is where...
was destroyed by Allied bombs during the war. Extensive renovations and modernisations were carried out in the building's interior from 1995 to 2000. The reopening took place on 13 May as part of Expo 2000
Expo 2000
Expo 2000 was a World's Fair held in Hanover, Germany from Thursday, June 1 to Tuesday, October 31, 2000. It was located on the Hanover fairground , which is famous for hosting CeBIT...
.
Collections
State Gallery
The State Gallery features art from the 11th to the 20th centuries. The collection includes German and Italian works from the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
, 17th century Flemish and Dutch paintings, Danish paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. Constantin Hansen
Constantin Hansen
Carl Christian Constantin Hansen was one of the painters associated with the Golden Age of Danish Painting. He was deeply interested in literature and mythology, and inspired by art historian Niels Lauritz Høyen, he tried to recreate a national historical painting based on Norse mythology...
), and a 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...
featuring old German masters, Dutch drawings, 19th century printworks, and drawings by German Impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. Some of the best-known artists include Rembrandt, Rubens and 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...
.
The gallery's other strengths include German and French Impressionist paintings, works by Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker best known for his etching and lithography.-Biography:...
, Lovis Corinth
Lovis Corinth
Lovis Corinth was a German painter and printmaker whose mature work realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism....
and Max Slevogt
Max Slevogt
Max Slevogt was a German Impressionist painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes. He was, together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, one of the foremost representatives in Germany of the plein air style.-Biography:He was born in Landshut, Germany...
, and major works from members of the Künstlerkolonie Worpswede group, such as Bernhard Hoetger, Fritz Overbeck, Otto Modersohn and Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker was a German painter and one of the most important representatives of early expressionism. In a brief career, cut short by an embolism at the age of 31, she created a number of groundbreaking images of great intensity.-Life and work:Paula Becker was born and grew up in...
. Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
's four-piece Tageszeitenzyklus (The Times of Day) is the only complete such series by Friedrich in a single museum.
Natural history
The natural history department features, among other things, a life-sized model of a dinosaur, and a vivariumVivarium
A vivarium is a usually enclosed area for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research...
with more than 2,000 native and exotic fish, amphibians and reptiles. The model dinosaur, an iguanodon
Iguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
, is not an accurate reconstruction by the standards of modern palaeontology, but has been integrated into an exhibition which shows the changing reconstructions of this species over time. The department also has zoological, botanical, anthropological, geographical and geological exhibits on the primeval history of Lower Saxony's regions, including the Harz
Harz
The Harz is the highest mountain range in northern Germany and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The name Harz derives from the Middle High German word Hardt or Hart , latinized as Hercynia. The legendary Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz...
mountains, the heathlands
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...
, and the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
coast.
Archaeology
The Lower Saxony State Museum has a major archaeological collection, containing some unique finds. With over a million artefacts showing the economic and technological development of human settlement, the display covers almost 500,000 years of history, spanning the Early Stone Age to the late Middle Ages, from the early hunter-gathererHunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
cultures to the blossoming of metropolitan life. The archaeology department is supported by the Lower Saxony State Society of Prehistory (Niedersächsischer Landesverein für Urgeschichte), and its working group "Arbeitskreis... STEINZEIT".
Ethnology
The ethnological collection is among the oldest in German-speaking territory, and includes around 20,000 artworks and everyday artefacts from all parts of the world. A wide range of religions and cultures in America, Africa, Oceania and Asia is displayed through the findings of explorers and ethnologists.Special exhibitions and facilities
The Lower Saxony State Museum regularly hosts temporary exhibitions on changing themes. The museum also offers its own pest controlPest control
Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, usually because it is perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.-History:...
facility (a nitrogen chamber) for infested artworks and artefacts, for use by private citizens.
Further reading
- Heide Grape-Albers (editor): Das Niedersächsische Landesmuseum Hannover 2002. 150 Jahre Museum in Hannover – 100 Jahre Gebäude am Maschpark. FestschriftFestschriftIn academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Maschpark building. Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover, 2002. ISBN 3-929444-29-1. - Frühes Gold. Ur- und Frühgeschichtliche Goldfunde aus Niedersachsen. Lower Saxony State Museum, Isensee, Oldenburg, 2003. ISBN 3-89995-066-6.