Semper Gallery

The Sempergalerie seen from the Theaterplatz

The Sempergalerie (also: Semperbau or Gemäldegalerie ) is a museum building built by the architect Gottfried Semper from 1847 to 1854 in the style of the Italian High Renaissance in the city center of Dresden. The listed building limits the Zwinger to the northeast towards the Elbe and houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery and parts of the sculpture collection .

With a length of 127.35 meters and a height of 23.77 meters, the Sempergalerie is the largest building in the Zwinger complex.

history

Semper Gallery on Theaterplatz, around 1900

The Semper Gallery after its destruction in 1945

Russian inscription on the Sempergalerie “Museum checked. No mines. Chanutin tested it. "

Due to the need for a new museum building for the picture gallery that meets the requirements of the 19th century , Gottfried Semper was commissioned by the gallery commission appointed by King Friedrich August II. To design a gallery in 1838 . In the 1840s, other locations and the appropriate conversion of existing buildings were also discussed, including the former Calberlaschen sugar boiling plant on Theaterplatz.

The foundation stone of the gallery was laid in 1847. When Semper had to flee from the Kingdom of Saxony because of his participation in the May uprising in 1849 , the building was completed up to the ground floor. The construction management after Semper's escape was taken over by Karl Moritz Haenel and Semper's most loyal student, court architect Bernhard Krüger . The Dresden sculptors Ernst Rietschel and Ernst Julius Hähnel were commissioned to model the plastic facade decoration. The “iconographic program” played an important role in the museum buildings of the 19th century: the representations on the facade were related to the works of art in the museum.

Semper influenced the choice of motifs for the sandstone work . A handwritten document on this facade program exists in the Semper archive of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich . The Dresden documents on the building history of the Sempergalerie were lost due to the effects of the Second World War.

On the facade facing the Theaterplatz, the depicted people come from classical antiquity and on the south side (facing the Zwingerhof) from the Christian-Western culture. Rietschel and Hähnel shared the artistic execution and submitted their designs to the building commission in 1850, which were approved by the Saxon King Friedrich August II on February 28, 1851 with the condition that the sculptural designs should be completed by the end of 1853.

Rietschel took over responsibility for the Theaterplatz side and Hähnel was responsible for the kennel side. The arduous work was carried out under the supervision of the sculptors directly on the building facade from the scaffolding using clay models by stonemasons.

present

The Sempergalerie was renovated from 2013 to 2019. In the first construction phase until mid-2015, the east wing was renovated for 22.3 million euros and by 2019 the west wing for 24.4 million euros. The basic structure of the building was to be preserved, but the visitor guidance, escape routes and accessibility were also to be improved and the building services were to be renewed. Signs of wear and tear, damage to the skylights and structural problems made the complete renovation necessary. Through the leaky roof, water got into the masonry, which is infected with mold and needs to be renovated.

Since the reopening of the Sempergalerie on February 29, 2020, the collection of ancient sculptures has been shown in the Antikenhalle (east hall of the gallery).

Building description

Sempergalerie, Theaterplatz, aedicule window

Passage from the Zwingerhof to the Theaterplatz

The Sempergalerie is a three-story sandstone building. The show facade is divided into 23 and the side facades are divided into three axes. The facade shows a central and two side projections. The middle risalit is triaxial, while the two side risalits are uniaxial.

At the Sempergalerie there are 120 sandstone sculptures on the outer facade, in particular 12 statues , 16 reliefs , 20 medallions and 72 spandrel figures above the windows and arches. Over 160 figures from different eras (from Zeus to Moses and Michelangelo to Goethe ) can be seen. When it was founded, the Dresden Sempergalerie was regarded as the "greatest and most richly decorated museum building of the latest time".

The relief " Cupid and Psyche " adorns the main entrance of the picture gallery as an overhang . According to a story in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (160 AD), Psyche had brought an ointment box, the pyxis of Persephone , from the underworld on behalf of the goddess Venus . She was forbidden to open the vessel, and because she did not obey this commandment, she fell into a death-like sleep. The hurried Cupid rescues Psyche with a stab of his arrow from the impotence and awakens her to eternal love. With wings spread wide, Cupid kneels next to the awakening woman, embracing her lovingly. A rose branch symbolizes the blossoming love. This ancient myth was a popular subject in the visual arts during the Romantic era .

The redemption theme is interpreted as a connection between classical antiquity and Christian themes in the works of the Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Semper Gallery.

Facade to the theater square

The facade facing the Theaterplatz has arched windows on the upper floor that alternate with aedicule windows . The central projection shows an architectural dominance: for example because of the full columns "as a second layer of space" and the triumphal arch motif; Building sculpture in the form of statues is limited to the central projections. The reserves of the central risalit embody lighter axes, above are circular medallions with busts . The figural relief sculpture is also limited to the central projection.

The sculptures represent the following people: Pericles, Pheidias, Lysippus and Alexander the Great.

Facade to the Zwingerhof

View from the courtyard of the Zwinger to the Sempergalerie

The building has a two-storey front in front of a three-storey core structure, with the basement showing a strong rustication . The window axes are interpreted as arcades. The upper floor of the façade facing the Zwingerhof shows a uniform row consisting of arched windows with a Palladian motif and half-columns. An attic forms the upper end . The middle risalit to the Zwingerhof is shown on both floors as an antique triumphal arch with full Corinthian columns. On the ground floor, the pillars of the central risalit show the Palladi motif . Columns in front, which are fluted , support architraves and entablature . On the upper floor of the central risalit there are niche figures instead of the side openings. The risalit ends with an octagonal dome. The passage is determined by the octagon of the domed building. The model was the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus or Constantine in Rome.

The sculptures represent the following people: Raffael, Michelangelo, Dante, Giotto, Holbein, Dürer, Cornelius and Goethe.

Interior

The ground floor on the east side is designed as a portico with slender Ionic columns made of black marble and steeply rising vaulted girders. In the upper part of the stairwell there were the allegorical figures of painting and Saxonia on the gray-on-gray painted wall panels. The artist was the painter C. Rolle.

On the west side, the stairwell is taken up by the vestibule . This is provided with cross vaults, which are supported on Corinthian columns made of polished gray Saxon granite. The capitals are made of sandstone, painted white and decorated with gold. The two side halls were equipped with barrel vaults; they show delicate rosettes in the cassettes.

The central halls on the upper floor are provided with a skylight. The decorative paintings inside have been lost. They were gray on gray, on a dull green or yellowish background. On the walls of the side hall there were friezes of plaster reliefs showing the history of Italian, German and Dutch painters.

The interior of the Sempergalerie was destroyed in 1945. In the subsequent reconstruction, the original paintings were shown in a greatly simplified manner.

Until September 2012, the armory's collection was in the Sempergalerie . In 2013 it was moved to the giant hall in the Dresden Residenzschloss .

literature

Saxon Engineers and Architects Association and the Dresden Architects Association (ed.): The buildings, technical and industrial plants of Dresden (BvD), Meinhold & Sons, Dresden 1878, pp. 164–172.
Johannes Andreas Romberg: The new museum in Dresden and its adversaries , Romberg, Leipzig 1847

Individual evidence

↑ Harald Marx: Gemäldegalerie Dresden - Guide Old Masters . EA Seemann, Leipzig, 3rd edition, 2006, ISBN 978-3-86502-021-5 , p. 19.
^ History of the City of Dresden. Vol. 2: From the end of the Thirty Years War to the founding of the Empire (1648–1871). Edited by Pure big . Theiss, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-8062-1927-2 , p. 638.
^ Sempergalerie - Old Masters in a New Light , media information from the Saxon State Ministry of Finance from January 17, 2014.
↑ Volker Helas: Architecture in Dresden 1800–1900 , p. 180
^ Andreas Oppermann, 1863
↑ Monika Schulte-Arndt: Ernst Rietschel as a draftsman , Dresden 1995.
↑ Bärbel Stefan: Ernst Rietschel - On the Sculptor's 200th Birthday , Sculpture Collection of the Dresden State Art Collections, 2004.
↑ ^a ^b cf. Volker Helas: Architecture in Dresden 1800–1900 , p. 180
↑ See Sächsischer Ingenieur- und Architekten-Verein and the Dresdener Architekten-Verein (ed.): The buildings, technical and industrial plants of Dresden (BvD), Meinhold & Söhne, Dresden 1878, p. 169.