British National Gallery exhibition throws light on German masterpieces

The British National Gallery on Wednesday opened its latest exhibition which showcases masterpieces of early German paintings which have gone in and out of fashion over the years.

The exhibition "Strange Beauty, Masters of the German Renaissance" examines the changes in fashion and critical acclaim of painters from Germany and includes masterpieces by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), and Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553).

Director of the gallery Nicholas Penny said, "I hope this exhibition will shed some light on a neglected minority of paintings."

Exhibition curator Dr Susan Foister, deputy director at the National Gallery, told Xinhua that the exhibition revealed the changing stature of German painting over the past 200 years.

"It was not until 1842 that the gallery acquired any work from Northern Europe; there was an idea of a canon of work that could be collected and it did not include Germany," she said.

"The exhibition explores the values that German art had in its own time, the particular qualities it was admired for especially the qualities of invention and expression by artists such as Durer and Holbein," she added.

The highlight of the exhibition is a recreation for the first time ever of a renaissance masterpiece, the Liesborn altarpiece, which was created in 1465, and originally formed the high altarpiece in the Benedictine Abbey of Liesborn in Germany.

However, in 1803 at the time of the suppression of the monastery, the altarpiece was broken up and its parts sold across the world. The recreation unites the eight pieces of the Liesborn altarpiece which the gallery holds with parts from other collections.

The exhibition, which is run in coordination with the University of York, runs until May 11.