08 October 2009

Tuesday, 6 October 2009 - Nefertiti und anderer Freunden



The goal for today is to see something again that has fascinated me since my childhood and to share it with Arthur.  I first saw Nefertiti out in Charlottenburg when she was housed in the Aegiptisches Museum there.  Now she has been moved, and I'm under the impression that she is at the Altes here in Berlin.  So we have breakfast and take the SBahn to Friedrichstraße and then walk over to Museum Island and go to the Altes.  But she's not at home - moving to the Neues and it's not ready yet.  This is a severe disappointment for me.  We make lemonade, however, by going to the Bodemuseum where we see their wonderful Byzantine Collection, along with a few Romanesque artifacts in a beautiful basement, and a load of medieval altar pieces.  We're very happy.

We have lunch in the Bode, and then go over to the Altenationalmuseum where I want to show Arthur one of my most favorite paintings, Totinsel, by Arnold Böcklin.




Ever since I read a book on symbolist painters (Dreamers of Decadence), I've been fascinated with this painting and wanted to share it with Arthur.  We find a great number of other paintings by Böcklin, along with Feuerbach, and Beckmann.  It was quite stimulating.  One interesting facet was a room in the galleries that was left, showing it's war damage.

We go into the Berlinerdom but decide not to stay, and have a coffee there instead.  The next door bookstore is a mere shadow of itself - nothing interesting.  So we take the train back and go to KaDeWe, and wander aimlessly, buy nothing, and have dinner in their huge cafeteria on the 7th floor.  By then were dead.  Time for the hotel.

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