The Beauty of the Big City

Images of Berlin from Gaertner to Fetting

+++ extended until 28 October 2018 +++

Die Schönheit der großen Stadt (The Beauty of the Big City) is the title of a book published in 1908 by the German philosopher and architect August Endell. It invites readers to open their eyes and minds for the secret beauty hidden in between grey walls and crowded streets.

Detail of Rainer Fetting's painting „Potsdamer Platz“

„Potsdamer Platz“, painting by Rainer Fetting, 1993/95 (detail) © Rainer Fetting | Stadtmuseum Berlin | Reproduction: Oliver Ziebe

Using Endell’s basic ideas as a starting point, the major new exhibition at Museum Ephraim-Palais shows how artists from the 19th century to today have seen Berlin's urban and social structure and translated it into art. Whether they pictured Berlin as ‘Athens on the Spree’ or as a bustling metropolis: Their topic is the city’s external appearance and its inner beauty that can be revealed to us through painting.

In this way, visitors to the exhibition are invited to sharpen their own vision of the city’s essence, concealed behind the dirt and grey facades.

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