Dozens of the rooms of the sumptuous Vienna Art History Museum are filled with thousands of artworks, each is unique and interesting. But how can someone decide which objects are more important and why?
This Critical Art Tour is created for those who want to know what exactly makes renown masterpieces so special. Is it their outstanding craftsmanship and expression of artistic genius? Or possibly a coincidence and good marketing?
In this tour, we'll explore celebrated masterworks from different perspectives to find out why these are on the museum’s must-see list – and then how this list could look different.
You will learn:
The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is best described as a 'temple of art'. Even its architecture, designed in the best traditions of historicism, combines the details of temples from the three principal Western cultures. Here you will find all the gods and heroes of the Western European art Olympus: Arcimboldo, Brueghel, Velasquez, Holbein, Dürer, Giorgione, Cranach, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian. Like any Western museum that claims to be universal, the Kunsthistorisches Museum also has collections of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art. A big part of the museum is devoted to the unique cabinets of curiosities. The museum's curators have drawn up an informative list for visitors, including 700 masterpieces for local art lovers, 100 for regular visitors and 35 "must-sees" for first-time visitors. On this art tour, we follow the curators' shortlist and take a close look at world-renowned masterpieces from a different perspective to understand what makes each work of art so special.
The place to meet for your museum tour
You will make your own way to the meeting points
PLEASE NOTE: This is your ticket for the tour but it does not entitle you to free entry to the museum. You have chosen a tour without museum tickets. Please buy these in advance online or at the ticket office. If you cannot buy them in advance, your guide will buy them for you when you meet her.