The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe's Greatest Dynasty exhibition video

we want to tell you the story of an extraordinary family who shaped the fate of Europe for over 600 years this is an exhibition about the Habsburgs one of the most important dynasties in world history ruling great parts of Europe for over 600 years we show you in the exhibition the most important personalities of this dynasty and we will show you how they used art and artists in order to promote their power the image and to promote themselves as heroes of world history this exhibition is really monumental the history of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts it includes almost 100 objects from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna the exhibition includes a wide spectrum of art and objects including incredible paintings decorative arts scientific instruments and antiquities from ancient Rome the exhibition also includes armor and a fantastic carriage that was used in the 18th century as well as a sleigh used at the same time period so what we try to show you here is on one hand the story of this family how they developed during the centuries and on the other hand how they used art and artists in order to portray and establish their power all over Europe the Hapsburgs ruled Austria and much of Europe for around 600 years and during these centuries they collected many wonderful objects and most of them the ones that have survived and now here in the connections of the console starters Museum the concierges museum was opened in 1891 it was meant as a treasure house for the Habsburg art collection and of course comprised the most wonderful works of art that the Habsburg family ever collected since the late Middle Ages the Hapsburgs were very good in using art as means of propaganda and for unifying also they're very diverse country spread all over Europe in Austria we have a saying may all the world wage war you lucky Austria will marry because many of the countries many of the countries over which the Hapsburgs rule they did not have to conquer but they inherited or they married the heiress all the other people died off and they just came to them without a war the first of these fantastic important marriages was that of Emperor Maximilian the first who married the richest heiress in Christendom Mary of Burgundy in 1477 the daughter of the last Duke of Burgundy and an amazing amount of power money came to the abstracts of this marriage one of the biggest supporters of tournament was Emperor Maximilian the first he is also known as the last night because he was a very good fighter in tournaments he held in all most beautiful tournaments designed by great artists to show his power as a manly ruler he invented even new techniques new ways of fighting tournaments to make it more spectacular more interesting for people to look at to watch great tournaments were spectators of sports and political propaganda the armor of emperor maximilian the first from around 1492 is a great masterpiece of late medieval armor making it was made by Laurence Hamish neat who is truly one of the great masters of armor making of all times if you compare him to painters at the same time it is kind of Leonardo da Vinci of the armourers or a foil edition of the armourers so he's really at the top of armor making and he worked for the bests for the most important people like the Habsburg Emperor's the Habsburg family and other high-ranking noble people on earth was very expensive if you relate it to the 21st century it's like a sports car or an expensive apartment that was a really expensive work of art the travelling exhibition in the United States is a very rare opportunity to see armor from the Imperial collection outside of Vienna the Hapsburgs were not only very important in a political point of view but they also gathered around enormous treasures treasures of Arts in order to portray their power and importance all over Europe the Habsburg collections stayed back to the medieval times when they first started out with the collecting coins and medals but after a while of course they started also collecting arms and armour painting jewelry consumer objects which was a specific type of collecting which was established in the Age of Discovery a Coon's comer comprises all the wonders of the world it's something like an archive of wisdom to be shared all this was handed down from generation to generation and this accounts for the fact that the Imperial collections of the Habsburg family are amongst the most important art collections in the world the painting collection is really quite astonishing we're all so excited about the works that are travelling here to the United States one of my personal favorites is the painting of Jupiter and IO by coraggio it along with several other paintings in the exhibition really represents this era of great interest in mythological painting the stories of the loves of the gods Jupiter had to change his appearance when he visited his mortal lovers because nobody could bear to look at him and with io he changed himself into a cloud if you look at the painting carefully you can see his arm embracing her and you can even see his face in the cloud kissing her on the cheek it's such a ridiculous story a man or God in a cloud making love to a girl but he really brings this to life he brings this classical myth for life and it is as I said one of the most erotic one of the most wonderful paintings the Empress Maria Theresia became one of the most important persons in European history she was able to establish a new modern state and she was also able to strengthen the power of her family by marriage this is a great tradition for the Habsburgs and she continued this tradition she had 16 children and most of her children did political marriages the most famous of which is the marriage of her youngest daughter Marie Antoinette with the future King of France Louis sixteens this was an exceptional marriage because France until that moment was always the big enemy of Austria and Maria Theresia managed with that marriage to come close to her former enemy one of the highlights in the exhibition is the gorgeous completely gilded sleigh of Empress Maria Theresa you see that this sleigh is just really an art object like a mountain of curls and of ornaments it's so beautifully carved elaborately gilded it would been quite spectacular see the sleigh moving across the snow and ice in Vienna in the 18th century but not only the sleigh was beautiful but the horses were covered was beautiful harness is made of silk velvet and gold embroidery and hundreds of beautiful gilded bells and the bells made kind of a music so they have different tones and so when the horse is moving you hear all these different tones and a kind of very pleasant music is played by the horse moving over the snow there is a wonderful portrait of two of the five sons of Empress Maria Theresia here in the exhibition and it shows her eldest son Joseph the second who became Emperor after the death of his father and the second son Leopold it shows the two brothers during a travel in Rome which was really fashionable in that period everybody who had great education had to travel to Italy this painting was so famous and so beautiful that it was copied several times and Maria Theresia laughed it so much that she even in Nobles the painter atony the last part of the exhibition is dedicated to the 19th and early 20th century to the rulers of the Habsburg dynasty Franz Josef and his beautiful wife Elizabeth Elizabeth was something like the lady died of the 19th century she was really well known all over Europe and even all over the world for her extraordinary beauty she was also a fashion icon Franz Josef was a very conservative ruler he was normally a very military uniform and on all his portraits and representations we always see him in uniform consultive was one of the few Habsburgs was not a great art collector but on the other hand he shaped Vienna into a new modern Capitol so our museum was built under the reign of Emperor Franz Josef and in this building for the first time all the collections of the dynasty were put together and open to the public we are so excited to bring the Habsburg exhibition to the u.s. in fact it's amazing that a show like this is possible outside of Europe this will be the first time that we will be telling the story of Habsburg collecting represented by the most wonderful masterpieces of the museum the consistory Shia's museum has never loaned out a significant group of their objects before like this not since an exhibition traveled around the world after World War Two of treasures from the Kuhn sisters museum so we're really not exaggerating when we say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you you

Channel: Minneapolis Institute of Art

Views: 367,348

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Id: uAr_bK6_6hk

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 13 2015