DOI Heft:
No. 91 (Septemner, 1904)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: The fine arts and horticultural exhibition at Düsseldorf
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26962#0303
Dusseldorf Exhibition
besides, and part of the extensive exhibition
grounds at Dusseldorf has the aspect of a World’s
Fair on a reduced scale, with all its minor attrac-
tions and amusements.
Dusseldorf, like Dresden, has altogether lost its
prestige in art matters, and the town, which was
sixty years and more ago looked up to as the
main art centre of Germany, has, for a decade or
two, scarcely been mentioned, except in rather
unflattering terms. Observing that Dresden, with
the help of its splendidly managed exhibitions, has
succeeded in regaining its old standing, the artists
of Diisseldorf have no doubt considered it advisable
to pursue the same plan; and in all likelihood
success will be within their power here as it was
there. They possess a very fine exhibition palace,
built out of the surplus brought in by the exhibi-
tion of 1902 and made over to the town as a gift.
Upon the whole the system of arrangement and
display obtaining to-day at Dusseldorf is the one
still observed in the big annual exhibitions at
Munich and Berlin, which has had its day, how-
ever, and was good only as long as the general
public had enough interest in the year’s produce of
pictures to come and see it and it alone. As I
have explained elsewhere in this periodical, these
conditions no longer exist. The general public is
rather tired of exhibitions; the keenness of its
interest has abated now that it is no longer a
matter of becoming a partisan to the old or the
new—the new having won on all sides—and as
the exhibitions no longer provide subject-matter
for lively discussions on art topics, they must offer
other attractions to a public constantly in search of
new excitements and amusement.
In Munich they hit upon the institution of one-
man shows of living or dead artists. At Dresden,
where success has been most signal, new methods
of setting an exhibition off to advantage were
resorted to. There the manner of arranging and
decorating the rooms attracts the public as much
as the works of art themselves. The visitor is
no longer wearied with endless flights of galleries
crowded with canvases.
DUSSELDORF EXHIBITION : THE RODIN ROOM
23I
besides, and part of the extensive exhibition
grounds at Dusseldorf has the aspect of a World’s
Fair on a reduced scale, with all its minor attrac-
tions and amusements.
Dusseldorf, like Dresden, has altogether lost its
prestige in art matters, and the town, which was
sixty years and more ago looked up to as the
main art centre of Germany, has, for a decade or
two, scarcely been mentioned, except in rather
unflattering terms. Observing that Dresden, with
the help of its splendidly managed exhibitions, has
succeeded in regaining its old standing, the artists
of Diisseldorf have no doubt considered it advisable
to pursue the same plan; and in all likelihood
success will be within their power here as it was
there. They possess a very fine exhibition palace,
built out of the surplus brought in by the exhibi-
tion of 1902 and made over to the town as a gift.
Upon the whole the system of arrangement and
display obtaining to-day at Dusseldorf is the one
still observed in the big annual exhibitions at
Munich and Berlin, which has had its day, how-
ever, and was good only as long as the general
public had enough interest in the year’s produce of
pictures to come and see it and it alone. As I
have explained elsewhere in this periodical, these
conditions no longer exist. The general public is
rather tired of exhibitions; the keenness of its
interest has abated now that it is no longer a
matter of becoming a partisan to the old or the
new—the new having won on all sides—and as
the exhibitions no longer provide subject-matter
for lively discussions on art topics, they must offer
other attractions to a public constantly in search of
new excitements and amusement.
In Munich they hit upon the institution of one-
man shows of living or dead artists. At Dresden,
where success has been most signal, new methods
of setting an exhibition off to advantage were
resorted to. There the manner of arranging and
decorating the rooms attracts the public as much
as the works of art themselves. The visitor is
no longer wearied with endless flights of galleries
crowded with canvases.
DUSSELDORF EXHIBITION : THE RODIN ROOM
23I