Gemäldegalerie

During my trip on July 21, I didn't attempt any pictures at the Gemäldegalerie itself, but was suitably impressed by the works there. Without Nicholas along I had the luxury of looking at the paintings until I was museumed out--about two hours on this occasion. I barely made it through the German and Dutch stuff, and will have to save the Italian works for another time. My favorites were pictures from the German renaissance, some of which seem particularly playful after one has made one's way through the late medieval stuff. A special and new treat was Lucas Cranach the Elder's Fountain of Youth (shown above in an image I've stolen from the museum web site), which shows old hags being driven and dragged up to a fountain in carts and emerging from the other side as beautiful young women; a statue of Venus and Cupid supervises affairs, showing the power of love to make one young again, I suppose. In keeping with the finest misogynistic tradition, it is only the women who need to bathe to recapture their youthful form: apparently mixing with the rejuvenated women is enough to rejuvenate the men.