Art Attact (Galerie Belvedere)

Member Name: Ise-Ise

Product:	Galerie Belvedere
Date:	26/07/01 (271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of works by famous Vienese artists, get to visit a wonderful building at the same time.

Disadvantages: stroppy guards.

Rainy days in Vienna. What can you do? Well, the city is brimming with artiness so we deicided the galerie at the Belvedere would be a good idea to start with, actually to finish with too. After that we went home and watched MTV because we were knackered.

The gallery can be found in the Obere Belvedere and tickets cost 100 ATS (Austrian Schillings) or 70 if you are a student (make sure you take ID with you). Inside on the first floor a large collection of Klimts, (including one found uncompleted after his death, through which we found out that he used to paint his models nude and then paint the famous patterns over them), a room full of Schieles, a handful of Monets (well, two unless I missed some), a Manet (inbetween the two Monets for some reason) and a couple of rodin busts thrown in at the price. For an extra 30 ATS you can have a guided tour (most of the time in german, they semed to run every hour) which through some earwigging I can proclaim to be quite thorough. On this floor there is also a room explaining the changes to the building itself throughout the years and you can have a peak at the chapel whilst you are at it too.

The second floor houses less famous works of art (quite a bit of still life) and is generally a bit quieter! Now before you even go up to the first or second floors, it is worth having a look at the nonpermanent displays in the rooms to the left and right at the foyer. When we were there there was a exhibition of works by a man called Brueckl (I hope I have spelled it correctly). Being as I was unfamiliar with the man I thought it might be interesting to have a quick squizz at a poster that gave noteworthy dates about the man´s life. Because one of my friends does not understand german, I was trying to read it and translate it for him. At this point the gallery room man asked in english if we could understand it, I said I was having a go at translating. The man then announced that he did not think we should bo
ther because "It won´t make the pictures any more interesting" and wandered off. Two minutes later he reappeared again and asked why we were still reading it and I said in german that I was interested in finding out about the artist (obviously not something one is meant to do in an art gallery), to which he replied in english that if we were really interested in the artist then we would have asked HIM and promtly stropped off. Hmmmm..

Aside from that incident and the fact that the shop is too tightly packed in,I enjoyed the exhibitions there very much and would recommend it to others.

Summary: