Tal Sterngast. Twelve Paintings

Berlin's Gemäldegalerie is known for its outstanding collection of European paintings from the thirteenth to eighteenth century. Each chapter in this book is dedicated to one painting from the collection. In the breadth of this idiosyncratic selection, painting, as it discovers itself becomes a medium for the formulation of modern subjectivity. Each painting in focus unfolds its own making and its artistic concerns as they reflect contemporary issues, today. What are the paradoxes within which art is made by women? How does the primordial drive to destroy works of art affect today's art discourse? Where did the modern struggle of painting against the picture begin? Why does the Wild Man from early German Renaissance still haunt us? And why doesn't it matter whether Jan Vermeer used an optical device for his paintings? Twelve Paintings highlights the currentness of the Old Masters.

Cover Title Colophon Preface: Michael Eissenhauer Introduction: Tal Sterngast The Museum as a Safe Space / Amor Vincit Omnia (1601-02) by Caravaggio Body Painting / Susanna and the Elders (1647) by Rembrandt van Rijn The Conspiracy of Painting / Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife (1655) by Rembrandt van Rijn Through a Glass Wall / Woman with a Pearl Necklace (1663-65) by Jan Vermeer The Creativity of Women / Prince Heinrich Lubomirski as the Genius of Fame (1787-88) by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun The Vertigo of Time / The Melun Diptych (ca. 1455) by Jean Fouquet The Architecture of Heaven / The Madonna in the Church (ca. 1440) by Jan van Eyck Zooming In / The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (ca. 1454) by Andrea Mantegna Shadow of Existence / Self-Portrait I and II (1649 and 1650) by Nicolas Poussin Nature's Plan Landscape with St. Matthew and the Angel (1640) by Nicolas Poussin In Search of the Wild Man / Landscape with Satyr Family (1507) by Albrecht Altdorfer The True Image / The Holy Face of Christ-Vera Icon (ca. 1420) by an unknown Westphalian artist Acknowledgements