art
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
Guarded by bronze lions, not far from the Tivoli amusement park, lies one of Copenhagen's most beautiful and interesting museums: the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
Glypto... what? The term "Glyptotek" can be traced back to the German librarian Philipp Lichtenthaler, who once called the collection of literary works of the Bavarian King Ludwig I "Glyptothek". In doing so, he used the ancient Greek language consisting of the words glyptós (carved, engraved) and thḗkē (deposit, place of safekeeping). Glyptothek thus refers to a repository for sculptures carved in stone.
The museum itself goes back to an idea of the industrialist Carl Jacobsen, who lived between 1842 and 1914 and took over the holdings of an extensive art collection of his father Jacob Christian Jacobsen. Jacobsen was the founder of the famous Danish brewery Ny Carlsberg, which produced the well-known Carlsberg beer.
The heart of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an imposing conservatory dating from 1906, which connects the two elongated museum buildings facing each other. From here you can access all the exhibition rooms and the museum's various collections. According to the name, these are primarily concerned with stone and stone-like exhibits, as in the collections from the Middle East to the Roman Empire, but in the exhibition rooms of Danish and French art they also show a number of paintings by great artists of their time.
The Middle East collection, for example, spans 7150 years, with the oldest artefact dating from 6500 BC and the most recent from 650 AD, highlighting artistic excavations in stone, clay and metal from the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Persia.
The Egyptian collection consists of more than 1,900 pieces that can be dated from 3000 BC to the 1st century AD and presents cultural-historical finds from ancient Egypt as well as from the Middle Kingdom and the Roman Empire.
The extensive Greek, Roman and Etruscan collection mainly comprises marble statues, smaller terracotta statues, reliefs, pottery and other artefacts. In this context, the antiquities collection shows sculptures and other antiques from the ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, which, with its physical representations, deals in detail with the portrayal of human ideal images and concepts.
The antique collections themselves are worth a visit, but the rooms in which the works are exhibited are no less worth seeing. The floors in particular are of enormous beauty. For once you turn your gaze away from all the magnificent exhibits and discover the richness of colour and facets of the artistic marble and stone floors, completely new perspectives open up and allow your understanding and appreciation of the art carved in stone to grow even further.
The wall colours that vary from room to room, and which match the rich mosaic floors and the works of art complete the overall picture within the museum.
Sculptures, drawings and paintings by Danish artists – Martinus Rørbye, Jens Juel, Christen Købke, Theodor Philipsen, Astrid Noack, Edvard Weie, Karl Isakson and Vilhelm Hammershøi to name but a few – can be admired in the corresponding exhibition rooms. The extensive collection presents works from the years 1780-1930 and focuses on the mutual influence between Danish and international art, the examination of landscape and nature and the development of artistic ideals of their time.
The French art collection includes works by painters such as Jacques-Louis David, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas and Cézanne, as well as van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard, and is limited to the period between 1800 and 1870. The museum also houses a large collection of 19th-century French sculpture by artists such as Carpeaux and Rodin, which is considered one of the largest in the world, as well as all of Degas' bronze sculptures, including the series of dancers.
It is not only permanent exhibitions that delight visitors to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Special and solo exhibitions are also part of the museum's changing repertoire. In September 2021, this included "Account of an Illiterate Man" by Michael Armitage, one of the most interesting voices in contemporary painting.
Kenyan-born Armitage, who trained at the Slade School of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, works between East African and European traditions, which he carefully selects and freely combines in his works. In his monumental oil paintings, Armitage interweaves political events, pop culture, social media, folklore and personal memories with mythology and dreamlike imagery. Armitage himself says: "Painting is a way of thinking about something, of trying to understand an experience or event a little better, and to communicate something of the problem to others."
To give expression to these interpretations, the museum combined relics, artefacts and other artworks with Armitage's paintings to create new constructs, connections and thought processes that further express the works of the artist himself and pay tribute to the collection pieces of days gone by.
Whether eye to eye with stone-cut images of Ramses, Nefertiti, Augustus and Caligula or the ideals of Eckersberg, Skovgaard, Lundbye, Rodin, Matisse and Manet turned into canvas. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is a real treat for art lovers.
Denmark, September 2021. | All words and photos by The Sturgheons.
