Albertina (04.12.08)

It’s third time lucky, they say. That’s what we thought on the way to Albertina. Unfortunately, this time the queue was too long, again. So we went there this morning.
The queue was still quite long, but we waited about half an hour only..
Albertina has been under a great siege recently. And it’s all because of the Van Gogh’s exhibition, which is open only until the 8th of December. So people from around the city (and the country and world ) come here. Everyone wants to see the works of the Master – schools, tourists, the young ones, elderly, everyone..
It’s easy to guess – viewing paintings, even the most wonderful, becomes a difficult task when you have to get through the crowds of people, looking for a tiny space, just to read the caption on a little piece of paper. But somehow I’ve survived. Van Gogh’s paintings and sketches are placed in several rooms, in a chronological order. So, first there were “the dark times” – workers performing some exhausting tasks, dark colours. Then more and more colours appear, a lot of landscapes, fields covered with grain, trees, gardens and golden paths. There are more and more people on the canvasses, including the artist itself. Unfortunately, there were no sunflowers. Pity.
Oh, and one more thing. I forgot to mention what Albertina really is. It’s a museum, situated in the palace of Prince Albert Casimir August of Saxony, Duke of Teschen. It contains 65 thousands works from various times, including Kokoska, Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso, Rubens, Da Vinci, Bruegel... Plus, one entire floor is devoted to the modern artists.

There are also large ceremonial rooms in Albertina, designed for the Habsburgs. Because they finally got the building in their power in 1919. So, it was the next time that we could see how modestly the Habsburgs lived... with all the painting, chandeliers with jewels, golden decoration, velvet clothes on the walls...
We spent about 3 hours in the museum and I’ve noticed that only the Van Gogh’s exhibition was so extremely crowded. As if the visitors didn’t want or didn’t know how to discover the secrets of another floors...
I was surprised to see a lot of groups of small kids. They weren’t bored at all. The guides talked about paintings in a very interesting way, organising some competitions, asking riddles and generally it was very... interactive...