EUROPE WITHOUT BORDERS
Examples illustrating the development of Europe´s artistic diversity
An exhibition organised by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in connection with
Austria’s Presidency of the European Union
March 14 till June 5, 2006
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Special Exhibition Hall
From March 14 till June 5, 2006 the Kunsthistorisches Museum presents an exhibition in its Special Exhibition Hall to celebrate Austria’s Presidency of the European Union. All the exhibits selected for this show focusing on a “Europe without Borders” come from the Museum’s holdings from the Picture Gallery, the Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and the Collection of Arms and Armour. The exhibits, their artists and the subjects they depict, as well as their history and provenance document the rich cultural diversity of Europe where national borders have never posed an obstacle to the lively exchange of new ideas.
They illustrate that for artists Europe has always been one continent, a place where they moved more freely than others and were more open to foreign inspirations and influences. Artists were never afraid to work outside their home-countries; and patrons frequently preferred foreign to local artists.
The works selected date from the early 15th to the 18th century. Paintings of the so-called International Style lead the way, a style that held sway in European artistic centres around 1400. These are works by court artists who lived peripatetic lives and created for the duration of a few years a uniform style, elegant and refined, in centres such as Paris, Prague, Vienna, along the Rhine and in Upper Italy.
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