The Sun: Source of Light in Art

25. February – June 11, 2023

Claude Monet’s 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise, which gave Impressionism its name, shows the red disk of the rising sun as the focus of the composition. The painting was the point of departure for the exhibition The Sun: Source of Light in Art, which explored the iconography of the sun from antiquity to the present. The artwork, which belongs to the collection of the Musée Marmottan and is only rarely on view outside of Paris, was on display in Potsdam for the first eight weeks of the exhibition.

#SonneBarberini

Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris / Studio Baraja SLB

Claude Monet: Impression, Sunrise, 1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, Gift of Eugène and Victorine Donop de Monchy, 1940

As a sign or personification of divine power, a protagonist in mythological narratives, an atmospheric element in landscape imagery, and an intensification of color in modern painting, the sun plays a key role in European art.

"Well, take the sun, if you will: I should think you would accept it as a sufficient indication of the sun to say that it is the brightest of the bodies that move in the heaven round the earth."

Plato, Theaetetus (208), fifth to fourth century BCE

Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Peter Paul Rubens: The Fall of Phaëthon, 1604–05, probably reworked ca. 1606–08, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund

Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

William Turner: Mortlake Terrace, 1827, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection

The exhibition brought together around 130 works — among them sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, prints, and books — from antiquity to the present, including works by Sonia Delaunay, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, Olafur Eliasson, Adam Elsheimer, Max Ernst, Caspar David Friedrich, Joan Miró, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, Peter Paul Rubens, Katharina Sieverding, and J.M.W. Turner.

"More beautiful than the notable moon and its ennobled light,
More beautiful than the stars, night’s illustrious decorations,
Much more beautiful than a comet’s fiery appearance,
And destined to things far more beautiful than any other celestial body,
Since your life and mine depend on it every day: is the sun."

Ingeborg Bachmann, A Paean to the Sun, 1954–56

SIK-ISEA, Zürich (Jean-Pierre Kuhn)

Félix Vallotton: Sunset, Orange Sky, 1910, Kunst Museum Winterthur, purchased with a contribution by Charles and Lisa Jäggli-Hahnloser, 1976

The artworks were loaned from over sixty museums and private collections, among them the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, the Munchmuseet, Oslo, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Albertina, Vienna.

An exhibition of the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, and the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. In Paris, the exhibition titled Face au soleil. Un astre dans les arts was on view from September 21, 2022 to January 29, 2023.

View of the exhibition

Exhibition view  The Sun: Source of Light in Art

Installation view The Sun: Source of Light in Art

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“The Museum Barberini has once again managed to bring works from the best museums to Potsdam. . . . There are 130 objects spanning 2,500 years, chosen from over sixty collections worldwide. Many surprises are included, but also a number of big names, from Albrecht Dürer and Claude Lorrain to Edvard Munch and William Turner to Otto Piene and Olafur Eliasson ... The uncontested star of the show is Monet’s Impression, Sunrise of 1872, the archetypal painting that gave its name to Impressionism”

Die Welt

“With spectacular works, the Museum Barberini turns its attention to the art historical significance of the solar star.”

Berliner Morgenpost

"The Museum Barberini in Potsdam presents a fantastic exhibition on the hottest topic of all: the sun ... overwhelming"

Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Focuses entirely on the influence of the central star on art by means of its light, a topic that is actually extremely obvious, yet never consistently spelled out. The Museum Barberini succeeds in this with bravura, moreover over a period of two and a half thousand years.... a grandiose show".

FAZ

“The Museum Barberini explores the iconography of the sun from antiquity to the present. The topnotch show brings together 130 works from international lenders. . . . The centerpiece of the exhibition: a sensation!”

ZDF heute journal

“A journey that spans some two and a half millennia. It’s an astonishing trip, not only into the heart of Impressionism, but also through the history of Western art.”

Der Tagesspiegel

"Spectacular collection of works full of sunlight ... almost ceremonially staged"

Berliner Zeitung

“It’s a minor sensation: Paris sends one of its greatest treasures to Potsdam. Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, is on view in Germany for the first time in the Barberini in Potsdam. In addition to Monet, the exhibition The Sun: Source of Light also includes loans from around the world.”

rbb

"An opulent exhibition"

Deutschlandfunk Kultur

“But this exhibition in the Barberini seems like a breath of fresh air. Its roundelay through sun painting is intellectual and, in its breadth of technical approaches, so boldly conceived that it really seems like time for spring. To once again take the sun from the canvases and hang it in the sky.”

Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung

“Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is one of the most famous works of art in the world. . . . The Museum Barberini has arranged an opulent exhibition around this masterpiece”

Deutschlandfunk

“The sun as it shines through the history of art is the theme of this major art historical exhibition. . . . Whether Sonia Delaunay, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, Caspar David Friedrich, Bernhard Heisig, Joan Miró, Edvard Munch, Peter Paul Rubens, Katharina Sieverding, William Turner, or Félix Vallotton—almost all artists paid homage to it in one way or another in their art or with their senses”

art

“With its new exhibition, the Barberini brings light to the gray days and a world-class show to Potsdam”

rbbKultur

"Topnotch exhibition"

3sat kulturzeit

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