In times of war, works of art not only become vulnerable objects, but also in resistance symbols. It is the idea that the exhibition transmits From Odesa to Berlin. European paint from the 16th to the 19th centuriespresented by the Gemäldegalerie of the German capital with 60 master pieces rescued from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art of Odesa after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is the first integral sample in Western Europe of a collection so far almost unknown, which arrives in Berlin with the symbolic burden of having survived the conflict.
The transfer of these pieces to the Berlin Museum that owns one of the most important painting collections in Europe and unavoidable reference in the study of ancient art, did not respond to a cultural exchange plan, but to an emergency situation. With Odesa besieged by the Russian bombings, the staff of the Ukrainian museum decided to pack the works and take them out of the country. Germany then offered refuge to these 60 canvases, which after an almost surgical restoration process is now exhibited in optimal conditions.
Before being able to contemplate in the rooms of the Gemäldegalerie, the paintings crossed a detailed cleaning and conservation process. The trip began in 2023, when the works were evacuated in a special convoy. Many had stayed in improvised deposits, without frames, packed with the indispensable to survive. Upon arriving in Berlin, two conservatives of the Gemäldegalerie supervised the unpacking. The first mission was to check the status of each piece and detect tensioned canvases, weakened racks or humidity or mold fingerprints. After weeks in basements and shelters, the surfaces were covered with dust and opaque varnishes. The restorers eliminated the impurities that darkened the original colors and, under ultraviolet light, ancient replens, incipient cracks and fragile pictorial layers were detected.
In the absence of the original frames, sacrificed in Odesa to facilitate evacuation, the workshops of the Gemäldegalerie developed new ones, custom designed. Finally, the pieces went through a process of acclimatization and temperature control, before integrating into the exhibition, a nine -chapter tour where they dialogue with some of the masterpieces of the Berlin collection.
The selection, which runs through European painting between the CVI and 19th centuries, offers a surprising range of schools and styles. It includes flamenco portraits of Frans Hals, Lifting Naturals of Cornelis of Heem and religious scenes of Francesco Granacci, along with less known authors in Western Europe, such as Jules-Alexis Muenier. The portrait of Joseph de Ribas, one of the founders of Odesa, painted by Johann Baptist Lampi el Viejo, who puts a face to the cosmopolitan origin of the port city. Also a monumental Virgin with a child of Granacci, of a luminous serenity, which contrasts with the current rumble of war.
This Ukraine collection, configured in the nineteenth century thanks to trade and the international links of a cosmopolitan city such as Odessa, allows you to read art history as a connection map. Each picture is testimony of the primary place that Ukraine occupied within European culture. The Gemäldegalerie is committed to dialogue these loans with pieces of her own collection: a portrait of Rubens with works of the flamenco school arrived from Odessa, an altar of Lucas Cranach that talks with the Italian canvases of the Ukrainian Museum, or a handful of lifting natures that amplify those of Cornelis de Heem. The multiply resonance effect and highlights historical affinities.
Of course, the exhibition should not be read only in aesthetic code. Its symbolic dimension is evident: protecting these works is also to protect the memory of a country and its right to narrate in images. “Ukrainian cultural assets are being destroyed and annihilated. Protecting them here is a matter of responsibility,” says the director of the Gemäldegalerie, Dagmar Hirschfelder. The director of the Odessa Museum, Igor Poronyk, was more poetic: “Evil is fleeting, but art endures.” For his part, the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, inaugurated the exhibition in February, stressing that “attacks on museums, theaters and libraries seek to erase the cultural memory of Ukraine.”
Odessa to Berlin It is not only a sample of European painting, but also an exercise of cultural diplomacy. The exhibition recalls that solidarity is also exercised through art care, and that museums, in times of war, cease to be only temples for aesthetic contemplation to become spaces where to prevent the destruction of heritage.