Vienna - Kunsthistorisches Museum

Today we saw the Ufizzi and Louvre of Austria, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The largest fine art museum in Austria, it takes a full day to take it all in, and even then, you have to pick and choose. We opted for the picture gallery on the first floor (that's the second floor for us Americans). The museum is full of the greats - Klimt, Bosch, Rubens, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Durer, Bruegel, Raphael, Titian, Velazquez, Carvaggio, Ballotto. Above you see Steven admiring a Vermeer enttiled The Art of Painting.

Though I was most interested in paintings by Pieter Breughel, there is always a painting that catches me unaware and just seems to emit a spark of electricity. For me that was Portrait of a Young Merchant, painted by Hans Holbein in 1541. We don't know who the merchant is, or really what his profession is. He's at his desk, looking intense, competent and prosperous. I like him.

After the Merchant, there were directional signs to the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. He's that popular. KHM has one of his most popular paintings, The Tower of Babel. But also Peasant Dance, Peasant Wedding, Children's Games, Hunters in the Snow, and for comic relief, The Peasant and the Nest Robber. I think of Brueghel as the original "Where's Waldo" painter, as there are so many stories and characters in such a small space, you must look and then look some more. He was both a miniaturist and an encylopedist. In Children's Games, close-up above, he has 230 children demonstrating 83 different games.

It's hard to view masterpieces for hours on end, so we took a break and got some mango ice tea and sausages at the musuem's iconic cafe, set in the center of the cupola. I'd eat here even if the food was terrible, just to sit in this magnificent space. But the food and drink is good and the wait to be seated not to long.

Above is the grand staircase leading to the picture gallery, adorned with paintings by the Klimt brothers, and a marble scultpure commissioned by Napoleon himself. The museum is an art work itself, built at the request of Emperor Franz Joseph, and finished circa 1890.