Dachau: Sun, sea and the Blue Grotto - this Capri show puts you in a good mood!

Created: 2023-01-08 17:52

By: Katja Kraft

Place of longing: The Blue Grotto on Capri has often been painted.

Here by Friedrich Thöming in oil on canvas (1833).

© Picture Gallery Dachau

When the weather is bad and the mood is wintry and dreary, you need a bit of sunshine.

The Picture Gallery and the New Gallery Dachau are plentiful: in a double exhibition, the houses show art from and about Capri.

And now: strings!

Choir!

Accordion!

When the fishermen pull their boats out to sea - and the old song rings out.

Oh, Rudi Schuricke would like what is currently on display in Dachau.

The thread that runs through the exhibition in the picture gallery is Capri-Sun-Red. And all that's really missing is Frank Sinatra sailing around the corner in a summer hat.

Another singer who lost his heart on the rocky island in the Gulf of Naples.

It is just 10.4 square kilometers in size, but it could easily be paved several times with all the paintings, photographs and postcards that have captured the gem in the Mediterranean over the past centuries.

The Dachau Picture Gallery is now showing around 80 paintings and graphics by German and Italian painters from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Mass tourism on Capri is also viewed critically

But it's best to start with the Neue Galerie, part two of this double show.

It may not be chronologically correct, but it makes more sense for a heart plagued by dark winter days.

According to the motto: First the mental work, then the pleasure.

After all, you want to go home happy.

And so we turn our attention first to the not-so-enjoyable modern age.

In the Neue Galerie you can experience contemporary photo art that critically deals with the crazy mass tourism that spills the next wave of visitors onto the island season after season.

The photographs of Raffaela Mariniello, who was born in Naples in 1961, impressively show the traces left by guests during their summer vacation.

The deserted vantage point in her work “Eremo/Osservatorio” (2016) has a spooky effect.

The crumbling walls are covered with doodles, the windows reveal a hazy view of the famous Faraglioni rock formations shrouded in mist.

A play of light and shadow, like a cemetery scene.

And miles away from the flowery paradise cliché.

This part of the double exhibition is a reminder of what will happen if excessive tourism is not stopped.

Full of power: "Rounding Spray (Marina Piccola)" in oil on canvas by Paul von Spaun (1876-1932).

© Picture Gallery Dachau

You walk a few meters thoughtfully along the street in Dachau's old town - and into the idyll.

In the picture gallery you can't help but throw open the windows of your heart.

And let the warmth in.

A large dose of vitamin D pours directly from the screens onto the viewers here.

From Ludwig Dill (1848-1940) to Leo von Klenze (1784-1864): The fact that many German artists succumbed to the charm of the Mediterranean island reflects the strong connection between Capri and Germany.

Since the rediscovery of the Blue Grotto in 1826, the island has become a place of longing, especially for romantics.

Again and again: blooming landscapes, rippling water in the evening sun, waves pounding against the limestone cliffs full of life.

Capresin: Carl Breitbach's "beautiful Costanza" (1884).

© Picture Gallery Dachau

But even the warmest light cannot hide the fact that life here wasn't just sweet back then.

It is the works of Italian painters in particular that show that hard work is part of everyday life on Capri.

For example, about the fishermen who set off in the dark of night.

Bella, bella, bella, bella Marie is waiting with a longing look.

And Karl Theodor Boehme's "Fischerstation auf Capri" (1894) assures us: Bella, bella, bella, bella Marie will remain true to him.

Bellissimo!