Baltic Biedermeier
19.09.2009 – 29.08.2010
The exhibition introduces the heyday of Baltic German art and culture, and examines the manifestations and meanings of the local culture in the first half of the 19^th century, on the basis of Estonian and Latvian art collections. As is sometimes said, art created in the era of Biedermeier, which was mainly connected with the German language space, was classicism adjusted to the world-view of the bourgeoisie. In this view of the world, the central ideas were the family, intimacy, matter-of-factness, and withdrawal from the social world into the domestic sphere, which is typical of times between tumultuous events. Due to the corporative social order and closedness of society at the time, these traits were particularly amplified in the nobility culture of the Baltic provinces, where personal relationships extended more widely than the immediate family and the whole Baltic German public life had a familial character.