Baroque

Fine arts, music and performing arts

Did you know that Raffael's Sistine Madonna with the mischievously looking angels can be admired at the Old Masters' Picture Gallery in Dresden (Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister)? In Saxony, art has always enjoyed a special status, and Dresden in particular has attracted artists and art-lovers from all points of the compass for centuries. This magnificent tradition goes back to the electoral princes and kings of Saxony, who were enthusiastic art collectors and amassed immense art treasures. Electoral Prince August laid the foundation stone in 1560 by setting up the Kunstkammer, which by the seventeenth century was and still is one of the sights of Europe. It grew so fast that in the eighteenth century special museums were founded. They included the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, established in 1722 under Augustus the Strong. With works by Titian, Correggio, Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer it is one of the world’s foremost art collections. This enthusiasm for the arts included patronage of artists. In 1680 Electoral Prince Johann Georg III endowed the School of Drawing and Painting, precursor of the Saxon Art Academy. It really flourished in the early nineteenth century when the Romantics Caspar David Friedrich and Ludwig Richter lived and worked in Dresden. Later the Expressionist group "The Bridge" ("Die Brücke") with Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, and other artists developed a new style of painting in Dresden. Today Leipzigs New School of Painting around Neo Rauch, Tim Eitel, Martin Eder and David Schnell is all the rage.

Saxony is a state with a long tradition of musical theatre. The Dresden Palace, which is currently undergoing restoration, was the birthplace of the opera (Heinrich Schütz’s Daphne) in the German-speaking world in 1662. Today, the Saxon State Opera in Dresden with the Semper Opera House, rebuilt in 1985, has one of the world’s finest opera houses at its disposal. Theatres run by the free state include the Staatsschauspiel Dresden and the Landesbühnen Sachsen. The latter, based in Radebeul, tours a wide range of locations around the state, including the open-air Rathen Felsenbühne in Saxon Switzerland in the summer season. Within the last two centuries public, non-court theatres have been founded not only in cities such as Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz or Zwickau but also in smaller towns such as Annaberg, Bautzen, Freiberg, Görlitz, Plauen and Zittau. At present, Saxony boasts 15 public theatres and 10 orchestras to go with them. Saxony also has 16 large cultural and operatic orchestras that are run by the state, local authorities and private institutions. One of the oldest features of European musical culture is the Saxon boys’ choirs founded nearly 800 years ago, the Dresden Kreuzchor and the Leipzig Thomanerchor.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, pioneering Artists like Jacques Dalcroze, Gret Palucca and Mary Wigman, all working in Dresden, revolutionized modern dance. Today the Palucca Dance Academy Dresden, whichdates back to a school of dancing founded by Gret Palucca in 1925, is the only college of Fine Arts in Germany devoted exclusively to the study of dance. Between 1912 and 1915 the whole of Europe’s pre-war cultural elite met in Dresden, where the “Festspielhaus Hellerau”, designed by Heinrich Tessenow as an avantgarde theatre building and "Institute for Music and Rhythmics" saw Hellerau residents Adolphe Appia and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze inspire and cooperate with Shaw, Diaghilev, Max Reinhardt, van de Velde, Kokoschka, Hauptmann, Werfel, Busoni or Milhaud. In 2004 the European Centre for the Arts Hellerau, drawing from the whole range of Contemporary Arts, and from an impressive Hellerau tradition, has dedicated itself to the spirit of this unique place for European modernism.

The Paulcca Dance Academy, Dresden

Tourism
Leisure facilities
Saxony is an attractive place for leisure and tourism. Tourists have responded well to the increased range of leisure activities on offer in Saxony and the development of offerings designed for specific groups of visitors (family holidays, activity holidays). Tourismus Marketing Gesellschaft Sachsen mbH was set up in 1999 to step up tourism marketing activities in Germany and abroad.
In 2003, 14.2 million overnight stays were recorded (along with approximately 5.1 million arrivals) by Saxony’s 2,144 hotels and guesthouses, which have a total of 111,535 beds. Thus the average bed occupancy rate for the year was 36.5%. Climbing, hiking, white-water rafting, inflatable kayaking, horse riding, mountain biking, cycling, summer tobogganing and in winter cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, winter hiking and tobogganing are only some of the physical activities on offer in Saxony. An extensive network of cycle tracks (including the Elbe cycle path and the Mulde Valley cycle path), a network of bridleways and many kilometres of waterways are available to visitors.

Recreation areas
The Erzgebirge attracts tourist to its toy making and folk craft centres, especially at Christmas time. The craft of woodcarving and wood turning, together with lace making, earned the region around Seiffen a worldwide reputation as a handicraft stronghold. In winter, the region offers winter sports facilities that are almost assured of snow. In summer, there are extensive hiking trails through mountains, fields and forests. Neighbouring Vogtland is known primarily for lace-making around the town of Plauen and musical instrument making in the area known as Musikwinkel, or „Music Corner.“ The main tourist attractions in this region are several winter sports facilities, Saxony state spas, reservoir lakes and the Göltzschtal viaduct, the world’s largest brick bridge.

The Elbe region in Saxony has Germany’s northernmost wine-growing area near Dresden. In addition to this highly regarded product, it has varied, hilly countryside. Culturally, this region offers a wealth of museums, palaces and historic buildings. With its cosy villages and unspoilt natural scenery, water theme parks and Leipzig as its urban centre, the Valley of the Castles is especially popular with hikers, sport-loving families and visitors interested in culture. The Saxon Switzerland National Park, Saxony’s best-known tourist region, is a region of sandstone mountains divided by the River Elbe. Hikers, mountaineers and rock climbers find outstanding opportunities for active recreation amid this unique landscape, which stretches across the border into Bohemia.

Enjoying Life
What the French call joie de vivre, enjoying life, is what the people of Saxony have mastered as well. The first recorded mention of wine-growing in Saxony dates back to 1161. In the fifteenth century, vineyards covered just over 4,000 hectares. The vine pest in 1887 enormously accelerated the decline of wine-growing, which had already set in. Subsequently, many vineyard slopes were used for building or as orchards. With the introduction of pest-resistant vine grafts, in the 1920s and 1930s there was a gradual recovery that continued after World War II. Wine-growing was given a further boost by amateur growers who from around 1970 began replanting some particularly prominent sites in the Elbe Valley with vines. Saxony produces mainly white wine. The most widespread varieties in 2004 were Müller-Thurgau (85 hectares), Riesling (66 hectares) and Pinot Blanc (52 hectares). Golden Riesling (12 hectares) is grown only here. Pinot Noir is the most widely grown type of red grape and is grown on 29 hectares.

The first German beer brewed after the Pilsner method, hails from Radeberg near Dresden. Once upon a time ago, Pilsner beer was delivered to the King's court in Saxony. Now, it goes into all of Europe and the U.S.A.

A place of delight for all the senses – wine-making tradition at Schloss Wackerbarth (Schloss Wackerbarth)

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Saxony: Baroque Meets High Tech

Saxony: Baroque Meets High Tech

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