Ready for the Stage Act 2 (1600–1900)

From their very beginnings, there has always been a particularly active exchange between the visual arts and theater. The central perspective of the early canvas paintings forms the main point of departure for Baroque theater. In addition, many painters and architects worked as festivity and stage decorators for the theater. They were familiar with the literary material and integrated this into their pictures. And vice versa, since the Renaissance, comic and tragic narrative types and characters of the theater, for example from the Commedia dell'arte and popular theater, were taken over by the visual arts. These two strands will be traced from the middle ages up to contemporary art in two acts staged in the Kunstkammer Rau and on the Contemporary Level of the Meier building. Whereas the Kunstkammer Rau concentrates on stage models and costumes, the view to present-day developments deals with the three-dimensional stage, translating the influences of the visual arts into the performative arts. In doing so, the mutual relationships between the two exhibition areas become clear.