MUSEUM DER BILDENEN KÜNSTE - MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Leipzig's Museum of Fine Arts is royally housed in an incredibly bright, glass-clad building inaugurated in 2005 in the heart of the Old Town. Leipzig's main art exhibition site, the MDBK dates back to 1848 and exhibits major works of German art from the Renaissance to the present day. Visitors with a passion for German painting and sculpture will find countless marvels here. First and foremost, the works of Leipzig's most famous artists. Among them, Max Beckmann, heir to Expressionism and New Objectivity, who produced a singular and unclassifiable body of work far from Leipzig; you can admire his Portrait of a Carpet Merchant. The other glorious child of the city is Max Klinger the Symbolist, who remained active in the city for most of his life. At the MDBK, you can admire the Monument to Beethoven, one of his most popular sculptural works. Alongside the artists associated with this city - which until recently was not a city of the visual arts - you can wander through some of the major works of German art acquired by the museum: those of the Expressionist painters of the Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter groups, including Otto Müller's magnificent Couple d'amoureux. Also on display are numerous canvases by the German Impressionists, less well known because they followed in the footsteps of their French peers, but often highly talented; and also by the Romantic painters who were the first to distinguish Germany in the ^19th century. The museum's centerpiece is Caspar David Friedrich's famous Lebensstufen (The Ages of Life). One of the museum's highlights is the Lucas Cranach room, dedicated to the Renaissance master and featuring his famous Adam and Eve. You'll also find a fine collection of East German and contemporary art, including representative canvases from the first two Leipziger Schulen, which contributed to the genesis of the Neue Leipziger Schule.

Temporary exhibitions are always of the highest quality and very well themed. The glass building also allows visitors to admire the Baroque houses across the street.