As part of the Didaktika project, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao designs educational spaces and special activities that complement every exhibition, providing tools and resources both in the galleries and online to facilitate the appreciation and understanding of the works on display.

On this occasion, the educational space of Masterpieces of the Kunsthalle Bremen: From Delacroix to Beckmann traces the milestones in the history of the Kunsthalle Bremen, from its genesis through 200 years of evolution, and highlights its commitment to creating a modern art collection grounded in German and French art.

Several of the works on display offer the feeling of a “walk into nature,” as viewers discover a specific way of looking at the natural world that has been particularly associated with the German spirit. Many artists have sought nature as a refuge from the suffocating life of the city and academic rules. Those artists' colonies have their presence within this space.

We hope this space also provides a moment for thoughtfulness. Today, new ways of living and new economic forces seem to require a reinterpretation of nature, all the more so because human activity has a direct effect on it. This fact has found expression in the concept of a new geologic era, the Anthropocene, that emerged around the year 2000 to describe a world shaped more than anything else by human intervention. In this complex world, where would we go nowadays if we had to escape from the cities?

Paul Cézanne
Village behind Trees (Marines) [Dorf hinter Bäumen (Marines)], ca. 1898
Oil on canvas
66 x 82 cm
Kunsthalle Bremen - Der Kunstverein in Bremen
Purchased 1918
Inv. 373-1918/1
Photo: Lars Lohrisch