Pinakoteck

When Heinrich went to Munich he had the chance to go to the Pinakoteck museums, a series of art collections in several different buildings. The first museum had the oldest art in the collection. Most of the early painters were paid by the Catholic Church or other religious people to paint pictures about scenes from the Bible.

This painting was a nativity scene that shows the birth of Jesus with the shepherds and wise men.

These early paintings were often portable so they could move from church to church so more people could see them. To protect the paintings they often came with two sides that could fold together to help protect the painting when it was traveling. Additional paintings would be painted in these side spaces.

Heinrich found this interesting painting that showed lots of scenes from the life of Christ. Each of the little sections showed a different part of the story. It doesn't run in any specific order but it's like a really large storyboard. It helped people who could not read to understand the stories that they learned about in church.

The museum had some artwork from some very famous artists. There is a picture by Rembrandt that shows Abraham and Isaac.

There was also a self-portrait of Albrecht Durer. He was probably the first famous painter from Germany that anyone knows the name of. The reason they know his name is because he painted several pictures of himself and he was one of the first artists to put his name on his pictures.

For lunch Heinrich had his meal in the park under a row of chestnut trees. Sandwich rolls, Pringles and Pims. Tasty if not terribly fancy.

He also found a nice little fountain in between the museums. There were some ducks that thought Heinrich was going to feed them and when he stopped they started swimming towards him pretty fast. He snapped the picture, realized he had nothing to feed them and so he took off before they caught up with him.