By Cindy Brzostowski, to Museum Spotlight Europe (February 2023)
If you enjoy surrealism, German Romanticism and horror, visit the exhibition Phantoms of the Night: 100 Years of Nosferatu at The Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection in Berlin, Germany. On display until April 23, 2023, the temporary exhibit juxtaposes scenes and imagery from the film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror with work from other artists. The exhibit aims to highlight the cultural impact on contemporary visual arts and draw connections to historical artistic precedents. Curated through numerous international loans, the exhibit showcases pieces from Alfred Kubin, Caspar David Friedrich, Edvard Munch, and more.
Long before Twilight, True Blood, or Interview with the Vampire brought blood-drinking vampires to our screens, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror brought Count Orlok, one of the most spine-tingling creations in the film world. Directed by F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu was released in Germany in 1922. The silent film is credited with being the first vampire movie, and its Gothic cinematic styling has continued to inspire the horror genre. Moreover, Nosferatu is considered a classic of German Expressionism with its bizarre, distorted imagery, unusual angles, and use of light and shadow.
Photo by Albin Grau, Entwurf Filmplakat Nosferatu, detail, 1921 © Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Trogen (CH)
The exhibit is divided into six thematic sections. First is “Berlin, 4 March 1922,” named after the premiere date of the film. In this room, display cases are filled with marketing materials, including an invitation to the premiere plus advertisements and posters by Albin Grau (the German artist who served as the set designer for the movie). Depictions of a shadowy, long-limbed Count Orlok, the film’s main antagonist, reoccur, capturing his character’s movements and frightening nature even in still images.
The next section is “Home Sweet Home—Idyll & Longing” and covers the tranquil, idyllic setting of the film, a fictional town close to Count Orlok’s castle, before the so-called “symphony of horror” begins. Here, you can see a reproduction of Georg Friedrich Kersting’s “The Elegant Reader,” which was specifically referenced in notes on a set photograph. If you’ve seen the film, the scenes of the small town may have also made you think of Caspar David Friedrich’s work, which is emphasized with the reproduction of his painting, Moonrise over the Sea.
Moving forward, “The Eerie Journey” awaits. Focused on the moment when deuteragonist Thomas Hutter crosses from his known world into Nosferatu’s unusual reality, the room features projections repeating short moments in the film surrounded by works that evoke eerie, foreign, and ominous landscapes like Alfred Kubin’s drawings From Bosnia and At the Crossroads and Odilon Redon’s etchings Fear and The Ford, with Small Horsemen.
Odilon Redon
Fear, 1866
Etching
11.2 x 20 cm
To enter the exhibit’s following section, “The Gate,” you must pass through a string curtain, upon which an archway from the film is projected. Throughout Nosferatu, film stills of wide gates, high doorways, and vaulted rooms abound; parallels are drawn in haunting artworks, like Franz Sedlacek’s Spectre Above the Trees and Church Window by Odilon Redon. Another theme in this area is the strange character of Count Orlok himself and the power of dreams. Along with lobby cards from the movie, you’ll walk past a series of paintings with characters that range from the creepy to the dreamy, including Alfred Kubin’s The Intruder and a reproduction of Maxmilian Pirner’s The Somnambulist.
Maxmilian Pirner
The Somnambulist, 1878
Oil on canvas
157 x 87 cm
The penultimate section of the exhibition is “Death Enters the Town,” beginning with a large projection of the scene when Count Orlok is on a ship headed for Wisborg—the moment in the film when Hutter’s journey to the realm of Count Orlok is reversed for the reclusive vampire’s trip into the town. Throughout the space, artwork like Satan Sowing Tare (Albert Betrand after Félicien Rops) and The Sea Spectre (Alfred Kubin) mimic this idea of a deathly presence dominating a landscape. Also on display are lithographs from Hugo Steiner Prag’s The Golem — Prague Fantasies portfolio, which relate to how Henrik Galeen, the screenwriter of Nosferatu, co-directed The Golem (1914) and wrote the screenplay for The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920).
Next comes a series of pieces populated with bizarre creatures, real and imaginary—from August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof’s paintings of multi-armed green polyps to Alfred Kubin’s drawing, Inhabitants of Mars. A somewhat unexpected addition here is Salvador Dalí’s sketch The Anteater alongside a photo of the artist strolling with an anteater in Paris. All together, the pieces relate to characters in Nosferatu searching for a natural explanation in the face of impending doom and death.
At last, the visitor makes it to “Dawn,” the exhibition’s closing. As you see a projection of Count Orlok covering his face with his arms as the sun streams in through an open window, you can gaze upon other momentous window scenes in pieces like Edvard Munch’s Girl at the Window, The Kiss, and Night in Saint Cloud.
Leaving the exhibition feels like stepping into the sun too—regardless of how well-lit and open the space is itself, after seeing so many different depictions of the dark, freakish, and foreboding. But it’s not just horror fanatics who will find something to appreciate here. Anyone curious about the relationship between art and cinema, or the history of film in general, will find much to appreciate in the connections made by curators Jürgen Müller, Frank Schmidt, and Kyllikki Zacharias.
Accompanying the exhibition is a program of lectures, including a talk on dream and trauma from Dr. Holger Schettler, and movie screenings, such as Julian Radlmaier’s Bloodsucker. Even if you miss one of the scheduled events, you can catch a showing of Nosferatu in the large room near the museum’s gift shop. Surrounded by columns from the mortuary temple of Sahure, which stand here until space is made at the Pergamonmuseum, you can either place the film in mind before analyzing it through the exhibition—or you can view the film through a new lens after visiting the exhibit first.
In a clever partnership with the German Red Cross, there’s free admission to the museum for blood donors. On March 22, you can donate blood at the coach house adjoining the museum between 2:30 pm and 6 pm and then visit the exhibition free of charge immediately after.
“Phantoms of the Night: 100 Years of Nosferatu” runs from December 16, 2022 to April 23, 2023. Admission costs 12 Euros.
Cover photo by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Nosferatu, film still, 1922 © Deutsche Kinemathek
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