Against a tradition of Neo-Classicism, artists began to record their observations of nature. German painters Caspar David Friedrich and Johann Christian Dahl sought to evoke ethereal elements such as clouds or light.

Narrator William McInnes provides an historical overview of Frankfurt and Germany in the 1800s, a period in which Johann Frederick Städel began building what would become a significant personal art collection.

Against a tradition of Neo-Classicism, artists began to record their observations of nature. German painters Caspar David Friedrich and Johann Christian Dahl sought to evoke ethereal elements such as clouds or light.

The Bridge formed in Dresden in 1905. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a driving force of the group, which renounced earlier traditions of art.

The Nazarenes were a religious association of Viennese artists working in Rome, who rejected the highly formal traditions of the Academy to create work that was a statement of their feelings and beliefs.

The Städel Museum had amassed an incredible collection of Modern Art. However, under Nazi rule, the Städel’s collection was declared ‘degenerate’ and decimated.

Paula Modersohn-Becker was an important early Expressionist. She was a member of the Worpswede Colony, a group of artists that had retreated to the northern German countryside to paint landscapes.

French artist Jean-Baptist Corot was a leading member of the Barbizon School, a group that championed Realism and whose plein air studies of nature anticipated the work of the Impressionists.

Monet was the leader of the French Impressionists, a group who dragged their easels outside to paint en plein air to capture the changeable nature of light and colour.

Courbet was part of the French Realist movement, who shunned the subjects of classical imagery to instead paint contemporary life.