Art and Culture around Europe

Cervantes/Prize, Museum/London, Exhibition/Bielefeld, Germany/Digital

Cervantes/Prize
The Cervantes Literary prize believed to be the equivalent to the Nobel in Spanish literature was awarded on 30th November to Mexican poet and essay writer José Emilio Pacheco, said the Spanish Minister for Culture, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde.
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Museum/London
On 30th November the Victoria and Albert Museum in London revealed a new part of its art collection from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - an extension that required seven years of work. The ten new galleries that take up a whole wing of the museum will be open as from 9th December free of charge; they "present the most important treasures on the planet". A thousand years of works of art and social history including entire sections of buildings, large sculptures and stained glass windows are on show alongside the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, objects in enamel - including a tribute, created around 1180, to the murdered Archbishop, Saint Thomas Beckett; there are sculptures the Renaissance masters such as Donatello. Over 1,800 objects are on show in the new rooms which are all linked together to offer visitors a journey that is interactive in part - through the history of art and creation in Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the end of the Renaissance.
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Exhibition/Bielefeld
The art museum in Bielefeld is presenting a retrospective devoted to German Impressionist painters until 28th February 2010. 180 works will reveal the way in which the German painters found inspiration in French artists of the last quarter of the 19th century, before in turn becoming themselves the avant-garde of German painting. Alongside the great names, Corinth, Liebermann, Slevogt - amateurs will discover less well known artists such as Thomas Herbst and Robert Sterl. Not far from Bielefeld the Von-der-Heyd of Wuppertal is offering a retrospective devoted to Claude Monet until 28th February.
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Germany/Digital
The German government decided to create a German Digital Library accessible via the internet. The databases of over 30,000 archives, libraries, museums and other scientific and cultural institutions will be available for consultation by everyone via computer. The government will provide 5 million euros to set up this library. For the German government this is a means to protect national heritage. It also comes in response to a project to create a world virtual library, that is being designed by the American company, Google.
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