Barbara Basting

Barbara Basting

Barbara Basting worked as a cultural editor and currently heads the visual arts division in the City of Zurich’s Culture Department.

A watchmaker: portrait of a bygone era

Barbara Basting 21.10.2025 Edouard Kaiser of La Chaux-de-Fonds was from a watchmaking family and dedicated a part of his artwork to the trade, which was in upheaval at the time.
Edouard Kaiser’s L'Horloger combines realistic elements with the idealistic image of an unspoilt (craftsman’s) world.

A Swiss painter in America

Barbara Basting 19.08.2025 Frank Buchser is one of the most colourful figures in 19th century Swiss art. A number of his works were produced during the several years he spent in the United States.
Buchser and America seemed like a good match. In Old Virginia he depicted the country’s idyllic side.

Capturing water on canvas

Barbara Basting 22.04.2025 The Rhine Falls in Schaffhausen has been a popular subject matter in the art world for centuries. English painter J.M.W. Turner captured the power of the water on canvas particularly impressively in the early 19th century.
J.M.W. Turner made the Rhine Falls the centrepiece of a famous painting in the early 19th century.

The Swiss teacher of the Impressionists

Barbara Basting 18.02.2025 Swiss painter Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), from Chevilly in the canton of Vaud, was an illustrious figure in the 19th century. Painters such as Albert Anker und Auguste Renoir studied at his Paris studio. Gleyre’s own works fused influences from Romanticism and Impressionism.
Self-portrait of Charles Gleyre, between 1830 and 1834 (detail).

How Swiss period rooms influenced American museums

Barbara Basting 03.01.2025 After it opened in 1898, the Swiss National Museum in Zurich and its period rooms served as an important model for museums in the United States.
The National Museum Zurich – shown here on a postcard – was held up in the United States as a model of how a museum should look.

When King Cotton ruled the world

Barbara Basting 01.10.2024 Cotton was the most important commodity of the 19th century. Yet very few artists took an interest in it. One who did was Edgar Degas. His painting of a cotton office in New Orleans is a truly spectacular work.
An eye for economic themes: painter Edgar Degas photographed in 1895.

A teeming painting between art and science

Barbara Basting 14.05.2024 Children love pictures teeming with animals, even in the 21st century. Roelant Savery was an expert in painting wildlife, and he used his skills to impress the Habsburg emperor over 400 years ago as well as inspiring many of his contemporaries, including Swiss artists.
The Paradise by Roelant Savery (detail). The painting was given by the City of Utrecht to Princess Amalie von Solms as a wedding gift on 21 December 1626.

A goddess with wrinkles

Barbara Basting 29.02.2024 Who paints older women? A look at art history shows that painters have always struggled with the subject matter and that they usually needed a pretext to even depict them at all.
‘The Parca Lachesis’ painted by Pietro Bellotti, circa 1684.