oh.... interruption sidebar: e. beck fact (take notes, it'll be on the test) - art history major
the high museum has a partnership with the louvre ....(oh, more note taking - e spent a summer semester in paris) .... our first exhibit today was the second of three in three years .... you might recall i went to the last one over the summer .... remember? e and marie antionette both wear nancy drew headbands? so, we got our headphones
and listened and learned our way through "the louvre and the ancient world " .... ancient egypt, greek, roman and etruscan artifacts from the louvre ... all very interesting ... and those headphones are god sends ... my kids dig them and they are very informative .....
the second part of that exhibit "the eye of josephine" was all art that empress josephine had collected for herself, that eventually made it into the louvre .... even after napoleon divorced her (is that right? ) she went right on collecting ancient artifacts ...my absolute favorites were a series of frescoes that were rescued (stolen?) from the wreckage of pompeii ... the original was a large mural of apollo with the nine muses .... in josephine's collection, you see apollo and just eight muses .... apparently one muse was left behind at the pompeii site ....
here are two muses ..... the muses of comedy and tragedy ....
aren't they gorgeous .... they are framed now ... so, nine in a row maybe 16 inches tall .... luscious gold backgrounds ..... cool women.... and one apollo ......... very stunning ... my favorite bit .... we also saw an exhibit called "inspiring impressionism" ..... it showed old masters and impressionist paintings side by side to show the correlation .... how the old masters influenced the impressionists .... lots of the impressionists were registered to paint in the louvre .. they copied the masters .... there was a mary cassatt painting of a mother and two children that was remarkably similar to a renaissance painting of a madonna and child ... and the second child in the renaissance painting is a cupid ... it was quite striking ... lots of them were ..... we listened to descriptions of this exhibit on headphones too .... my favorite bit is when the narrator asks a question, and sophie answers it aloud ....
so, not my usual artsiness today .... but quite an artsy day, nonetheless .....
oh wait .... who can go to a museum without going to the gift shop ..... and when sophie asked for the mona lisa night light, how could i, of all people, say no? ......
so, what's your favorite museum?
3 comments:
...now see what rewards a big city give ya? ...a real museum! ...so out here in the wild west, in the tiny little town...our local museum displays local artist and even occasionally changes displays! ...favorite change up is when the high schools get to hang their art! ...nothing here like your high museum! And if you had left without the Mona Lisa night light I'd have stopped reading your blog. LOL JK. But really. :)
Museums .... hmmmm ......I was pretty impressed with the live stuffed animals in a museum in San Fransisco's Golden Gate Park.....then we got to go have tea in the Japanese Tea Gardens across the way. As an adult I have thoroughly enjoyed our local kid's museum....complete with a train ride, a butterfly house, a few live animals, and several old faithful exhibits, like a bridge building one, and a bubble making station.....oh, and there are always cool traveling exhibits going through. --Roberta :)
Oh I wish I could have talked my kids into that sort of field trip when they were younger. My favorite museum if the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, although I loved the Tate Modern in London and the Temporary Contemporary in L.A. and the Norton Simon in Pasadena. Oh, who am I fooling? I like them all, each and every one.
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