Welcome to the first ever, Saturday Morning Post, not that I haven't posted every Saturday morning for years, but this year I am going to take a stab at a new daily theme. Saturdays will be sort of a random ramble of what is rattling around in my brain. We will see how this works. This photo was taken a year ago, at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. An old friend of ours was in town for a couple of days, we met him here and went to lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Art galleries make great art available to everyone. I can't imagine anything sadder than the Mona Lisa hanging in the dining room of a private home in Florence, seen only by the family and those few who are lucky enough to be invited to dinner. I remember the first time a museum moved me to tears. I was in London in late may 1990. At the time I was living in Orlando, and I had not been to any major US cities, like New York, or Chicago, or LA, or San Francisco, or Washington DC where I might have seen more great art. I went to the National Gallery, I stood there staring, and had to sit down. I realized I was looking at an entire wall of paintings by "Old Masters," painters I had only ever seen one or two special works from, and there was a wall, probably 20 feet tall, and 50 feet long, packed one next to another with world famous paintings. All there, for anyone who walked in the door to see. Seeing one in a special exhibit, allows you to focus on that one special piece of art. Every city should have a real art museum. World class museums are worth going out of your way for, seeing a gallery full of masterworks changes you as a person, everyone needs that.
Has a museum ever moved you to tears?
Not so much a museum...but when in Amsterdam the Anne Frank house did it for me. It was a quite somber visit. But agree...thank goodness for museums.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should travel to see places that move them.
DeleteI've not been moved to tears in a gallery, and I can tear up each night when watching the tv news. You didn't ask but my best museum and the one I enjoyed the most are quite different. My best museum was MoMA in NYC. The one I enjoyed the most I think was England's Natural History Museum in London.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine picking a favorite, there are so many wonders, kind of like trying decide what is the best diamond in the crown.
DeleteNo tears but, yes, museums DO move me. The transformation of the National Portrait from when I lived in DC in the '80s to my return to the museum in 2017 DID give me shivers.
ReplyDeleteNeat space!
DeleteThe Museum of Jewish History and Memorial to the Holocaust destroyed me. I had to walk out at one point - I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t control it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough not a museum, the AIDS quilt has a similar effect on me.
Sassybear
Www.Idleeyesandadormy.Com
We were in Germany in 2015, outside of Munich we came to a turn, one direct went to an aviation museum, another to a concentration camp museum, and I had to decide if I was emotionally strong enough to make the turn, it had been a really difficult year.
DeleteA museum hasn't, but individual art works have.
ReplyDeleteThe volume on display was amazing, it could have been in a shopping mall, and it would have hit me.
DeleteI second sassybear.
ReplyDeletethe louvre and the mona lisa. great art should be available to all.
our philadelphia museum of art (https://philamuseum.org) has a fabu collection of french impressionists. toulouse-lautrec is my fave painter.
Coming back to Philly is on the list, I am on the Museum's email list.
DeleteLove the National Portrait Gallery. One of my faves. But I'm going with local Cleveland Museum of Art. Though I really did enjoy the Louve and the Rijksmuseum. I think I would have liked the Tate Modern more had I had more time. As DC goes, the Corcoran when it was still a museum was impressive.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you! Cleveland MOA is amazing, I love the glass box galleries on the corners, we went there a couple of years ago when visiting family in the area.
DeleteOh yes, many times. One occasion that sticks in my mind is when I took my dad to London. My dad was not an art lover and he wasn't thrilled about heading to the National Gallery but when we got there, I remember him standing in front of a painting I think was called Whistlejacket of a horse. It brought tears to his eyes which of course brought tears to mine.
ReplyDeleteWow, I don't know of my father ever visiting an art museum.
DeleteI don't think I've ever actually cried, but I have been incredibly moved by a piece of art in many museums.
ReplyDeleteIsn't an emotional reaction the essence of art?
DeleteNot to tears but they still make me as excited as a child on Christmas morning.
ReplyDeleteMuseums can be fun.
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