I've been very lucky to have been to some of the greatest museums in the world - The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; The Louve in Paris and The British Museum in London (along with Corey); several museums connected with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC; The Philadelphia Museum of Art (that's the one that Rocky ran up all those steps in the movies); The Field's Museum in Chicago (the tyrannosaurus rex named "Sue" was on display at the time); Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo, Japan (along with Mom). My two favorite are the British Museum which opened in 1759 and The Metropolitan Museum of Art which opened in 1872.
When you arrive at "The Met" and purchase your admission ticket, you are given a lapel pin to wear. I've always enjoyed great art and while there I got to see original works by Rembrant, Winslow Homer, Stuart Gilbert, James McNeil Whistler, Van Gogh, Monet, etc. I got to see the original painted portrait of George Washington and the one of "Washington Crossing The Delaware". I'd always thought that painting was rather small because of pictures I'd seen. However, i
t's a very large painting that takes up almost an entire wall. When you view the entire picture, you see things that you don't normally get to see in books. It's kind of like the difference between looking at a 9" television set vs. a large screen television. There are chairs or benches in the center of many of the rooms so that you can see and really look at the paintings.
My favorite painting of all times is the one shown above and it's big - 100 x 110 inches big. It's entitled "Joan of Arc" painted in 1879 by french painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. It depicts Joan standing in the garden of her parent's home. She was born into a bleak moment in French history when France and England were entering into the Hundred Years’ War. The French countryside was bearing the brunt of a century of fighting, depredation, and the Black Death 75 years earlier. At about age 13, Joan began to hear voices. Eventually, she said the voices were those of St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Margaret of Antioch, and the archangel Michael and began to see visions. At her trial before being burned at the stake, she said: “I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you.” By the time she was 16, her heavenly counselors had become more insistent and specific. She never recounted her visions. The painting is so mesmerizing. I sat down in a chair for a very, very long time and marveled at how beautiful and amazing the painting is. It is painted so perfectly that it almost looks like a photograph instead of a painting. I hope to go see it again one day.
The British Museum is wonderful for me in that they have the most fantastic collections from all over the world. I especially love their Egyptian exhibit with their mummies and sarcophagus's, including Roman ones. Their collection of Greek frescoes and statuary is unbelievable. Unfortunately, the day we went to the museum Corey was suffering from an earache and not feeling well so we didn't stay as long as we'd like. I definitely want to go back there and spend more time. I've had a love of art as far back as I can remember. I loved coloring and knew how to shade my pictures by using various pressures to make color lighter or darker. I understood about blending colors. I remember I loved drawing horses especially. My love of art continued until I was in 7th grade when we were living in Japan. That is when my love of drawing and sketching was literally crushed. I was taking art classes in school and had an art teacher who permitted no freedom when it came to drawing. We were allowed no free expression. I recall that we were using pastel chalks as our medium and I was not drawing as he wanted and he belittled and criticized my work. I do know that that was when he broke my spirit and my desire to continue drawing and painting. But, he never broke my appreciation for beautiful art, especially the Old Masters. I must confess that I do not enjoy modernistic works or expressionism or artists such as Salvador Dali or his peers. I must have inherited part of my love for art from my mom. She even took art lessons while living in Japan and was really quite good.
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