Yeah, yeah, I know. This is not a romance topic. BUT. I am on vacation with Dr. Feelgood and we spent some time today in the British Museum where we goggled again at the Elgin Marbles. (We’re headed to Greece on Friday–I look forward to seeing Greece’s claim to the artifacts evinced there.)
Tonight, we got to talking about art we’ve seen in person that was a gut punch. The time, in 1989, we wandered into the room where the David was housed–there were maybe 20 people in the place. I’ve never forgotten the power of Michelangelo’s 17 foot miracle. In 2013, we stumbled upon The State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg–the art there was both something we didn’t knew existed and astonishing. Five years ago, in Madrid, our daughter who was doing a semester abroad there took us to the Sorolla Museum–I still think about his portrait of his wife right after she’d given birth.
Some art, when you see it, you’re glad you did–hey, Mona Lisa, have you tried Smooth Move tea–but it doesn’t grab you, doesn’t make you feel as though your life would have been somehow less if you’d not see it. Other works–like this, this, and this–make you thrill to be alive.
I am more art obsessed than most so I’m curious–what’s your favorite work of art you’ve ever seen?
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
I’ve been lucky enough to go to some of the most wonderful places like the Louvre, The British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and many places in Italy from Florence to Rome to Venice.
The hardest to enjoy were the Mona Lisa- it’s an absolute mob and trying to get near the glass that separates it from the crowd is tough enough. The amazing Pieta is also kept at a distance since the crazed person smashed part of it with a mallet.
One of the best experiences of so much amazing art in a lovely setting has to be The Musee D’Orsee in Paris. It’s a feast for the eyes and just staggering the amount of Impressionist masterpieces in one place.
I first saw the Mona Lisa as a teen when you could just walk right up and look at it unimpeded and hurried. I think it is the most overrated famous piece of art!
Love the Museum D’Orsee–I loved the Jeu de Paume but the Orsee is such a better setting.
The comments about the impact of art in person vs. seeing a reproduction. I saw an exhibit of Edward Hopper at the National Gallery of Art in DC once. They seem like okay paintings when you see them in a book. They are LUMINOUS in person. They just glow. I was amazed. And I do like Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day at the Chicago Institute of Art. My husband and I both looked at it separately on a trip, noticed completely different things and had to go back to look at it together. Beautiful scene.
I agree about Hopper in person. His work is mesmerizing.
Somewhat o/t, but if you like Hopper, I strongly recommend Gail Levin’s biography, which is more of a dual biography of Hopper and his wife Jo (who was often Hopper’s muse, model, and gatekeeper, plus being an artist herself). Levin uses a lot of material from Jo’s diaries to flesh out the story of the Hoppers’ long and tempestuous marriage. Highly recommended:
Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography: Levin, Gail: 9780394546643: Books – Amazon
Thanks! I’ll check that out!
In addition to many of the works already mentioned, I would include the work generally of El Greco (which I saw in Spain) – it was his portrayal of light – and The Starry Night by Van Gogh (in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam) 40 years ago. They still resonate all these years later. El Greco was an artist completely unknown to me at the time, so was a delightful and unexpected find. Van Gogh’s work I had seen in books and other forms of reproduction, so I thought I knew what to expect. But there is such energy in that roiling night sky of the original work.
There are many.
Standing in Paris in the sainte Chappelle again after about 25 years, completely inside the amazing color and light from its thousands of stained glass windows, it was such transcendent magic, that I would go for that. there is no normal window or white light in that chapel at all, it is all color and pictures and about 800 years old. Just the fact that it still exists is a miracle. And being inside – I do not have words for the beauty of this total immersion.
I was going to mention the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, because it has to be one of the most breathtaking places I’ve ever been.
o The Alexander Sarcophagus in the Antiquities Museum in Istanbul. Called that not because it is where Alexander the Great was buried but because it is carved with scenes of his life; it thus is not just an object related to death but a vibrant story of one man’s life (even if not that of the man buried in the sarcophagus). So beautiful and powerful I went back several times to see it.
o The Dying Gaul, sculptor unknown, believed to be a Roman copy of a Greek original. The Gauls were the enemy, but nonetheless the figure is carved with sympathy and grace. The status shows a wounded warrior propping up his fallen body with his right hand. Blood can be seen dripping from the wound in his right side. He is nude, except for a torque around his neck that serves to indicate that he is a Gaul. The sculpture calls upon the viewer to witness the death of a noble warrior, and in doing so provokes us to empathize with the Gaul. Thus, the Dying Gaul commemorates a military victory, while acknowledging the cost of war.
o The Assyrian relief panels in a room very near the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. There are two major sets of panels: one shows a lion hunt with the king and his court and one shows the a siege of an enemy city and its subsequent capture. Each time I see them I’m caught up in the intense drama of each story. But one of the best things is found right outside the room with the clay reliefs: in the base of one of the enormous lion sculptures that stood guard at the city gates, someone carved a game board. Even 3,000 years ago the guards must have been bored and needed something to do to keep themselves awake – people and times have changed but some things have not.
o Rodin’s Eternal Idol. There are many versions, but the one I first saw was in white marble in one of the Harvard Art Museums. It shows a young woman leaning slightly back, and a young man leaning forward to kiss her just below her breasts. Both figures are nude yet the sculpture is somewhat restrained, which to me only made it more romantic and indicative of youth and a love that is just beginning. Very appropriate for a site such as AAR.
I’m headed to Istanbul this week! I’ll look for it! Thanks!
Lucky you! My husband and I loved Istanbul; there’s so much to see and do (and eat). Let us know what you think when you return.
Gosh, hard to choose just one. Elgin Marbles are amazing as is David. Shock and awe at the Birth of Venus at the Uffizi. But what inspired me to visit the great museums of Europe was seeing Two Sisters (On the Terrace) by Renoir at my home town museum, The Art Institute of Chicago. The colors were so vivid.
I love that museum.
“Time Transfixed” by Rene Magritte is my favorite painting. I love the utter quiet of it, along with the photorealistic quality of an absolutely impossible scenario (a locomotive emerging from a fireplace). A couple of years ago, my children—knowing how much I love it—gave me a copy on canvas.
I’d not seen that before. It’s lovely. Magritte now always makes me think of The Thomas Crowne Affair!
There is no one. There are many.
The first time I saw Michelangelo’s Dying Slave in the Louvre, it hit me like a punch in the gut. It was in a small room, because the place that was to be its permanent spot was being renovated. I had to fight to breathe.
Then there’s the frescoes done by Fra Angelico in the San Marco monastery in Florence. Nearest I got to spiritual, except the same monastery also housed Savonarola, who presided over the Bonfires of the Vanities.
And Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Seeing it in person was so much more than reproductions.
Vermeer. Anything. The sense of life, light and stillness, the feeling those small jewels give you. If I had to pick one, it would probably be The Music Lesson.
Turner. Anything. The man could paint air. Check out Sunrise and Sea Monsters.
Titlan’s Bacchus and Ariadne. A mathematical marvel, and painted like it was easy to do.
Canova’s Cupid and Psyche. Just so deeply romantic.
Rogier Van der Weyden’s Deposition. It’s so three-dimensional, so amazingly real.
Holbein’s The Ambassadors, his drawings and portraits of the Tudor court. It’s like they’re going to step down and talk to you. Bringing the past to life.
Pollock’s One, number 31, 1950. I never got what all the fuss was about until I saw it face to face. It’s all there.
Rothko, the Black on Maroon series in the Tate. Tranquillity and turbulence.
What do all these have in common? You have to see them face to face, not reproductions, not photographs. The artist put their soul into the work, and to get that, you have to go and see it.
Ask me to pick just one? Not a chance.
Those are all great works–although I am still not a Pollock fan. If I had to pick a favorite artist, it might be Vermeer. I love The Music Lesson although my fave is perhaps Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window.
Turner is someone whom I’ve come to revere more over time. His sense of light is extraordinary.
I’ve seen those frescoes and they are so lovey. Florence is so infused with art–I just wish it was less crowded these days!
Pollock didn’t get me until I went to MOMA in New York to see the Lichtensteins and the Rileys, but the great Pollock painting was in my way! I spent about half an hour in front of it, but then came back and looked at it some more.
It’s hard to describe what a work of art does to me, and I find myself going all fancy when I do. I love taking people around art galleries. I don’t tell them what to see, I just let them loose and say “Ask me if you want to know anything or talk about anything.” It’s just lovely to see them discovering what they love for themselves.