Museum Tripping

[gategrrl]

Last week I busted out and went to the Getty Museum AND the Getty Villa in the same week! The Getty on Wednesday, and the Villa on Friday.

Goes without saying that both places are the bomb when it comes to artwork, and settings, and fountains. Fountains are immensely relaxing. At the Getty I bought a little notebook and started scribbling down notes about specific paintings that really caught my eye. Oh, and the French Tapestry room? Holy cows, talk about impressive. The woman gaurding the tapestry room told me that yes, the wall coverings were real silk papers imported from France, specifically for those rooms. Incredible jewel-toned walls. In fact, the rooms were so impressive, the actual tapestries and home objects in it were secondary.

Here are the paintings that wowed me to bits:

Titian: Penitent Magdelene (1560) 

  This doesn't capture the subtlities of the painting by a long shot. You don't see the tear rolling out of her eye. It's *beautiful* - and I happen to ignore the text behind the picture. Looked at that way (or not) it's a wonderful rendition of a spiritual moment. You don't have to follow the bible to see that.

Dosso Dossi: St George (1513-1315)

 I nearly fell over when I saw this incredibe psychological painting. You only see the head of the dragon poking into the frame, presumably with George holding it up. The modeling on the face is sensitive, subtle, and complex, and George's expression is one that shows a very complex mix of relief, exhaustion, WTFness (if that existed by in the late middle ages) and anything but Heroic. Note the date - I had to look more than once at it because, art background or not, I wasn't aware that this kind of subtle intimate painting, of such realism, was done during that time period. The painting itself is relatively small. If it's related to any other painting, I'd say the Mona Lisa is in the same ball park. Big wow.

Giovanni Savoldo: Shepard with Flute ~(1525)

 Only copy of this I could find on the internet. It's much larger on the wall, of course. I'd say about five feet high by four feet wide. This one caught my attention because it looked for ALL the world like old fashioned day-for-night in the movies - you know, when John Wayne would be doing action at "night" but it was really during the day, and during processing, they'd darken the film with a dark blue filter? Yeah, like that. Everything had a blue cast on it, which made the red fabric treatment pop out. I spent some time perusing this painting, but other than the color technique, it didn't have too much else to offer, other than strong composition and very neat detailing in the pastoral background. Nice clouds, too.

Ercole de Roberti: St. Jerome in the Wilderness ~(1470)

 Now, this baby is about the size of a poster board poster a teenager might hang up in their room. You can't see it here on this reproduction, but the virtue in this painting is in the surrealistic detailing. There's a small dog/cat/lion by his feet, in the cave. It's hard to tell exactly what it is, but that's not really the point of this painting. I wish I could blow it up so y'all could see it close up (I was afraid one of the gaurds was going to tell me to back away slowly from it). The color scheme reminds me a lot of seventies (1970s) fantasy paintings, as well, with the blue-green skies, the buildings in ruins, sparse trees...very Frazetta. To me, that is. Of course, if it were Frazetta painting this, there's be a hunky muscled man posed there, with a slinky barely dressed babe where the cat is positioned. Again, it's hard to believe that this was painted in the middle ages. I suppose it's the great circle of art life? There really is nothing new in art. 

Now, I am NOT a religious person, in that I do not adhere to any organized religion or their tenets. But it should be obvious that the reason so many religious paintings do speak to the universal in us (or some of us, I make no claims to vouch for everyone) is that human emotion isn't limited to one religion. Having said that, here's the one painting, beside the Magadalene by Titian, that really blew my socks off.

 Coreggio, Head of Christ. (1525-1530)

Small painting, about life-sized, I'd guess, or slightly smaller. Like the St George painting, a masterpiece in subtle modeling of emotion. Again, in reproduction, it misses a lot of the intent and detail and lighting. There are shadows you can see in the painting that are simply so gradual that it's easy to miss them if you aren't standing right there in front of it. There's plenty of drama here, but like the other paintings that stood out for me, this takes place during a quiet moment in a very momentus occasion (to say the *least*). God, they say, is in the details (yet again). A woman in the crowd has given Christ a white veil to help cool him off, and you can see the fringing in the lower right corner. The veil also gives Coreggio a nice monotoned background, so he doesn't have to deal with extraneous detail behind Jesus, giving the face and hair and thorns all the detail he can muster. It's as heroic and exhausted as St George, but with the same quality of personal connection to God as the Magadelene painting. I wonder if Titian examined this painting in any way. I don't know too much about this period - considering how wonderful these paintings are, I'm probably going to check out the history in more depth.

So. Have YOU been to an art museum lately? Modern, ancient, whatever school of art? Talk about it!

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Have you ever been to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena? If not, you should visit. Marvelous place.

I took a group of Academic Decathlon students there fairly recently. The art work is grouped mostly by country of origin there and dates over a wide time period.

I love the Getty, but it's probably been a year or two since I've been.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I haven't been there yet. Unfortunately, it only opens at noontime, and my kids get out of school at 2:30, which would give me time for only a cursory overview of their collections. I would love to go, though.

The Villa had a lovely assortment of Iron age statues from around the Mediterranian region up on the second floor. I spent some time checking those out.

There's another art museum connected to UCLA in LA, that looks awesome as well. I forget what it's called!

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I confess that I haven't been to the museum in years. Mea culpa. :-) I agree, though that the de Roberti speaks very much the same language as the Surrealists. I'm reminded of de Chirico for some reason. I adore de Chirico.

Ah, my Art History minor is waking up. :-) I think I need to make a trip to the Fine Arts Museum.

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked at art or been to a museum in ages, but thanks for posting those beautiful pictures! :D

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I highly reccommend traipsing off to a FA museum, if you can. It doesn't have to be a rich one, or even a very good one - it doesn't even have to be a museum, it can be a gallery!

What I'd love to see? A museum dedicated to fountains and water forms. Oh, that would be lovely to sit in the midst of, absorbing the motions and sounds of the water. Especially in the heat of summer!

[karendreamer.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is a wonderful post. I haven't been to the Getty in years and I've never been to the villa. Sounds like something we need on our to do list. Did you like one place over the other?

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

If you like the seaside, and ancient art, head to the Villa.

The Getty off of the 405 is huge, and you could spend hours just in one gallery, gazing at the objects within. There's a desk in one of the French galleries that I am lusting over. It's very curvy, soft-edged, and I was very surprised it was made years before Art Neuveo (sp) was in vogue.

Both places make excellent use of water falls/fountains and are very soothing to simply sit down in and contemplate. I'll probably go back to the main Getty this week, probably on Friday, with my Asus and write away.

[jennywren102.livejournal.com]

Aahhh... What a breath of fresh air! Thank you for a wonderful exposure of art and culture in a world of voyuerism and instant gratification.

I do so miss those days from college. I had an art history professor who thoroughly enjoyed his work, and it showed. His lectures were fun! He'd get all animated in front of the class, waving his arms and such, telling us little tidbits of information about the artist, the patron, the politics and anything else that made learning easy and fun. *sigh* Now that's one professor I'll never forget, and it's been over 20 years already.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

He does sound like an excellent teacher. The best ones give students the *context* for what they're looking at. It's great to look at a painting and note the skill and vision it took to create it, but it's the human stories behind the images that are very interesting to most folks.

And I'm glad you liked my ramblings. I'll have another one up soon. I can't wait to go back.