Last weekend, I made a trip to the Getty museum. The museum is nestled in the valleys of Santa Monica; an extremely beautiful and affluent neighborhood of the LA county. It is located on top of a hill overlooking the city and also all of the ludicrously expensive villas that are perched on the top of nearing hills (probably owned by steven speilberg, tom cruise and the likes).
It became quickly apparent that this is one damn rich museum. The art pieces that it carried were all high profile and created by very famous artists. Nothing surprising, its congruent to the socio-economic status of the denizens of the city that the museum resides in.
In LA and OC, people wear expensive labels all the time; purposefully touting their wealth and probably not taste. The words Gucci, Fendi, Dior, LV etc. will be written in bold letters all over their clothing and accessories even if the clothes dint match. Compare this to the people in Milan, most of them could not really afford the pradas, gucci and armanis; their native fashion labels. Yet they are dressed very fashionably without a single label up for public viewing.
I am digressing here but some similarities applies to the museums. Some of the European museums aren't as wealthy and dearly guard the one or two work from the masters. However, their curators and guides know their valued possessions better than the back of their hands. The guide at Getty wasn't all that impressive and quoted the wrong dates, etc. All she talked about was hollywood and how much the paintings costs, etc.
I know very little about art but I did study art history in college (antiquity to 1100ad) and appreciate anything aesthetic.
I particularly liked this painting as the artist was able to impeccably capture the different textures on canvas; the (rather plump) human skin, fur, marble and linen.
Monet is a true master; his paintings portray complex renditions and the more time you spend looking at it, the more you observe the appreciate the fine details that you mighht miss on initial attempts. These paintings are greater than life and viewing them in real life is a huge difference from looking at prints.
When you look at the painting up close, it has a lot of texture to it and carefully accented colors and when you look from far and at different lights, the painting comes alive. The different hues definitely gives a complex set of dimensions. Btw, this particular monet is of the Rouen Cathedral and monet did about 20 portraits of it before bringing it back and coming up with this one.
Of cos, the flag ship painting of the museum by van gogh whose native country that I am sitting in now while I write thi; the Netherlands. The irises is one true master piece that the museum paid $55million back in the 90s!!! The painting is worth at least 3 times of that now; talking about good invesments. I had a poster of the irises in my bathroom for the longest time but you have to see it in person to truly understand why mine cost $6 and this cost $55million.
The signature van gogh swirls in the oil paint and deep textures makes this painting greater than life. Van gogh painted the irises while he was in the asylum. By then, he already has cut off his ear.
This is a 1600 spanish sculpture of a saint made entirely from a wooden medium. It is so life-like that it is freaky. It probably was the madam taussad of the past. I believe this one was done by a female lead royal sculpture back in the spanish kingdom so there are some similarities with Madam T.
In shakespeare, you will read about the sarcophagus a few times. People back in the days had a lot of time to create such work of art for the side wall of coffins but not for everyone of cos...only for those who can afford one.
This one is cool as I remember reading about this back when I studied art. This is a copy of the marble roman sculture about a dude and two of his sons consumed by a serpent from the trojan war chronicles. It is 400 yrs old nevertheless.
I thought this rendition of Mercury looked cool!
I highly recommend the getty museum to anyone visiting LA. Its FREE! You have to pay for parking though and $3 for an audio tour accessory which I recommend too.
