There are many St. Louis museums that we want to explore, but we had been putting it off until the weather got colder. Today definitely qualified, so we went to the lovely Forest Park of St. Louis and started with the Art Museum.Art has always been a mystery to me. I am a left-brainer. Math and science make sense to me; art doesn’t make sense to me, but somehow still seduces me. I am amazed with what I see, and absolutely awed with the genius and creativity of human beings who are able to produce such things.
There was a painting of men playing cards on a river barge. It was a simple painting, but the way the river disappeared behind, the way the lighting gave magic to the scene, it became complex with every detail (the grass in one man’s mouth) fraught with some unfathomable meaning. I felt forced to “look”. And wonder.
There were portrait paintings from the 1500s, living faces of people long dead. They looked like we do now. There was a jade knife from China that was more than 5000 years old. There was a modern abstract painting by a German artist that felt like the way the earth would be after a nuclear charring. There was medieval armor and fussy furniture that made me anxious. There was a huge, beautiful tapestry made from parts of liquor bottles. And on and on.
Saint Louis
3 comments:
I am a museum nut. I went to the Art Museum in Forest Park, but I have no lingering memories, alas.
Too bad you will be missing the Muni Opera performances in Forest Park during the summer. Do they still have them? Open air (free if you sit in the nosebleed area) musical comedy in the evening. I saw Nureyev and Fonteyn dance Sleeping Beauty there once.
I love the way everything in Forest Park is "free". Only the special exhibit in the art museum required money. And I also loved being around so many students, sitting in groups before the paintings, talking, sketching. I'm looking forward to the Zoo and the History Museum.
I didn't hear anything about opera in the park during the summer(John is a great opera fan, and he reads the newspaper, so I think he would have noticed if they still had them.).
The nosebleed area??!!
It is a phrase used in Canada at least. It refers to the high bleachers. I needed binoculars to see the performers. They didn't do serious opera there, by the way.
I have been to the Forest Park Zoo, but I didn't know there was a history museum. I remember standing before an empty zoo cage with they German dude I eventually married talking about the imaginary monkeys flitting about within. We were perfectly matched in that sense.
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