THE THOMS SUNDAY TRAVEL SECTION.
Last week we were talking about European sites or near-experiences you can have closer to home. The Grande Tour.
But we ran out of time to talk about the Grande Museums in Europe.
The State Hermitage, Louvre, British, Rijksmuseum, Museo del Prado, and the list goes on for pages.
What about the Grande Egyptian Museum with an opening date of late 2020? O.K., that’s Africa, but it’s close.
The sculptures, masterpieces, Impressionism, Modern, Dutch, French, Italian, and you get the idea.
Look For Mummie in Your Backyard.
Did you know there are mummies closer than Cairo?
Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Ann Arbor, Philadelphia, Memphis, Los Angeles, and others have museums with mummies.
So if you’re a mummies boy, you’re closer than you think.
If you just want to walk through an Eqyptian collection, there are even more.
And one of my favorite Egyptian Temples is not even along the Nile. It’s closer to the East River.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will qualify for just about every other category to follow. That’s why you can only see part of it in a day.
Some Museums Are All Greek to Me.
While I’m typing this, I should be packing to go to Greece. And every time I go to Greece, I try to see one of its museums. Guess what, most of them specialize in Greek artifacts. The Greeks made these first…
Incredible sculpture, pottery, mosaics, frescos, jewelry, just to name a few things they did well.
But you do not need to reach the Aegean to see treasures from there.
Next to its incredible Egyptian collection, the Metropolitan Museum has an equally impressive Greek collection.
You can see Greecian urns in Raleigh N.C., Boston, Richmond Va, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and more.
Perhaps my favorite Greek getaway in America is the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Not the big box hanging over the 405, I’m talking the Getty Villa near Malibu.
The museum itself is a work of art. It is a replica of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman vacation home at Herculaneum. Up the coast from Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius preserves both towns on the same day.
Housing Greek pieces dating back to the 6th century B.C. and Roman and Greek relics, it will amaze you. Marble statues, reliefs, bronze statuettes, mosaics, and more are everywhere. If you cannot get to the land of the Minoans this summer, get to Malibu.
Museums Make an Impression.
Maybe this is not the season you visit the magnificent Musée d’Orsay or the Musée Marmottan Monet, featuring more than 300 pieces by Claude Monet.
But don’t fret. Monet was much more prolific than you may know. There are works by him, Renoir, Degas, and many others in the United States. From Harvard’s Fogg Museum in Boston to the Frank Gehry designed Norton Museum in Pasadena. There is art.
One of Renoir’s most famous works, Luncheon of the Boating Party is not in France. You can find it as part of the Phillip’s Collection in Washington D.C.
You can find Monet and Degas in Fort Worth’s Kimbell Museum. Find Impressionist works in New York, Shelburne Vt, the other Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and several other places.
To mention Impressionism, and not include George Serat, would be une grave erreur. His masterpiece, A Sunday on la Grande Jatte, hangs magnificently in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Although smaller in size, you will find works by many of his contemporaries as well, including Cezanne and Toulouse-Lautrec.
The French Impressionism period dates from the middle to the late 1800s.
Those Museum Guys on the Cigar Box.
Did you keep important stuff in a cigar box as a child? Did you ever wonder who those guys in funny hats, not one smoking a cigar, were?
They are actually a copy of a famous painting by Rembrandt, dating from 1662, The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild.
Who were the real Dutch Masters? They begin with the works of Peter Brueghel the Elder, Lyden, and Bosch circa 1500s.
Dutch painting will enjoy its golden days in the mid-1600s with canvases by Vermeer, Steen, Hals, and of course, Rembrandt.
But a trip to the Baltic is not necessary to see these often dark canvases.
Visit Detroit, Philadelphia, Toledo, Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Malibu, and others to see these impressive portraits.
That’s Italian.
One hundred years before the Dutch are all posing for portraits, something is making a splash of color in Italy. The Italian Renaissance begins circa the early 1400s, (depending on who you ask.)
It will stretch for around 200 years. It will spawn Raphael, Donatello, Titian, Bellini, Botticelli, Da Vinchi, and many more. Ohh, and that Michael guy who did quite a bit of sculpting and some ceiling painting.
Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Pasadena all have significant collections. You can also find great Italian pieces in Fort Worth, Detroit, Cleveland, Athens Ga. and more.
Besides the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, there is also the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It features a whole room to Raphael, one to Veronese and another for Titian, including his Rape of Europa.
What About the Local Masterpieces?
Of course, you can also go to art museums to see non-European works. There are Asian, African, and Australian collections, but what about artists born in America? We have a few who know (or knew) how to shake a brush.
Many know American artist Georgia O’Keeffe for her sensuous up close floral canvases. But her Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue is a poster-child for America’s west. Today you can see it at New York’s Metropolitan.
In the same museum, you can view John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X. A painting he considers probably his best. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has perhaps the most comprehensive collection of his works.
Nearby at the MOMA, you can spy Christina’s World, by American painter Andrew Wyeth.
At the Washington National Gallery of Art, you can see several by American artist Winslow Homer. Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) is one of my favorite oil paintings by him.
American artist Mary Cassatt’s favorite theme seems to be mothers and children. You can find her work at many museums across the U.S.A. One of her best known is The Child’s Bath at the Art Institute of Chicago.
While You’re There.
Make sure to take a look at Grant Wood’s 1930 painting American Gothic. Nearby is Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, loosely set in a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in 1940s New York.
Most museums dedicate some space to numerous artists, but many American artists have whole museums dedicated to them. Edward Hopper’s House, The Georgia O’Keeffe Home in New Mexico, are just a few.
And in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, there’s a whole museum to an American artist many believe to be the master of Americana. Visit The Norman Rockwell Museum. Then take a walk through Stockbridge and see if you don’t feel like you’re in one of his paintings.
And what about Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1? You probably know this painting by James Whistler of his mother under its colloquial name. Unfortunately, you will need to travel to Paris’s Musée d’Orsay to lay eyes upon her.
Its a Mod Mod Mod Mod World.
Many mistake Modern Art with Contemporary Art.
When did it start? Many say with Édouard Manet in 1863. Others say only 1900 and later. I’m not getting into that no-winner conversation.
What is it? I’m not getting into that no-winner conversation. In general, it is reinterpreting, or re-imagining traditional artistic values or styles.
Having many great home-grown artists allows Americans to see art without leaving the U.S.A.
Modernists include Rockwell, Hopper, and O’Keeffe. What? Norman Rockwell never drew an ear on someone’s forehead.
No, but Modern covers many styles, including Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Cubism, Expressionism, or just about any form ending in -ism.
After World War II, the U.S. becomes the birthplace of several new artistic movements. Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, American Conceptualism, Pop Art, and more. So you never have to go to Europe to see these styles anyway.
The Grande Museum Summary.
And we did not even touch on heritage museums. German, Italian, Greek, French, and the list goes on.
There are transportation, war, furniture, architecture, and music museums.
And one other word, Smithsonian. I guess that’s 20 if you count all of their museums and galleries.
Of the 35,000 museums and historical societies in the United States, how many can you click off your list?
So stop grumbling that you may not get to smile at the Mona Lisa this year.
Go have a good laugh with the American Gothic couple.
And if you want to support the arts, stop pointing fingers at others. Buy a museum ticket.
Unfortunately, you can not visit any of these museums in person during the spring of 2020.
But you can vicariously on their web sites (orange links) or better yet, start planning your trip today.
Read more about Baby Steps to Resetting,
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“See the World” Continued on Page T3. “Taste the World” Continued on T11.