Back to reality. Back home from France, a trip to see art at Musee D'Orsay, the Louvre, and other Impressionist Museums in the Normandy area. It's hard to explain how it feels to an artist to stand in the presence of the Masters I studied in my art history classes. There is a feeling of kinship, a connectness of caring about the same things. Light, color, form, meaning. My heart was full. I never tired of it in the many hours I spent looking closely at their brushstrokes, the smoothness of the marble chiseled into human form.
I am studying a Vermeer at top left. One of my favorite artists. His use of light and ordinary human interiors draw you into that scene. There were two of Michelangelo's sculptures there. I feel weirdly close to him after reading The Agony and the Ecstasy, a biography based on 400 some personal letters he wrote. Really. It is stunning what he saw in that block of marble and was able to pull from its depths. Yes. I did see the Mona Lisa. But the painting on the right was also painted by Leonardo DaVinci and I find this woman even more intriguing. She doesn't warrant being protected by glass and roped off. She is in the hall with all the others. But her eyes. They pull you in.
What a privilege it was to be able to go there! I never, ever dreamed I would. I traveled with my youngest daughter, who studied in Grenoble for the semester, a requirement of her French major. We also traveled to the Normandy area so that I could study the D-Day monuments and museums. The most powerful experience there was the Peace Museum in Caen. It was one of the best museums I have experienced. It covered WWI, WWII in Europe and the Pacific and the Holocaust in photos, text, quotes and film. We spent 3-1/2 hours there. I was overwhelmed. The contrast of the beauty of art juxtaposed with the horror of what humanity is capable of is something that I will be building my next exhibit around.
Back to the studio. I can't wait to get my hands in the paint! I love my life and am so grateful.
I am studying a Vermeer at top left. One of my favorite artists. His use of light and ordinary human interiors draw you into that scene. There were two of Michelangelo's sculptures there. I feel weirdly close to him after reading The Agony and the Ecstasy, a biography based on 400 some personal letters he wrote. Really. It is stunning what he saw in that block of marble and was able to pull from its depths. Yes. I did see the Mona Lisa. But the painting on the right was also painted by Leonardo DaVinci and I find this woman even more intriguing. She doesn't warrant being protected by glass and roped off. She is in the hall with all the others. But her eyes. They pull you in.
What a privilege it was to be able to go there! I never, ever dreamed I would. I traveled with my youngest daughter, who studied in Grenoble for the semester, a requirement of her French major. We also traveled to the Normandy area so that I could study the D-Day monuments and museums. The most powerful experience there was the Peace Museum in Caen. It was one of the best museums I have experienced. It covered WWI, WWII in Europe and the Pacific and the Holocaust in photos, text, quotes and film. We spent 3-1/2 hours there. I was overwhelmed. The contrast of the beauty of art juxtaposed with the horror of what humanity is capable of is something that I will be building my next exhibit around.
Back to the studio. I can't wait to get my hands in the paint! I love my life and am so grateful.
