A Week With No Classes

So this was our last week of break and we were able to just be together in the city before Steven's classes start. We have had lots of time relaxing and have seen a couple of the museums that we wanted to see.

THE FRICK
On Tuesday we went to the Frick Museum. It was originally the house of Henry Clay Frick, who was one of the Robber Barons along with Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie. He used his money to collect art and when he died they turned his home into a private art museum. It is filled with paintings by Vermeer, El Greco, Rembrandt, and other well known painters. You would recognize lots of paintings. They have most of the original furnishings (similar to the Biltmore, since it was during the same era) and the size is great, because you can actually get through the entire museum in an afternoon. Unfortunately they didn't allow any cameras so we only have this shot of the outside.


TOYS R US
Okay...so not as impressive as an art museum. On Wednesday we went to Toys R Us to ride the ferris wheel. It is the largest Toys R Us in the world and the ferris wheel is inside! Unfortunately for Steven Edward we got stuck with the Barbie car.




THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (MOMA)
Then today we went to the museum of modern art. Apparently I missed the memo that in order to look at modern art you in fact need to BE modern art. Everything (and everybody) in this place was "modern." Even the bathroom locks weren't normal! Did we really have to go that far? I went to this museum out of obligation. I mean...I live in New York and it is free for us since we have student IDs, so we very dutifully gave an afternoon to the museum. There were definitely some things that I found a bit odd. Some of it is....um....creative. And some of it I had a hard time even calling art - we could even be a bit optimistic and say I didn't "understand it."

For example, this tent with lights on a stack of twigs, or this suspended green helicopter

or this wheel sitting beside the wooden thing with a long log jutting out of it.

Or this explanation of the painting to the right, saying that the artist just drizzled paint using his brushes and sticks, or sometimes even just directly out of the can.


But overall I do have to say I was very impressed with the MOMA. I really enjoyed the top floor. They have lots of Picasso, Monet, van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. I actually really enjoyed this museum! I enjoyed the good modern art as much as I enjoyed the Vermeers! Here are a few of my favorites....

"Starry Night" and "Olive Branches" were really neat to see. If I hadn't seen them in person I wouldn't have realized the size of van Gogh's brush strokes! It looked like he just swirled it on the canvas and created this amazing picture! That is something that you don't get when you look at the prints or posters that have been recreated.




The lilies by Monet took up the entire wall of a room. It was hard to imagine how long that would have taken to create. I went away as equally impressed with this museum as I was with the Met. But like the Met it was huge, so we will have to go back on another day to see it all.