The Philadelphia Museum of Art was our main interest in the city...a large and impressive collection in a great building. Happily, a ticket to the museum gets you in for two days, so we were able to see what we wanted to see in a relatively relaxed manner. I can think of a few other great museums that might benefit from a similar strategy.... We were there on September 17th and 18th, saw most but not all of the collection, and agreed that a return some day might well be in order. As usual, the pix below reflect our interests more than anything else.
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The PMA, the Rocky Steps in the foreground; heaven for those of us
who like architectural symmetry |
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| We assume someone at the Louvre is working on a LEGO representation |
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Really tying things together...this is the original Gaudens Diana
that stood atop the old Madison Square Gardens building in the
early 20th; we saw the half-sized version at the Met way back
in '24 |
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The PMA, like other major American museums, is known for its rooms,
which acquaint the visitor with many different aspects of a given style,
culture, epoch, what have you...we are now in an Asian temple |
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| And another |
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| A dwelling...so similar to representations at the Met... |
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| A (Chinese) scholar's study |
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| A scholar's Lingbi type rock |
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| Satsuma incense burner, pierced openwork |
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Moving right along now, we are at the beginning of
European art...St. Christopher Carrying the Infant Jesus,
1440s. by a follower of Jan van Eyck; click to enlarge
and note the landscape in the sky... |
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Many museums are nearly dismissive of northern art...all their attention goes to the (Italian) Renaissance...above is the most intelligent blurb I have seen on the topic in a museum...and the collection was about to get a lot better |
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Robert Campin, Christ and the Virgin, c. 1430; a contemporary of van Eyck, also among the first to begin fooling around with oil painting |
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Jan van Eyck, St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, 1430; the painting could not be larger
than 5"x8", yet the detail is...van Eyck...note the heavenly and earthly landscapes, the feather-dancing
Jesus crucificado...the flora...made my day! Oil on vellum, mounted on panel |
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Another room...the cloister from the Abbey of Saint Genis des Fontaines,
13th century |
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Rogier van der Weyden, The Crucifixion, with Virgin Mary and John
the Baptist Mourning, 1460 |
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Ghirlandiao's copy of Memling's 1465 Man of Sorrows;
decades later, Ghirlandiao was Michaelangelo's teacher |
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| Attributed to Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1500 |
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Attributed to Bosch, Two Shepherds and The Retinue of the Magi,
early 1500s |
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| Windows from a Hospitalier Chapel, near Beaune, France, c. 1400 |
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| Painted oak Crucifixion scene, southern Netherlands, mid-15th |
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| Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1465; very early... |
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In the museum's main hall, perhaps a dozen huge tapestries, designed
by Rubens, woven in Paris, 16th; Constantine's triumphal entry into Rome |
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Another room, various elements from the Stiegerhof, a manor house
near Villach, Austria, mid 16th |
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Altarpiece from the chapel of the Chateau of Pagny, Burgundy, France,
mid 16th |
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Jan Breughel the Younger, The Allegory of Sight (Venus and Cupid in
an Art Gallery), 1660 |
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Titian, Portrait of Archbishop Filippo Archinto, 1558;
the veil may have represented Archinto's thwarted ambitions
or his death; regardless, a testament to Titian's painterly skill |
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| Rembrandt, Not a Self-Portrait, c. 1650 |
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Steen, The Doctor's Visit, 1660; we love Steen's moralizing humor;
apparently doctors still made house calls in the 17th century |
