Philly Art

Museum of Art

This will be my last blog post about Philadelphia. If you have been reading, you can see that there is a lot to see in the city. We didn't see everything. We did see just about everything we wanted to without any regrets on the stuff we missed. In a day or so, I'm going to arrange the posts in an order where they make the most sense (obviously logistics should be the top post not the last)

There is a lot of art in Philadelphia. I understand not everyone is into art, museums, or art museums. That said, in my ever lasting quest to see greatness, art museums combine a lot of awe inspiring things under one roof (as opposed to driving for twelve hours to go from Mt. Rushmore to Old Faithful). We went to three art museums and there are more in the city. The three we went to are the Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, and the Rodin Museum.

Rodin Museum-

The Rodin Museum is by far the smallest of the three museums. It

Appropriately named,
The Kiss

is only two rooms. The museum is dedicated to Auguste Rodin. The man that started the museum was a Rodin fanatic and started buying up Rodin sculpture. The museum contains the largest amount of Rodin's outside of Paris. We went in the afternoon after a long day at the zoo. We were more than happy to sit in the small museum and take a load of our feet.

The most famous piece Rodin did is not in the museum, but outside. The Thinker sits on his pedastal near the walkway to the museum. Inside the museum, there are many other sculptures. To get in, you walk past his "Gates of Hell" doors. On it are many characters from Dante's Divine Comedy. Inside, there are multiple sculptures. They are spaced out. The rooms are open and do not feel cluttered. The most famous piece inside is "The Kiss". I certainly am no expert on sculpture, but I loved going to the museum, and would have loved to have had time to learn more.

Suggested donation (admission) is $10 however it is just

suggested, so you could go for free if you so choose. It was free for us with our Philly Pass

Barnes Foundation-

This was a private collection of a millionaire named Doctor Barnes. Barnes started getting into art so he had a friend go to Europe and buy some pieces. After a little while he became addicted and went to Europe himself  to art showings and buy from dealers. He ended up with one of the largest collections of Impressionist paintings in the world. You will see many Picasso's, Cezanne,  and Matisse. However, they will be hard to find. There are so many Renoir's in the building that your eyes will go into sensory overload. Dr. Barnes intended on buying these paintings up to put them into a collection for the public's enjoyment.

This is a large museum and if I was retired I'd spend a whole day there. As a tourist, you try to take in what interests you and move away from the ones that don't. This museum is unbelievable if you want to see late 19th century masters.
Cost is $25, but free with the Philly Pass
Of note, when we walked in we were greeted by the nicest people. In most of the rooms you will see a volunteer docent. They were among the nicest people we met on vacation.

On the down side, photographs are not allowed in the galleries, so I didn't get to take any photos.

Museum of Art-

Van Gogh

The Museum of Art is a ten minute walk from Barnes and Rodin. It is a huge building. The most famous thing to do is climb the Rocky steps and throw your arms in the air. But believe it or not, on top of the steps and through the glass doors there is an art museum.

The museum is two stories and set u plike most art museums by period and continent ( 1100-1500 European for example). Since no one can enjoy everything in a large art museum Laurie and I completely skip the stuff that we do not enjoy. We have no desire to look at Contemporary Art. Nor do we waste much time looking at black and white photographs. I don't look at Asian pottery much, but I will go through the Asian rooms because there are usually samurai swords and statues of Buddha. This gives us more time to enjoy American and European artists.

In the America's I found one Gilbert Stuart and a Bierstadt.

They had multiple rooms dedicated to furniture, pottery, and antiques which I breezed right through. However in the European section we counted TEN Monet's! Along with Claude, there were multiple paintings from famous artists such as Picasso, Cezanne, and Van Gogh. Laurie and I spent quite some time in those European rooms.

I also like the very old paintings from the end of the dark ages. They are usually religious paintings that tell a story. One such story I've seen multiple times is St. George killing a dragon. There was a painting of this story here. Of course, there are many paintings dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Jesus (Madonna and child).

Sword to the left is a Viking Sword in the
Museum of Art

The museum is really awesome. I couldn't believe there are 10 Claude Monet's there. He is by far my favorite Impressionist artist. I don't care if it is cliche' and unoriginal, but I enjoy his masterpieces the most. Cost for the museum is $20, but it free with the Philly Pass. Wednesday's and Friday's the museum is open until until 8:45

My favorite Monet in the museum