The New Yorker: Russia's Museum Cats

These curators of St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum have the right idea. Perhaps this is the wishful thinking of a person without a pet, but I would love to work in an office full of cats...

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/russias-museum-cats

Much as dogs were humanity's first security system, cats were our original pest control. In an environment full of delicate artwork, where thousands of visitors circulate every day (including, I'm sure, many children), it makes sense that instead of rat poison and traps, the museum staff are resorting to this age-old solution to rodent problems. And, of course, they're providing a loving and safe home to a veritable squadron of cats, many of whom previously lived in less-than-healthful circumstances in the museum's heating system.

The article doesn't mention that these cats (their predecessors, really) were first brought to the museum, which was then a palace, by decree of the Russian empress Elizabeth. They were specially imported from Kazan, a city whose cats were reputed to be the best mousers in Russia. These cats lived in the palace for many years, until the feline population was virtually decimated during World War II. About twenty years ago, a program was begun to care for the animals, and in recent years, in addition to maintaining its existing cats, the museum has even begun to adopt cats in need of a home.

The museum director is noted to have said that "they are the spirit of the place. The museum’s genius loci.” It's a curious but apt comparison; genii loci were ancient Roman guardians of specific locations (usually homes), whose goodwill was usually secured through piety and sacrificial offerings. These cats seem to have become such a part of the fabric of the museum that without them, the Hermitage Museum would be a different, less feeling place. But as long as they continue to be loved by staff and visitors as they are, the cats appear quite content to stay in their unusual abode.

Boston

I went to Boston this weekend to visit one of my oldest friends (we've known each other for most of our lives). It was wonderful to experience a different city with someone who knows the lay of the land. Here are some highlights of the weekend...

My trip apparently coincided with a major sporting event, so there were people wearing Boston gear all over the city. Someone decided to clothe the Public Garden's decorative brass ducks:

And this is what looks like a ballroom in the main branch of the Boston Public Library:

It's a stunning space, with wood panelling and frescoes running the entire length of the walls. I could imagine a medieval ball being held here.

This library could give the New York Public Library at Bryant Park a run for its money. It has an interior courtyard that looks like it was airlifted from Renaissance Europe:

I'm reminded of the courtyard of the Frick Museum. I could imagine Juliet leaning on the rail of the balcony on the left, beckoning to Romeo in the garden below. I've never been to Verona, but in my mind, it looks something like this.

Boston is also home to the world's only Curious George store! I didn't know this a few days ago.

This was taken on a bridge over a particularly scenic stretch of the Charles River:

I believe it was the Longfellow Bridge, which was named for the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was one of the preeminent poets of his day; one of his most famous works, "Paul Revere's Ride," is a classic in the American canon. There is a plaque in his honor, and the poem is engraved on a stretch of the footpath on the bridge. I didn't think to get a photo of it at the time; I was too busy walking backwards reading the poem!

And that was Boston. It's such a quaint place (cobblestone streets! trolleys!) with so much history tucked into the fabric of the city.

New York in Pictures

The past two weekends, I had two of my friends from college stay with me for a few days each. We explored the city, of course. It's always refreshing to experience one's hometown from a non-New Yorker's perspective. Much like how one gains a different understanding of one's native tongue in teaching it to a student of the language, there are certain aspects of place that are easily overlooked if one is immersed in it every day, that

Julie and I went for a bit of a hike in Central Park. We happened upon this interestingly-shaped copse of trees, and I couldn't resist a photograph:

Naturally (no pun intended), I was reminded of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, "The Road Not Taken." (A pity it's not autumn; it would have been a beautiful picture with the thicket melting red and yellow around her.)

I also took her to see Alice, one of my favourite statues in the Park:

One of these days, I will sit by (on?) the Alice statue and reread Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (It's somewhat fitting, methinks, that there's a little girl (wearing purple, Julie's favorite color) climbing on the sculpture in the background.)

There were a few highlights that I ended up visiting twice in as many weeks, but they were absolutely worth seeing more than once. The High Line is, for instance, one of my favorite places in New York. This is probably the cleverest billboard along the path:

And yes, it's situated above one of the few street-level car parks in Manhattan (which appears surprisingly empty).

Lucas and I also spotted this intriguing bit of text writ large on a dark wall across from the High Line:

It's ironically (or perhaps intentionally) located next to a tavern/restaurant called The Half King (its sign is partially visible in the lower left).

I also went to the Met twice in as many weeks, because if you have out-of-town visitors, they absolutely must see the Met. We ended up in the musical instruments section twice as well, and Lucas and I had the same thought about this sculpture:

Air guitar! Given the style of the statue and the position of the hands, there was probably a lyre or a harp at some point. A disappointment for all of the Guitar Hero players out there, I'm sure.

We spotted this on the subway, and my first thought was naturally, "it's a policy tub!" (A debate thing. I did LD, PF, and college parli, mind you -- not CX.):

Julie had a bit of a laugh at my expense. I don't mind at all. :-)

I love having friends in from out of town. Come visit me more often!

R.I.P. Met Admissions Tags

Just a few days after my trip to the Met, I saw this article in The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/arts/design/metropolitan-museum-sheds-its-metal-admissions-tags.html?hp

Starting today, the Met is retiring its iconic metal admissions tags in favor of admissions stickers. While it's a logically sensible decision, the child in me mourns the passing of an era. I hung out at the Met in high school (I probably went there about as often as most normal girls went to the mall), and amassed quite the collection of Met tags:

Yes, I have a special bowl for them. I think I'm still missing one or two of the "official" colors (and I likely have a few colors that have since been discontinued):

It'll be a bit of an adjustment next time I go -- I'll receive a sticker, and stare at it for a second in bewilderment, before realizing that the colored tags with their Leonardo Ms are no more.

The Economist: Piero della Francesca at the Frick

I saw this article about the Piero della Francesca exhibition at the Frick, and went to see it over the weekend:

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21571857-introducing-early-renaissance-master-american-audiences-divine-splendour

The show is well worth seeing, though I admit to being somewhat biased because I'm a fan of the Frick. It's one of those small, very specifically curated museums that a visitor can see in its entirety in just a few hours. It's worth visiting more than once if you live in New York, though -- there are always a few special installations (often pieces on loan from other countries, such as the above) -- and it's the sort of place one visits to soak in the ambiance. It has this beautiful central courtyard vaguely reminiscent of the villas of Classical Rome (covered, though), and a few surprisingly well-known works, including some lesser-known works of rather famous artists.

Anyhow, the Piero della Francesca exhibit. If you're at all interested in Renaissance art history, and you're in the City, go see it.

NYTimes: Medieval Chess Sets at the Cloister

These look really awesome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/arts/design/the-game-of-kings-medieval-ivory-chessmen-from-the-isle-of-lewis-at-the-cloisters.html?_r=1&src=dayp

I'm in New York for another week or so. Anyone want to go see them with me?

Edit: I didn't actually end up going (I'm coming home for spring break, though!), but I was reading the exhibit blog, which is fascinating.
http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2011/the-game-of-kings-medieval-ivory-chessmen-from-the-isle-of-lewis/exhibition-blog

The Google Art Project

My sister sent this to me last week, and it's just about the coolest thing I've seen in a while (yes, I'm a museum geek):

http://maps.google.com/maps?ftr=sv.museums&utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=mapshpp&utm_source=en-mapshpp-na-us-gns-svn&utm_term=museums

An article about it (from The Atlantic):
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/the-google-art-project-makes-masterpieces-accessible-to-all/70634/

Basically, it's bringing Google Maps Street View into some of the world's most famous and amazing museums. How awesome is that?

Italy Travelogue, Part 3: Vatican City

If you're ever in Rome, the Vatican is definitely worth seeing. It'll take a day, at least, but do go. It's chock-full of centuries of artwork and architecture, and not all of it is Catholic; some of the most famous classical sculptures are there. The pièce de résistance, of course, is the Sistine Chapel; disappointingly, but understandably, we were not allowed to photograph it. We did take pictures of lots of other things...

The Vatican Museums are home to some of the greatest artistic treasures in the world. Exhibit A -- Here's the marble of Laocoön and sons being strangled by Athena's sea serpents, the one that Pliny the Elder wrote about (Yes, I took Latin in high school, why do you ask?), one of the most celebrated statues from antiquity:


The story goes, Laocoön was a Trojan priest of Poseidon, who was in Poseidon's bad books because he took a wife and sired children (this is relevant only because his terrible luck and grisly death is sometimes attributed to the god's displeasure). Anyhow, he was one of the few Trojans who suspected that the Trojan horse was a ruse, and proposed that they set it on fire. Athena summoned a pair of giant snakes to strangle him and his sons. The Trojans then assumed that the horse was sacred (and that anyone who dared to harm it would meet a similarly nasty end), and so they brought the horse into Troy. I'm not sure who had it worse, Laocoön or Cassandra.

We also saw Raphael's even more famous The School of Athens:


This is often considered to be not only Raphael's finest piece, but also the very spirit of the Renaissance in painted form. The term itself, "Renaissance", means "rebirth", and the great artists and thinkers of the Renaissance felt a deep intellectual kinship with their Greco-Roman peers. It is only fitting that the spirit of the era is captured as Greek institution.

I had fun squinting up at it and trying to identify all the people in the painting, but I didn't get very far. The two figures in the middle (under the central arch) are Plato and Aristotle, in the red and blue mantles, respectively. Plato is supposed to be modeled on Leonardo da Vinci (and with that beard, I can see the resemblance). Michelangelo is in the middle on the bottom step (purple shirt and red pants, with his elbow on a box, looking bored), as a Greek painter (what else) of some importance. Raphael painted himself in, too, though I didn't find him until we got home. He's in the upper right, where the bottom of the arch meets the top of the pillar, next to the old man in the green cloak (he's wearing red and purple, too).

Fast-forwarding several centuries in art history, we come to Canova's Perseus, who is depicted in the style of the classical hero (read: naked), holding up the head of his slain foe (Medusa). Here he is:


I thought he looked rather familiar, and that's because he is. Canova made another Perseus, which is almost identical, and that one resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so I've seen it before.

Canova's Perseus is one of the few post-Renaissance marbles to be exhibited so prominently in the Vatican Museums, and rightly so. He sculpted Perseus in the tail end of the Baroque era, when everything was excessively embellished (to the point of seeming nauseatingly garish), and manages to capture the hero triumphant, simple and clothed in little besides his own achievement.

The Vatican Museums also house a collection of artifacts of non-European antiquity. They have an excellent Egyptian wing, and also one with Near Eastern art. My sister and I were much amused to find, in the Assyrian section, this piece:


It's Birdman! (My sister is a better bird(wo)man than I am, I know; I have a terrible poker face.)

It's one of many long-standing points of reference for us. She currently attends the same middle school I did, and one of our favorite teachers is the inimitable Ms. Springer, archaeologist and historian extraordinare, who taught us sixth grade history. (She did a wonderful job of it, too; I was immensely surprised to find, in my Ancient Empires course reader, a passage from "Wen-Amon Goes to Phoenicia", which we read in sixth grade.)

Birdman was one of the most memorable characters from our Assyria unit. I still remember taking a field trip to the Met to see him; I thought he was enormous, back then. I spotted him in the Vatican all these years later, and we couldn't resist.

Of course, no trip to the Vatican is complete without a visit to St. Peter's Basilica. The lines were not as terrible as we'd feared (thank goodness!), and the inside was every bit as spectacularly grand as we'd imagined. I made a beeline for Michelangelo's most famous Pietà:


You'll have to click on it to get a closer view, and even then, it's still quite small; I was pressed up against the plexiglas wall, but I was still about a dozen feet away from it. Apparently, some crazy person tried to attack it with a hammer, and ended up chipping off Mary's nose, and so they won't let anyone get anywhere near it anymore. (Something similar happened to the David (who lost a few toes), and so there's a plexiglas shield around him, too.)

One of the first things anyone notices about the work is that Mary looks incredibly young. There's some debate about why this is; we know that Michelangelo made her deliberately so. Some say that it's an indication of her purity and favor with God; others say that she's actually supposed to be a young mother, and that she's holding her baby and having a premonition of her son's fate.

On the subject of Pietàs, I edited the Florence part to include some pictures from the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo that I oddly couldn't find the first time around, so scroll down if you're interested in one of Michelangelo's other Pietàs.

Well, that's Italy. It was a lot of fun (and a historian/erstwhile Latin student's dream). There was plenty we didn't get to see this time around, so I'd definitely want to go back sometime in the future!

Italy Travelogue, Part 2: Rome

Rome is big. Not quite as big as New York (what is?), but after Florence, Rome seemed huge. Of course, it was the place to be (in Europe, at least) for several centuries, way before any of the other major metropolises even existed. We procured four Roma Passes, which are designed for tourists and include discounts to major attractions (museum tickets are expensive!) and free public transit, valid for three consecutive days.

Four days in Rome was definitely not enough (especially since one of them was spent outside of Rome, technically, in the Vatican). Unlike Florence, which rose to prominence in the Middle Ages, Rome was the center of a vast empire in antiquity, and has several millennia of history on Florence. (Huzzah for Ancient Empires!)

The afternoon we get there, I drag them to see the Pantheon. (I'm a sucker for Greco-Roman mythology, but this one's really worth seeing.) It also houses the work of several Renaissance masters, as well as several of their graves, most notably that of Raphael. This is an interior view of its dome:


The Romans were really architectural geniuses, given their level of technology. It's incredible that the Pantheon survived several regime changes and wars. Of course, one of the reasons it wasn't quarried for marble or anything was that it was converted to a church in honor of the Virgin Mary and assorted Christian martyrs. It stands in stark contrast to many of the temples in the Roman Forum (dating from the days of the Republic) and the later Imperial fora; most of those now lie in ruins, much of their marble facing carted off to adorn other facades. Even so, the Roman Forum is well worth seeing. Here is a photograph of the Temple of Romulus:


This was one of the most intact of the temples in the Forum (and indeed, in all of Rome), mostly because it was converted to a church, that of the saints Cosmas and Damian, two Greek brothers, to stand in stark contrast to the Temple of Castor and Pollux, also in the Forum. This is, unfortunately, all that's left of the latter:


Freestanding monuments and buildings not constructed of marble were also generally in better repair; take, for instance, this photograph of the northwestern corner of the Forum:


In the middle of the picture is the Arch of Septimus Severus, commemorating the emperor's victories against the Parthians. He was a strong leader and a military man, which was good for Rome, given the corruption and political disunity of the preceding reigns. He also sponsored numerous public works, among which were several arches like this one.

The brownish building on the right (the one with three windows above its main entrance) is the Curia Julia, the Senate building built by (somewhat ironically) Julius Caesar. (He never saw it in its current form, as it was completed during the reign of Augustus.) The height of its ceiling is particularly impressive from the inside.

While I'm at it, here's another Augustan monument:


My sister and I are standing in front of the Ara Pacis (English: Altar of Peace). It was built by the Senate on the occasion of Augustus's subjugation of Gaul and Hispania, to celebrate the Pax Augusta, the peace that the emperor brought about by uniting various far-flung European peoples under imperial rule. My father, when I explained the altar's history, aptly remarked that Augustus was rather like the first Qin (秦) Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), who unified China. (Personally, I think Augustus was a lot friendlier. Also, Augustus's overall geopolitical achievement was probably somewhat less impressive, given that he was building upon Julius Caesar's successful military campaigns, whereas the Qin Emperor had to conquer the other six Chinese states, which were more or less equal in power to his at the start of his campaigns. Not to say that Augustus wasn't awesome, because he was.)

We also spent an afternoon at the Capitoline Museum, where there is a great glass-roofed hall housing some remarkable and historic bronzes. This one is the very famous equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the only such statue of a pre-Christian emperor still in existence. It survived the Christian fanaticism of the Middle Ages mainly because it was thought to depict the Christian Constantine; this sort of imperial statue was quite common in the Roman Empire, but all the others were melted down.


It's greenish because it used to be prominently displayed on a pedestal outdoors, but then people moved it inside and put up a replica instead, because of precipitation damage.

This one, from the same hall, is the equally well-known bronze of the Capitoline Wolf, with Romulus and Remus as suckling infants:


Its origins are still uncertain, with some art historians contending that the wolf was first cast in the Etruscan era and others (a minority) arguing that it was made in the 13th century (both parties agree that the twins were a later addition). Either way, it's an iconic sculpture in the modern consciousness, where Rome is concerned.

This is getting ridiculously long. I'll write a third post on the Vatican, and lump in the Renaissance stuff with it. Stay tuned for travelogue part 3!

BBC: Churchill's Butterfly Garden, 70 Years in the Making

This is a must-see, if you're ever in Britain (Kent, specifically):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11025174

From the picture accompanying this article, the estate looks beautiful. Butterfly conservation is increasingly important in industrialized nations, and such a conservatory (with such an illustrious patron) can only aid efforts therein.

It's interesting how famous (and infamous) leaders often had such incongruous hobbies; aside from Churchill, the Emperor Hirohito would have preferred to be a marine biologist rather than an emperor (and was especially saddened by his ejection from the Royal Society), Nero famously played the harp (fiddles weren't invented yet), Henry VIII was a composer of some talent, and Marcus Aurelius is better remembered for his philosophical writings than for his statecraft.

Obama plays basketball, I hear.

Romantic Gardens Exhibit at the Morgan Museum

I do believe I've mentioned the Morgan Museum before. It was the private estate of the millionaire banker J. P. Morgan before he bequeathed it, in his will, unto the people of New York as a museum. It always has interesting exhibits, even though it's much smaller than, say, the Met. There's one in particular that's showing this summer, that I especially want to see. It's on the landscaping and outdoor architecture of manor estates during the Romantic period:

http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=27

NYTimes: The Scoop (iPhone app and website)

Just in time for the summer:

http://nytimes.com/thescoop

It appears to be quite comprehensive. I'm looking forward to trying it out. I intend to explore the City a little in the next few months, and this might be just the thing. If you're a New Yorker, or are here for any duration, do get the app, and let me know what you think of it (and whether you want to go adventuring!).

NYTimes: Tips on Scoring Discounted Tickets to Musicals, Plays, Museum Tours, &c. in New York this Summer

A handy article for anyone in New York for the summer:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/travel/28linestrategy.html?hpw

Entertainment in the City isn't cheap; Broadway shows, operas, concerts, &c. are mostly beyond your average college students' budgets. The ones that don't cost as much, like museum tours, Shakespeare in the Park, that sort of thing, all sell out ridiculously quickly; I know people who have waited in line, in ungodly hours of night and early morning, to try to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. (Yes, the part of me that laments the decline of literacy of the masses is greatly heartened to hear it, even though it means that I didn't get to see Othello last summer.)

Chances are, though, that after this article, people will flock to these once-secret box offices, and these tips will grow obsolete within the summer. Ah, well.

Al Jazeera: Art Thefts in Paris

Picassos and Matisses stolen from the Musee d'Art Moderne. Mon dieu... and the recovery rate for this sort of thing (especially intact recovery) is shockingly low, so it's an especial tragedy.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/05/201052013110430506.html

I understand the obvious motivations -- these are extremely valuable pieces -- but if the thieves are intelligent enough to get past museum security, one would think that they'd also consider that these pieces should be tremendously hard to sell, especially after the news gets out that they've been stolen. It's like trying to pawn the crown jewels; they're rather too distinctive. (Actually, it's even more difficult, considering gemstones can be re-set and metals can be melted down, but any alteration to a famous painting drastically decreases its value.)

NYTimes: The Elgin Marbles, a Test Case for Antiquities Repatriation

This is personally interesting to me because the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a formative part of my middle and high school years. I knew the Met well enough, at one point, that I didn't need a map to navigate it (being in California nine months of the year has eroded my abilities thereto).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/arts/09abroad.html

It's in part an issue of cultural identity. If the modern state can unequivocally lay claim to a certain cultural inheritance, methinks, then it has extremely valid cause. If it cannot show that it is the only logical heir to a particular classical or historical society (this is generally rather rare, as most cultures, if not political or social entities, have been fairly consistent through the centuries), then others with equal claim, and even those representing the interests of the greater scholarly or artistic community, often claim a physical right to said objets d'art. It's particularly interesting because Classical Greece has spawned so many heirs of the mind; practically all of Western Europe, and the Western world at large, can trace its philosophical and cultural roots to Greco-Roman thinkers.

There is also the question of integrity of historical sites. Of course, no one should go and take apart a centuries-old facade and ship the various pieces off to museums around the world (as much as that happened in the past, and on a smaller scale, continues to happen today). But should a monument that is falling apart be restored on its original site, or should the pieces be distributed to museums (especially pertinent if the originating state does not have the technology or resources to restore the monument, and foreign teams end up taking over the project, often with the intention of appropriating some of the artifacts for their own countries)? Does physical proximity to the historical site add significant value?

There are loads more questions to be asked and answered. Discuss (yes, I read and respond to comments).

NYTimes: The Morgan Museum Gets a Makeover

When people think of museums in New York, they can typically name only a few of the biggest and most famous: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (locals and connoisseurs call it, with affection, "The Met"), the American Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Modern Art (the MOMA). The City [sic] is particularly rich in museums of all shapes and sizes, from the Frick Collection (a personal favorite) to the kid-friendly Sony Wonder. I have been to the Morgan Library and Museum quite a few times (they had an excellent exhibition of medieval illuminations this past summer), and I'm very glad they're doing some restoration on the place -- hopefully it will attract more visitors post-operation!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/arts/design/12morgan.html

I'm glad they're not making huge changes to the rotunda; the mosaics are wonderful, and I'd be sad to see them go.