About the museum
It's separated into 3 Pavilions where the art is, that are all around a courtyard with a café, various fountains, cactus garden and the main garden.
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| This was the museum for ants, the real one was at least... 3 times bigger |
North Pavilion
Old European art: furniture, paintings from the renaissance
Medieval manuscripts: that all resembled thick posh gold laden books that was about ad easy to read than Welsh road signs
Bronze from Cambodia: Collection of 9th-15th century bronze from the Angkor period, this was a small excerpt from Cambodia National Museum to represent the achievements of the Khmer artists. Included lots of varied intricate carvings, representing gods and day to day life. They were made by creating a wax model covered in clay that was heated up, as the wax melted the bronze poured in to create the sculptures... Pretty ace for the olden days.
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| Only took this photo because people were looking at it |
South Pavilion
The Roldan's: Brief history of this family of gifted artists and how they created their work.
Decorative arts: Collection of French furnishings from the Louis period (xiv, xv, xvi = 1660 to 1790). It's like someone had a job lot of gold and wood and went... right... let's create a really boring looking era where everything looks the same just in varied size and heights, oh and don't forget to add a big mirror!
This just reminded me of those boring National Trust houses I used to be dragged around by my parents when I was a kid at the weekends when I had no where else to go *shiver*
West Pavilion
Paintings: Millions and millions of boring same looking tripe with people I don't care for and views of random scenery.
Sculptures: Same as the above, minus the views
Germanic Drawings: Technically brilliant and had I seen this first would've been more amused depressed and lethargic looking subject matter, but I was brain dead by the time I got here.
I enjoyed the drawings of scenery, lots of attention would be given to the main subject, like a building and the rest of the scene as it got further away from the main building would dissolve and lose clarity.
Photography: Thought I had hit the gold mine in the basemen. A photographic section about Cuba! Ah, opening May 17th, I'll stick with the adjacent gallery of photographs about trees then (which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would)
Gardens
Ohh, how very lovely. A river runs from the top of a hill down into a amphitheatre of hedges (styled to look like a maze) and an audience of lavender. Lots of meandering paths showing off various flowers of various colours and a collection of outdoors sculptures that half resembled most of their titles of 'untitled' (I lost the will to appreciate art by this point) - but very peaceful place to be and let the world roll on by.
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| Water over there, hedge over there, museum over there, what else do you want, eh? |
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| Err... It is, what it is |
Conclusion
I really should have drawn the blinds and stayed in bed watching Hogan Knows Best marathon. I didn't know I should have done that at the time and I was already there, Damn.
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| The rock climbing tour wasn't offered that day |
My main issue with the place is that it didn't meet my expectations, you're greeted with this amazing plaza of brilliant white stone, fountains, areas of peace and there's such a fantastic vibe and I found myself in complete awe of the building's architecture, grounds, views (oh man, the views over the city was worth the trip in itself, in fact they were the trip)
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| Well, would you just look at that mighty fine view! |
Now, what I was expecting...
With all this modern architecture around me and regarded as the hub of art, I was expecting a widely varied and exciting trip about art of various styles and mediums and lots of pretentious looking art students murmuring pretentiously about art in peculiar shapes and perhaps wearing a beret and paintbrush in their ears.
I was greeted with your typical tourists (I can deal with that, pretentious people is never a deal breaker) but lots and lots of boring, mediocre, same looking, dull coloured, "art" or visual slog of cataract inducing drivel.
That actually isn't fair, loads of peoples were taking their time and loving the pieces on display but it was all old classic looking pieces, I can tolerate a gallery or two of portraits, washed out scenes of a boat at sea and sculptures of random people looking blankly into the middle distance. It was dull European art.
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| I feel your pain, buddy |
Don't get me wrong European art can be brilliant the first time you see it and if you're not from Europe, I used to be amazed by a man posed next a curtain or a mythical depiction of God getting a taxi, but I was desensitised by this and after 2 hours of looking at this nonsense, I shut my brain off, ran around the boring galleries and started dribbling hoping the wet floor trail would cause some slapstick entertainment... this wasn't to be.
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