Up a little later than usual for a fun 8:30 breakfast with Ken and Cacci at the IHOP right next door - it was packed because it was National Pancake Day (free pancakes for charity). Then Wendy and I headed south to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. There were a couple of huge banyon trees in the park next to the museum:
The museum has a nice collection, including 3 paintings by Monet:
I do love his "London fog" works.
Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London, 1904
Other pieces include
Claude Monet - Road to the Village of Vetheuil, Snow, 1879
Claude Monet - Springtime in Giverny, Afternoon, 1885
a lovely Tiffany lamp - Daffodil Lamp with Iris Base, c. 1906
Edward Moran - Fishing Village, New York Harbor, c. 1875
Jasper Cropsey - Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, 1858
David Johnson - View of Jackson, New Hampshire, 1852
Thomas Moran - Florida Landscape (Saint Johns River), 1877
Worthington Whittredge - Landscape with Woman Carrying Washing Towards the River, c. 1880s
These are examples of how different images can look, and why, if you are interested in seeing art, it is important to actually get to the museum and actually "see the art"! The framed images are photos I just took, and the unframed images are from the museum's website. In this case (I think the paintings need to be cleaned), the website images are better than my photos; almost all the time, the opposite is true, and the quality of the display is far superior to what you can see online.
Jasper Cropsey - Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, 1858
Thomas Moran - Florida Landscape (Saint Johns River), 1877
They also had a Monet exhibition - Monet to Matisse - On The French Coast
Unfortunately they have a "no photography" policy for exhibitions, and they only had one Monet - The Customs House at Varengeville, 1897
I had seen the painting originally at its home (the Art Institute of Chicago) a year-and-a-half ago (Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013)
Which brings me to another aspect of art - not quite "quantity versus quality", but something along those lines. You can see that the image I have from Chicago is poor quality - I actually grabbed it from the video I took in a room they have filled with Monet paintings. The room is fabulous, and having all those works in one place is a wonderful experience - you get to be "rolled in the surf" of beautiful art. That type of experience, however, really does diminish the impact of each individual piece - as you can tell, I did not think the painting was "worthy" of taking an individual photo. But when I just saw it alone in St. Petersburg, it was great!
Which is maybe why I feel it is OK for me to drive dozens, if not hundreds, of miles to see just one or two individual paintings (ALWAYS CALL AHEAD if you are going to do this, to confirm that they are on display!)
After St. Petersburg, we drove north an hour to visit my sister Cary and her guy Frank, who live in Spring Hill. Because of our late-big breakfast, and I knew we were going to Bahama Breeze tonight, I didn't want a great big lunch. Blessedly, Cary and Frank did not want to go anywhere, so we had smoked salmon and cream cheese on crackers around a table outside - it was perfect. After our visit (and a new gift of Cary's brownies), Wendy and I returned to Clearwater by the "shore road", and got some nice glimpses of the Gulf of Mexico. A quick dip in the pool at Cacci's place, then an early-dinner at Bahama Breeze (I like that place!), and then back to the Super 8 for the end of the day. Thank you God for a great day!
Music today:
David Bowie - Best of Bowie (2002)
The BoDeans - Best of the BoDeans (2001)
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