Museum of Fine Arts

Yay! Another art museum! The first art museum of the summer was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I wrote about HERE. I have been the Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA from now on) a few times with my family and a group when I went to Boston University for the Summer Challenge.

The museum has a great Egyptian collection and currently has a quilting exhibit called Quilts and Color. Dad, who is a teacher, wanted to see this because he helps with the quilting project that his class does every year. I did not take any pictures of the quilts because, while beautiful, they aren’t really my thing.

We walked around the quilting exhibit then we headed for lunch at the Garden Cafeteria at the museum. I chose from the salad bar getting iceberg lettuce, chicken, feta cheese, cucumbers and Caesar dressing. And Emma got another barbeque sandwich!

During lunch we discussed what collections we were going to see. Emma picked the mummies and I picked the Impressionists. We ended up seeing Egyptian, Greek and Roman art as they were all in the same area. Emma was a bit freaked out to see all the nude sculptures!

This was a piece that we studied in AP Art History. Weird to see it in person!

From my time in AP Art History I gained an appreciation for most art movements, but Impressionism and Post-Impressionist are in doubt my favorites. Vincent van Gogh would then be my favorite artist (and Vincent and the Doctor definitely did not influence that in any way. Nope, not at all.).

Dance at Bougival by Pierre-Augustus Renoir. A favorite of mine!

Woman with a Parasol and Small Child on a Sunlit Hillside by Renoir. I just adore the movement in this painting. 

Then we somehow found our way to some of the modern art galleries. While I generally do not like modern art, some of these were interesting. 

These are painted shadows! It confused us for a second, "where are theses coming from?"

I especially liked the ones where the photographer took the photos like they were Renaissance portraits where the objects are made out of yarn. Did that make any sense?

See what I mean now? I also liked the huge, cloud-like hanging sculpture made out of Styrofoam cups.

I could spend days wandering through the galleries, doing audio-tours and sitting at the little café reading about art. But unfortunately I don’t have that much time. I hope that I can come back soon to go through some of the Medieval galleries.

Thanks for reading!

New York Day Two

Sorry that I didn’t post yesterday, I stayed at my aunt’s apartment last night and I didn’t have time to write up a post. But on with what I did on Saturday . . .

Saturday morning, Mom and I woke up at 8 o’clock to get a fresh start on our day. We went to Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast. I love this restaurant because everything is so fresh and made in house, and selection of spreads is wonderful. Mom and I both got the soft-boiled egg with bread, and I got a fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was a yummy breakfast but not too filling.

After breakfast we caught a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because I had really wanted to see the new Charles James exhibit. We took some pictures outside the museum and in the lobby before heading into the exhibit where we could not take pictures.

The exhibit itself was amazing. The way that the Met did it was amazing. All the dresses had screens in front of them that explained how the dresses were constructed, what inspired them, who wore them and how James cut the fabric. It was really interesting.

Afterwards, we wandered through the galleries at a leisurely pace. Mom and I went through the European sculpture garden, Asian art, American art and Egyptian art. I love taking zoomed in pictures of the heads of sculptures.

There is a taxidermied deer inside the glass bubbles!

 Mom and I then walked through Central Park to Mom’s cousin’s apartment for a mini family reunion. I got to see family members that I haven’t seen since I was really little and Mom got to reconnect with her cousins.

Since we still had our Met stickers on, so we walked back through Central Park to the museum. We also stopped at the Grom food truck for some gelato. I got a small cone with chocolate-hazelnut gelato (my favorite) and Mom got pistachio (her favorite). YUM!

When we got back to the museum we immediately went to find the Impressionism gallery. I took AP Art History two years ago and Impressionism was my favorite era to study.

Mom taking a candid picture

Doesn't this look like Benedict Cumberbatch?

We stuck our stickers to the board and took a cab to the hotel before heading to dinner. 

I found him! 

What?

Instead of going far, Mom and I decided to go to the restaurant right next door to the hotel called the Barking Dog. For an appetizer, we got the mussels with a white wine garlic sauce.

For the entrée I got a bison burger with American cheese, French fries, and sautéed spinach. It was good, but not great.

Mom and I chatted for a little bit and then headed back up to the room to rest up for the busy day ahead of us!

Thanks for reading! Please check by tomorrow for New York day four!