Today is Byron's birthday! Happy Birthday Byron!!!
Dan had a few days off from work and Nice does Carnivale after Ash Wednesday for some reason, so we went on and adventure to Nice. We arrived too early to check into our hotel, but left our luggage and wandered out to find some museums to visit. It was raining, so indoor time was important.
Visitors were not permitted to take any photos, so if you want to see any of Matisse's artwork that is housed here, you'll have to visit. Or check out their website. A small rant on this. I try very hard to respect various museums, churches, and other exhibits when they say no photography. It really upsets me then when other people are taking photos when they are forbidden to do so. I bring this up because pretty much everyone else was taking photos, even though it was told to us when we purchased our tickets and signs were posted all over the museum that photography was prohibited. I may just be frustrated because I had some fantastic snarky comments for many of the art pieces that you won't get to enjoy. Anyway....
Our next museum was the National Museum of Marc Chagall (Musée National Marc Chagall).
I was allowed to take photos here.
Abraham and the Three Angels (1960-1966)
"Three angels, divine messengers, have come to announce the imminent birth of a son to the elderly Abraham and Sarah. Chagall highlights the three angels to whom Abraham extends his hospitality. The composition is structured by the horizontal line of the bench in the foreground punctuated by a series of vertical lines. The painting's dominant color is red, the color of life and love. The worn gold of the icons also gives way to a layer of underlying red. In contrast, the whiteness of the three angels' wings appears dazzling, in a nod to the icon in Andrei Rublev's Trinity. In the upper right-hand corner, Chagall depicts the rest of the story: Abraham leading the three angels who, upon divine order, are to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah."
Noah's Ark (1961-1966)
"The Flood is a classic theme in Western painting. Yet this is the first time an artist chooses to represent the inside of the ark rather than its construction or the ship within the context of the flood. The destructive waters seem to have taken over this canvas creating an aquatic vaporous atmosphere. Animals, women, and children are depicted with many stances and expressions, sheltered inside the boat. Noah stretches out his arm so that the dove may take flight through the opening in in the middle of the painting. The dove will later bring back an olive branch, a sigh that the waters have subsided."
CHICKEN!
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1960-1966)
This painting uses a deep purple in a continuation of the nocturnal atmosphere of Jacob's Dream. Dawn will soon be breaking, and Jacob falls to his knees before the angel after a battle that has endured the night. The angel appears to be blessing Jacob as it touches his forehead. Pushed to the outer edges of the painting are various scenes from the patriarch's life: in the upper left-hand corner is his encounter with Rachel at the well, while along the right-hand side, his son Joseph appears stripped by his brothers and thrown into a well. The sorrow of a father sobbing into the tunic of the son he believes to be gone is communicated through Jacob's stooped position and prostration. Chagall generally uses this stance for the prophets announcing the misfortunes of the Jewish people.
Notice how they don't mention the chicken?
La Rose Bleue (1964)
This is a test piece for a stained glass window for the Metz Cathedral in Lorraine, France.
Song of Songs IV (1958)
There was a series of these. I liked this one the best.
Leaving the Chagall museum I saw these iridescent blue berries. I haven't seen anything like them outside of a Lisa Frank notebook. Anyone know what they are?
We had dinner in a nice little restaurant. This is the desert menu - left is French, right is English. Dan was amused that tiramisu is tiramisu, but he was more amused that creme brulee lost all its accents marks in going from French to English.
This concludes our adventures for today.
"The Flood is a classic theme in Western painting. Yet this is the first time an artist chooses to represent the inside of the ark rather than its construction or the ship within the context of the flood. The destructive waters seem to have taken over this canvas creating an aquatic vaporous atmosphere. Animals, women, and children are depicted with many stances and expressions, sheltered inside the boat. Noah stretches out his arm so that the dove may take flight through the opening in in the middle of the painting. The dove will later bring back an olive branch, a sigh that the waters have subsided."
This painting uses a deep purple in a continuation of the nocturnal atmosphere of Jacob's Dream. Dawn will soon be breaking, and Jacob falls to his knees before the angel after a battle that has endured the night. The angel appears to be blessing Jacob as it touches his forehead. Pushed to the outer edges of the painting are various scenes from the patriarch's life: in the upper left-hand corner is his encounter with Rachel at the well, while along the right-hand side, his son Joseph appears stripped by his brothers and thrown into a well. The sorrow of a father sobbing into the tunic of the son he believes to be gone is communicated through Jacob's stooped position and prostration. Chagall generally uses this stance for the prophets announcing the misfortunes of the Jewish people.
Notice how they don't mention the chicken?
This is a test piece for a stained glass window for the Metz Cathedral in Lorraine, France.
There was a series of these. I liked this one the best.
"In 1971, Marc Chagall designed a mosaic for his future museum. Installed on one of the outer walls of the Biblical Message room, its elegant colors reflect in a pool. On the wall covered with mortar - a mixture of sand and cement - the mosaic artist Lino Melano, following a model whose dimensions were provided by [Chagall], placed a set of tessarae. This term refers to both the stone cubes used for the background and the cubes of glass paste used for patterns. Chagall came regularly to check on the progress of the work and to ensure that the inflection of the line and the refinement of the colors were as close as possible to [his] vision.
Chagall chose a biblical subject for his mosaic. A character of the Old Testament is in the center of the work: the prophet Elijah taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. Elijah reaches the heavenly world: he is surrounded by the constellations of the zodiac. Around him, in a concentric circle, appear animals, human figures, and objects each associated with the twelve signs of the zodiac. In antiquity, these patterns were found alongside the chariot of the Sun, Helios. By blending references from biblical and ancient worlds, Chagall delivers a cosmic vision of the universe, bathed in Mediterranean light."
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This concludes our adventures for today.
