Off to the museum

[fbhjr]

Today my wife and I went off to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. When we were there last winter, we got a membership so we can get in for free and get discount parking.

I had really wanted to see the Assyrian exhibit., which opened this week. Sadly, no pictures allowed in it.
It was pretty cool. Lots of the big wall carvings. Most of it from the British Museum and taken from a dig in the 1850s.
But...
It felt like a sanitized version of the Assyrians to me. These guys were known for their sacking of cities, killing everyone, deporting whole populations. There is a little of that shown. There was one carving that showed a siege of a city. It showed the armored battering rams and such. There was another of a battle showing they cut off a rival king’s head.
But, most of it was about the guard spirit carvings, hunting carvings, and religious ritual things.
I’m not saying it wasn’t cool to see. It was.
But, to me it was kind of like an exhibit on Germany in the 30’s and 40’s that concentrated on their opera.
For example, when God told Jonah to go to the Assyrian capitol and tell their king God was unhappy with them and would punish them, Jonah got on a boat and went the other way.
Piss off God or the Assyrians?
He thought it was safer to piss off God. And, that’s in the bible, a book with a lot of “fear God” in it.
OK, the whale changed his mind, but you get my point.
Anyhow, I’m still glad we saw it. It was cool stuff. If sanitized.

We went through some of the rest of the museum (where they allow pictures) afterwards. We concentrated on the areas we didn’t see last time we were here.
There seemed to be a lot of the “masters” works out that weren’t out last time. My wife thinks it is because in the fall most museums don’t get many people and this is their way of making a splash.

Now I am an engineer. I failed art class. (Literally in the 8th grade when given a project to take something artistic out of a magazine and I took a picture of a train. It was a painting of one. Still don’t know why it didn’t count...)
So, what I think of art isn’t always what is intended by the artist. So, I’m giving my impression.


To me, this is Rodin’s girlfriend playing under the sheets. I liked it because I play under the sheets like that myself.


I liked this one because I thought it was a mocking picture. Strangely, I turned out to be right on this one. Monet had his wife dress like that and put on a blond wig to make fun of the fascination with Japan going on in Paris at the time. (I thought it had to do with the little demon in the kimono, but that isn’t mention in the plaque, so maybe that’s just me...)


This one reminded me of my wife. It’s a sad painting. So, that’s sad. But, I do think it looks like her.


My wife seemed to get more out of these then I did.


I pointed out the big silver drum to her as she’s really been into the drum thing lately. But, she said she thought a silver kettle drum would be “too much” for our apartment. Probably true.


You may think she’s looking at the sliver. But, she’s not. She’s reading about the tapestry.



We both liked this one.



This bust of Thomas Jefferson he thought was “Startlingly lifelike” when he saw it. So, I guess that’s what he looked like. I’ve been re-reading his declaration of independence lately, so it seemed appropriate to see him there today.

I don’t think of the museum as just what hangs on the walls. I like the place itself. For instance, I love these stairs.



Generally, I’m not so big on portraits. I prefer art that tells a story, and portraits seem to posed and still for me. But, this one caught my eye as we walked through the American portrait gallery.

What’s that she’s holding?

The plaque just said when it was painted and what her name was.
I think she probably ran some 1700’s western martial arts group like my wife. I’ve seen a similar smile on my wife when she has a good pole arm at hand...

This is another one where you might not know what my wife is looking at:

She’s looking at the plaque for the light she likes.

But, she likes the other things too.



I think that chair is really funky. I really wonder what it’s like to sit in it. I’m not sure if it would be comfortable or not. But, they don’t let you try.

I liked this wall sculpture because it was 3D and looked different at the angle.



Now, as some of you know, my wife has started a D&D game set in a South Pacific type environment. So, we went through the (very small) Oceanic art area so she could get some ideas.


Cool shield


I liked the way the eyes glowed on this boat prow idol. And, it isn’t lit in any special way. It is some sort of shell for eyes that catches the light really well.
You can see from another angle it isn’t so bright.



They have some cool stuff there. But, not as much as the Met had....


This was a cool mask.

OK, this is where the warning comes in. The next mask they say comes from a secret men’s society and women aren’t allowed to see it.


So, don’t blame me if you look at it. I don’t make the rules, i just pass on what is on the plaque.
So, women, avert your eyes from the next two photos.


(Like women walking through the place couldn’t see it. Wait, they’re back...)


This was for putting on the peak of a hut.


Ceremonial canoe paddles.


Clubs. Maybe you can’t tell how big these are. In D&D terms probably a “staff”, not a club. Still pretty cool carving.


A “treasure box”. Cool, now our characters know what to look for!


I thought this was strange but cool. i guess the chiefs of some tribes get such ornate tattoos that take so long to put on that they have to go on a liquid diet for the duration as they can’t move their mouths. This is a funnel for feeding them while getting the tattoo.


It did get crowded as the day went on. It was good we got there early as there weren’t any waits to see the Assyrian exhibit. By one in the afternoon you needed to wait for your reservations to go in.

So, we decided to leave.
But, first, I went to the gift shop.
Mostly for the Assyrian exhibit gifts. The MFA doesn’t have a very good gift store for the kind of things I like. (Reproductions of 3D things.) But, for this exhibit they did. It was in a special gift store on the second floor.

I got on the escalator to go up to the second floor. It is a fairly fast escalator designed to bring a lot of people to the exhibit quickly. As I got to the top, the man in front of me dropped his ticket to the Assyrian exhibit.
It landed on the top step of the escalator. The top step moved into the housing, and it fell onto the next step, staying where it was.
So, the man got off, turned around, and tried to grab it.
I was coming up, and the only way out was blocked by this guy.
So, I had to start walking down the moving stairs backwards to keep from hitting him.
He was not a dexterous man.
Good thing there wasn’t anyone behind me, because I had to keep up by backward, downhill trot for almost a minute.
“Thanks for letting me get that,” he said when he finally grabbed it and got out of my way. “That didn’t look easy.”
“I’m glad you got your ticket,” I said.

I bought a lot at the gift store and headed out. Rather than take the escalator back down and risk doing it again with my stuff, I took the stairs.
But, down the back stairs I found a glass display designed to look like it goes on forever.

So, that was cool too.

We came home in the rain, and ate leftovers.