visiting the norton simon museum

Norton Simon Museum

I loved this museum! I thought it was going to be a lot smaller. I've never gone to a museum where they have actual paintings so I didn't really know what to expect. 

Okay so i went to the museum with my aunt Evelyn and my boyfriend Juan. We started out in the 14^th-16^th century gallery. It was amazing how many paintings there were. I was not surprised at all to see that this gallery was full of religious paintings. There were paintings of Christ, the Madonna and Child, and lots of different saints. I thought it was cool how in a lot of the paintings with saints in them you could see a hint of a halo. At first I didn’t even notice it until my aunt pointed it out. The galleries that i liked the most were the 19th century one and the modern/contemporary one. One of my favorite artist is Vincent Van Gogh and I enjoyed looking at some of his art pieces in the 19th century gallery.

 

 

Mulberry Tree 1889 - Van Gogh

 As i was walking through the galleries i noticed that there were many flower type paintings. I like nature and i love flowers so i found these two beautiful flower paintings that i really liked.

Flowers in a Glass Beaker, c. 1620 - Binoit

This still life represents a popular format employed by Dutch artists early in the 17th century. The crisply defined, tight blossoms are arranged in a compact bouquet in a glass beaker decorated with drops of molten glass. Although each blossom is very precise and exactly copied from nature, the bouquet itself is a work of the imagination. It contains flowers that bloom during different seasons. The almost symmetrically arranged flowers, aligned across the picture plane so that each one may be seen.

Vase of Lilacs, Roses, and Tulips, 1863 - Courbet

Gustave Courbet painted this still life while staying at a wealthy land owners house. The estate housed many gardens with exotic flowers and local flowers that were unfamiliar to artist from the east. The environment engulfed him and essentially inspired him to paint flowers.The Purply-white lilacs, pale yellow roses, burnt orange tulips and small red poppies burst forth from the canvas. Their lightness of color and thick green in between makes them pop. The flowers also come forward because of the placement in a dark, non-descript background.

The first painting is painted on copper, the second is painted right onto a canvas. The second painting is very unorganized and its unclear what flowers lay in between all of the green. I think that's what makes the painting real as opposed to the first painting that is simply made up. To my surprise i find them both equally bright. i thought that since the first painting is older it might be more dull in comparison to the younger painting. i do think that overall the second painting stand out more because it filled up most of the canvas space. The second painting would have that ability to if it was bigger or had more flowers i feel like the background is taking the spotlight away.

So overall this little trip was fun but exhausting. There were so many paintings to look at and each painting had so much detail it was impossible to take a good look at each one.