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| Maze |
During winter break, my mom took my sisters, my brother, and me to the Getty museum. There were many different paintings and sculptures to see and learn about, but we only had time to see just a a few of them. We also strolled around the garden which had many different flowers, and one big cool maze.
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| Getty Center |
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| The Getty Center |
The Getty Center trust purchased 750 acres of the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in 1983. The Getty Center opened to the public in December 1997. The museum is built on top of a tall mountain and the only way to get to the Center is by tram. The view from the top was gorgeous. We could see the entire city, from downtown Los Angeles, to the beach. It was such a clear day, that we even saw Catalina Island. Since it rained the day before, we were able to see snow capped mountains in the distance.
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| View of Los Angeles |
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| View of Los Angeles |
At the museum, we took a docent guided tour of the four pavilions starting from the more recent paintings and finishing with the oldest collection. Here are the collection highlights that the docent pointed out.
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| Irises |
The first painting we saw, was an 1889 oil painting called Irises by a Dutch painter named Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent Van Gogh painted this painting a few months after he cut off his ear, and the townspeople took him to the hospital. While he was recuperating from mental illness, he painted the Irises. This is the only painting by Van Gogh in the entire Getty museum.
In the same time period, we saw a couple of pastel paintings by a French painter named Edgar Degas. We saw two of his paintings, both of dancers. Degas often went to the opera and he painted their performances. The two paintings we saw were called Waiting and Taking a Bow.
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| Waiting |
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| Taking a Bow |
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| Portrait of the Sisters |
The docent then showed us an 1821 oil painting by a French painter named Jacques Luis David called Portrait of the Sisters Zenaide and Charolotte. The sisters are nieces of the famous warier, Napoleon Bonaparte. When David painted the portrait, Charolotte was fourteen and Zenaide was eighteen. The painting was sent out to men to let them know that Zenaide was ready to get married.
Next, the docent showed us two paintings by the Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. The first was an oil 1632 painting called Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold Trimmed Cloak. No one knows who the girl is, but people think she is a relative or someone who worked for Rembrandt. The same girl is seen in a second painting sitting on top of the bull. This painting was also painted in 1632 and is called The Abduction of Europa. The Greek God Zeus, transformed himself into a bull, stole a women called Europa, and took her to the city of Crete.
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| The Abduction of Europa |
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| Portrait of a Girl |
Then, we went into another gallery and saw an oil 1530 painting by the Italian artist Dosso Dossi called
The Allegory of Fortune. An allegory, is a story that represents something and in this painting everything is about fortune. The women represents fortune, and she is sitting on a bubble. The bubble represents that fortune can change at anytime just like a bubble can burst at anytime. The women is also holding a horn filled with food to show all the fortune she can bring. The man represents chance, and is holding lottery tickets for a chance to win big.
Just like the allegory, this painting also went through a lot of changes in fortune. It was first found at a flea market and purchased for a small amount of money. The buyer strapped the 7 foot painting to the roof of his car and brought it to Christie's auction house in New York City. The experts recognized that it was a famous painting and the buyer sold the painting for millions of dollars.
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| The Coronation |
Finally, the docent took us to the final pavilion to see really old iconic paintings. We saw an altar piece probably created for a small chapel in 1390 called
The Coronation of the Virgin with Saints The gold color on the painting was made from very thin layers of gold called gold leaf. What is interesting is that all the faces look the same, but the halos have the names of the saints.
After the docent tour, we went to see French furniture from the year 1748-1770. Here are some of the photos that we took.
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| Bed |
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| Bed |
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| French Room |
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| Tapestry |
We also went to have some fun at the children's center and made some masks. Don't we look scary?
Finally, we had lunch in the garden. At the bottom of the garden there was a flowering maze of 400 red azalea plants.
What paintings or furniture did you like the best?
