Catching up

Been a while, for which I apologize. Last week I really tried to spend less time in my dorm and more out in Vienna. I even explored some by myself. We all skipped class on Friday and took a bus to Prague. As we were leaving, I realized I really did not want to leave Vienna. I notice sometimes I call it my Wien in my head, as if it was a cuddly teddy bear or something that could be owned. I have grown rather fond of being here. There's even been day dreams about finding a way to stay through July. Or just a week more. I love taking the subway. I love the crowd weaving. I love that there are bigger pathways for bikers than for pedestrians. But I have to come home. I miss my parents and David. There'll be a time to come back and stay as long as I want. If I have my way, it'll be sooner than later.

Though I'm a very friendly person and can make friends easily, I've found that since high school, it's been rather difficult to make friends. I mean, I have friends. But it's different than high school where you spend every day for five out of seven days a week with them. And stuck with the same people as I am day in and day out, I've found that there's ease and closeness again. Being rather insecure, it's been kind of nerve racking. Being also extremely analytical of myself and other people's actions, almost to the point of illusion sometimes, I generally "read into" things. I've been so relieved that there's been less of that here. While I still worry whether these girls like me or whether I'm annoying, there's actually a greater part of me that is just having fun. I even chose going to the famous Demel cafe with the girls rather than AN ART MUSEUM by myself (it sounds lonely, but frankly I prefer it that way). I tried their sachar torte which isn't really my thing. The cakes I've tried here are rather dry. Just an excuse to try everything else, really.

In the window of Demel, they generally have a fabulous cake. For instance, this is a dress. MADE ENTIRELY OF CAKE. It was crazy beautiful.

The next day I did go back to the Kunsthistoriches Museum. Oh. My. Gosh. I cried only once. I had walked through countless rooms of Greek sculpture, jewelry, pots, pottery, etc. And I turned a corner thinking I'd find an end to the marvels. Nein (German for no). More rooms. The prettiest rooms I've ever seen. I immediately started to cry, because they had a WING of Greek, Roman, AND Egyptian things. It was truly a walk through time.

 I loved how expressive and life like this sculpture was. Doesn't he look like an animation character?

 A Grecian pot. The owner had inscribed their name in the copper and had etched a design. I couldn't imagine having such ornamental cooking utensils. But then again, the pot could have been something very valuable to it's owner.

 The set up of this room with simultaneously creepy and intriguing. You walked amongst the rows of heads, being inches away from these stoned faces. I stayed in here for a while.

 Ceiling of the prettiest room ever.

How can one person intake all that stimuli, all the richness, the extent of the collection, the majority of which is beneath the exhibits? You simply can't. You do the best you can. But I felt a deep sense of lost that I couldn't interact with everything in a memorable way. I felt this way after one wing. Then I walked over the Dutch paintings. Then I walked into the Italian painting collection. Rooms upon rooms. You can't imagine the splendor and grandeur of it all. I stayed for hours. Circling, coming back to things, sitting on the comfy sofas in every room, glaring at people being inappropriate in such a sacred building (like touching Egyptian stone busts. Um no. You don't do that. You just don't.)


There were at least three rooms of Rubens (if you want a bio go here). One of many things he is famous for, is the stature of his women. Rubenesque figure has been thrown around recently to describe the full bodied woman, with fleshy curves and intoxicating sensuality.

 This was my favorite Ruben's in the museum. It recalled this painting in the Italian exhibit by Titian.

 Ruben's Medusa. Another favorite of mine. It was so life like, sometimes you had to look away and get your stomach under control. Seeing as he lived in the 16th century, art historians are positive he would have seen a beheading thus could paint one as he saw.

This tiny room in the corner, that if you weren't paying attention, you could literally walk past was full of Rembrandt. A name most people will recall. The NCMA held a Rembrandt exhibit which was disappointing. It focused on the legitimacy of paintings claimed to be Rembrandt while neglecting to mention why there's such a fuss about whether certain paintings were painted by Rembrandt. I like Rembrandt's self-portraits since he painted them frequently throughout his life so it's a rather fair documentation of his style progression; I am certainly not alone by my fascination with his self portraits. They are heavily referenced and studied. Three rather famous ones were in the Kunsthistoriches museum. In my favorite movie, Wild Target, a hilarious British film, a Rembrandt had been stolen from an art-loving real estate thug by a rambunctious klepto played by Emily Blunt (incidentally a favorite actress of mine..have you seen the Young Victoria? stunning.) After purchasing what he believes is a real Rembrandt, the real-estate thug says that now "a record of one man's fearless conversation with his most profound self" is now his. Standing in front of those self-portraits, I can understand the desire to own such a record of deep contemplation.

As an aside, I highly recommend Wild Target. It has something for everyone. It's also on Netflix instant streaming for those fellow procrastinators. 

After seeing those stunners, you walk into here. Overwhelming right?

Oh, yeah, then you have a Vermeer. Another famous Northern painter. And more info here.

Enough Northern Renaissance. Though I could post pictures for days. Moving onto the south..

 

Winter and Summer. I saw the four seasons at an exhibit in Washington D.C., and have since been rather infatuated with Arcimboldo.

Well kind of. Arcimboldo moved around a bit. (http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/biography.html)

Spanish painter Velasquez. Crazy. A room full of his paintings. (http://www.diegovelazquez.org/biography.html)

 Caravaggio. (http://www.caravaggio.com/preview/home.html)

One thing I love about art is that if you are educated enough, you recognize references and allusions. This is not exclusive to art, since writers and filmmakers do the same thing. But it's exciting for me none the less. Mostly the reference is more subtle, but I love seeing the connections between things. See below. The first one is older, the second done later and more masterfully. The subject? The vicious yet hypnotic Salome. Insert Oscar Wilde quote.

One last glimpse of my beloved museum before I left for home. Oh and the gift shop. Museum gift shops are far too alluring for me. Just ask my Mom. Though I was content with two bookmarks of my favorites, a pretty sheet of a paper (You should see my paper collection; it's nearly unmanageable), and a magnet (the magnet sounds lame, but our refrigerator at my apartment is rather boring). All the books were in German so none for me, which was upsetting. I left in a state of complete bliss. Overwhelmed, yes, but in such a good, pleasurable way.

Earlier that day I had seen the Freud Museum and the Schlatzkammer or the royal treasury of the Hapsburgs with our group which very very cool, so crawling into bed that night, tired but happy, I had dreams of diamonds, Egyptians, Freud's couch, and Ruben.