Legion of Honor

Went to the Legion of Honor art museum with Breb today. It was the first Wednesday of the month so admission was free.

The first few rooms had a lot of similar paintings; Mary and her baby, Jesus, or John the Baptist leaning on a stick. I prefer landscapes to people. Some boring tables covered with grapes and fiddles. Eventually we made it to a room filled with cabinets and desks and short tables. These interested me. They were all covered with intricate carvings and tiny plates of gold and marble and bronze. There were only a few pieces of furniture that were practical though. You wouldn't want to eat cereal over most of them.

There was one room entirely devoted to Rodin. My favorite piece of art of the Legion is a work of his. It's a statue he shaped of Claude Lorrain, a Baroque artist famous for his landscapes. Rodin's Lorrain stands, with a pallet in one hand and the other holding an invisible paintbrush, with his head turned to the side and his mouth frozen in a stunned circle. The little plaque said Rodin wanted Lorrain to appear taken by a sudden and beautiful sunrise. It was easy to imagine.

Another room held two globes under glass. They were old, you could tell from the written language on land and sea, and the terrible proportions of the continents. One of them didn't even include the America's, only a long curving sea full of giant lobsters and sea bears. I wish I could have looked more closely at the globes.

Outside was the most famous piece there, Rodin's Thinker. Like David, this is one of those larger than life statues that make you cringe at your own inability to create art. It was up on a tall pedestal and the sun was extremely bright, so it made it hard to stare and think along with the giant green pensive man. So I looked closely at his rough feet. Feet and hands are usually the most detailed parts of sculptures anyway.

We were short on time but we'll be going back next month, on the first Wednesday, because we're cheap.