Art Appreciation - Memorable Experiences

Seeing magnificent art in person...YES. Too many to list.

Three favorites came immediately to mind when I read this post, all sculptures. The Madonna of Bruges, a marble sculpture by Michelangelo of Mary with the Child Jesus. The Release from Deception (Disinganno) by Francesco Queirolo in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples and (also a Michelangelo) the Rondanini Pietà in the Museum of Rondanini, Sforza Castle in Milan. What an interesting and fun question. I understand the "being brought to tears" part! Thank you for posting this, Zoe.

A few that stand out: Seeing Leonardo's "Lady with an Ermine" in Kraków. many years ago. (1981??) It was the first time I was stunned by the difference between seeing a painting "in person," and seeing a photo or reprint. I had always loved art, but this experience transformed me.

Michelangelo's "David" in Florence. Again, seeing it in person is nothing, nothing like viewing photos of the statue or seeing reproductions. That experience was so powerful.

Bernini's sculptures at the Borghese in Rome. Especially the Daphne and Apollo, and the Persephone. How that man could get so much emotion in the faces and figures of those women is astonishing. And seeing the marble melting into soft flesh - unbelievable.

Great topic Zoe. Here's the thread you referred to: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/art-live-in-person-versus-reproductions-and-new-finds

Give me some time for this one. Thoughts are swirling and you've got me wide awake!

Great topic.

I stood in front of Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's and cried. It was so beautiful - he just brings stone to life (or death).

I second the Berninis in the Borghese. Apollo and Daphne in particular.

Then, the sculpture garden at the Musee Rodin on the most perfect sunny and crisp October morning during a spontaneous weekend in Paris last fall.

The Slav Epic by Mucha in Prague, stunning works on massive canvases, the exhibition is now away from Prague and doing a tour of Japan.

The three that come immediately to mind, because they stopped me in my tracks, are:

• The medieval mosaics in Ravenna.
• Rodin's Burghers of Calais, which I believe I saw at the Rodin Museum in Paris.
• Pedro Berruguete's Annunciation at the Cartuja de Miraflores just outside Burgos, Spain.

Thanks for your posts!

I am going to keep posting as well.

Mosaics in San Vitale in Ravenna - imagining the church lit only by candlelight, making the gold mosaic tesserae flicker and leap to life.

The Mona Lisa - I had never thought much of it until I stood in front of her, the luminosity of the painting, the brushstrokes, the small size of the painting, she is exquisite.

Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peter's Basilica - I wept over that one, too. The youthful face of Mary, as though remembered through the eyes of a child.

Seeing great painting in person has one major advantage over even the finest reproductions . All painting , from watercolor , to oil ,direct from the tube , has a textural quality that imparts a three dimensional effect that is lost in reproductions . With architecture , an analogous equivalent is the sense of scale . However good a photograph of a building may be , only by standing before it , can one sense the true depth of the architect's vision . A few favorites for me ( I will have to restrain myself ) - The Botticelli Tondo " Madonna of The Magnificat " in The Uffizzi , Gustav Klimt's " Adele Bloch - Bauer I " ( AKA The Woman in Gold " ) in the Neue Galerie in New York , and in The Rijksmuseum ( Amsterdam ) - " Mary Magdalene " by the Venetian , Carlo Crivelli ( paintings like this were influential in Klimt's Golden Period ) Architecture - Kirche Am Steinhof - Otto Wagner's masterful Jugendstil church in Vienna of 1913 . While a bit off the beaten path , The Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt ( St Petersburg ) , also of 1913 , a Byzantine Art Nouveau masterpiece left me speechless . pictures here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_Naval_Cathedral . One last - The fan vaulted ceiling at King's College Chapel . Cambridge , England .

Sorry , a bit of sculpture - Canova's " The Three Graces " Two versions , The Hermitage , St Petersburg and The Victoria and Albert , London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Graces_(sculpture)

Seeing fabulous art in person is a huge part of why I travel--the texture of the brush strokes, the colors, discovering works I had never heard of, all of it makes me very happy indeed. I was thrilled to find myself alone with Klimt's The Kiss at the Belvedere--for a good 10 minutes it belonged solely to me. Something that isn't quite art that filled me with joy was seeing Charlotte Bronte's manuscript for Jane Eyre at the British Library--the immortal words, "Reader, I married him." written in her own hand.

I've been waiting to see the Sistine Chapel for 50 years, and expect/hope that it will live up to my half-century of anticipation when I finally see it in May.

For now, my memorable art experience came at the Orangerie and Orsay museums in Paris, starting with Monet's "Water Lillies" and some of the other beautiful impressionist works there. But it was when we got the Orsay that I found myself most unexpectedly captivated and moved by the collection of works by Monet, Renoir and so many others. By this time, my wife and son had seen enough paintings, but they waited patiently as I moved from one canvas after another after another, simply absorbing the beauty. It was a marvelous moment for me.

Wow, what a topic! It's hard to know where to begin, but I'll try because it's such a good one.
1. The rosetta stone. (Not really art, but a powerful experience to see it.)
2. The statue of Venus de Milo in the Louvre (after seeing photos for decades, I was blown away by the beauty of the real thing.)
3. The painting Birth of Venus in Florence (again, after seeing photos for years and joking about "Venus on the half shell," I was stunned at how lovely it is.)
4. Anything painted by Van Gogh. (Each time I visit a collection, I come away with a new favorite!)
5. Walking across fields in Turkey with bits of statuary poking out of the dirt and wondering what undiscovered masterpiece might be hiding there.
6. Seeing the Acropolis lit at night.
Thanks, Zoe. It will be fun to read everyone else's postings.

Yes - thanks for the reminder - The Burghers of Calais is another piece that so perfectly captures human emotion.

Ah, the Musee Rodin. Amazing to be up close and personal with the original works: The Thinker, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and the Gates of Hell.

I did respond in the other linked thread, but neglected to mention the Bruges Madonna by Michelangelo at the Church of Our Lady, a bucket list item for me since High School art history. Also, the Isenheim Altarpiece at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar. Both of those were awe-inspiring and emotional for me to see in person.

This isn't one single painting, but I always enjoy the way dogs and cats are depicted in classic artwork, particularly when their presence is incidental to the main subject. In many pictures of feasts or large gatherings, even in religious works, it seems you will always find one of two dogs either observing the scene with key interest, or staring intensely at some food just out of their reach. I just love these little slices of life, and they demonstrate to me that the fundamental relationship between humans and dogs hasn't changed much over the centuries.

At the Bavarian National Museum, I had one of those "a-ha!" moments that suddently cast new light on a subject that I realize I had not understood up until then. I'm sure all the other Catholic school veterans out there remember the "Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary". You'll recall that the 4th mystery is "The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple". All those years of Catholic education and it never occurred to me to ask "Why did Mary and Joseph need to bring baby Jesus to the Temple if he wasn't being baptized?" Well, there's a rather graphic paiting in Bavarian National Museum titled "Die Beschneidung von Jesus". Ooooh... that's what was going on. The nuns never told us that key detail...

Stained glass-St. Chapelle in Paris(epecially combined with a concert), Chartres, several churches in Florence
Boo to the overzealous Protestant reformers(and I am a Protestant) who destroyed much of the stained glass in England.

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, at night when the tower seems to glow. Particularly beautiful when the Christmas market is set up below in its shadow!

I have seen a number of wonderful work of art in Europe and elsewhere, but one moment that stands out was in St Paul's Cathedral. I was sitting on one of the benches in the Whispering Gallery and looking up at the paintings on the underside of the dome. Just at that time someone was playing on the organ down below. So I had the combination of wonderful artworks, and a nice (accidental) soundtrack.

Easily for me it was the Moses in San Pietro di Vincoli. Brought some childhood experiences full circle.

Having lived in a number of major cities in the Northeast U.S. as well as Chicago, I've been spoiled by having close proximity to some world class collections right here at home. Also, the multiple visits to a lot of them as a child, teen and now adult definitely helped shape my appreciation of spending a fair amount of time trying to squeeze in as many museums as I can when I travel overseas.

Memorable experiences for me outside of Europe would include:

Egyptian collection at Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and visiting the Met for the first time as a kid after reading "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"
Edgar Degas "Little 14 Year Old Dancer" sculpture at Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Any Edward Hopper paintings displayed as part of a permanent collection or a special exhibit, particularly the ones he did of Cape Cod
"Sunday at La Grand Jette" at The Art Institute of Chicago
The Smithsonian's collections at the National Museum of the American Indian in DC as well as the collection they had in NYC
Too many pieces to mention from The Barnes Collection that was uprooted from it's suburban location and moved to Philadelphia
Alexander Calder mobiles at Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia's Magic Gardens and the many mosaics on the streets by Isaiah Zagar
The aboriginal and modern Australian art at the Ian Potter Centre/NGV in Melbourne

Within Europe:

Capuchin Crypt in Rome (creepy, but how they displayed thousands of bones is art)
Getting up close to the statues of the Moors that strike the bell in St. Mark's Square
Seeing Toulouse-Lautrec paintings while in Paris
"Maturity" by Camille Claudel at Musee d'Orsay in Paris
"Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" at van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam
Fashion and costume collections at the Victoria & Albert in London

Guernica Picasso Sophia Reina Madrid
La Liberté guidant le peuple Eugène Delacroix Louvre
Le Radeau de la Méduse Théodore Géricault Louvre
The Garden of Earthly Delights Bosch the Museo del Prado in Madrid
Claude Monet's Nymphéas Orangerie Paris
La Sagrada Familia Gaudi Barcelona
Aqueduct of Segovia

Malta is a bit of an underrated place on this forum but it has many absolutely stunning masterpieces from Mattia Preti and Caravaggio. They are largely of a religious nature (e.g, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist), which is very much in the vein of the Catholic prominence and the role of the Knights of Malta in the country's history. The St. John's Co-Cathedral is an amazing sight to see and features Mattia Preti's works. It made an outside impression on me because I was not familiar with his work before I traveled to Malta, so it was a very nice surprise.

https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+john's+co-cathedral+malta&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWpIvj36LSAhXhKsAKHXhDAPgQ_AUICSgC&biw=1575&bih=845

I saw Guernica virtually alone in a small room at the Met in NYC in the 80's, it was so old and dark & violent looking- something not conveyed in prints of it - Picasso really got the reaction he wanted.- fascination & disgust.
I love virtually any Jackson Pollack I see, especially at the Pompidou , & Chicago art institute.
Agree the stained glass windows at Chartres are great. As are all the tombstone sculptures at Bascilica St.. Denis in Paris.
My favorite painting is iOlympia By Manet, I love the scandal associated with it.

About paintings almost all those by Jan van Eyck in Bruges, Ghent and the National Gallery in London. Many by Rembrandt like An old Woman Reading or A Man in Armour during the exhibition of 2015 in Amsterdam.

One of the highlights in Rome was the interior of the Pantheon, never seen such a subtle use of marble before and I came back several times during my week long stay to enjoy it again and again.

My visit to Barcelona proofed not becoming a fan of Gaudhi, but the German Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe was an absolute delight and had an interesting talk with one of the employees. Or a few months back my visit to the new head office of the port authority in Antwerp. Seems to be designed by Zaha Hadid, never heard of her before but it has something special as many of her other projects.

Temples and their setting at the countryside near Ninh Binh and Hué in Vietnam.

Monet's giant waterlily paintings at the Orangerie.

Gaudí's Casa Batlló in Barcelona - photos just don't convey the impact.

The first big one for us I guess would be the Colosseum...Rome was the first place we ever went...we arrived mid-afternoon and by the time we found where we were staying and got sorted out, we were a little pooped, so we only walked the area a little, just enjoying being in Italy. So the very next morning, we got ourselves oriented and walked to the Colosseum - just seeing it in person was amazing, and I think was our..."OMG, we're in Rome" moment.

I'm not usually a big art person, but for some reason, the artwork in the Santa Maria dei Frari church in Venice really struck a chord. Perhaps it was the 'romantic' thought of Canova's heart being buried there...I don't know...but I just enjoyed it so much...

Being in the Raphael Rooms in fife Vatican with only my small walks of Italy tour

Being first in to MOMA and being alone with Starry Night

The Bernini sculptures in the Borgese. Photos REALLY don't capture sculpture, especially when it's properly lit like it is there.

Las Meninas at the Prado

Seeing the Alhambra from a distance my first time in Granada

Mine is a slightly different take on this. I LOVE finding art 'in situ' in addition to art in museums. True public art! Stumbling across the statue of Bodecia with her marvelous horses outside a tube station in the heart of London (I think it was Westminster station) is a perfect example. And the perfect selection for that location (you have to know the story of Bodecia to understand. I also love street artists- chalk art, whether 'copies' of real works or originals, musicians, etc.

I include music in the category of 'art', too. We also had a wonderful experience with our daughter, who had just started to learn to play the violin at the time this took place. We were in Salzburg and it was the night prior to the opening of the festival. We had just eaten supper and were walking- taking the long way back to our hotel, when we heard lovely music. We thought it must be an outdoor performance somewhere near, but it kept getting closer. Soon the Checz national orchestra walked into the middle of the plaza, playing their instruments. They gave a free hour long concert! What a wonderful 'gift'! We've also heard marvelous choirs and organists practicing in churches in Austria, England and other places.

O dear, where does one start?

Bernini's "David" in the Borghese; all tensed muscles, pursed lips and furrowed brow of do-or-die determination. He doesn't know, at that final, enormously risky moment, if his aim will be true, and neither would we if we hadn't read the story.

Vermeer. Any Vermeer, although I especially love "The Lacemaker" (in the Louvre) And "Woman in blue reading a letter" ( saw on loan to the Minneapolis Institute in 2015.) His use of light is breathtaking, and I always wonder what his subjects are thinking, reading or writing about; what their story is.

Jan van Eyck: "The Ghent Altarpiece" (Saint Bavo, Ghent) and "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele" (Groeningemuseum, Bruges.) All his ridiculously intricate detail and use of symbolism!

"Pardon in Brittany", Gaston La Touche (Chicago Institute of Art.) http://www.flickriver.com/photos/kebpix/5344131416/
The bonnets of the pilgrims look like a flock of doves surrounding a 19-century tableau of the flight to Egypt. There's something oddly moving about this piece that I can't explain.

Santos, various chapels in New Mexico. A fascinating genre of devotional folk art, they're humbly, colorfully beautiful and engaging in their rough simplicity. If you happen to be in Santa Fe, there's a terrific long-term exhibit of antique santos at the New Mexico History Museum.

Wept a few tears over poor Lady Jane Grey's prayerbook in the British Library, and came darn close at Gian Bernini's grave in Santa Maria Maggiore. It's hard to believe that one of Italy's most gifted sculptors is commemorated only by a pitiful little slab of stone.

LOL, I see I've listed quite a lot of "churchy" things...and I'm not especially religious!

We've had some memorable musical moments, too. One that comes to mind was in Notre Dame, Paris. There happened to be a choir from an American university giving a performance. We sat and listened to the beautiful young people singing beautiful music in beautiful Notre Dame. A young woman in the Choir had tears streaming down her face as she sang, so overcome was she by the experience. I felt much the same.

My memorable moments involve my children.

The first was at Musée d'Orsay in 2013. I heard my son, age 8 at the time, exclaim "Hey! That's Haystacks!" It was at that moment I realized what a great job our parent-run elementary Art Appreciation program does in exposing the kids to art.

The other memorable moment was watching my daughter at age 14 or 15 just stand in front of Monet's Water Lilies here at the St Louis Art museum and just look. And look. It was a quiet day at the museum and it was just her taking it in.

I guess the my memorable moment was when I first saw the Mona Lisa at age 15.

Amyk, thanks for bringing up the family moments. One of my favorites was being in Piazza San Pietro in Roma late one evening, and my then-ten-year-old goddaughter (who loves architecture and studies Irish dance) danced around the fountain. The police eventually told us to leave because they were about to chain the exits.

In 2013 at the Albertina in Vienna, we happened upon the works of Gottfried Helnvein. I had never heard of him, but I was fascinated by his work, and certainly new his work from the Scorpions' "Blackout" album.

Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela at the National Gallery in London

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/akseli-gallen-kallela-lake-keitele

Seeing it online does not do it justice. The beautiful colors, the brush stroke across the lake ... it was like no painting I had seen before and I was stunned by how beautiful it was.

So much art , so little time .

Alone with Mona Lisa at the Louvre was a pretty good one.

Another was Rijksmuseum with my 7 year old daughter. She studied the art carefully and had a great appreciation, while her older brothers just wanted to keep moving.

What popped to mind was when I saw Michelangelo's Pietà at the World's Fair in NYC. I was in 4th grade and it was a long time before I went to Europe. I would like to see it again as I expect a different reaction now that I am a mother. Then it was powerful and fueled an interest in travel to Europe.

Great topic with many interesting replies.

Paris-The stained glass windows of Sacre-Cour. I think the dreariness of the lower church actually heightens the sheer amazement of opening the door and walking into that amazing chapel.

I took Spanish both in high school and college and my teachers taught us about Spanish art so my first trip to Spain had more highlights:

The Alhambra plasterwork and buildings. Simply amazing that while Western Europe was stuck building with wood and stone, Moorish craftsmen could make incredible plasterwork.

Guernica painting-We've all seen this in magazines and TV but the seeing it in person is a visceral experience. Just the sheer size and powerful emotions hits you upon seeing it and I now understand why the US had this painting covered in the UN when debating the Iraq War. Also seeing the wear lines shows how often the painting was moved around before Spain was free of Fascism.

Finally, the most powerful painting I saw in Spain was El Greco's painting of the funeral of a Duke. Not because of the painting itself but the fact that my high school Spanish teacher taught us about that painting freshman year, and how, living in the Midwest with relatives who'd never traveled overseas, I had no clue I'd be standing in front of it 25 years later. Almost made me weep and wish that that teacher was still alive so I could thank her for fostering a love of the language and of the culture.

Apart from seeing David, which took my breath away, two art experiences stand out in mind.

Last year at the Courtauld Gallery in London, I was thrilled to be able to get so close to the Seurats as to see each little dot of color. Plus, as the room was mostly empty, I was able to spend time moving to and fro in front of the paintings (zoom/wide angle) to see how different distances changed the look of them.

In 2014 I took the RS Loire to the South of France tour. Instead of exploring Les Baux during the free time, I went down the hill to the Carrieres des Lumieres to see the Klimt exhibit. It was amazing to be "inside" the paintings, to be wrapped in color, to be dizzied by the swirling, whirling spots of gold. In fact, the quarry was a bit chilly and the day was windy and cold, but being part of all the gold and pink and yellow really warmed me up!

What a lovely thread, Zoe!
For me, it was visiting the Pompidou Centre in Paris in my mid-20s at the start of my backpacking trip in 1994 and finding myself in front of Matisse's Grand Interieur Rouge.

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/resource/c5egobb/rrg8AEM

I found the richness of the red absolutely mesmerizing and had real difficulty in tearing myself away. I bought the poster of the painting even though I still had six weeks of travel, and carried that triangle-shaped tube around with me all through Italy and Greece and on a bus up through Serbia back to Hungary. I had something of the same pleasure on Monday seeing the Matisses that form a large part of the Shchukin collection currently on display at the Louis Vuitton Foundation here. In this case, it was this huge room, FILLED with Matisses, which seemed almost to vibrate at each other with all the energy they were emitting.

Architecture-wise, there are so many. Someone above mentioned gasping when they saw a beloved work. My jaw literally dropped when I walked into the chapel of the Abbey at Melk. I had seen a lot of churches by then but the riot of rococo decoration there was simply over-the-top.

I love Art Nouveau architecture and had a special moment at the Horta House museum in Brussels, on a stairway where the light was coming in just so, and for a moment, you could almost imagine the museum as the house that it was, and filled with the people who lived in it. These pictures at the website don't begin to do the place justice -- they are VERY prosaic, nothing special about them!!! : (

http://www.hortamuseum.be/en/house/gallery

In Nancy, in eastern France, there's the terrific Ecole de la Musée de Nancy, an Art Nouveau gem - the house itself is wonderful, and it's also filled with all sorts of displays.

http://www.ecole-de-nancy.com/web/index.php?page=presentation-men

And finally, the opportunity I had to learn about the painters in Pont-Aven, Brittany, including Paul Gauguin, Paul Serusier, and Emile Bernard. Brown University has a long history with an art school there, and they run summer programs. I was lucky enough to be hired one summer to accompany a group that went to take advantage of the facilities for a writer's program. The group had its class sessions in what used to be the inn where Gauguin and others stayed; in fact you could see the room in one of his self-portraits. The best though was the tour that an art historian took us on through the "Bois d'Amour," the "Love Wood" where Paul Sérusier had his insight due to coaching from Gauguin (the painting, the Bois d'Amour/the Talisman, is in the Orsay, where there's a room devoted to these painters). This (American) art historian had an extraordinary ability to convey her love and passion and knowledge of this movement to a bunch of lay people -- I will never forget wondering how somebody with such depth of expertise could distil that expertise to be accessible to non-specialists in the field- as we stood in the landscape of the paintings we would go on to see back in Paris at the Orsay (she had reproductions with her as she addressed us of course). We also had the opportunity to visit the church in a nearby town where Gauguin painted The Yellow Christ. Of course now any time I get the opportunity to see anything about the Pont-Aven school, I'm there!!

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/le-talisman-7071.html?no_cache=1&cHash=86d0a41f2f

http://www.comite-serusier.com/catalogue/191-interieur-a-la-lampe.html

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/paysannes-bretonnes-260.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=841&cHash=1b59d4e8f6

p.s. also the Klimts and Schieles at the Belvedere!!

Like Beth, I saw the Pieta at the New York Worlds Fair when I was 10. It completely blew me away; it was just so beautiful and so moving. I was exited to see it because it was famous, but I had no idea that art could convey so much emotion. I've been lucky to see a lot of great art since, but I still haven't seen the Pieta again. Still hoping.

My story is special to me. I have always been a big fan of James Ensor, a Belgian painter. I went to one of his exhibits (maybe at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris in 2014?), and while I certainly enjoyed it, a few of my favorite paintings were not a part of the exhibit, and pictures were not allowed, so my short attention span brain does not recall a lot.

In 2015, we went to Brussels after a couple of weeks traveling. It was our last day in Europe. We saw some sights, and decided to go to Royal Museum of Fine Arts. We discovered that there was more than one museum, and we decided to also get a ticket for the Musee Fin de Siecle Museum. I was not expecting anything, just another museum. About an hour into the exhibit, I turn a corner, and there were my three favorite Ensor paintings on the wall! I couldn't believe it, still don't. No one was around. I luxuriated in them, I lingered, it was one of my favorite travel memories ever, uber serendipity. What a great way to end a final day in Europe!

In case anyone is curious, the three paintings are "Skeletons Fighting Over a Herring", "The Strange Masks", and "The Bad Doctors".

Oh my gosh...how could I ever have forgotten the emotional impact of seeing "Guernica" in Madrid several years ago? I had seen it before, reproduced in a different form (a tiled wall) actually in the small town of Guernica while on one of the first RS Basque Country tours. The actual painting evoked even more of an emotional response after having had our locally guided tour of the town, it's wonderful museums and feeling just a tiny bit of the horror the townspeople must have felt that particular market day.

One more: the Recanati Annunciation by Lorenzo Lotto. I was in Macerata and saw this painting on a brochure at the TI office. I had found it curiously interesting for its composition, including Mary seeming to flee from the angel carrying the Good News, God the Father hot on his heels, and a cat in the foreground streaking out of the room. I took the one-hour bus trip to Recanati, a charming hill-straddling town, and saw the painting in person. It was luminous, not cartoonish as in some reproductions, and very moving.

The most surprising work of art for me, that I was not expecting, were the floors of the Duomo in Siena. We were fortunate to visit the Duomo when all of the floors were exposed. The detail of the tile work in the floors was amazing.

Hey Zoe,

Mine wasn't a piece of art, but a simple memento mori: a black stone on the grounds of Westminster Abbey bearing this message:

"Dean Stanley (Dean of Westminster) records that beneath this stone are interred 26 monks of Westminster who died of the Black death in 1348"

1348: The New World isn't even a concept; the world is lit only by fire and the fastest any man can travel is terminal velocity when he's one of the poor sods pushed off the Tower of London as punishment for stealing a turnip. Even as ancient as it is today, the locale was already twice as old as my own country when the 26 monks met their maker. In that moment, I felt my place on the the continuum of history.

"Here, in 2015, for one brief moment, stood Mike Beebe, a resident of the new world. Should a future Mike Beebe stand here in the time elapsed since 1384, it will be the year 2.686. May time still be measured in years, and not in half-lives."

Also, realizing there must have been some ROARING ol' piss-ups at the Abbey during the Middle Ages back when life was short, booze was cheap and sobriety cursed. It's too bad the whole affair has become so somber, because I'll bet you some of those old bones would enjoy the uproarious sound of drunken laughter and bawdy jokes. I'm sure they also would enjoy the custom of "Pour a 40 for your Shorty" on their headstones, behavior which will probably lead to you being thrown off the Tower of London to this day -- purloined turnip or not!

Mike, Westminster is my favorite pile in London, and my most memorable moment there - on 2nd visit - was running across Mary Boleyn's daughter, Catherine Carey Knollys, tucked away in a side chapel. Her brother, Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon, has one of the largest (if not the largest) tombs in the abbey, and the speculation of both being illegitimate children of Henry VIII makes for an interesting story.

Anyway, Catherine was a young girl when she may have been an attendant to her aunt, Anne, in the Tower in the weeks leading up to her execution. She was also an attendant to Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and her cousin (or possibly half sister) Elizabeth 1, and married a knight by which she had over a dozen children.

She lived a far happier life than her mother (another story) but died at the age of only 45 while her 2nd husband was away overseeing - by Elizabeth 1's command - a fugitive Mary Queen of Scots.

I'd remarked upon my find to one of the vergers standing about and who seemed to have no idea who she was.

I've also plowed (!!) through Dean Stanley's "Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey"; an interesting history/inventory if one has good eyesight and a long-suffering scroll finger.. Here ya go!

https://archive.org/stream/historicmemorial00staniala/historicmemorial00staniala_djvu.txt

Moved to tears ...

1) by the ancient soaring majesty inside Durham Cathedral.

2) by Picasso and Braque cubist works in autumn tones, seemingly mid conversation, on the top floor of the Pompidou.

3) by a lesser unknown Spanish Civil War painting in the Reina Sofia when contemplating the futility of war - of course after viewing Picasso's Guernica.

Not tears, but a smile a mile wide ...
4) by a room at Moscow's Pushkin Museum full of iconic Matisse canvases, and sharing that room with just my cousin and an old babooshka attendant.

All the listings bring back great memories to me, too.

One of my jaw-dropping experiences was seeing the paintings in the caves of the Dordogne. We went inside the Font-de-Gaume and then to Lascaux II, the replica. Both were a kind of religious experience for me. I typically am a little claustrophobic, but I felt very comfortable seeing them.

Lo, those are on my "someday" list, as well. Even thinking about the expanse and intensity of the cave paintings makes my knees weak.

We're looking at a France trip in 2019; maybe, maybe we can make it to the cave paintings then.

When I saw 'Guernica' in Madrid, it was at the same time that the copy in New York was covered up - I knew that, which made seeing it all the more meaningful for me. Being in the Scrovegni Chapel was extremely moving. A combination architecture and music experience - I got to hear Vaughn Williams's 'Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis' in the King's College Chapel, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Thanks to all of you who posted. You reawakened a lot of memories for me, and added some must-sees to my list.