Tuesday Tea: What's the best piece of art you've seen in person?
Let's celebrate beautiful things.
Dave and I talked about some of our favorite experiences with art in our podcast episode Museums: A Gathering of Muses, A Clutch of Curators. He reminisced about the impact of a seeing a tiny 5000-year-old fish carving at the Louvre, and I recalled the way a Van Gogh self-portrait made me ugly cry.
We were both brought to silence and damp eyes by Los Meninas by Diego Velasquez at the Prado (more on that here), and I could have looked at the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch for hours. (OMG, gimme all the weird little details in that disturbing, delightful triptych.)
I’m also surprised to find that I have Opinions about what you should see instead of the Mona Lisa — The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paola Veronese.
All of which makes us curious about your favorite art experiences.
The Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer, also known as The Woman in Gold, by Gustav Klimt.
It's on display at the Neue Galerie in NYC, and when I saw it for the first time, I just started crying and I could not stop. I had seen pictures of it and the movie and knew the story, but seeing it in person was 10000000 times better. No photo can really show the intensity of the gold leaf. It is perfect and I love her so much. I visit every time I'm in New York, just a quick stop, and it's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.
Wow this discussion is so moving. I'll never forget seeing Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Primavera, and Annunciation on my first trip to Florence last year. I was just completely unprepared for the experience. Also so many of the little artworks my kids made when they were little, which we have either hanging around our home or come across unexpectedly in some old box.