A friend of mine is moving soon and she has not been to all the art museums yet, so we joined her for a short trip to the Albertina this week. Elora and Oliver enjoyed exploring the roof while waiting for our friend to join us. I love the outside of the Albertina building. We may have to come back another day just to explore the roof with its nice views of the city.
I have not been to the Albertina in many years. We really loved it! There was a whole floor that explores pointellism, impressionism, abstract art, and so many amazing works from my favorite artists are on display here. It was a really beautiful exhibition. We had kids with us, so it was not a long visit. I would love to go another day when I have time to read all the information about the different styles of art on display. There were very excellent descriptions of each painting and style of painting in each room in German and English.
We were pleased to find some work by Matisse, an artist Elora is starting to be interested in. The style of the paintings in that particular room had a mosaic-like quality that Elora and I found very interesting. Elora loved the bright colors used in many of the paintings. There was also a lovely display of pencil sketches by Picasso. I loved seeing them as they are so different from his work that is usually on display. There was quite a variety of his works that were interesting to look at.
This painting is an example of how reading the description really changes the way you view a painting. This one was painted during World War II when Picasso was living in France and many friends were trying to get him to immigrate to the USA. He said, “I don’t seek danger… but I don’t want to give way to violence. Here I am and here I’ll stay. The only power that could drive me away is my own desire to leave.” The painting represents the danger with the sword with the red handle, and a ghostly reflection in the mirror, as well as shows small every day pleasures such as olives, a cigar, and a guitar. I was struck by his statement and after reading his words found myself reflecting on the painting much longer than I would have. I love reading about artists motivations in their work. This is not really my favorite kind of artwork, but I loved how the meaning behind it made the artwork more interesting.
Elora brought her oil pastels, which are her new favorite, and enjoyed making several drawings while we were at the museum. She loves nature paintings.
Oliver is a fan of artists he has heard of and already knows that he likes. I suppose he likes familiar art and usually is not interested in seeing work by artists that he is unfamiliar with or sometimes if he has seen one piece by an artist and doesn’t like it, he does not want to see any more! He was very excited to find a water lily painting by Monet. We saw the large water lilies in France and he really enjoyed them, so this was nice to find another water lily in the Albertina. Elora discovered some paintings by Chagall that we both really liked. I also loved coloring pictures to occupy my friend’s little boy for a few minutes. He really wanted to crawl on the floor, but we enjoyed making a pretty picture and looking at some paintings of suns, roads, and people.
Elora really loved this portrait by Renoir. She was excited that it had been made with oil pastels (at least she was sure that it was because when looking closely at the portrait the textures of the work really looked like her pastels). She decided to draw this one and we found a Renoir book at the gift shop for her to take home. We quickly looked at the exhibition of Egon Shiele that is at the Albertina, but Oliver declared he didn’t like any of the paintings and drawings on that floor and headed to the gift shop. Christiana liked his unusual use of color in his portraits.
We walked home through the Burg Garten. Oliver loves to stop by and see the Mozart statue and was excited to take another photo with it.
