Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Good morning!  I feel like this morning is a Monday after my 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' yesterday.  My Dad was in town before he went home to Oregon so I took off work yesterday so we could do fun stuff.  We went to The Frick Collection yesterday - which I had never been to see despite the fact that it is less than 6 blocks from my house.  Henry Clay Frick was a steel guy in the time of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and JP Morgan.

When he was a live, he built a ridiculously palatial house on an entire city block on 5th avenue across from Central Park.  It's kind of neat to go in, because you definitely don't feel like you're in a museum - you feel like you're in a really, really rich person's house.  Many of the rooms are even decorated with the original furnishings and in the same orientation as when he and his wife lived there.  As you walk through the house - you can't help but not be struck by how wealthy he was.  Priceless works of art are everywhere and this house is in NYC - it feels like Versaille or something.  The collection is also manageable - you can see everything in an afternoon, whereas at some of the bigger museums you can feel a bit overwhelmed.  In NYC in particular the Met is almost always really crowded - so it's tough to browse and linger and get lost.  At the Frick it was pleasantly non-crowded and the fee for students was only $10 - a great deal.  Another thing I thought was interesting about the collection that they mentioned in the little film they showed you in the "Music Room" of the house was that the collection has a very personal feel to it.  You can feel the way that the art was "domestic" and would have appealed to his wife and was pleasant for him to look at - that's a touch of personality that's missing from most other art museums. 

I saw a lot of paintings and sculptures that I liked but there were a few that stood out as favorites.  I really liked Rembrandt's "The Polish Rider."  I also really liked Bellini's "Saint Francis of Asissi in the Desert."  My absolute favorites, though, were William Turner's pair of paintings that line one of the house galleries.  They are enormous works and one depicts the harbor in Cologne at sunset and the other shows the harbor at Dieppe at sunrise.  These paintings really appealed to me because I kind of identified with how Turner felt about light at changing of the day.  His paintings feel a bit magical and unreal - which is sometimes how early or dusky light can make a place feel and look.  I've attached links below so you can see the paintings I really liked. Finally, of the sculpture, my favorite were the pair by Giovanni Susini "Lion attacking a Horse" and "Leopard fighting a Bull."  In particular, the Leopard fighting the bull was really neat because if you looked very closely, you could see that Susini had etched delicate, barely visible spots all over the leopard.  Susini meant to represent the Horse and Lion as the valiant struggle for life - The horse is giving it a good fight.  On the other hand, the bull falls to his knees when the leopard attacks - he accepts the inevitability of death honorably. 

The Harbor at Cologne:
http://collections.frick.org/media/view/Objects/136/3427;jsessionid=C9FD643B935A3054E0F5D911D3C99119?t:state:flow=ca25856f-7ba6-498b-acf1-fa1befa3e558 

The Harbor at Dieppe:
http://collections.frick.org/media/view/Objects/268/3428?t:state:flow=c97d2e48-a3f4-4ad7-b3c1-78d5204e0da5

Lion Attacking a Horse:
http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/search@/0?t:state:flow=9cec9834-ed4d-4cdc-8c8e-33493113c532

Leopard Attacking a Bull:
http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/People@423/0?t:state:flow=6cf8f510-e601-4e41-9d39-5c7994916dd0

The Polish Rider:
http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/search@/0?t:state:flow=b44f76f0-2be3-40ac-9f7d-9e4a79566bfd

Saint Francis in the Desert:
http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/People@46/0?t:state:flow=3c70d0ce-9f29-4232-973b-e57287641a9f

My Dad also brought some treats for us as you can see above - Hawaiian coffee & macadamia nuts - there is nothing better - NOTHING!  We also got some new toys from Grandma for Sofie & Bear - which have gotten a thrashing already.  We also got a late X-mas present from Uncle Keith & Aunt Jeanne - a framed photo of Brian, Sofie, Bear, and I while hiking last summer in Oregon :) :) :)

After the Frick we all went out for dinner at the Palm.  It was great service and a great meal, as usual.  We started with some cocktails - Dad got a vodka martini, I got a lemon drop, and Sarah got some pomegranate thing.  Brian got a beer.  Then we had some salads and finally swordfish steak for me topped with cherry tomatoes, capers, and kalamata olives; Dad got a big steak; Sarah got a smaller steak, and Brian got crabcakes with a mango salsa.  We all shared green beans, frites, and a bottle of Malbec.  Finally we finished by sharing some coffee, NY cheesecake, carrotcake, and Dad had a bit of Glenfiddich Scotch - which I tasted and actually really liked.  I have never tried Scotch before but I expected it to sting and burn and make you feel like you could breathe fire kind of like Whiskey - not so - it was very smooth.

All in all we had a GREAT night and a GREAT meal.  It was so much fun.

This morning Dad left at like 5:50am.  I was totally out of it when I said good bye and ended up sleeping in until 6:40am.  No workout for me this morning! haha!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great day!  The only thing missing from last night was Mom!!  (though we would have needed to order another dessert if she had been there :))

Carpe diem,

J