Exploring Munich

Sunday June 19, 2011                                                 Day 354

We did not get up to see Brennan and his entourage off this morning – their rising time was 5:15 a.m. Instead, we lazed in bed past 8:30. After breakfast, we took a tram to the Pinakothek Neue, which is one of Munich’s art museums. This one had a number of impressionists, including Serat, Monet, Van Gogh, and others, as well as several Rodin sculptures. The museum itself was very well done, with bright but indirect lighting from above in most of the rooms which illuminated the art works very well. In one room, the light was dimmer, and it had a blue cast, which was unfortunate because the art work in the room was mostly rather dark and would have benefited from the more yellow light of the other rooms. Most of the paintings were protected by glass, and the reflections on the glass sometimes made it difficult to see the works without glare, but overall the displays were quite good. I never thought I would become a museum critic, but since the delightful and perfect lighting of the Cantini Art Museum in Marseilles, I have become very aware of the physicality of art museums. We picked the perfect day to go there – entry on Sundays is only 1€ instead of the usual 8.50€.

And now for the art: we devoted ourselves mostly to the impressionist works, although there were some wonderful bas relief carvings as well. We actually covered most of the museum before I gave out. Roger’s favorite piece was of a partially nude woman wearing a snake and was entitled “Sin.” I, on the other hand, was fascinated by two pieces by Ainmiller, which are paintings of the interior of Westminster Abbey and are detailed beyond belief. I think I admire them particularly because they require just the kind of perfection that I do not like to devote to my paintings.

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It was raining off and on as we dressed and went to breakfast, then made our way to the museum. It continued to rain for the two hours we were at the museum, so we chose to eat lunch in the museum restaurant. We had Quiche Lorraine and some rosé both of which were quite good, and some carrot cake.

When we left the museum the rain had stopped and the sun was out, but we were too tired to go on to the English Gardens, a destination we had hoped to achieve. However, we have learned to content ourselves with the thought we cannot see everything, wherever we are. So we retired to our room for an afternoon of napping and surfing. In the evening, we went out to an Ethiopian restaurant, the description for which appeared in a brochure we picked up at the hotel. The food was quite good – perhaps not as good as that which we had in Rome, but delicious nevertheless.