Shhh...it's a secret!

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” 
― Leonardo da Vinci

My post yesterday about The Monument Men movie and all the art museums I've been lucky enough to visit has inspired me to take a trip down memory lane this week and re-visit some of my favorite museums.  I hope you'll come along with me as I take a peek at some of the art that has inspired me, uplifted me, or even made me laugh over the years.  But first, this small observation:

I'm a type A personality.  My husband is a type A+ personality.  My oldest son is a type A++ personality. At work I'm on an advancement team, and my boss refers to us, naturally, as the "A team".  But at dinner time?  I guess you could call us an A-1 family!!

I also guess it's time to clean out my refrigerator and use up some steak sauce!!

Before I started college I had visited a number of wonderful museums, but none of them were true art museums.  I was lucky enough at Kansas University to live right behind Spooner Hall, the old chemistry building that had been converted to the campus art museum.  The collection was quite good, and had large exhibits of medieval and baroque art.  The shortcut to classes from my dorm was through the art museum, so every day I wandered the hallways picking out a new painting or sculpture to admire.

One of my favorite Sunday activities was attending all of the music events held at Spooner Hall, especially the ones featuring original Baroque stringed instruments.  As a music major I simply couldn't get enough of the beautiful music, particularly the intricate works of Corelli and Vivaldi.  The galleries were bursting at the seams during my time at KU, and only a small part of the collection could be displayed at any one time, so a generous benefactress donated close to five million to build a beautiful new art museum, which opened several months after I graduated.  And while the new museum is wonderful, I'm glad I had the opportunity to get close and personal with the artwork in the older building.  It was intimate and charming in an old fashioned way and I was a lucky girl to have been able to experience such beautiful art every day.

Perhaps because I loved the Baroque music ensembles that regularly performed at the museum, I found myself drawn to the Baroque art as well, admiring the works of Caravaggio, Rembrandt and van Dyck. Similar to the way Baroque composers used harmony and counterpoint as their framework and used orchestral color to greater effect, Baroque artists played with light and color to exaggerate the lighting and bring forth intense emotion and artistic sensationalism. I loved the ornamentation of both the music and the art, and in particular the painting below by Baroque artist Ducreux gave me a quiet laugh every day.  I always wondered if he was the art world's interpretation of a librarian, warning me to stop clomping down the gallery in my shoes and show a little respect as I passed by!

• Le Discret, circa 1791, by Joseph Ducreux (1735-1802)

I thought I would share a poem from roughly the same time period as the painting above, so I chose Willliam Blake's (1757-1827) Love's Secret, which seems appropriate given that the man in the portrait obviously wanted something kept secret!

Never seek to tell thy love,  

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind does move

Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart;

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,

Ah! she did depart!

Soon as she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly 

He took her with a sigh.

Have a wonderful day!