First Bonus – Last Weekend Outing
Weary Herakles
A “Weekend Outing” is an outing one could do any time, but it is done on the weekend because that’s the time that doesn’t conflict with work. An example is visiting an exhibit at an art museum. Our trip to the National Gallery of Art in DC to see “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World”. The exhibit will be closing soon, and we went to see it Sunday. We got there just as the museum opened. We saw all the art, but didn’t linger. By the time we were done at 1, the gallery was quite crowded. It will probably be our last weekend outing, because the gallery would certainly be less crowded on a week day.
Portrait of a Man
We have a tradition of visiting DC when the weather is very cold, very hot, or otherwise lousy. This time it was dry in 50, which is very nice compared to our norm. It was an excellent show. I didn’t take my camera, but I wish I had. When I went to steal pics off the web, I found the images to be quite small. I’m sure I could have taken better pictures with my camera.
The technical work, emotion shown, and style make all of these amazing works of art. I’m including my top 4 favorites from the show.
#4 – Weary Herakles – The technical work and emotion make this a stunning piece of art (as most of them were). This made #4 because of how it humanized a heroic icon.
Dancing Faun
#3 – Portrait of a Man – The art experts claim that nobody knows who this man is. And from the photo, one would probably agree. But seeing it in person, I couldn’t help but notice this was a dead ringer for Ted Kennedy. How did they know?
#2 – Dancing Faun. I thought this was the best piece of art in the show.
Drunk Herakles
#1 – Drunk Herakles. With or without a camera, a picture just can’t do this one justice. One has to see this in person to appreciate how the mighty Herakles is teetering on his perch. Only by using his mighty club can he avoid face-planting himself. The work is unusually complete. Even Herakles’ stone seat is original. The only thing missing is the wine glass that was originally in his right hand. (I’m thinking that was red wine.) The combination of great art and great humor made this my favorite piece.
Second Bonus – Two fun web sites
Here’s a couple of web sites I found to be interesting.
First, a video of a magnificent marble music machine. This Rube Goldberg actually makes entertaining (and good) music.
Second, OK Go’s music video Upside Down & Inside Out. Besides being good music, the video is shot entirely in a weightless environment. The link includes a short story about the video, a link to the video itself, and a link to a “How we made it” video. It also has links to two more of their videos, including what may be the most amazing Rube Goldberg contraption of all time.
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/03/01/468682736/ok-go-weightless-science-art-and-joy