Yale Art Gallery Visit #2

     My second trip to the Yale Art Gallery started as a quite overcast day. Together Dave and I went to the European and American Art section. The Yale Art Gallery has a mission to continue understanding and love for art and how art can and does affect societies. They strive to achieve active learning about art and to stimulate the creative process through this gained knowledge. The Gallery was founded in 1832, when a gentleman by the name of John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings to Yale College. 

     We climbed the stairs to the third floor where we were greeted by a brick wall with “European and American Art from 1200 to the Present” illuminated on the wall.

The first thing I saw after that was a wonderful painting that caught my eye, it had an elegant jumble of colors and shapes, it seems to swirl in a chaotic fashion.

 

After that I noticed several vases and plates and other kinds of dish ware, along with some busts and carved sculpture.

 Then Dave and I continued around the exhibit looking at the many different paintings. There were many different paintings and illustrations and many of them different kinds of styles.

Out of all of the paintings and illustrations that I saw this one by far was my favorite. The painting is called “An Art Lover” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, it was painted during 1868 it is oil on panel. Lawrence Alma-Tadema lived during 1836-1912. Lawrence was “born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema). I fell in love with this painting the skill in which this was painted is amazing, everything is realistic and it is lighted so naturally. I especially loved the fountain, the stream of water and the ripples in the pool looks real even when examined up-close.