Date: 01 September 2006 20:27:42
One of the people I met in Moldova this summer is over in Glasgow for a few days for a conference, so I met her this afternoon to do a bit of showing her round my manor (seeing as she'd done so much for me when I was in hers). We went to the newly reopened Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, which has been closed for refurbishment pretty much ever since I moved here but which finally reopened while I was away this summer. I can see this will be a treasure I revisit lots - we only saw a small part of it (the Dutch, Italian and French paintings), and there's tons more still to see. For someone who is much more into modern art I wasn't expecting to like this all that much, but I was surprised at how much there was to appreciate. Some of the paintings (one I remember in particular, by Rachel Ruysch, of flowers) were so realistic they could have been photographs - I was just open-mouthed at the skill involved.
Plus, seeing all those fleshy nudes reminded me again that if it were 400 years ago, I'd be a supermodel.