THURSDAY, JULY 4
It was Independence Day in the US. We never forget. It’s Chloe’s half birthday. Half way to 20…in Vienna.
THE BELVEDERE PALACE
We thought we would breeze through the Belvedere Palace and go to the Kunstmuseum. Haha. There is nothing breezy about the Belvedere. In fact, it takes eight minutes to walk from the upper to the lower Palace (museum) through the formal gardens.
The Upper Museum hold Klimpt’s famous “The Kiss.” It’s nicely organized for moving through Austrian art from the 1800s to Klimpt and his contemporaries in the early 1900s. Each room is itself a museum piece and has a short description of how the Hapsburgs used the room…conference, coffee, games, etc.
The Upper Belvedere’s large, gold trimmed windows frame the formal garden, the lower Belvedere (with stables and Orangerie) and a view of the city below. The gardens are austere by English standards. Trees and shrubs are kept small and angular. Terraces are dotted with fountains at each drop. The walkways are unshaded, wide and made of gravel.
GUSTAVE KLIMPT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
While the perfection of “The Kiss” is undeniable, Chloe and I were enchanted by some of Klimpt’s other works. A portrait of a woman in black (with one hand in a black glove), and a painting of a house and landscape, just to the right of “The Kiss,” painted in a decorative pointillist style, plants and flowers covering everything.
There are also some eerie and wonderful Egon Schiele paintings and other evocative paintings by Klimpt’s contemporaries.
KIKI SMITH — ALWAYS A TREAT!
We did breeze through the other floors of the Upper Museum in order to save our strength for the Kiki Smith exhibition in the Lower Museum. Kiki Smith is always great. The show had pieces we had already seen (namely the tapestries but also some of the sculpture) in Florence. So, so lucky to see her work twice in a year!
WONDERFUL MEDIEVAL ART
Though unexpected, the Medieval art collection was quite amazing. Paintings are stacked one on top of the next, sculptures almost rubbing shoulders, all creating an extraordinarily emotional impact. Also, to get there we had to pass through a gold-leafed room with mirrors.
Then we walked, and walked and walked….the streets of Vienna.
