Farm History. Family History. Artistry. Bursts of color. Tradition. Community. Creativity. So many different celebrations of life represented by the bountiful wooden quilt blocks that majestically drape almost five dozen barn doors illuminating the landscape of Tualatin Valley (Twal’ i-tin), Oregon (Oar’-i-gun) – yes, the semantics DO make a difference (at least locally…). The combination of personal history and rural tradition that find voice in these quilt blocks brings to life customs, folklore and artistic expression reminiscent of the whole Valley.

First a little history. In 2012, Julie Mason, herself a quilter, introduced the concept to the local quilters’ guild after seeing a Quilt Barn Trail in the Midwest. They rallied behind the idea of bringing grass roots to unexpected places and just a short six years later, 59 quilt barns have emerged throughout the Valley. It took two years and a lot of persuasive efforts to get the right permits and zoning requirements to allow for the 8’X8′ painted wooden blocks representing actual quilt designs to start appearing on barn doors.

The quilt barns represent an agricultural heritage, providing a connection each family has to the quilt and that the quilt has to their history. From inception to installation took about 6-8 weeks, and the quilters’ guild worked closely with the farm owners on design, colors and concept.  A lot of research went into identifying existing quilt designs which represent what the family wanted, and when none existed, an original design was  painted. Many are on farms over a hundred years old, with 10 on Century Farms which not only refer to their age but also the fact that they have been inhabited by one family all that time.

The Hovering Hawks block on the Simpson Century Farm was the first block to go up in December 2014, two weeks after the sign ordinance was signed and where, under the watchful eye of owner Bev Hess, all of the quilt blocks were built, painted and assembled, a very arduous, labor-intensive task fully manned by a dozen very skilled volunteers. Bev’s own choice reflects an old quilt design from the Oregon Trail that also pays homage to the many hawks that inhabit their land.

Reasons different farmers choose a particular pattern range from having a favorite quilt, vintage or current,to a favorite farm crop or animal, personal family history, either current or historic, or a kinship to a sunset or other natural vista or just some intrinsically appealing color combination. The quilt blocks are as diverse as the farms and farmers to which they belong.

 Currently, the quilt barns have been divided among four routes throughout Tualatin Valley. I mainly traveled the route through Forest Grove, visiting a wide variety of visually delightful, colorful and meaningful quilt barn participants from a windmill paying tribute to the farm owner’s Dutch heritage to a covered wagon celebrating the family’s grandfather who traveled over the treacherous Oregon Trail. Along the rural routes are vineyards and fruit orchards as plentiful throughout the countryside as Starbucks are in the cities.  Even if not following a specific route, an eagle eye is likely to spot a randomly decorated barn door peeking out from among the more plentiful vineyards.

Among the farms and quilt blocks we visited were the Foehlinger Farm which replicates the first quilt block the owner had made with her grandmother. The Blooming Farm, built in 1882, sports a sunflower block that commemorates their favorite flower that grows in their own garden.The Walta Farm displays a classic block of green and yellow that colorfully suggests the sweet corn and green beans grown on the farm.The 1930’s barn on the Rohrer property honors the six tribes of Native Americans who made their home near the site. 

And in case you tire a bit of gawking at pretty barn doors, stop at Plum Hill whose block shares its home with a vineyard. So, of course, wine tastings are in order. The quilt block itself is a traditional pattern often used in quilts given as wedding gifts and aptly named Double Wedding Ring, a favorite of the farm’s co-owner Juanita, a quilter herself. The wines, however, proved a favorite of mine, especially the white made from the Schonburger grape — and Plum Hill is the only winery in the U.S. to grow it. In addition to wines, the property is extremely pet-friendly — dogs are everywhere — with a shrine to Juanita’s yellow Lab named Ghost. His passing is noted in a sign announcing a recent “Yappy Hour” memorial celebration. Dog quotes vie with wine quotes throughout the shop: “Love is a fur-legged word”…

As travel writers, we’ve been on commercial wine-making tours around the world and I cringed at the thought of another. But was I glad we took Juanita up on her offer. This was an intimate, hands-on personal exposure to wine-making at its most primitive level. Old-school hardly adequately defines it. Un-mechanized, labor-of love intensive, we were literally one with the grapes at multiple levels of fermentation, pressing, aging and bottling. Everything done by hand. Plum Hill produces 2500 cases a year while its neighbor produces 90,000 – a fairly different process, I suspect.

But time now to visit some more quilt blocks. The afore-mentioned great-grandfather of the owner of the Spiesschaert Farm came to Oregon from Illinois via the tortuous Oregon Trail in 1884. The 100-year-old farm houses the original Conestoga wagon that carried 3 adults and 7 children across the trail and the block – a picture of the wagon – commemorates that history. And the beautiful blue star design at the L Bar T Bison Ranch celebrates quilts developed by women who also crossed the Oregon Trail.

Driving away from Tualatin Valley, I was not surprised to see other Barn Quilts peeking through the trees that beckon – no, practically beg — us to drive by if only just for a moment. For more information, visit www.quiltbarns.org. Official maps of the Quilt Barn Trail are available upon request through Washington County Visitors Association at  in**@**VA.org or phone #503-644-5555.

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Plot Summary:

Pierce plays the Dutch art forger, Han Van Meegeren, an effete bon vivant artist, infamous for his decadent soirees with high ranking Nazis during World War II. The owner of over 500 Amsterdam properties, he had sold forged Dutch paintings to top Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring. While Van Meegeren lived life to the hilt, Bang’s Captain Joseph (Joe) Piller, a Dutch Jew and former tailor, was fighting in the Resistance. His record was spotless and after the war was assigned to tracking down and identifying other stolen works of art, mostly from Jewish people, with the goal of returning them to survivors or families.

It is now May 29, 1945, three weeks after the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich. While Joe searches for stolen treasures, streets crackle with public executions by firing squads for people guilty of collaboration with the enemy. Joe is particularly interested in how Göring came into possession of Vermeer’s “Christ and the Adulteress,” and traces the sale to Han Van Meegeren, with whom he arrests. In a stark jail cell, the arrogant artist requests paints, paintbrushes, and canvases.  He is to be tried and if convicted, will face the firing squad. The stories that Han tells Joe begin to plant doubts that he is guilty. He insists that he painted the Vermeers and sold the fake paintings to the Nazis for exorbitant prices. In the meantime, the Dutch government wants Han in their custody and attempts to snatch him from prison. On hearing this, Joe races back to the prison and takes Han to a loft where he can paint while he continues his investigation.

The artist reveals that despite having art critics spit on his work, he knew he was an excellent painter and decided he would pull off the hoax of the century by painting a number of pieces and then pawning them off as Vermeers. Those transactions made he and his wife incredibly affluent, owning multiple homes and enjoying a lush lifestyle. However, the government agents ultimately track him down and throw him into their prison. Despite being incarcerated, Van Meegeren maintains his elitist demeanor and still insists he painted those Vermeers. Joe enlists his former army buddy Esper, well played by Roland Møller who discovers a treasure trove of photos and cash hidden under the floorboards of Han’s studio, which included pictures of Joe’s wife attending parties where Nazis were in attendance. He confronts her and she insists that although she worked for a German officer, she was able to funnel information that saved the lives of many people. An attraction begins to heat up between Joe  and widowed Minna, played by Vicky Krieps, who has been assisting him in the investigation.

Han is now on trial and all the Vermeers that he claims he painted are displayed in the packed courtroom. Unfortunately for him, the one person who could back up his claim is deceased. With dramatic flair, he testifies that the art world treated him with distain and he deliberately painted the forgeries that fooled some of the best authenticators in the art world, bragging that one of his counterfeits hangs in Washington’s National Gallery of Art.  Experts are called to testify, all of who had authenticated the paintings as being genuine. The accused explains in great detail how he painted the fakes – from the kind of brushes, paints, and canvases he used, as well as the chemicals applied for the aging process. Joe, who is acting as his co-attorney, begs the judges to let him perform an acid test to prove the paintings are fraudulent, but the judges refuse. They convene and in just minutes render a guilty verdict punishable by death. The courtroom explodes in shock and what happens in the closing minutes will have you on the edge of your seat. Yes. It’s an intriguing but true cliffhanger.

Technically, the film is perfect from the settings to costumes to the music but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Remi Adefarasin cinematography, which beautifully captures the changing physical portrait of post-war Holland.

The Last Vermeer

Director: Jonathan Lopez
Screenplay: James McGee, a Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby
Based on the book “The Man Who Made Vermeers” by Jonathan Lopez
Executive Producer:  Ridley Scott, Peter Heslop
Producers: Ryan Friedkin, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Vijay Waghmare
Production Company:  Imperative Entertainment, Mehra Entertainment

Distributor:  TriStar Pictures
Cinematographer: Remi Adefarasin
Edited By: Victoria Boydell
Music: Johan Söderqvist

Language:  English
Running Time:  117 minutes
Release Date: December 4, 2020 (United States)

Principals: Claes Bang, Guy Pierce, Vicky Krieps, Roland Møller

117 minute
Rating:  R
Release date:  November 20, 2020
Opening On-Screen Via TriStar Pictures

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Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany – They feature one of my favorite artists Albrecht Durer. My uncle  when seeing my long hair said… “David you look like Albrecht Durer,” which got me interested in the famous artist from the 15^th century. – DE

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam – To see it is to be moved to tears. Such courage and vision beyond her young years. – MG

NY Met, expansive and all under one roof; British Museum of course; Israel Museum; and the Museum Quarter (Island) in Berlin. – SV

My fave is probably the Smithsonian Air and Space in DC.  My most memorable is the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Though I wish I made time to see L.A.’s MOCA and Griffith Park Observatory. – HL

Museum Island, Berlin – For tours of all 5 museums. – GW

Pompeii, Italy – Not sure if museum, but my favorite historic site. – OM

Polynesian Cultural Museum, Laie, Oahu, Hawaii  – My kids loved it, so much to learn for adults too. – MB

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Welcome to the T-Boy Society of Film and Music’s latest installment of some of our favorite things, things that make life worth living as we continue to grow as patrons of the world. It’s hard to believe that in the past four months we’ve addressed six subjects: Favorite Natural Wonders, Top Road Movies, Architectural Wonders, North-American-English Language Travel Novels, Top Songs of the Road, and Bucket  List Destinations.

The current T-Boy Society of Film and Music poll is devoted to our favorite museums. It was a tough category to nail down to just five, but the results were both educational and a lot of fun. T-Boy writer Richard Carroll put it in the proper context, The museum feature is important because museums offer insights to a destination that one might overlook. There were a number of important museums on members’ lists – the MET, the Hermitage, Smithsonian Museums in DC – which demanded to be represented. But also a sprinkling of little gems, which many of us knew nothing about, e.g. the small Museu do Fado in Lisbon, Seattle’s Museum of Flight and the Skansen Open Air Museum in Stockholm. As always, I learned a lot. I hope you do, too. – EB

T-Boy Society of Film and Music’s Favorite Museums

Richard Frisbie – T-Boy writer:

My Top Five Favorite Museums in the World

• American Museum of Natural History in NYC – Because I’m sentimental. As a kid spending my school year in New York’s Hudson Valley, and summers in New York City, my brother and city cousins and I spent rainy summer days in the museum. It was our playground, surrounded by ancient and modern animals, and all sorts of exotic things, where the wonders of the world were available to us. When the movie Night in the Museum came out I was reminded of all the fun we had there as kids.
• The Guggenheim Museum in NYC – When Frank Lloyd Wright’s amazing architectural wonder opened, we (autonomous) kids walked up from 57th (between 9th & 10th) to see it.  So long as we got back before the street lights came on we had the run of the city. The Calder was fun, but mostly I remember the spiral ramp up past all the art, and how inspiring the building was from the outside. I was the oldest, a precocious eleven year old.
• The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain – Shortly after it opened I had the occasion to go there and be amazed by the sheer caressable beauty of Frank Gehry’s design, shimmering in the construction zone of what is now a beautiful, sculpture-studded river walk through a library, hotels, convention center, and shopping mall. I’ve been back several times to see how the concept grew, from the Guggenheim additions, to the architectural bridges, and the pedestrian walks where the street used to be. Every hour the museum is cloaked in man-made fog, leaving the guardian Puppy and Mommy-longlegs behind, only to be reunited as the mist settles. It is a wondrous sight!
• The Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy – Imagine a rare afternoon free in Venice to see the sights. Tourism offices call that free time, then usually fill it with trivial things. Not this time! We went first to the tiny but amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Museum because we discovered it on our way to the Guggenheim, then press-passed our way into the unassuming Guggenheim to see what was going on. There’s a famous statue of a naked, sexually aroused man astride a horse looking out over the Grand Canal.  A museum staffer told me that when school groups visit the museum he unscrews the erection so their young sensibilities would not be offended. He didn’t answer when I asked if he also covered the naked breasts on the female statues. Hypocrisy! (True Story.)
• The truly unique – Grand Prix Museum and Wine Museum in Macau – I was there with the Executive Chefs from PF Chang’s researching menu additions when they opened the museum(s) for a dinner and wine tasting. They pulled out all the stops on that visit, including one on an ancient, smooth-as-silk, port. That was an amazing museum dinner in a week of incredible food!

I go to museums every time I visit an area. There are several other memorable ones that could easily be in the Top Five: Roberto Burle Marx’s Siteo in Rio, The Prado in Madrid, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain, and especially . . . well, in truth, there are too many for me to list. But read on. I’m sure my colleagues included them elsewhere in this article.

Susan Breslow – T-Boy writer:

• Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm, Sweden – After Alfred Nobel discovered dynamite, he left his estate built on the proceeds to reward individual achievements in chemistry, literature, medicine, physics, and peace. In this compact museum, computer tablets offer insights into winners by decade and describe each one’s contributions to humanity. You’ll feel even closer to genius when poring over the serious and quirky displays of awardees’ possessions including personal notebooks, bicycles, even spectacles. In the reading room, find copies of volumes by Nobel Literature Laureates and a cozy place to page through them.
• Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy – There’s nothing fusty about this house museum, featuring the personal collection of the American heiress who became a patron of pre- and postwar American and European modernists. Works by Magritte, Dalí, Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso, Brancusi, and others confirm her prescient eye for the greats. Relax in the garden and stroll to the landing at the back of the palazzo, which overlooks Venice’s Grand Canal from up high.
• Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Museums inspired by the passion of a single individual are invariably unique. Once the private preserve of Albert C. Barnes, who made his fortune by developing a compound to combat gonorrhea and other inflammations, this museum is idiosyncratic in the way it presents Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh, Degas, and other virtuosos: It’s rare to find a solitary oil painting on a wall; typically Barnes’ “wall ensembles” also include sculpture, wrought-iron forms, lamps, furniture, and other objects that cohere with the canvases.
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York – A wealth of world-class museums welcome visitors to New York; its Metropolitan is encompassing. Yet it’s not my favorite. That’s the Whitney, the first museum dedicated to the work of living American artists and home to a trend-setting Biennial. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, another wealthy patron of the arts and a respected sculptor in her own right, founded it in 1930. About a decade ago the museum moved from its snooty Upper East Side address to an innovative Renzo Piano structure in the Meatpacking District. In addition to the outstanding collection, nearly every floor has an outdoor plaza, where visitors can take in views of the low-rise neighborhood, the Highline, and the Hudson River.
• Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia – I was familiar with Henri Matisse’s The Dance, but it wasn’t until I visited the Hermitage did I realize the master had also created Music to complement it; the latter is rarely seen outside the country. The world’s second-largest art museum (after the Louvre), the Hermitage is a six-building complex that is also home to other priceless paintings, antiquities, the gilded carriages of royalty, and a large collection of intricately fashioned and bejeweled Fabergé Easter eggs that inspire thoughts of larceny.

Richard Carroll – T-Boy writer:

• National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City – My first visit, one of many, was in 1971. Visitors are greeted near the entrance by the towering statue Tlaloc, the water god, and beyond is an incredible collection of Mexican history, with 23 exhibit halls covering 100,000 square feet on two spacious floors. A national treasure with international recognition, the museum features superbly displayed Maya pre-Columbian heritage, a massive empire that reached from Mexico to Guatemala and Central America. Large notable murals, a 22-ton Aztec sun stone, and hours of informative enjoyment, are a tremendous boost in understanding a diverse and complex country, the people, and the various languages. You need more than one visit to fully digest this world-renowned complex.
• Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena California – Elegant and welcoming, the museum on Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena is seen by millions as the annual Rose Bowl Parade passes by. But beyond the exterior, the Norton Simon ambiance feels as if you should be sipping champagne as you browse a selection of 12,000 art pieces, and one of the finest collections of 19th-century French art including more than 100 works by Edgar Degas. A splendid enjoyment is the lush Sculpture Garden surrounding a Lilly Pond reminiscent of Monet where plants bloom year-round. The Garden Cafe overlooking the Lilly Pond is perfect for a casual lunch and where one can pull away for a moment or two from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
• Museo Picasso, Malaga, Spain – Malaga, Picasso’s birthplace, the artist is alive and well thanks to the Malaguenas in his Andalusian hometown who understand the strength of a legend. The proud city has the great artist front and center with the Museo Picasso housed in the celebrated 16-century Palacio de Buenavista in the heart of the historic district. One of 34 museums in the city, the Museo Picasso is designed with 12 halls or galleries with 226 works of art, and Picasso’s colorful and passionate vision of life with sketches, ceramics, and large format art works that are a lasting memory. Throughout the gallery are short powerful Picasso quotes from a collection of a hundred or more of Picasso’s thoughts on life, that add another dimension to a complex and timeless personality. “What one does is what counts and not what had the intention of doing.” “Spain is the boldest, saddest, and most surprising place on earth.” “To finish, to achieve – don’t those words actually have a double meaning.” With church bells ringing from the adjacent Renaissance-style Cathedral de Malaga, 1528, the museum has uncovered a level beneath its ground floor where Roman and Phoenician ruins are nicely displayed.

Deb Roskamp – T-Boy photographer & writer: 

• Musée d’Orsay, Paris – Hands down, être numéro un. I could meander fully enchanted through this brilliantly renovated train station seemingly forever, as I’d never tire of the treasures displayed inside.  Some of its collection used to hang in what was, in the 80s, my favorite museum, the jeu de Paume.
• Florence Nightingale Museum, London – Out of London’s hundreds of museums, this one reaches out to me.  What can I say?  I’m a nurse and Flo was one of my heroes.
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam – Never has a museum inspired a curiosity to learn about a painter like this one did for me.  At my only visit in 1981, I knew so little about the artist’s life and work.  Decades later, after having scouted out countless areas he painted, read and reread his letters to Theo, I only hope that I will be able to return.
• Museu do Fado, Lisbon – This sweet little museum in the Alfama area of Lisbon is a treasure.  It’s an immersive education for the ears rather than the eyes.  One can spend hours leisurely listening to the various artists of one’s choice in the comfort of an armchair.
• Anne Frank House, Amsterdam – Everyone knows her story.  Who wouldn’t want to see where that optimistic and courageous child lived who gave us so much inspiration? I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that every-thing will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.
• Honorable mention: Musee Picasso, Paris – Located in a converted 17th century hotel, this museum is a lovely testament to the talents of this famed artist and organized in a chronologic fashion; Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul), Coyoacan, Mexico – How moving is it to be in the artist’s home where she was born, worked and died?; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. – It’s been a long time since I visited, but a lasting impression was made.  Such a lovely collection of European and American artists; Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto – If you looked in my closet, you might not guess that this collection would make my list, as my own footwear is not so interesting or extensive.  However, it does, simply for the novelty of finding shoes from nearly every civilization under one roof; Hermitage, St. Petersburg – The architecture, the sheer vastness of its collection… it just had to make my list.

Stephen Brewer  – T-Boy writer:

Top five museums – this is hard to narrow down, but here goes:

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City – for scope and depth, especially European paintings
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam – for the Northern painters
• Pergamon Museum, Berlin – for ancient architectural wonders and Nephritite
• Archaeological Museum, Naples – for Pompeii frescoes
• Acropolis Museum, Athens – for the Parthenon Frieze

Ed Boitano – T-Boy editor:

• Henry the VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, London – Growing up in the Pacific Northwest my enthusiasm for castles and palaces was something from which I would only read in books. But, decades later, my wish was well worth waiting for when I finally stepped foot into Hampton Court Palace, British King Henry the VIII’s favorite Royal Palace. Overwhelmed by its scope and grandeur, at its gatehouse there’s an astronomical clock made for Henry, and 30 suites used for his grandest visitors. Inside, I was amazed by the lavish use of half-timber, rectangular and bay windows, carved wood paneled walls, moldings and design. Two staircases lead to the 106 ft. long and 40 ft. wide Great Hall banquet room where Henry would ‘play’ the role of a Renaissance monarch. The hall features a spectacularly decorated hammer-beam, and walls covered by Henry’s most treasured tapestries. One sleeping room was filled with nothing more than straw, which I assumed would be my place of rest during the 1520s. I was pleasantly surprised to find everything so accessible, making it easy to become part of the experience and attempt to understand Henry’s complicated mind.
• Imperial War Museum (IWM), London – Yes, there is the ‘’boy’s room”: an atrium with exhibits of V-2 and Polaris missiles; a Grant tank used by Bernard Montgomery; and the Supermarine Spitfire number R/6915, which flew in the Battle of Britain and shot down three enemy Luftwaffe aircraft. But this not a shrine for the glorification of war, but rather a museum which gives voice to the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people forced to live their lives in a world torn apart by conflict. Displayed across six floors, the museum’s vast collection encompasses a wealth of objects – uniforms to photographs, films and works of art – each with a story to tell. In the basement you’ll find yourself a participant in WW1 trench warfare or among Londoners in a subway air raid shelter, seeking safety from the Nazi Blitz.
• Stasi Museum and DDR Museum, Berlin – The Stasi Museum focuses on how the Stasi (the DDR secret police, modeled after the USSR’s KGB) operated with their original technology of bugs, hidden cameras and weapons. The main attraction is the former office of Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi from 1957 to reunification. His second floor office remains untouched since the days of the Stasi, complete with desks, chairs and filing cabinets. The DDR Museum provides an interactive experience of everyday life in the former East Germany. From cookie cutter kitchens, the sputtering Trabant (East Germanys’ answer to West Germanys’ Volkswagen) and an ill fated attempt to copy the forbidden Western blue jeans out of cotton, was illuminating in capturing this piece of East Germanys’ Cold War history – still unknown to many North Americans today.
• Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam – A beautiful design of four adjoining synagogues, linked by internal walkways which form one large museum. The synagogues were central to Jewish life until WWII, and were restored in 1980s. Most Dutch citizens who visit the museum today are not of Jewish ancestry, and consider the museum very much part of their own history in the Netherland’s courageous support, often facing penalties of death, in helping and hiding minorities throughout history.
• Ulster American Folk Park, Tyrone, Northern Ireland – This open-air museum features more than 30 exhibit buildings exploring three-centuries of Irish emigration. Using docents and displays of traditional crafts, the museum brings to life those who left Ulster for the Americas in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Seeing a replica of a full scale coffin ship used during the Famine of the 1840s and the Highland Clearances, felt like a heart wrenching blow to all forms of humanity. Coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic, but were obscenely crowded, unseaworthy and generally with inadequate drinking water, food and sanitation. Mortality rates of 30% were not uncommon. It was said that sharks could be seen following the ships, because so many bodies were thrown overboard.

More Favorite Museums    Readers’ Poll

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Weave Cleveland – Cinematographer Travel Guys TV:

• The Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, BC – Amazing! One floor is an old English-style city downtown at night (supposedly Victorian in colonial times). I used to sit in the theatre and watch Buster Keaton silent movies, etc. all afternoon. This really is an incredible museum.
• The Royal London Wax Museum, Victoria, BC – Royalty and celebrities upstairs or go down to the dungeon to see the chamber of horrors.
• Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland – Like many great museums, you could take all week and still not experience everything. Outstanding!
• Fare Pote’e Maeva Huahine – One large thatch-roofed hut on stilts over the water on the island of Huahine, French Polynesia. Unmanned, no fee – just walk in and look at Polynesian history and artifacts.
• Pompeii, Italy – So, it’s not a museum as much as a real-time excavation site but it is INCREDIBLE!
• Honorable mention: The Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland – Viking lore, Small Medieval thrones chiseled  out of a single piece of stone, Egyptian mummies; The Titanic Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland – WOW!!; The Crocker Art Gallery and Crocker House, Sacramento, CA – Just go. Enough said.

James Boitano – T-Boy writer:

• Musee d’Orsay, Paris
• The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• The National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik 
• Skansen Open Air Museum, Stockholm 

Allan Smith – Artist & T-Boy writer:

• Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
• The Louvre, Paris, France
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California
• The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy
• Honorable mention: Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; The National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; The Palace Museum, Beijing, China

Brent Campbell – Musician and composer:

• The Metropolitan Museum, NYC
• The Museum of Flight, Seattle
• Lemay, America’s Car Museum, Tacoma, Washingon
• The Louvre, Paris
• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville 
• Museum of History and Industry, Seattle (newly expanded and c’mon Bobo is in the house)

Ringo Boitano – T-Boy Writer:

• Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto – The 4,500-year history of footwear is explored through 13,000 shoes, making it the largest collection of historic footwear in the world. You’ll find everything from Napoleon’s shoes, John Lennon’s Beatle Boots and Akan chief’s sandals to Inuit sealskin boots, kabkabs worn by Turkish women and chopines from the Italian Renaissance – so outrageously high that they make today’s tall stiletto heels seem almost like classical footwear.
• The National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri – It is the only American museum dedicated to remembering, interpreting and understanding the Great War and its enduring impact on the global community. The Exhibit Hall features the Panthéon de la Guerre mural, depicting the figure of Victory, surrounded by thousands of French heroes, and colorful flags of the 22 Allied nations of World War I, arranged in the order in which each country entered the conflict. A recreated trench illustrates the brutality of the war. The exterior is decorated with mosaic tiles that convey a night sky strewn with gold stars, representing the sacrifice of Gold Star Mothers during the Great War.
• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio – The museum documents the history of rock music and the artists, producers, engineers, and other notable figures who have influenced its development. The museum’s library and archives is the world’s most comprehensive repository of materials related to the history of rock and roll. The Hall’s temporary exhibits have featured Elvis Presley, hip-hop, the Supremes, the Who, U2, John Lennon, the Clash, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, Women Who Rock, and the Rolling Stones. I recall an exhibit which featured John Lennon’s white piano used in the song Imagine, and his 1955-56 (age 15) report card: He has too many of the wrong ambitions and his energy is too often misplaced. – Liverpudlian Headmaster
• Museo Casa natale Arturo Toscanini, Parma, Italy – I was primed and ready for a tour of maestro Arturo Toscanini’s former home, now a museum, after having spent the previous day at Milan’s La Scala Opera House. Arturo Toscanini (1867 – 1957) was renowned for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Debussy and his own compatriots Rossini, Verdi, Boito and Puccini. His interpretations were notable for detail of phrasing, dynamic intensity, and an essentially classical conception of form. I felt a sense of warmth as I visited each of the rooms, filled with important original artifacts, documents, letters, photos, artwork, posters, and programs. Initially Toscanini  was a cello  player until his reputation as a conductor of authority and skill supplanted his cello career. His epitaph is taken from his remarks concluding the 1926 premiere of Puccini’s unfinished Turandot: Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died.
• The Scotch Whisky Experience, Edinburgh, Scotland – Not really a museum, but after a couple of wee drams of sublime single malt whisky, does it really matter? Located at the top of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, just below Edinburgh Castle, this is a delight for those with a discriminating taste in single malt whisky.  For over 30 years the Scotch Whisky Experience has been conducting educational tours and tastings of uisce beatha (water of life), with the guarantee of a very sensational experience. As I walked out the door, I realized I was now ready for a bout with haggis.

T. E. Mattox – T-Boy music critic:

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and National Air & Space, Washington DC – So many buildings, so little time. But these are just two of my faves.
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris – So fun. The whole environment is unique. Some of my favorite paintings live here.
• The Louvre, Paris – Much like the Smithsonian, overpowering! Most people just head for the Mona Lisa.
• The Vatican, Vatican City – Room after room full of amazing art and sculptures and then… the Sistine Chapel!
• LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Los Angeles – Love, LOVE the Wolf head room and Sabertooth tiger display. Amazed at all the animals they continue to dig out of the tar pits. Crazy.

Rourke – Musician & composer:

• Art Institute of Chicago, Millennium Park, Chicago
• Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
• Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, Florence, Italy
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Raoul Pascual – T-Boy co-founder, illustrator and art director:

• Huntington Library, San Marino, California – For the vastness and the variety – Library of Bibles, Japanese and Chinese garden, Cactus, Green Room, paintings, sculptures, etc.
• Smithsonian National Air & Space, Washington DC – Exhibits of aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, rockets, and other flight-related artifacts.
• Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles – Designed to examine racism and prejudice around the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust
• The Brooklyn Museum, New York City borough of Brooklyn – An art museum which holds an art collection with roughly 1.5 million works.
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC – Larger than 18 football fields and home to the largest natural history collection in the world.

Fyllis Hockman – T-Boy writer:

• Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia – Dedicated to failed love relationships, its exhibits include personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief descriptions. The museum began as a traveling collection of donated items. Since then, it has found a permanent location in Zagreb. In May 2011, the Museum of Broken Relationships received the Kenneth Hudson Award, given out by the European Museum Forum. The award goes to “a museum, person, project or group of people who have demonstrated the most unusual, daring and, perhaps, controversial achievement that challenges common perceptions of the role of museums in society.”

Phil Harper – Political fundraiser:

• Leon Trotsky Museum, Coyoacan, Mexico – The Leon Trotsky Museum is located just a few blocks away from the Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacan, a small city now surrounded by Mexico City. Trotsky was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army. As one of the original Russian Bolsheviks, he was considered the heir to Vladimir Lenin, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union. Lenin shared Trotsky’s ideal of worldwide Communism, but believed it was more pragmatic to consolidate the victories in the Russian Revolution rather than actively spreading military revolution to other countries. Lenin felt that Josef Stalin would be dangerous to their goals and should be removed from the position of General Secretary of the Party. But his words came too late, and, after his death, Stalin forced his way into power. Trotsky was exiled, and eventually hunted by the tyrannical Stalin regime as a threat to his de facto dictatorship. While on the run with no place to hide, Trotsky was eventually given political asylum in Mexico, sponsored by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Along with his wife, Natalia, he lived in the Rivera/Kahlo house for a few years, but later relocated to a new fortress-life home with guards and watchtowers.

As I entered the museum I was told that I was to have a private tour by the museum’s director. To my surprise, the museum director was none other than Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov. A remarkably spry and dashing man in his early 90s with impeccable manners, Mr. Volkov had lived with his grandparents,  Leon and Natalia, at age thirteen, and was wounded himself as a result of the Stalin operative’s failed machine gun assault. The bullet holes are still in the walls.  He walked me through the museum, patiently explaining in detail the history of photos from Trotsky’s lifetime, his participation in the Bolshevik Revolution, family tree, books and newspapers.

The centerpiece of the museum is Trotsky’s study, where he was fatally wounded by Ramón Mercader, who had posed as a family friend. While engrossed in a Mercader manuscript, which he had asked Trotsky to read as a favor, the assassin snuck up behind him and struck him in the back of the head with an ice axe. Mercader was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day. The Soviet government denied responsibility, and Mercader was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Mexican authorities.

Mr. Volkov ultimately raised his own family in the house, and then turned it into a museum on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

Museum lovers, If you have a museum/s that you’d like to share, please send to Traveling Boy. We’ll post and do all the work!

The post More T-Boy Society of Film and Music’s Favorite Museums appeared first on Traveling Archive.

These money-back guarantee scribbles comprise a kitchen sink that keeps getting thrown about. Perhaps a topic or two might be of interest. Given the tangents, they have an ever-green shelf-life.

If nothing else, you might enjoy frequent appearances of dagger-sharp political art, courtesy of the kindness of Nancy Ohanian, who’s just published one of the most mischievous coffee table books that will cross your path: Between The Tweets, Editorial Cartoons by Nancy Ohanian.

Read ‘em and weep.

The post Political Amusements, or Not! appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Through the turnstiles at Smolenskaya Station we go, me, the lone photojournalist invited by Insight Vacations to sample its Easy Pace Russia journey, and 22 traveling mates for an hour of underground time-travel back to the days of the old Soviet Union.

“Opened in 1935 as just a single, 11 kilometers-long line with 13 stations,” comments Vera, our local art-history guide in the easy-to-spot, bright-red jacket and matching red-and-white umbrella, “Moscow’s metro system of today has grown to 12 lines, 346.2 kilometers of track and 206 stations, with more expansion planned for the very near future.”

Sure, we’re here to share a ride with anonymous Muscovites, but, more importantly, we’re 50m below the surface to get a sense of what life was like in the U.S.S.R. via the thematic, hammer-and-sickle public art displays that are showcased in the many spotless stations, the so-called “palaces for the people,” that Joseph Stalin commissioned.

“Locals and foreigners alike claim that the Moscow Metro system, with its abundance of Socialist Realism art and architecture, is the most beautiful in the world,” comments Vera through our earbuds as we walk around the station, one of the 44 that are listed on the Russian Cultural Heritage Register. “It’s also the fifth largest system in the world,” she adds, “and its daily ridership of about nine-million surpasses both the New York City and London subway systems combined.” I’m impressed.

Cost of a single ticket is 55 rubles (approximately $.90 USD) which entitles the passenger to ride to any number of stations and make transfers within the system freely. Riding on Insight’s ruble, I’d say we’re a pretty inexpensive date.

With a train coming and going about every 90-seconds during rush hour, three to five minutes during off-peak, our time on the platform is brief as we hop on and head to Kievskaya Station on the Blue Line.

Inaugurated in 1953, Kievskaya is noted for its high white arches atop square pylons wrapped in red marble. Along each arch are detailed mosaics surrounded by a yellow-gold, baroque-style frame. The station’s theme depicts the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia.

When asked about the importance of the Moscow Metro, Vera replies: “It was touted as THE symbol of the new social order under Stalin, as these metro stations, with their reflective marble walls, high ceilings, artwork and grandiose chandeliers, became the focus of modern Communist engineering and architecture that eventually traveled above ground, too, in the form of the ‘Seven Sisters.’

No other station speaks more directly to Socialist Realism in public art than the Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square) station, constructed right underneath the square and our last stop on this underground, cultural museum primer.

In service since 1938, this “palace” features red and yellow marble arches resting on low pylons faced with black Armenian marble. Each arch is flanked and supported by a pair of bronze sculptures depicting the common man doing his/her part for the Soviet Union: soldiers, farmers, athletes, writers, aviators, industrial workers, and schoolchildren.

A total of 76 sculptures are on display at the Revolution Square Station, all created by Matvey Manizer, including the crowd pleasing frontier guard and his dog. It’s believed to bring good luck if one rubs man’s best friend’s nose. From the look of its snout, this canine has been petted quite a lot.

Returning above ground, we make our way through Revolution Square, past the statue of Karl Marx, the Prussian-born philosopher considered to be the “Father of Communism,” and onto the waiting Insight motor coach, parked right in front of the world-famous house of ballet and opera: Bolshoi Theatre.

Tourist: “Uh, excuse me sir, but how do you get to the Bolshoi Theatre?”

Muscovite: “Practice.”

Go here for detailed information on Insight’s six journeys to Russia, as well as more than 100 other premium and luxury-escorted itineraries around Europe, or call toll free (888) 680-1241, or contact your travel agent.

Our second day in Moscow is just getting started. As soon as “Alexander the Great,” our Insight pilot, maneuvers the coach through traffic, we’ll have another look around Red Square and go window shopping at the grand, elegant and opulent Main Universal Store: GUM.

The post Easy Pace Russia: Moscow’s Underground Art Museums (Dispatch #12) appeared first on Traveling Archive.

True Value

They wanted a painting about chocolate so my original concept was to have a dark background with just Chesire-cat-like teeth in the middle but it was too simple so I put a little more of the face … then a little more of the hands, etc. and soon my visual prank evolved into a full-blown digital painting.  So it was a total surprise when I won first place for that painting at the La Habra Art Gallery last Saturday.

I’ve been learning a VALUE-able lesson. Two Mondays ago, I was asked to critique 3 paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in an article for Travelingboy.com [CLICK HERE]. That’s when I started thinking about the value of art.  Saturday,  I was surprised to win 1st place at the Art Gallery. Last Monday, a business friend asked me a special favor to do a caricature of his grand daughter … he paid me less than even the cost of the frame.

Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive. His “worth” increased by the millions after death (now some think his value has been highly exaggerated). You see it wasn’t until someone influential said his paintings were any good that the crowd increased what they were willing to spend for his original brushstrokes.  [Which brings us to another phenomenon — printed photographic copies of his paintings don’t cost that much yet they deliver (practically) the same visual impact. Recently, while doing caricatures for a Halloween event, my original ink caricatures had less demand than my digital (multiply-able) renditions. Why is that?]

I’ve been praying for a friend who’s undergoing a depression. How does one measure one’s worth? By the hours he labors? By the many drops of blood, sweat and tears? How about a paycheck? Is a lawyer more valuable than a doctor? Is the president more inherently valuable than the citizen who elected him?

Is there no absolute true price for anything or anyone? Prices change according to economic times and according to the situation. It can be very depressing to believe that no one understands you or thinks you are important. However, one can always find comfort in our TRUE ABSOLUTE VALUE which is how God sees us. What God sees in us does not fluctuate. Look at the birds in the air. God values us more than the simple sparrows … more than any other animal or any painting or anything. Remember, even while we are/were such a mess … even at our worst, God sent us His son. If that doesn’t make you special, you’re listening to the wrong crowd.

A Van Gogh = Millions of dollars.
A chocolate painting = Cash reward and accolades.
A digital caricature = Less than the cost of a frame.
My worth under God’s eyes = Priceless.

TGIF people!

Joke of the Week

Thanks to Peter Paul of S Pasadena, CA for sharing this joke.

Don’s Puns

Funny Video

Giant Turkey

(Could have been shorter)
Sent by Tom of Pasadena, CA

Parting Shot

Thanks to Don of Kelowna, B.C.  who shared these:

The post Tech Support appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Ask the general populace to name a famous painter, and they’d probably say Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh. Today his paintings command staggering purchase prices, with his Portrait of Dr. Gachet, painted the last year of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, selling for 152 million dollars in today’s currency.

During his ten short years as a painter, he only sold one painting, and that was to his young art dealer brother, Theo van Gogh, who supported Vincent financially throughout most of his life. His years have been well-documented in films: Vincente Minnelli’s Lust for Life (which Kirk Douglas called his favorite film role); Alain Resnais’ short documentary, Van Gogh;, Robert Altman’s Vincent & Theo; Maurice Pialat’s Van Gogh; and avant garde painter Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate with  Willem Dafoe in the title role. Van Gogh is also well represented in print. For an immediate read, visit Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, where all his written correspondence is presented in a web edition.

“How can I be useful, of what service can I be?
There is something inside me, what can it be?”

– Vincent van Gogh

Backstory

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 – 1890) was born in the southern Netherlands into an upper middleclass Dutch family; his father a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. In Dutch, his surname is pronounced ‘vun Khokh.’ Prior to be being a painter, van Gogh had been a junior clerk at an art firm, teacher, bookseller, art student and preacher. His commission as a lay preacher in the Borinage mining region of Belgium was spent helping coal miners in their horrific existence. Vincent lived among the miners and their families, sharing their poverty and sleeping on the floor. He would literally give the very shirt off his own back. His dedication was such that he was nicknamed The Christ of the Coal Mine. With his sloppy attire and unorthodox manner of ‘bringing God down to the miners,’ the ministry’s elders found his style not in the same vein as their dignified, buttoned up theology, and did not renew his contract. At age 30, van Gogh decided to dedicate his life completely to art. After a short stay in The Netherlands, he moved to the town of Arles in the south of France – also a favorite of the Impressionists because of the bright Mediterranean sunshine which created vivid colors and blue skies. He changed his style to impressionistic-influenced bursts of color and rough brush strokes done in thick impasto. His theme eventually focused on nature and brooding self-portraits, mainly due to his lack of money to hire a model.  This is where he created many of his greatest paintings. Every act of his life was of a deeply felt sense of fervency, which transitioned into his art, where every move of his paint brush was done with profound intensity. Regardless of the subject matter, all his work is about himself.

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”

– Vincent van Gogh

For many, Vincent is best known for his mental instability, suffering from psychotic episodes and delusions, which resulted in self-imposed tenures in an asylum under the care of Dr. Gachet, also a painter. A sensationalistic incident where he slashed off his left earlobe with a razor, purportedly after an argument with post-impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, added to his reputation as ‘the unkempt, mad painter.’ Gauguin had been a stockbroker and Sunday painter under the guidance of impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro. He left his career to take up painting full time, and his family promptly threw him out of the house. Penniless, Theo suggested that he should share a room with van Gogh to save money. It was an arrangement which immensely pleased van Gogh due to his loneliness and attraction of having long discussions about art with another painter. For Gauguin it was the opposite, and he bailed for Tahiti, where he created a body of work, which depicted Polynesian nature and culture, especially pubescent girls, rendered in solid outlines and vivid color. He died at the age of 54 from symptoms related to syphilis. Little did either painter know that their works of art would later sell for unimaginable prices.

Final Days in Auvers-sur-Oise

I finally caught up with van Gogh in the charming French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just 16.9 miles by train and a world away from the riveting pulse of Paris. This is where Van Gogh spent the last days of his life. His final two-month period was his most intense and prolific, creating over eighty, almost violent paintings, and 64 sketches.   Many are considered masterpieces, such as Crows over Wheatfield, Portrait of Dr. Gachet and Church at Auvers. I had journeyed there to learn more about van Gogh and walk the famous self-guided Vincent van Gogh Trail.  You simply follow the path where many of his works were painted, and then stop at posted landmarks, which feature a reproduction of one of his paintings, overlooking the exact landscape where he painted it. It’s mesmerizing; you actually see what he saw when painting one of his many landscapes or village streets.

I was surprised that not one of Van Gogh’s original paintings was on display in Auvers-sur-Oise, but you can clearly feel his spiritual presence. You’ll see the modest village houses, the town hall and the church Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, pretty much unchanged when Van Gogh painted them. Besides negotiating the Vincent van Gogh Trail, you can stroll further through town and visit Dr. Gachet’s house, which is now a museum. The tour showcases the rooms where Dr. Gachet treated van Gogh with homeopathic remedies and where they painted together in his garden. The village itself is a bit of a horizontal sprawl, and a pair of solid walking shoes is essential

On the evening of July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh stumbled back to his tiny room at the Auberge Ravoux. Alarmed by his groans, the innkeeper looked in on the artist and found van Gogh doubled over in pain from a gunshot wound to his stomach. The innkeeper summoned the village doctor, and van Gogh requested that Dr. Gachet come as well. After examining the patient, the doctors concurred that it was not possible to remove the bullet. Gachet filled a pipe, lit it and placed it in the artist’s mouth. Van Gogh puffed quietly away, while the doctor sat at his side and painted a canvas of him, at van Gogh’s request. Theo heard the news the next day and rushed to Auvers to be by his brother’s side. Comforted by Theo’s presence, van Gogh told his brother, “I wish I could pass away like this.” He purportedly whispered to Theo that he shot himself in the chest and missed, resulting in the bullet entering his stomach. He apparently passed out, and then was revived when the weather cooled down. His next step was to shoot himself again in a more fatal part of his body, but he could not find the gun. “I would have thought that as I passed out the gun would have remained in my hand: I doubt if I would have thrown it far.” Vincent, however, was unable to find the gun, and staggered home.

“Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.”

– Vincent van Gogh

The disappearance of the murder weapon resulted in a series of conspiracy theories. There were long debates whether he committed suicide or was shot by an unnamed person. Never popular wherever he lived and painted, villagers often considered him a dangerous madman dressed in rags. Children would mock van Gogh, throwing rocks and dirt clods at him while he painted. Some researchers argue that van Gogh was accidentally shot by two young boys playing with a gun nearby. There is even one theory that he was murdered by Wild Bill Cody (really) when he was visiting Auvers-sur-Oise on the same day.

The mystery finally came to rest when a corroded revolver was discovered, buried in a wheat field, by a farmer in 1965. Lauded as the most famous weapon in art history, an unnamed buyer bought the 7mm caliber Lefaucheux revolver for about $212,000. The gun’s trigger is pulled back, frozen in place, cementing the moment where it would have dropped from Van Gogh’s grasp.

The origin of the gun was investigated by the writer Alain Rohan in his 2012 book, Did We Find the Suicide Weapon? Rohan presents arguments in favor of its authenticity: “Its caliber matches the bullet retrieved from van Gogh’s body, scientific studies show that the gun had been in the ground since the 1890s, and it is a lower-power gun, which could potentially explain the artist’s prolonged death.”

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”

– Vincent van Gogh

A month before his death, he wrote to Theo that his series of painted wheat fields didn’t take much effort to express sadness and extreme loneliness. Van Gogh’s growing sense of distress was exacerbated with news that Theo was experiencing financial problems of his own, which would mean a greater hardship in supporting him. Plus, he was subsiding mainly on coffee, tobacco, and the highly alcoholic beverage, absinth. While Gachet attended to his wounded friend, he still expressed his wish to somehow save him. “Then it has to be done all over again,” replied van Gogh. It is still not exactly clear why van Gogh chose to end his life, but by committing the tragic act so close to the setting of the hauntingly stark Crows over Wheatfield merits much thought.

The journey back in time continued with the much anticipated tour of van Gogh’s modest attic room in Auberge Ravoux where he died. Often called The House of Van Gogh, the room has remained vacant since his death; not because it was where van Gogh took his last breath, but due to the French superstition of never renting a room where someone has died. There was a sense of hushed reverence as our small group followed our guide up the sacred stairs. As we quietly assembled in the little room, I felt that I already knew this spartan-like dwelling from Vincent’s paintings; which along with his quarters in Arles, is one of the most famous rooms in art history. But to see it, smell it and feel it in person moved me to the depths of my soul. Our guide gave a heartfelt account of Vincent’s last two days; so heartfelt, that she actually wept.

“The sadness will last forever.”

– Vincent van Gogh

A final walk up the little hill leads to the cemetery where the unassuming graves of Vincent and Theo rest, buried side by side.

If You Go

Tourist Office of Auvers-sur-Oise

Van Gogh Route in Auvers-sur-Oise

The post In the Path of Vincent van Gogh appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Bathed in mid-morning sunlight that accents its colorful mint-green, white and gilded facade, the impressive Winter Palace takes center stage in the heart of historic St. Petersburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Once upon a time the official residence of the all-powerful Romanov Tsars, stretching from the banks of the Neva River across to Palace Square, the Winter Palace houses the city’s most popular tourist attraction: the State Hermitage Museum.

Together with 22 other like-minded travelers and Gulya, our effervescent local guide, I, a guest photojournalists invited by Insight Vacations to sample its Easy Pace Russia journey, weather a very long queue — despite pre-booked tickets with an assigned entry time — and finally cross over the threshold and enter into one of the most impressive collections of priceless art, culture and interior design found anywhere on the planet.

“When asked about its status,” intones Gulya, “the current director of the Hermitage replied: ‘I can’t say it is the number one museum in the world, but it’s certainly not number two.’”

Up the imperial Jordan Staircase we go, elbow-to-elbow with the masses, to take in as much of the history, beauty and riches that adorn the hallways, rooms, walls and ceilings in the short amount of time we’re allotted.

One of the oldest museums in the world, the Hermitage was founded in 1754 by Catherine the Great. A true patron of the arts, the Empress of Russia relentlessly acquired artwork en masse from European aristocrats, and the museum continued to grow under the watchful eyes and deep pockets of her successors, and was massively enriched by Bolshevik confiscations during the Revolution and Red Army seizures from a defeated Germany during World War II.

With over three-million pieces of art at its disposal, of which only a small portion is on permanent display to the public, the Hermitage collection, incredibly varied, spans the history books. Bookended by artifacts from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and Persia and post-impressionist masterpieces by Matisse and Picasso, there’s a venerable “Who’s Who” from the annals of the art world — Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Velasquez, to name but a few — sandwiched in between.

Spread throughout 360 rooms located inside five connecting buildings — The Winter Palace, the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Small Hermitage and the Hermitage Theatre — the State Hermitage Museum dazzles the eyes with its lavishly decorated state rooms and spacious halls, all testaments to the incredible wealth, extravagant tastes and lifestyle of the Romanov Tsars.

As we near the end of our three-hour, whirlwind tour, Gulya remarks, “One estimate has it that you would need eleven years to view each exhibit on display for just one minute.” Well, that leaves me with just 10 years, 11 months, 30 days and 21 hours to fully appreciate the State Hermitage Museum.

Go here for complete information on Insight’s six itineraries to Russia, as well as more than 100 other premium and luxury-escorted routes around Europe, or call toll-free (888) 680-1241, or contact your travel agent.

It took three empresses to build a village, Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village), on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Join me tomorrow morning and we’ll view it together.

Do svidaniya!

The post Easy Pace Russia: Inside The Hermitage Museum (Dispatch #6) appeared first on Traveling Archive.