(no subject)
Many grateful thanks to
eandme for her gift of virtual bubbly and to
mumis ,
primula_baggins and
laeliacatt for their good wishes.
As it was a special birthday, my husband took the day off work so that we could spend the day together. We both enjoy walking in the hills but faced with a stiff north wind and near zero temperatures (that's only C, not F, for any American friends reading this) decided that Cardiff might be a more comfortable option.
The museum has a exhibition on showcasing the collection of the Davies sisters who built up a significant private collection of (mainly) impressionists during the early 1900s. They were brought up in Calvinist Methodist home and they inherited both their grandfather's fortune, built on coal, and his sense of philanthropy. They began collecting in their twenties, and on their deaths in 1951 and 1963 bequeathed the entire 260 works to the National Museum of Wales, completely transforming its collection.
As well as the works themselves, it was interesting to note the individual prices originally paid by the sisters. Some of the most expensive works at the time, costing thousands of pounds, are by artists unfamiliar to me, while they picked up paintings by Cezanne and Monet for a few hundred.
Later we watched "I'm not there". An interesting concept, worth seeing but not entirely successful, since it depended so much on the quality of the actors. Cate Blanchett as Dylan was excellent, quite riveting. She was utterly convincing, completely disappearing into the character. The young black actor Marcus Carl Franklin also captured something of him. Unfortunately the other four actors did not come close. It does not claim to be a biopic but I have to admit I did not feel entirely comfortable with the mixture of fact and fiction - I like to know which is which. However, it seems that Dylan himself is happy with it.
eandme for her gift of virtual bubbly and to
mumis ,
primula_baggins and
laeliacatt for their good wishes.
As it was a special birthday, my husband took the day off work so that we could spend the day together. We both enjoy walking in the hills but faced with a stiff north wind and near zero temperatures (that's only C, not F, for any American friends reading this) decided that Cardiff might be a more comfortable option.
The museum has a exhibition on showcasing the collection of the Davies sisters who built up a significant private collection of (mainly) impressionists during the early 1900s. They were brought up in Calvinist Methodist home and they inherited both their grandfather's fortune, built on coal, and his sense of philanthropy. They began collecting in their twenties, and on their deaths in 1951 and 1963 bequeathed the entire 260 works to the National Museum of Wales, completely transforming its collection.
As well as the works themselves, it was interesting to note the individual prices originally paid by the sisters. Some of the most expensive works at the time, costing thousands of pounds, are by artists unfamiliar to me, while they picked up paintings by Cezanne and Monet for a few hundred.
Later we watched "I'm not there". An interesting concept, worth seeing but not entirely successful, since it depended so much on the quality of the actors. Cate Blanchett as Dylan was excellent, quite riveting. She was utterly convincing, completely disappearing into the character. The young black actor Marcus Carl Franklin also captured something of him. Unfortunately the other four actors did not come close. It does not claim to be a biopic but I have to admit I did not feel entirely comfortable with the mixture of fact and fiction - I like to know which is which. However, it seems that Dylan himself is happy with it.