Beaux-Arts is some fine arts indeed. To celebrate our 80th day on the road I will put up 80 pictures of things I liked at the Montreal Beaux Arts Museum. The museum was organized according to the style of the art being displayed, not by artist, or chronology. Much of this is due to the fact that many objects were donated as part of large collections that had no contextual or archeological information pertaining to the origin of the pieces. For instance, there was a large selection of Japanese ceramics. The ceramics were donated en masse, without any information about the date or region in which they were produced. Likewise collections with pre-Colombian Inca art, Egyptian and African pieces were also collected and donated. So the museum displayed then together according to the style of the piece not the date, place or artesian who produced them. The breadth of the collection is vast and many pieces would be at home in any history or anthropological museum. We learned a new tern, Takuminartut, which is the term being applied to First Nations contemporary art that flows from the traditional motifs and styles of the past.
A great sculpture garden outside
Moove over!
Icarus, I suppose
This Sister had a "habit" of wearing her head gear too tight
Dance like no elephants are watching
Jet fighter ostrich
Heading into the museum now
First Nations contemporary art pieces
These all followed the theme of animal/human chimeras
A whale vertebrae front
and the back
Owl you doing?
Zoom in to see the scary story being told here. The scary folks are in the tiny boat at the top!
A fine mix of natural materials
This floor contained paintings that were realistic and object oriented
Some were from the group of seven
Look at the base, its a pipe
Here is the pipe bowl that the vixen is rising up from
Nice singing voice and mustache too
This is also a great one to look closer at. It was painted for the King of France and clearly is allegorical. What group of humans the beaver represent was deliberately left ambiguous
Lots of modern art too
This was a 20 foot wall of stuffed animals grouped according to color
A strange beast indeed
Nice hair!
A globe trotter like us
An Ibis, a funerary offering from Madagascar
Each nail or metal piece represented an agreement that was mediated by the wise man that is represented by this statue. These could include truces or divorces or other serious disputes
A falcon from Egypt
A wooden mask made of Lebanon Ceder wood from 900BC
Rows upon rows of Japanese ceramics
We love the attention to detail found in all things Japanese
A bit grumpy
A box to hold your seal
Natsuke carvings!
A bronze McDonalds box
Different pre-Colombian body styles
Venus Di Milos
Some street art on out way to the car
An odd sculpture over by the Magill campus
It has been 80 days since we began our Migration.
