Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal

Mai 8 (Dimanche)
It's another sunny & warm day in Montreal. But the clouds are getting thicker now. It's going to rain next week! NO~~

Went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal (The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) today. It was founded in 1860 & it was one of Canada's oldest art museums. There are two buildings - the older neoclassical one called Michal & Renata Hornstein Pavilion and the new modern one called the Jean-Noel Desmarais Pavailion. The two buildings are connected by an underground passage that has exhibitions of art works from Africa, Asia, Islam, & etc.

The bus dropped me off right outside of the Hornstein Pavilion. The admission to the permanent exhibitions is free but there's an admission fee to the temporary exhibition. & GUESS what the temporary exhibition that's currently on now? -> ETERNAL EGYPT!!!! I saw it already when it was in Victoria, B.C. !! My family took the ferry all the way to Victoria just to see that! & now it's right beside me in Montreal! The Egyptian mummies from the British Museum followed me from Victoria to Montreal~ haha.. or maybe it's the other way around? I'm not sure if the ETERNAL EGYPT was in Taipei last yr... b/c I remember seeing some sign that looks like it when I was in Tw.. HO! This is freaky~

The collections of the museum in the Hornstein Pavilion include: Canadian Art, Inuit Art, Amerindian Art, Canadian Decorative Arts, Decorative Arts from the Renaissance to Today, & Mediterranean Archaeology. The first 4 were all on the second floor. The last 2 were on the first floor.

The Hornstein Pavilion of the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal. Don't you just love the 2 red hearts at the corner of the museum?

The elegant lobby of the Hornstein Pavilion.

The Contemporary Art Section. My sis would love this. The sofa is actually called the "Sunset in New York sofa".

One of my favorites - there's 3 men - one a hunter, one a singer, & one a fisher. It's in the Canadian Art section.

Titled: Fireworks. I just love how this piece stands out from the rest.

Sometimes art can be just as simple as symbols & numbers. "Signs in Space" by Leon Bellefleur (from Quebec).

Another one of my favorites. He looks as if he were preparing to dive.. It looked so real! & Look at the shadow, it already tells you he is going to win (ie. The shadow seems to show that he has won).

An Inuit Art - The raw material is the whale spine.

"The Dummer" - Another Inuit Art. It's quite cute~

I forgot what this was called. But this Inuit work is soo cute too~ keke..

The stage for Modern Art. The melting-glass-looking structure is called "Glass Dance" > or something that like.. I can't remember.

This is not a display case in a mall. This is ART~

This seems to be a pretty rough sofa to sit on.

More contemporary chairs.

A Spinet from England around the 1700s. Doesn't it look like a mini-piano/harpsichord?

A piano from the Victorian era in England.

Egyptian Zone!

A bunch of incence burning things that look kinda cute.

The Roman heads in the Mediterranean Archaeology section.

More Roman statues.

I got out of the Hornstein Pavilion and decided to go to the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul just right beside it. The church was closing at the time I went in. I got in before the guy in there had a chance to lock the door. So I asked the guy whether this place was open to the public ('tho I knew it was.. but seeing that he was locking the doors so I decided to be polite). & The guy said that they just had the Sunday service (which I knew already too from the tourist guide) & he said that everyone was just pouring out of the church after the service... maybe b/c it's Mother's Day today. Isn't that just interesting? God may be important but not as important as Mom, ye know.

The guy from the church was really nice. He let me stayed there & told me how to exit now that the front doors were locked. This Presbyterian church was built in 1932 by the Scottish community in Montreal. What's strikingly different about this church from the other ones is that its interior is entirely constructed by stone. There weren't fancy decorations and carvings. It was just straight-forward -> stone! It makes me think of pictures of those lonely castles in Scotland. The church has Montreal's largest organ. it's a four-manual Casavant with 6,911 pipes. It's amazing.

Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. I got in just on time! keke..

The interior of the Church of St. Andrew & St. Paul. It's stony!

The stained-glass windows.

While the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul was on the west side of the Hornstein Pavilion, the not-much-advertised Erskine & American United Church was on the east side of the Pavilion.
This is the Erksine & American United Church. Although you don't find people talking about this church much but you gotta know that this neo-Romanesque church built in 1894 has 24 Tiffany windows! (Tiffany -> not the jewelry.. but the famous brand in glass on lamps - is that how u say it?!). The Musee des Beaux-Arts actually wants to buy the church and use it as an exhibition space for religious art.

Then I went to the Desmarais Pavilion, the more modern-looking building of Musee des Beaux-Arts. Other than the temporary exhibition - the Eternal Egypt, the permanent collection includes: Contemporary Art, Galleries of Ancient Cultures (African, Oceanian, Asian, Islamic, & Pre-Coloumbian Art), 19th & 20th-c. Art, Old Masters (Picasson, Miro, etc), 19th-c European Art, Prints & Drawings, & Drawings, Prints and Photographs from 1900 to Today.

The Damarais Pavillion with the Eternal Egypt ad.

Looking at the lobby/ticket area from the 2nd floor.

Here we meet again -The Eternal Egypt Exhibition!
No, I did not go in. Once is enough~ unless I become a Egyptologist & know how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Pierre Auguste Renoir (Impressionist) - "Young Girl with a Hat" (about 1890).

Pablo Picasso! I think the one on the left is called the "White Hen". 95% sure.

Is this your idea of what Picasso is like? A cubistic work done by Picasso.

A cool architecture model of the Romanesque Sacre-Couer Basilica (1st half of 12th-c) in Paris done by Antonie Polisois (plaster).

I think this is a model of the famous church in Florence, Italy.

Jame's Tissot's "October".

A gallery that makes you feel like you're walking through time.

Some of the 18/19th-c paintings on the wall.

A famous painting done by Rembrandt - "Portrait of a Young Woman". It's a bit on the dark side, don't you think?

I think I've seen this painting in my music history textbook.
"Duet" (1623-4) by Gerrit von Honthorst.

Godfried Schalcken's "Salome with the Head of John the Bapist"(about 1700). The torch/light really caught my attention. It looked so real.

Are you hungry? This still-life painting (mid-17th-c) by Christiaen Luyckx looks so authentic.

Some modernist movement here - Jim Campell's "5th-Avenue Cutaway" (2002) LED display. It's like a TV screen & all you see is people walking by.

2 big heads -> that's all I know.

More contemporary stuff.

Is this your understanding of contemporary art? - It's a MESS! No no no.. you gotta look beneath the colors.. look at all the brush strokes (if there were any) & the colors.. & the spirits w/in it.. etc.etc. (remember Mona Lisa Smile?)

"Got MILK?"
NO! This is not the title of the work! but I forgot what it was called.. & the circular thing at the back is one of those "hyptonising" diagrams.

African art!

Chinese Art!

Pre-Colombian Art!

"Flying Sausage?"
NOOOO~~~!! But I forgot what it was.. I just thought it was kinda cute with the small elephant on one end.

I had to check my backpack b/c it was big. So I took out the laptop & impt documents w/ me. The laptop strap was totally poorly designed. My shoulder hurted so much after walking out of the Desmarais Pavilion. & There was seriously a LOT of walking. My feet are sooo dead by the end of going to the museum, going for some grocery shopping, & walking back to my room from the grocery shop. I was going to go to the La Fountain Park today too! But I'm so tired now that I just want to sleep.. or go play piano or something 'tho harp would be a better incentive.