Travels to Munich II

On Sunday, I got batteries and went back and got a few pictures where my camera had failed me. Here is the north side of the Residenz, facing the Hof Garten.

Here is a seen from that garden (notice that my second attempt at an artsy photo worked a little better). The photo cuts off that the structure there is domed (so the photo did not work that well). The people walking away in the photo are musicians who will set up inside the structure and play for donations.
I spent most of the day in the art museums - the Alte Pinakothek (Old Art Museum), Neue Pinakothek (New Art Museum) and Pinakothek der Moderne (Museum of Modern Art), all within a stones throw of each other. The Old had pre-Renaissance and early Renaissance, the New had later Renaissance through Impressionism and some Post-Impressionism, and the Modern had weird stuff.

OK, I can get my head around "classic modern" (say pre-war or even pre-1960s) but, what is now called contemporary art, loses its connection with art. For example, one huge display (40m x 10m) hanging 5m from the ceiling was a series of metal baskets containing clothes and such attached to ropes and chains as with theater curtains. What does it mean? Oh to find that out, you had to spend five minutes reading the artist's description of its symbolism. I read it and it made sense. I may not agree but that is not my problem with contemporary art. However, at some point, the written word conveys more information that the visual representation. Then again, I may just be a Philistine.

My favorite was the Neue Pinakothek. It contained the famous artists we all have learned about (David, de Goya, Delecroix, Gainesborough, Monet). What I enjoyed were some of the lesser known artists whose styles were variations on these themes. Of course, the museum did have a number of German and Munich School paintings. These paintings and variations were new to me (see wikipedia). I bought a museum book but I guess I did not look at it closely enough. Many of the paintings I liked so much did not make it into the book.

However, six hours (with breaks) in three museums did me in for the day. I returned in the late afternoon instead of the originally planned early evening.