Yesterday I went, on a school-sponsord trip, to two museums in San Antonio. The first was The McNay and then to the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA). Both museums were rather interesting.
The colleciton at the McNay is pretty impressive (much more extensive than Houston’s The Menil Colleciton), but not much really really seemed to strike me. I loved the Medieval Collection at the McNay. That period seems rather underrepresented in a lot of collections, and this was the first time I had seen more than a piece or two from that period of European history. A couple of contemporary pieces did catch my eye. One was entitled “The Cocktail Party.” The piece itself is the size of a small room with several human figures (made of paper-mache, perhaps). The interesting thing about this exhibit was the fact that it all the exterior surfaces in the piece were covered in Cheez Doodles. Personally I had never seen so many Cheez Doodles in my life. A couple of the figures contained mechanics and performed repetitive motions, which definitely added some depth to the piece. The other piece of art that caught my eye was the exercise equipment/torture device sculpture. This wooden sculpture was in the form of an all-in-one home gym setup at home, but it was stylized after some of the more popular medieval torture devices found in dungeons. Since both pieces are part of a visiting exhibit, I was not allowed to take a picture of them, but you can see “The Cocktail Party” at the McNay website (link below).
I was rather impressed with the size and scope of the collection at the SAMA. The Western antiquities collection is what impressed me the most. In terms of pieces, the collection is rather extensive. It even includes a heroic sculpture portrait of Marcus Aurelius and a heroic sculpture portrait of Trajan. I’m not sure if these were official portraits (the head on the Trajan sculpture is believed to have been added to its body in the 18th Century), but they are impressive nonetheless. The antiquities collection is quite impressive, but in contrast to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Houston museum contains fewer pieces, but in my opinion, the pieces in Houston are more significant. Houston also contains a great deal of non-Western antiquities. SAMA also includes a Colonial period Latin American exhibit, with its cornerstone piece a very large golden altar with a painting of the Virgin Mary in the center. This particular pieces easily tops 20 feet in height and is absolutely beautiful.
As the day came to an end I was glad to be going home, but now I’m itching to go to either Dallas or Austin to see what’s on display in either of those cities. Until then, however, I’ll just have to rely on what I can find online.
Work on my project for Digital Art is progressing. I’m finding this to be a challenge as I am forced to work on indivual pixels at times in order to make things integrate smoothly. I hope to have it done by Tuesday at the very latest and will post it once I turn it in for grading. As for me now, I have to get some sleep. Have a good night, everyone, and if you get a chance, check out the links I provided below.
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