The Cleveland Museum of Art

Today I visited one of my home town's greatest treasures, the Cleveland Museum of Art.  I was accompanied by Jane, my friend and former teaching colleague, and her cousin. 

The museum is located in the University Circle district of Cleveland.  University Circle has one of the highest concentrations of cultural institutions anywhere in the world.  Within walking distance of the art museum are the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, the Western Reserve Historical Society, the Crawford Aviation-Auto Museum, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Severance Hall (the home of the renowned Cleveland Orchestra), the Children's Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Case-Western Reserve University.

Our art museum is regarded one of the finest in the country. Although not as large as some (it contains 43,000 pieces of art), the quality of its collection is considered outstanding.  It is a comprehensive museum with pieces spanning the entire history of art, from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the 21st century.  The museum was begun with an endowment donated by wealthy Cleveland industrialists, and was built on land donated by Jephtha Wade, the founder of Western Union Telegraph.  In 1916 the neoclassical building was opened "for the benefit of all people, forever."


(image from the web)

The museum was expanded throughout the 20th century to make room for the growing collection.  In 2005 the most ambitious renovation and expansion was begun.  It was the largest cultural project in the history of Ohio.  Sections of the museum were reopened as they were completed, and the last galleries were opened to the public in January of 2014.  A large glass-covered atrium connects the original 1916 building with the newer galleries.

 

 



The museum has an endowment of $600,000, and is the wealthiest museum in the country.  Admission to the museum is free.

 

Here are some pictures that I took to give you a glimpse of our magnificent museum and a few of its treasures...

 

 

 In the Egyptian gallery

 

 

The Oriental collection is one of the largest outside of Asia.

 

 

 

 

The former garden court was converted into additional gallery space.

 

 

 

 

This series of 18th century paintings of the Four Muses and Apollo by the French artist Charles Meynier had been in storage because previously there had not been enough room to display them together.

 

 

 

 

This illuminated prayer book from the 15th century belonged to Queen Isabella of Spain.

 

 

 

 

One of our two Rembrandts

 

 

 

 

This painting of a court jester is by the Spanish master, Diego Velásquez.

 

 

 

 

The museum's two paintings by El Greco

 

 

 

 

This painting by the English painter Turner, "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons" is considered one of the museum's gems.

 

 

 

 

This new glass-enclosed space contains 19th century European sculpture, including several pieces by Rodin.  In the background you can see the original museum building.

 

 

 

 

The Impressionist Gallery includes one of Monet's "Water Lilies".

 

 

 

 

The paintings and sculptures are supplemented with a large collection of

decorative arts.

 

 

 

If you visit Cleveland, the museum of art should be on your list of places to see!!

 





A Brief History of Spain (Part Two)

When the Roman Empire fell apart in the fourth century, Germanic tribes from the north swept into Spain to fill the power vacuum.  One of these tribes, the Visigoths, gained dominance and reunited the peninsula with their capital at Toledo.  The Visigoth kings converted to Christianity, and Hispania became a Christian kingdom.

The Visigoth rule, however, was weak, and the kingdom faced a threat from the Moslem caliphate which had expanded across North Africa.  In 711, a Moslem army, composed mostly of Berber tribesmen known as the Moors, swept across the Strait of Gibraltar and within seven years had conquered almost all of the peninsula.  Only a small area in the mountainous north had remained under the control of the Christians. 

The Moors were to remain in Spain for more than seven centuries.  They established their capital at Córdoba in the southern region of Al-Andalus (which we know today as Andalucía).  A large portion of the population converted to Islam.  Christians and Jews were required to pay a special tax, but were allowed to practice their religions.  Throughout much of the Moorish occupation, there was a remarkable coexistence of the three religions. 

Córdoba was at that time the largest, richest, and most cultured city in Western Europe.  It had a population of 500,000 people.  It was a commercial, financial and intellectual center.  It's great mosque was one of the marvels of the world, and it boasted a university and the largest library in the world at that time.  Its philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and scholars, who revived the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans, influenced the rest of Europe, and helped to bring it out of the "Dark Ages".

(image from the web)
The Mosque of Córdoba

In the far north, the Christian kingdom of Asturias, had resisted the Moslem invasion.  The Asturian king, Pelayo, defeated the Moors at the Battle of Covadonga in 722.  This victory marks the beginning of the "Reconquista" (Reconquest) in which the Christians, over the span of more than seven centuries, would gradually push the Moors out of the peninsula.  It was an on again, off again crusade.  There were periods when the Christian and Moorish kingdoms lived in peace.  There were periods when the Moors would reclaim land lost to the Christians. But the Moors were gradually pushed further and further south.  The old Visigoth capital of Toledo fell to the Christians in1035, Córdoba in 1236, and Sevilla in 1248.  Finally the only Moorish territory was the Kingdom of Granada in the far south.  There the Moorish culture had its final expression in the beautiful palace of the Alhambra.

(image from the web)

The Alhambra Palace

The most famous Christian warrior of the "Reconquista", and the national hero of Spain, was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, commonly known as "El Cid"  In 1094 he conquered the Mediterranean port of Valencia.  The story of "El Cid" was the basis of the earliest epic poem in Spanish literature, "El Cantar de Mío Cid" (The Song of My Cid).

The Christian territories were made up of numerous kingdoms including  Asturias, Galicia, León, and Navarra.  The counts of Barcelona ruled Cataluña and for a time it was an important commercial and political power whose influence stretched throughout the Mediterranean.  By the 1400s the two kingdoms of Castilla and Aragón controlled virtually all of Christian Spain.  In 1469, Queen Isabel I of Castilla (we know her as Isabella) married King Fernando II (Ferdinand) of Aragón.  Although they continued to rule their separate kingdoms, their marriage was to bring about the eventual creation of the modern nation of Spain. 

Isabel and Fernando were devout Catholics and are referred to as "Los Reyes Católicos" (The Catholic Monarchs). On January 1, 1492, the combined armies of their two kingdoms captured Granada, the last Moorish stronghold, and brought to an end the 781 year long Islamic presence in Spain. 

(image from the web)

Fernando II and Isabel I
(the couple that we call Ferdinand and Isabella)

A Brief History of Spain (part one)

Since I will soon be traveling to Spain, I thought that I would provide my readers with some historical background on that country... plus it will help me brush up on the history prior to playing "tour guide" there.

Spain's story goes far back into the mists of time.  Evidence has been found of human inhabitation going back to the Old Stone Age, more than 18,000 years ago.  The most famous prehistoric site is the Cave of Altamira in northern Spain.  The walls and ceilings of this cave are decorated with paintings of animals.  It was discovered in the late 1800s, and at the time it was thought impossible that prehistoric humans could have created such artistic images.  However, the skeptics were proven wrong when other examples of similar paleolithic art were discovered. The cave is now closed to visitors because the carbon dioxide from human breath was damaging the paintings.  But there is a replica of the cave at the Archaeological Museum in Madrid.

(image taken from the web)



 

The earliest inhabitants of Spain in historic times were a group known as the Iberians.  (From them comes the name by which we know Spain and Portugal... the Iberian Peninsula.)  The Iberans were a tribe who spoke a non Indo European language.  They arrived in southern and eastern Spain perhaps as early as the New Stone Age.  Their origin is unknown, but some think they might have come from northern Africa or from as far away as Asia Minor. Through contact with other Mediterranean civilizations they eventually developed a sophisticated culture.  They left behind many artifacts, the most famous being a sculpture know as "La Dama de Elche" (the Lady of Elche).  This highly realistic and detailed bust shows Greek influence.

(image from the web)

Between 900 and 300 B.C. the Celts moved into northern Spain.  They were a pastoral people and left little behind other than the ruins of their round, stone houses which are similar to those found in Celtic areas such as Scotland and Ireland.  It's interesting to note that in the northwestern region of Galicia, the bagpipe is the major instrument in the folk music.

The coast of Spain was visited and colonized by many of the civilzations of the ancient Mediterranean world.  The earliest colonizers were the Phoenicians who built the trading post of Gadir around 1000 B.C.  Gadir is the present day city of Cádiz, and is considered by some to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe.  After the Phoenicians came the Greeks, and they were followed by the Carthaginians.

Of all the ancient peoples that came to Spain, the Romans were to have the most lasting effect.  Around 200 B.C., as a result of the Punic Wars, the Romans took over the Carthaginian colonies.  They then pushed inland to conquer the rest of the peninsula.  But because of fierce resistance from the Iberian and Celtic tribes, it took nearly two centuries for the Romans to control all of Spain.  Once the conquest was complete, the population gradually became Romanized... its people became Roman citizens, spoke Latin (which was to evolve into the Spanish language of today), followed Roman law, lived in cities built in the Roman style, and worshiped Roman gods.  Eventually many were attracted to a new religion that was spreading throughout the empire... Christianity.  For four centuries Spain was the Roman province of Hispania, one of the most important provinces of the empire.  It was a rich source of grain, wine, oil, wool and minerals.  Several Roman emperors, including Trajan and Hadrian, were born in Hispania.  Numerous writers, including the great philosopher Seneca, were born there.

But by the fourth century the empire was weakening, and Spain was to enter a new chapter of its history.

(image from the web)

The ruins of the Roman theater in Mérida, Spain (formerly the Roman city of Augusta Emerita)

    

Memories of Past Trips to Spain

Mexico is very dear to me.  I've lost track of the number of times I have been there in the past 40 years... probably at least 50 times.  But I also love Spain.  If it weren't so far away and more expensive, I would probably go there much more frequently.  I have been there six times, and as I mentioned in the previous post, I will be returning again this year.

I wasn't always so enamored of Spain however.  My first trip was back in 1978, shortly after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.  I had a few years of teaching under my belt, and I decided to take a break from my summer work on my master's degree.

On that trip I was, of course, fascinated by the historic sights that I saw, but I really liked Mexico much better.  It would be years before I returned again.  I started my trip in Madrid.  Madrid, back in those days, really didn't impress me that much.  I thought it was a rather dowdy city.  I wasn't even that impressed with the Prado, Madrid's great art museum.  In spite of the collection of masterpieces, it seemed rather gloomy to me.  (Since then, the building has been completely renovated and enlarged, and it is a wonderful museum.)

From Madrid I took a number of day excursions to nearby attractions.  I saw El Escorial, the huge palace / monastery / basilica complex built by King Philip II in the 1500s... Toledo, the medieval capital of Spain... and Segovia, which remains my favorite city in Spain.

The Alcázar, the fairy-tale castle of Segovia

I then set out from Madrid, taking the train to Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors.  Seated next to me was a young fellow whom I assumed was Spanish.  I started a conversation, but he spoke no Spanish.  He did however speak fluent English. It turned out that he was a tourist from Saudi Arabia.  His name was Mahmoud.  He was actually from Lebanon, but he lived and worked in Saudi Arabia.  When we got off the train, he attached himself to me, and we ended up traveling through the southern cities of Granada, Córdoba, and Sevilla together.  This was the area of Spain that has the strongest influence of the Moslem Moors who invaded the peninsula in the Middle Ages.  As we visited the monuments of the Moorish occupation such as the Alhambra Palace in Granada, and the Mosque of Córdoba, he was able to explain to me many of the things we saw, and translated Arabic inscriptions on the walls.  I, on the other hand, explained to him Christian imagery in the Catholic cathedrals.

 

A much younger me, in the gardens of the Alhambra Palace

After Sevilla, we parted ways.  We kept in touch for a few years.  The last time I heard from him, he said he was thinking about returning to Lebanon.  I sometimes wonder what ever happened to him, and if he was a casualty of the civil war that raged in Lebanon a short time after that.

From Sevilla, I took a bus to Salamanca.  It was a holiday weekend, and there was not a hotel room to be found in the city.  I ended up spending the night in the train station, and the next morning I took the train back to Madrid to finish up my stay.

I didn't return to Spain until 1999.  My teaching colleague, Jane (whom you met in my posts on the Yucatán), was organizing a student trip to Spain, and I went along as a chaperone.  I was amazed at how much the country had changed for the better.  Madrid seemed a much more vibrant and attractive place.  Even the food seemed much better.

Typical of student tours, it was a whirlwind trip.  (Can you imagine that in one day we did a brief excursion from Madrid to Toledo, and then returned to the capital to visit the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum?!)  Nevertheless, it was a great trip, and we had a great group of students.  

One place I did not care for was the Costa del Sol.  It is a beach resort area lined with high-rise hotels, and it really did not hold much appeal for me.  The boys in the group were quite excited when they found out that the beaches are topless.  They were disappointed, however, when they found out that most of the women sunbathing topless were older and less attractive than what they were hoping to see.

From the Costa del Sol we took a day trip to Morocco... and that was the one part of the trip that I disliked.  Part of the problem was that the excursion was much too long.  We left early in the morning by bus to Algeciras, a port city opposite Gibraltar, and then took a ferry boat to Morocco.  Another tour bus then met us to take us to two cities, Tetuan and Tangiers.  It was late at night before we returned to our hotel in the Costa del Sol, and we were exhausted.  The females in our group, even though they were dressed very conservatively, were very uncomfortable because the men were constantly leering at them.  The vendors were extremely irritating.  If you think vendors in Mexico are annoying you should see them in Tangiers!  Uncharacteristic of me, I actually shouted at one to leave me alone.  I will not, however, judge the entire country by that one excursion.  That would be like visitors who bad-mouth Mexico after a day trip to Tijuana.

The trip ended with one short day in Barcelona, a place that I had not previously visited.  It was almost painful to have only one day in that beautiful city.

After that trip, I was eager to return to Spain.  In 2004, the year I retired, my retirement gift to myself was a trip to Spain in September (when everyone else was back in school... ha! ha!).  I had three glorious, sunny weeks in Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Barcelona and Sevilla.  After my much too brief visit to Barcelona on the previous trip, I scheduled five days there to see the sights more thoroughly.  It must rank as one of the best trips of my life.

 

The Cathedral of Barcelona

My next trip was in 2008.  That time I visited some places I had not seen before... the walled, medieval town of Avila, the old university town of Salamanca (this time I got to see more than the train station!), and then down into Extremadura, the region that borders Portugal.  There I saw the cities of Cáceres, Trujillo, and Mérida (the namesake of my frequent destination in Mexico).  I found a certain similarity between Mérida, Spain, and Mérida, Mexico.  They both have a pleasant, relaxed charm, and both are of archaeological interest... Spanish Mérida has Roman ruins, while Mexican Mérida is close to Mayan ruins. 

More recently I took a trip to Madrid  in 2011 to meet my new-found cousin, and again in 2012 when my cousin drove me from Madrid to our ancestral town in Switzerland.  (I previously wrote several posts on the trip.)

I look forward to my upcoming trip to Spain with my sister-in-law.  We will visit Madrid, Segovia and Barcelona, but I will also get to see someplace new, Spain's third largest city, Valencia.  (My sister-in-law is a collector of Lladró figurines, so she wants to visit the Lladró factory outside of Valencia.) 

                                        ¡Viva España!   

Future travels

I have only just returned home from Mexico City, but I am already getting ready my next trip.  At the end of May I will be leaving for Europe.  My sister-in-law has been talking for the last couple years about going to Spain, with me as her personal tour guide and interpreter.  We will visit Madrid, Segovia (my favorite town in Spain), Valencia, and Barcelona.  We will then take the train to Paris and spend five days there. (I've never been there before.)  After she returns home, I will continue via the "chunnel" train to London.  I figured as long as I am on that side of the pond, I might as well visit my English cousins.

While I was in Mexico City, I received an e-mail from Werner, my Swiss cousin who lives in Madrid, inviting me to come to his birthday party in September.  I'm not sure how old Werner is, but I suspect it must be a major milestone since he is planning on a big, weekend-long celebration with some of his family coming from Switzerland for the event.

My first reaction was, "Two trips to Europe in one year?  I really need to stay at home once in a while."  But upon reflection, I think I will go, and several friends have said, "Why not?"  I guess I have reached the age where I realize that I only have a finite number of years where I will have the good health (knock on wood) and energy to travel.  In twenty years I might not be physically able to travel so much.  So I might as well stop worrying about things that should be done around the house, or the fact that this summer I won't be going crazy with my flower gardens.  I'll soon be packing my bags again!   

Back home

I returned home from Mexico yesterday evening.  My flights went smoothly.  In fact I arrived in Cleveland twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Here in Ohio it's chilly, but there is no snow. (There was an April snowfall of about an inch while I was gone!)  The daffodils and hyacinths are in full bloom. 

Once things get a bit warmer, I have to get busy working on the yard and the flower beds.  I have a trip to Europe planned, and I will be leaving at the end of May.  So this summer I won't plant a lot of annuals.  I will take a sabbatical from my usual gardening and just let the perennials do their thing.

A Gringo Easter in Mexico City

On Easter Sunday, Alejandro came to the apartment in the morning and drove me to his parents' house.  I had brought with me plastic eggs, a bag of jelly beans, a bag of chocolate eggs, and a small package of Peeps.  We were going to give Alejandro's three year old nephew, Ezra, the experience of a "gringo-style" Easter egg hunt.  The whole family was meeting at a nearby restaurant for a late breakfast.  Before we left, we filled all the eggs with candy and hid them around the patio.  I also had an Easter card (which said that the Easter Bunny had been there), and I put it in a visible spot.

We had a very good, and very filling breakfast at a little neighborhood spot... nothing fancy, but with good. simple homemade food.  The place is very popular and we had to wait a while for a table.  The family ordered a half portion of lamb "barbacoa" (that's where we get our word barbeque), and we shared that.  In additional we each ordered a breakfast.  I had "huevos toluqueños", scrambled eggs mixed with sausage.  The breakfasts included fresh-squeezed orange juice, a fruit plate, home-made bread, and Mexican-style coffee.  We even had dessert... I had flan with "rompope" (Mexican eggnog).  Needless to say, we were quite stuffed after that huge meal, and I had no desire to eat until that evening when I had a light supper.

Ezra and his parents made it back to the house before we did.  He had found the Easter card.  He knows how to write his name, and recognized "Ezra" written on the envelope.  I read the card to him (translating it to Spanish), and told him that he had to find the eggs that the Easter Bunny had left.  He squealed with delight each time he found one.  After collecting all of the eggs, he then redistributed them so that each of us had an egg.  What a sweet kid!

I then brought out something else that I had brought Ezra... an Easter Bunny that dances and sings and wiggles his ears.  (It sings "La Macarena" but with different lyrics... "Oh, jelly bean-a.)  Ezra loved it!  I was beginning to think that I should have brought some extra batteries because he played it again and again and again.

It was a great day, and nice way to bring my trip to a close.  Today I am doing laundry and packing my suitcases.  This evening Alejandro and I will go out for dinner.

My flight leaves Mexico City tomorrow at nine in the morning, and I will be arrive in Cleveland around eight in the evening.

It has been another wonderful trip.  I didn't do quite as much sightseeing as I usually do, but I did have the opportunity to see some very interesting aspects of the celebration of Holy Week in Mexico.