MUSEUM BINGE TOUR, pt 1, Ginevra de’ Benci

Image via cultura.biografieonline.it

Lots of museums and little time? Take a Museum Binge Tour.

The museum binge tour saying goes like this: “Everything on every wall isn’t worthy of the same scrutiny, so move on, rookie.”

If you’re one of those, a museum binge tour runner, or act like one, you’ll need to do some explaining.

Tell the people with you what they’re in for, or they’ll ditch you. Find common ground and move out.

An efficient museum binge tour starts at the top.

What qualifies as the top is the continuing debate. For example…

If you go to France, you go to Paris. If you go to Paris, you go to the Louvre. If you go to the Louvre, you see Mona Lisa.

You can’t short Leo.

The same plan works for the D. C. da Vinci.

If you go to Washington, you go to a museum. If you go to a museum, you go to the one with the only da Vinci in the western hemisphere.

If your group isn’t aware of the rare air in the National Gallery in front of Ginevra de’ Benci, they might lag behind on lesser works.

From wiki:

The painting’s imagery and the text on the reverse of the panel support the identification of this picture. Directly behind the young lady in the portrait is a juniper tree. The reverse of the portrait is decorated with a juniper sprig encircled by a wreath of laurel and palm and is memorialized by the phrase VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT (“beauty adorns virtue”).

VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT? Who doesn’t want to witness that? Ginny might have virtue, but her’s is a dour beauty.

No one argues that a da Vinci painting is just another two dimensional wall object, but his subjects don’t hit the spot.

First off, they’re pretty small portraits. Easy to carry around, but full of detail fit for a bigger field.

Mona has a smile, Ginny has ringlets, and they both look bored as hell, a little dead-eyed.

These are Italian women? Where’s the fire, the flash, the fearless countenance of emerging hope in the Renaissance?

Art is supposed to make you think, and you’re disappointed you’re not seeing Bay Watch ladies?

Move along, rookie.

Part 2, The Hopper.