Visiting Venice ~ part 2: the Guggenheim collection

Here we are with the second part of my tour in Venice: the Guggenheim museum.

Yesterday, I went with one of my friend (Federica!), to visit this museum.
I had been there only once, during a trip in primary school, so obviously I remembered nothing but some colours' perceptions and some vague feelings. It was an incredibly hot day yesterday and because of this our lesson and our trip was quite tiring.

The Guggenheim museum is situated near the Academy bridge (ponte dell'Accademia) and it has been Peggy Guggenheim's house until 1979. She lived among her favourite paintings and sculptures and in the museum you can still see her table with chairs, her silver bedhead, etc.

Let's say that contemporary art is not my favourite kind of art, but despite of this I appreciated the collection, at least for some paintings and artworks (I'm posting some pictures here).



The main artists and artistic mouvements you can find in the collection are: Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Pollock, Max Ernst, Delaunay, De Chirico, Futurism painters like Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Surrealists like Dalì and Tanguy.
I enjoyed the paintings (well, at least some of them!) I must say that it's really different to see them in a book and to look at them in a museum. The colours and the brightness of some oil paintings give such a different kind of emotion when you can see them in fron of your eyes.
So, even if I don't like Futurism as a mouvement, I found myself enjoying some of those paintings too.


The museum is quite small, smaller than I thought, it has a beautiful "terrace" on the Canal Grande and a small garden where you can see some sculptures, a wish-tree (a Yoko Ono's present to Peggy) and also Peggy's grave.



In the museum cafè, there are a lot of artists' photographs on the walls, and as usual there's a museum shop (really expensive though! >.<) where I bought a postcard of the painting that had impressed me when I was a child: "Solidità della nebbia" (The solidity of fog), made by Luigi Russolo, an italian painter born in a city nearby. It was quite a strange feeling to see that painting and suddenly remembering that time in the past when those colours impressed my childish imagination.

Some other paintings and works I liked:

So, this is was the last visit before exams.. (´ﾍ｀；) now I have to study a lot!! >.<
Bye, bye! (´ー`)/~~

*images credits (in order):
1 - The museum entrance
2 - Delaunay - fenetres ouvertes (open windows)
3 - Kandinky - Weisses Kreuz (white crosses)
4 - Max Ernst - couple zoomorphe
5 - The museum terrace on the Canal Grande
6 - Luigi Russolo - Solidità della nebbia (the solidity of fog)
7- Calder - silver bedhead
8 - Delvaux - l'aurore
9 - Max Ernst - the Antipope
10 - Tanguy - le soleil dans son ecrin
11 - Clyfford Still - Jamais
12 - Picasso - le poete (the poet)

Visiting Venice ~ part 1: the Marciana library

Yesterday was really a tiring day.. all dedicated to one of my art exams.

First, I went to look for (= photocopy) some books in the University library and I wasn't able to find one .__. I hope I will find that next week.

Then, with one of my friends (who has been a great support.. thanks!) we decided to visit the Marciana Library in Venice, that is situated in S. Marco square and is the most important in Venice and one of the biggest in Italy.
When we arrived there, we found out that in order to visit the rooms with the paintings we had to enter Museum Correr (in S. Marco square too) and make a ticket which allowed us to visit all the museum Correr ._.
We were a little disappointed because we didn't know what the museum was exposing and the ticket was expensive even for students （　´ﾟдﾟ｀）えーーー

I had a wonderful surprise entering the first room that was the Ballroom of the palace (that was really beautiful and decorated too): there were some Canova's sculptures exposed there! I love Canova's works of art so I spent most of the time in that room looking at them. There were Orpheus, Euridice, Dedalo and Icarus, Italic Venus, Paride and a little Eros.
Especially Orpheus was so beautiful.. I stared at him most of the time. He has perfect hands and body, and such a moved expression.



After that we went through all the rooms in the museum and we saw some old painting about Venice that were interesting, a little dark but beautiful and very lively, full of movement and people. There were 2 or 3 rooms dedicated to the old weapons used in the army (that were quite scary), and then other rooms with very old paintings (1200-1300) and part of statues I wasn't really interested in. There was even a little area about Egypt! I was quite surprised about that.




Finally we arrived at the Marciana Library, and it was smaller that I expected. Inside the library there are soft lights so the atmosphere is quite dark and quiet. It was built starting from 1537 and the project was made by the architect Jacopo Sansovino. It was the place where noble's sons could study and the several paintings on its ceilings and walls are mainly meant to inspire their study and behaviour.
On the ceiling there are 21 round paintings made by some of the most famous artists of the time like Tiziano, Veronese, Alessandro Vittoria, Tintoretto and many others.
In the room there were also some world spheres exposed, made with wood (I guess) and representing both the earth surface and the constellations (through animal images), they seemed very old and were fascinating.
There's also a public part of the library open to people who are looking for books and want to read them.
In the room after the library there's a vestibule where you can see some sculpures and a stair called "scalone" that has a ceiling and a cupola with a lot of decorations (made by Vittoria, Battista Franco and B. Del Moro), with angels and mythological figures painted and sculpted in squared and octagonal golden frames. We sat there for a moment (even because we were exhausted), outside there was a storm and we could hear music played somewhere outside the palace.
The stair and the vestibule were projected by Sansovino as the main entrance to the Library, but we found out it was closed, so we only looked at it without walking on it.

Next visit will be the Guggenheim museum, about modern - contemporary art (not for the same exam of course... for another one! XD)!

Now I'll put some images here. I didn't take them, because we both forgot the camera ^^; but I found them on the web.
The external part of the Library is fascinating, isn't it? I can't say much about that because I didn't study for the exam yet ^^;; but you can see that.

bye bye!! :D またね (･∀･)/~~