Norton Simon Museum Thursday

I love the ambiance and the great art at this Pasadena jewel. The large Rodin bronzes great you walking toward the entrance. Then you are pulled to experience the gorgeous gardens straight on or to the galleries to the right and left. I chose the European paintings from the 1600's to the 1800's and found these paintings that have special meaning for me.

"Evening in the Meadows", mid-1650s,  by Aelbert Cuye (iDutch, 1620-1691)
This vivid painting depicts the serene simple life of rural life in Holland with the beautiful massive cows, diligent milk maid, the reflective river with sail boats with an amazing sky.

"The beautiful Country Woman," 1732 by Francois Boucher, French, 1703-1770.
The artist beautifully paints the simple life of a French women and her three "scruffy children."
The description states " Boucher has rendered a Dutch-inspired still life of copper pots and plump root vegetables to underscore the association between peasant life, simplicity and closeness to nature."

"The shoemaker's Shop", Quiringh Gerritsz van Brekelenkam, Dutch 1620-1668
The artist was known for his paintings depicting shoemakers, tailors, and other tradesmen in the seventeenth century Holland.  Again this artist displays a still life of furnishing and objects.  One can imagine approaching this shop from the street and bringing shoes to be mended or making an order for new shoes through the window of the shoemaker and wife's quarters.

"St. Ignatius of Loyola"1620-1622 by Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish, 1577-1640
Rubens was a prosperous painter for the churches and religious of Europe.  I have visited his studio and home in Antwerp, Belgium where he had several assistants helping him produce impressive works.  I think of him as a painter of angels, heaven and other celestial objects in a very detailed style.  In this painting of St. Ignatius, he displays his skill in the flair of the Saint's brocaded chasuble.  The description next to the painting states that Rubens created an artistic language fully adapted to the Counter-Reformation movement, which stressed the heroic, emotion and ascertic aspects of the saints' lives.  This was painted for the mother church of the Jesuit order in Rome Il Gesu.

Horace Bernet's "A Soldier on the Field of Battle, 1818.  The painter was French and lived from 1789-1863.
This was painted a few years after the French defeat at Waterloo and Napoleon's exile. It strongly depicts the horror of war.