Museum Field Trip

We did a museum field trip today to the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. It was free admission today. They have a nice ancient history and 16th-17th century European painting collection, enough to review many highlights of the Old and New Testaments in painting and sculpture. The Greek collection was a perfect complement to my son's readings on Greek myths this week.

We viewed several 16th-17th century paintings of saints : Saint Sebastian with the arrows, Saint Elizabeth, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret, and a good many of Saint John the Baptist. There were some nice Albrecht Durer wood block etchings of the Jesus's life, paintings of Our Lady, and a small illuminated Book of Hours in the tiny medieval gallery.

We browsed a gallery of Dutch and Flemish paintings showing common everyday scenes with rich details near the end, as attention was waning.

There was a wonderful large painting of Lot(first painting above) and his daughter's fleeing the city of Sodom. We stood in front of this painting for quite a while because it was full of symbolism - lust, deceit, and lecherous folly vs. chastity, virtue, prudence and self-knowledge.

There was another lovely painting which sticks out in my mind, and that was the one of Mary and the baby Jesus surrounded by a garden wall (chastity/purity) where not even the angel enters. He hands her a lily from the other side.

It is a smaller museum, but has a decent collection of art and sculpture. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, nice enough to wander through the Victorian garden on our way out of the museum.