Art Safari - Love Edition

I went to the museum and liked it! A phrase inspired by the name of a rock band from Romania that has an inspiring and unusual name: "I went to the mountain and I liked it". I don't know if they really went to the mountain but I went to the museum... and I loved it!

I wouldn't want you to think this is my first time at a museum and I enjoyed the discovery, no, no, I go to museums quite often, especially art museums (painting, sculpture, photography) but not as often as I would like.

The museum I'm talking about now was a special one, it's more than a museum, it's a celebration of beauty in art. It's called Art Safari, and it's a gathering of artworks from my country, Romania, but also from museums abroad, and it's hosted by different places in historically and architecturally important buildings. It displays artwork in a special, spectacular, and unique way. Different from classical museums.

You can see the ambiance of this exhibition, in this post, Art Safari, which is the first of a larger series I will publish.

Art Safari organizes one or two exhibitions, each lasting three months. This year they have announced three exhibitions. The one I visited just now is the second one and it ends on 10 September. I hope they keep their promise and we see the third.

Each exhibition has a distinct theme. This second exhibition this year is called Art Safari - Love Edition. The exhibition is divided into four sections and only one is explicitly about love.

Love Stories

Love Stories from the National Portrait Gallery, London

This section features famous and valuable exhibits from London's National Portrait Gallery. Both paintings and photographs of famous people and their love affairs are featured. Love in all its different guises, usually dramatic and taken to the limit.

There is also a Romanian contribution to this section, an important and valuable contribution. That's why we had to stand in line... We will see it later. The Kiss, a masterpiece of Brancusi!

I said that this exhibition is in a different arrangement from what we usually see at the museum. The first thing that strikes you is that the halls and exhibition rooms are colorfully lit and you can hear music or nature sounds all the time.

I waited for almost an hour to be able to enter that special room which also contained the Romanian artwork I mentioned earlier. The room with the portraits was brought from the National Portrait Gallery in London.

_{A portrait of English actress Joan Collins by the "king" of pop art, Andy Warhol, in the style of the famous portrait of Marilyn Monroe.}

_{Naomi, I think everyone knows. A super famous and gorgeous model. I didn't know anything about Simon Frederick and I found out that he is an English photographer and director who photographed Naomi and did a series of portraits for...the National Portrait Gallery, London. The series is called “Black is the New Black”}

We started off on the left foot. This is an expression in Romanian but I don't know if it has the same meaning in English. It means that the start was missed. Why?

I took a picture with the portrait and the explanation box, with the idea that I would enlarge the picture and read it later and I will be able to give you the proper explanations about the meaning of these portraits...

The surprise was more than unpleasant. By enlarging the photo all the text became unintelligible! I then searched, even with the help of AI, to find out something about those portraits.

Because it explains much better than I could, here's what they say here about muses, about the idea of a muse!

_{To each to his own muse! Here's my muse. Each with what muse he can afford... I am pleased and inspired by my muse!}

Audrey Hepburn.

Beauty, elegance, and style of the last century.

There are also male muses. David Beckham must have "inspired" a lot of girls and ladies... and made a lot of men friends with envy!

At the moment, so much for portraits taken by photographers. And other artists have mostly done artwork, paintings, and sculptures of their muses, boyfriends, and girlfriends.

_{Lucian Freud}

_{After the initial mistake when I photographed the exhibit information boxes from too far away and when trying to zoom in the text didn't make sense, I now photographed as close as I could. It might not get through even now, so I'll do a little recap.}

It says that Lucian Freud was one of the most important figurative painters of the last century. I didn't know, I have to look for and see his works. But here he was chosen more because of his tumultuous love life. Many of his girlfriends appear in his works. This portrait was made by his father-in-law, the sculptor Jacob Epstein.

When I visit an exhibition I am interested not only in the exhibits on the walls but also in the living, breathing exhibits, that is, I like to look at the people who are there to see the paintings and sculptures.

I believe that only together, exhibits and visitors, form the atmosphere of a museum, and its vibe.

But let's see some of the famous lovers who have earned the right to be in this London gallery exhibition... and a bit of their love stories.

Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington

_{Lytton Strachey}

Lytton Strachey painted by Dora Carrington

Dora made this portrait of writer and critic Lytton Strachey at the beginning of their "special" relationship. He was gay but that didn't stop them from building a house together in 1916. It was a freewheeling relationship, they each had many separate relationships, but this did not affect their love for each other.

After Lytton died of stomach cancer in 1932, Dora committed suicide. She was 38 years old!

Knowing all this, we certainly look at this portrait with different eyes.

George Frederick Watts and Ellen Terry

George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), an academically trained painter who painted allegorical themes, fell in love with a very young actress, Ellen Terry, in 1863. Watts was thirty years older than Ellen, whom he married when she was only seventeen.

_{Autoportret Watts and a portrait of Ellen Terry al aceluiasi Watts.}

He confessed that he wanted to save Ellen from the "temptations of the stage".

John Keats

Posthumous portrait by his good friend Joseph Severn.

John Keats (1795-1821), was one of the greatest English poets. A romantic, in his poems love and pleasure intertwine with grief and death. He had a great passion for Fanny Brawne, who can be called his muse. He wrote most of his poems being moved by a burning passion for this woman. He died of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25!

Well, I think that's enough, I got tired and I think readers will get tired too, as many as there will be. Once again I wanted to write and present "The Kiss", Brancusi's statue, and I failed. Definitely, in the next episode, I will do that.

This edition of the great exhibition, Art Safari - Love Edition, is still hosted by the Dacia-Romania Palace in Bucharest.

Dacia-Romania Palace is located in the Old Town, on Lipscani Street, opposite the imposing headquarters of the Romanian National Bank.

This is the most famous tourist area of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Those who visit this city can also visit this exceptional exhibition.

Visiting hours:
Thursday - Sunday - 12:00 - 21:00
Night Tours - every Friday and Saturday - 22:00 - 01:00

Ticket price for one day: $20