Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

I woke up this morning and though "I cannot go for a walk this morning with the temp at 79 degrees and 80% humidity."  So I decided to go back to the Art Museum and get my walking in there.  What an amazing place and Kansas City should be so proud of the Museum. It is not only a beautiful museum with some awesome pieces of art but it is FREE to the public.

The museum was built on the grounds of Oak Hall, the home of Kansas City Star published William Rockhill Nelson.  When he died in 1915, his will provided that upon the deaths of his wife and daughter, the proceeds of his entire estate would go to purchasing artwork for public enjoyment. In 1911, a former schoolteacher Mary Atkins (widow of a real estate speculator) bequeathed $300,000 to establish an art museum.  The estate had grown to $700,000 by 1927 and the decision was made to combine the two trusts into one museum. The current museum opened Dec 11, 1933 and at that time cost $2.75 million to build the six-story building. At the height of the Great Depression, the worldwide art market was flooded with pieces for sale but there were very few buyers so the museum's buyers found a vast open market to them.  Today the museum has one of the largest art collections in the country. In 1999 a 55 % increase in space occurred when a contemporary new building opened adjacent to the original building.

This is a red marble statue by Fauno Rosso and was created for the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 C.E.) to go in his palace. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, the estate was abandoned and its great sculptures neglected or lost.  The red marble statue was discovered in 1746 although it was in many fragments.  It was restored and has been in the Capitoline Museum, Rome since them. The sculpture is famous because it is made entirely of red marble from a town called Mylasa in Italy. The sculpture is on exclusive loan from the Capitoline Museum, Rome and this is the first time it has been outside of the Capitoline since it was placed there over 250 years ago. Personally, it is beautiful and I can appreciate it's history but I prefer the sculpture of The Thinker that I wrote about on Tuesday.

This handsome guy is Armada, the Buddha of the Western Paradise. He has been around since the Muromachi Period which was 1392-1568. Composition is lacquered and gilded wood.

This is a small portion of a very large painting that I really liked. The name of the painting is Two-Tiered Still Life with Fruit and Sunset Landscape by Severin Roesen and dates back to ca. 1867. Roesen fled Germany during the revolution in 1848 and settled in Williamsport, PA. The colors are really vivid and the detail is amazing. Sure would look good in my dining room....