Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Pennsyvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Washington Foyer

Art Museums have cut back on the postcards they sell in gift shops. This disturbs me because I've always enjoyed taking pieces of the collection home, either to display somewhere (usually where I write), to include in a scrapbook, or maybe to file away in my official postcard box. That box is a museum of places, art, and whimsy just waiting for me to revisit.

PAFA: The Rotunda

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) does sell postcards, ten for $5.00, and I was pleased to find some of my favorites from the Academy's collection of art by Americans.

Washington Foyer, detail

• Daniel Ridgway Knight's (1839-1924) "Hailing the Ferry" (1888) was my favorite in my favorite room, the Henry S. McNeil gallery of landscapes. It's a rather large (64.5" x 83") oil painting showing two girls hailing a ferry by a river much the same way we'd hail a taxi at Broad and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia. What knocked me out about this painting was the exquisite detail of the girls' faced and clothing, realistic enough to pass for a photograph. Ridgway painted this landscape thirty years after he was a student at PAFA, but still too early suspect this work to be a mashup of oil paint and photograph.
• "George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait)" (1796) by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) is one of the many familiar portraits that greet the visitor around almost every corner. You've seen this portrait of Washington, looking like he does on our dollar bill, standing on an Oriental rug in front of a fancy red-velvet-upholstered side chair, gesturing toward a drapey red tablecloth with a quill and inkpot on top and big books underneath. A red drape is pulled back revealing an American nature scene outside. Is that a Colonial-dressed male doll slouched against the column by the window? It seems Mr. President has been to a Colonial Williamsburg gift shop!
• I just read James McBride's National-Book-Award-winning The Good Lord Bird last month, so my eyes were drawn to the modern but primitive "John Brown Going to His Hanging" (1942) by Horace Pippin (1888-1946). It's a somber scene with cold white and gray buildings, black trees that have lost most of their leaves, and faceless people clad in shades of black and charcoal. The only colors are the scarves around the people's necks and the ropes binding John Brown's arms to his body...until...you notice the scowling black woman down in the lower right, wearing a bright blue and white gingham skirt. She's the only black person in the painting, and none too happy about this execution. It turns out this is Pippin's own grumpy grandmother.

I didn't see a postcard of Benjamin West's (1738-1820) showstopper, "Christ Rejected," (1814). West was born in Springfield, which is now Swarthmore, and was one of the first American painters to win fame and respect outside of this country. This gigantic (200" x 260") painting was created near the end of West's life after he had been living in England for fifty-four years. Jane Austen looked at this very painting and said, "...it pleased me." That nugget of knowledge pleases me!

Looking from The Rotunda to the Washington Foyer

I wasn't allowed to shoot photos of the art (hence the links above--please click on them to see the art), but I was allowed to snap flashless photos of this glorious Frank Furness building from 1876. It's now called the Historic Landmark Building. (PAFA's newer, modern Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building is next door.) It's Victorian and Gothic and it represents Philadelphia and the Gilded Age. I didn't focus much on labels because I'd rather concentrate on focusing my Nikon.

PAFA exterior

PAFA puts their Mission ("PAFA promotes the transformative power of art and art making") on the free map along with the history of the Academy. Although the building didn't appear until 1876, the Academy was founded in 1805 by a group of Pennsylvanians including Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, and Benjamin Rush. It's the country's first art museum and school of fine arts, right here at Broad and Cherry Streets in Center City Philadelphia.

Memories of Old Heidelberg

Heidelberg Castle ruins

The writing prompt instructed me to choose three postcards that intrigue me. I sorted through my big box of postcards: some are filled with the travel memories of friends and family, and some memories are my own. I settled on a trio from Heidelberg, Germany.

A trio of postcards from Heidelberg

It has been almost five years since I was in Heidelberg with my sister.

The Great Tun

 

 

 

 

It was one of the last stops we made on our German tour. We walked around the famous 15th- to 17th-century ruined castle, part of it only a facade wall, the Great Tun, a giant barrel which holds 58,000 US gallons of wine which reportedly had a direct line down to the city; and the Elisabethentor, an arched gateway built for a royal bride, and subject of one of my postcards.


The two other postcards take a step back to show the landscape. One, a borderless bird's eye view, shows the famous castle on the hill with the red-roofed old town below, and the Neckar River below that. A Roman-style arched viaduct transverses the river. A large tour boat has just passed under the bridge. Rising up from the old town is an enormous brown church. The second postcard, framed in black, shows Heidelberg Castle lit up at night with a light coating of snow.

A medieval section of the castle ruins

Heidelberg Castle is a hodgepodge of styles.

My camera was new and unfamiliar to me on that trip, but still my photographs reveal more of my sense of this place than my travel diary, and my little purchased travel guide fills in the history. There are the shots of the single facade wall with blue sky in the window openings. The castle was destroyed by the French Army during the War of the Grand Alliance (1689-93), and then further by lightning in 1764. Some of it was rebuilt, some not, so what results is a hodgepodge of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture.

The Elisabeth Gate

Frederick V

The Elisabethentor, or Elisabeth Gate, was commissioned by Frederick V, the "Winter King," for his bride Elisabeth Stuart. She was the daughter of the English king. Frederick was called the "Winter King" because his kingdom lasted only slightly longer than a winter, and he ultimately died in exile. All of this happened in the early 17th century.

View from Heidelberg Castle garden

The castle garden provides a great view of the old town which came into existence around 1200. We had some free time to walk around the town where we saw newlyweds emerging from the city hall underneath red heart-shaped balloons.

Just married.

The large brown church turned out to be the Gothic Church of the Holy Spirit, begun in 1398. Between its exterior buttresses are unexpected little shops which date back to the 15th century.

See the brown church in the center? That's the Gothic Church of the Holy Spirit, begun in the 14th century.

Close-up of the Church of the Holy Spirit's new (17th-century) roof.

This trip predates my current obsession with bridges,so I didn't go out of my way to shoot it,

Carl Theodor Bridge, to the left.

but I still noticed the striking arched bridge that links the old town with the other side of the Neckar River. Its full name is the Carl Theodor Bridge, and was named after Prince Elector Carl Theodor who had it built of red sandstone to replace a flimsy wooden one damaged in a flood. This construction stretched from 1786-1788. On March 29, 1945, German soldiers blew up all of the Neckar River bridges, but the Carl Theodor Bridge was rebuilt by 1947.

Waffeln mit Schokosauce

Heidelberg was the only place in Germany where I had to attempt to speak German. We stopped for lunch at a cafe, both interested in the waffles with chocolate sauce advertised on a board outside. The waitress did not speak English, so I carefully ordered the waffles and water without bubbles for both of us.



My Heidelberg postcards are about to be filed away in their box until the next time I'm prompted to flip through them. My memories, however, stay with me. I would like to visit Heidelberg again, this time spending more time at the castle (perhaps touring the inside), and visiting Heidelberg University and its library. I wouldn't mind another serving of those waffles, either!