The Mission Tour--SLAM! IMAGINE PEACE

It's a slam dunk getting to go to the St Louis Art Museum. You've got to love a city that shares it's culture and history for free. It's been called a "family friendly city." This is why: the zoo entrance is free. The science center is free. And the art museum. FREE. That's right in my budget.
It was built as a Palace to the Arts for the 1904 World's Fair. They just don't make beautiful buildings like that anymore. Sigh.



Ancient art



Modern art

The difference between cultures is interesting, don't you think? The modern art is a representation of heaven and earth. Earth is the broken glass on the floor.

I felt like a little school girl getting to go from room to room viewing, in person, artists whom I've admired their work - or thought their lives sad, or interesting. In van Gogh's apples, his wide brush stokes give away the fact that he painted them.

The Dreamer, by Pierre August Renoir was thought a bit "saucy" back in 1879.




Georges-Pierre Seurat

I got to see Seurat's pointillism up close and personal. By the end of the day, I had my own museum staff keeping an eye on me from room to room. Hey. How was I supposed to know that the line of dark brown wood embedded in the floor was the "stand back" line?

Water Lilies

How could any art museum tour be complete without a picture of Claude Monet's Water Lilies? This is part of a triptych. The other water lily paintings are in Kansas City and Cleveland. And  yes, I had my nose right up to the painting. Without touching it, of course. It's the fault of my glasses, and my "over 40 eyes."

Wishing Tree

When Yoko Ono was a girl growing up in Japan, there was a wishing tree in the temple courtyards. This follows a similar theme, yet on a grander scale. Visitors write a wish on a tag and tie it to one of the three trees. Periodically, the museum staff take the wishes down and put them in a clear acrylic bin just inside the door.
This is only one of many of her Wish projects. Following her instructions, the wishes will join others, now totaling over one million, at her Imagine Peace tower in Iceland. Here, she celebrates, and keeps in memory, her late husband, John Lennon. Every year the tower is lit on Lennon's birthday, October 9th through December 8th, the day he was shot.
Click this Google link to see some spectacular pictures of the Imagine Peace tower:
https://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=26&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=LdyogzW9v51vaJp3Ohnl8w&cp=7&gs_id=q&xhr=t&q=imagine+peace+tower+in+reykjav%C3%ADk+iceland&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.52164340,d.b2I&biw=1366&bih=648&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=gfE0UtCkNeeY2wX20IHwCw