one of my classes had the option of visiting two of three museums for extra credit and writing a corresponding paper based on the given prompts.
so far i visited the norton simon where we were instructed to look at the van gogh. of course, when i went, walking around the entire museum, looking at each piece, i somehow managed to miss half the van goghs. still confused about that, but whatever. i had heard wonderful things about the norton simon and was excited to go, to my disappointment i did not really enjoy this museum. the museum as a whole was rather intimidating; a large building full of open space, guards at every turn. the exhibit rooms were large with several pieces lining the walls and benches in the middle. though i found a few pieces here and there, much of the art was not of the style that i particularly like. not one for abstract art, i really liked kandinskys work as well as a mural by an artist whom i forgot the name of. the first piece i was also one of my favorites, a chess set from india in which all the pieces were related to the indian culture.


the rook of the chess set

most of all i enjoyed the garden/pond outside by the cafe. i spent a good amount of time out there photographing the flowers and such. a few pictures from my visit.