Goya, El Greco,Velazquez,Matisse and my new toy

greetings! i can't believe how fast time is going-i honestly mean to post a few times a week but it seems that once is what i'm doing. i promise to try harder- i know everyone is hanging onto every word! tee-hee. first my new toy-metal rubbings from ten second studio. i hope you can see it in the photo-i purchased several molds and some incredible tools and voila -metal rubbings for my journals, blog etc.so many possibilities!
the other thing i wanted to write about today is a field trip i took with my art lab class into Manhattan to two very different museums. our first stop was at  the Hispanic society of America on Broadway between 155th &156th streets which is a jewel of a museum founded in 1904 by archer Milton Huntington, an American scholar and philanthropist, which contains " the most extensive collection of Hispanic art outside of Spain and Latin America"(from the society's brochure). in addition to paintings and sculpture from such artists as Goya,ElGreco and Velazquez among others, there is an extensive selection of"decorative art" such as ceramics,glassware, furniture, ironwork, textiles and jewelry; and a library which contains more than 600,000  books and other documents  from the 10th century to the present.the museum also has a vast collection of prints and photographs, and is a very cool and beautiful set of buildings, separated by an enormous courtyard full of incredible sculptures. i'd like to show you some examples of the fab paintings and other treasures, but i don't know about what the copy write rules are about things like that. while we were there we were treated to the viewing of a restoration  in progress of one of Velazquez paintings, and the restorer(sorry i don't know the correct title of a painting restorer) showed us how she works and just what she does to restore a painting- an in credibly intricate operation that went right over my head. it was absolutely awe inspiring.
 after our time at the Hispanic society was finished we headed downtown to the museum of modern art(Moma) to see a show about Matisse  called "radical invention 1913-1917" a show which explored what the catalogue of the show calls"one of the artist's most significant periods of production....unlike any other in his career". the exhibition contains over 125 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints  which according  to the beautiful catalogue  which describes the show is subtitled the "methods of modern construction  " in which Matisse  searched for a new way of working which involved among other things reworked paint layers,scraping and incising.i don't do the show justice-in fact i have not yet had time to digest it. go and see the show if you can, read the catalogue. they are both heartbreakingly beautiful.enough...until we meet again, brigid.