The painting in Vienna

Photos are here. (And btw, I should be all caught up with the photos from Prague in the next couple of hours. I figured out a way to streamline my uploading. Plus, all links will now open in new windows... yay!)

First just a note about Vienna vs. Prague: Prague is like Vienna's evil twin. Evil may be too strong word, though. If Vienna is royalty and light, Prague is cunning and dark. Maybe some sinister undertones (not that the city is sinister... it's just that it looks just Eastern European enough that it's disorienting). It's like the twins were separated at birth... like in The Prince and the Pauper. Vienna was raised with every lavish extravagance, and Prague was thrust into communism and is grasping at whatever it can get in the capitalist world. They're nearly equally good cities, though. I'd lean a little toward Prague. I like the darker buildings and the roof lines better. One is acid and one is alkaline and both are very potent.

And I had no idea that Prague is sooo baroque.

Anyway, you get the picture. Now, sweet friends, about today...

Those of you who know about my... err... well, not quite romantic, but maybe symbol-loving? side... the need I have for certain things to mean certain other things... ok, let me start over.

Some of you may be aware of the things I need to see in Europe before I die. There's a painting in Vienna, a sculpture in Rome, and a church in Ronchamp, France. Well, really, there are more things than just those, but those are the three that I have chosen to make a lifelong plan of seeing. I really don't even know why those three are it. There are other things I like more.

Originally, I was going to see them all in one trip, but I figured maybe it would be nice to see them in three different trips, that way I'd have to come back at least three times. Right? Right. I'm in Vienna and today was the day for Correggio's Jupiter and Io. Fantastico!

Also, let me tell you that I knew that there's a King Tut exhibit at the Museum of Ethnology while I'm here, and I was kinda excited to see it.

With all that in mind, why don't you pull up a chair... let me tell you about my day.

I made it kind of a late morning because I was tired yesterday and a lazy start to the day seemed about my speed. My first stop was to be the Spanish Riding School where the world famous crazy jumping Lipizzaner horses have their morning exercises (yep, open to the public for a decent fee). I got there around 11am to find a standing room only crowd and white horses trotting around on dirt in the bottom of an ornate hall. And that's all they did. They trotted. There was one horse that did a few jumps (one of which I caught on video, and I'll try to upload it), but other than that, it was just lusty music, men in old fashioned costumes and... white horses trotting and stopping occasionally.

So, ok, yeah, that's fine... how about we go across the way and see the Hofburg Palace silver collection, Sisi Museum, and royal apartments? Yeah? Sound good? OK! I mean, you can only buy a ticket for all three, you can't just see the apartments, so great!

The silver collection was nice and everything... a shit ton of plates, some silverware, and extraordinarily extraordinary candelabras. Yeah, cool.

The Sisi Museum was, uh, interesting. Thing is, Sisi was Elizabeth, wife of Kaiser Franz Joseph, and someone who (as far as I'm concerned) meant far less to history than, say, Maria Theresa or her son, Joseph. They sure made her up to be a romantic figure... I'll leave it at this: because she was assassinated, and because she was apparently unsatisfied with royal life, she, for some reason, is intriguing to people. Sure, I liked looking at her dresses and hair ornaments, but I would have rather seen historical stuff from Maria Theresa. ANYway...

The royal apartments are lavish and all that, but I guess I was expecting Versailles. Not that I would really know what Versailles looks like, but I think it would be more lavish than this. I found them interesting, but not as over-the-top as I thought they would be.

Ok, across the square to the Naturhistorisches (um, natural history) and Kunsthisorisches (yeah... art history) Museums. They're twin buildings and they're insanely impressive. Outside and also inside... I was almost more interested in the lavish baroque insides of the museums than I was in the contents of those museums.

The Natural History Museum was similar to the one I saw in Frankfurt, but far more elaborate. Rooms filled with rock samples, meteorites, ancient human remains and artifacts, animal bones, and yes... taxidermy. Though the displays were nicer than the other, the animals were not... they were older and more faded... somehow sadder. I liked the museum, but I was excited to get on to the main event... the painting!

I went across the platz to the Art History museum, bought my ticket, checked my bag, and went upstairs. I waded through thousands of pieces from ancient Greece and Rome (yes! very cool!) and went upstairs to the painting gallery. I moved from room to room slowly... looking at paintings by Titian, Caravaggio, Velasquez, Bruegel, Rubens, Vermeer... Italian light studies, Spanish portraits, Flemish landscapes... works I hadn't really thought about since art history classes in college. I had forgotten how much I like The Hunters in the Snow, and how very different northern and southern paintings looked in the 16th & 17th centuries. I think these days I prefer painting of the 19th century because it's less restrained and concerned with perfection... more emotional, just like how I prefer the classical music of the second half of... WAIT. I'm at the end. No green fog. No Io reclined in helpless bliss. I DIDN'T SEE THE PAINTING.

I walked back through the galleries, back through all the northern stuff, even. No green fog, no chunky Io half reclined in rapture. Dumbfounded, I went back down to the ground floor and waited in the information line. In the back of my mind, I considered that there was a cabinet (a smaller gallery on the outside of the main ones, closer to the windows) that I somehow missed. Yeah, that had to be it. I got to the front of the line and asked the little old lady if the painting was in the museum. She didn't understand what I was saying, so I wrote "Jupiter and Io" on a piece of paper, and in her broken English, she said, "Ahh... I think second floor, in smaller cabinet. Italian section." Breathing a sigh of relief, I went back up stairs.

I went through the Italian section again, and again I missed it. I was starting to make another round (this time I would ask the next attendant I saw where the painting was) when I saw it. There was a blank space on the wall with wires hanging down where a painting would be hung. I stepped closer and read the card.

Correggio / Jupiter and Io

Then I read the business card sized notice posted above it. And while I don't know German, I figured it out.

Sent to a special Correggio exhibit in Rome. May 20 - whenever.

Sigh. Nothing I could do.

I considered going to Rome, but the exhibit starts May 20. I'd miss it. I have a feeling it had only been gone a day or two. Meine damen und meine herren, I missed my painting.

Dejected, I went down to the museum shop hoping that they at least had a post card with the painting on it. Nope. Just a calendar. A 2009 date book type thing that I'd never use. Great.

My feet were killing me by this point, and I didn't know where the Museum of Ethnology was (King Tut exhibit), so I decided to go back to the hotel for a rest. I'd go for a stroll in the park later. Or something.

I crossed the street and staring right at me was a 10 foot full-color photo of the iconic image of the gold and blue sarcophagus of Tut. I had found the Museum of Ethnology.

Determined to see something really cool that day (yes, I really had seen some awesome stuff already), I queued up (there were only a few people in line) and bought a ticket that I thought was overpriced before I even went inside. No cameras allowed. Of course, I understand that. Put my bag in a locker? Ok. Let me in, please.

After stopping for a mandatory (pff) 2-minute video about the treasures of the pharaohs (that told us absolutely nothing about the treasures of the pharaohs, but must have been designed just to get folks fired up before being released into the halls), I was released into the halls. All the descriptions were in German, but I'd be damned if I was going to pay another 5 Euros for an audio guide. I went kinda fast through the thing as I couldn't read what things were, after all, I kinda just wanted to see the golden mask thing. And then I got to the end.

Now, tell me if I'm wrong, but don't you think that if the golden masky thing is on the ads for the exhibit, it's reasonable to expect to see the golden masky thing in the exhibit? I think that's perfectly legit. Well, apparently that's too much to ask. It was not there and I felt completely ripped off. Completely. It was all just marketing. I am embarrassed to say how much I paid to see the fucking thing, and I'm feeling like a sucker for not asking if I would actually see what I wanted to see. But how was I to know? AND, they had a big expensive shop at the end of it and I laughed when they wanted me to buy some stuff. In fact, at this moment, I'm a little peeved at myself for not asking for my money back. I mean, cool Egyptian stuff and all, but it was totally false advertising. Honestly, the Egyptian section of the Art History Museum was better.

Back to hotel? Yes, definitely. Nothing else will catch my eye today.

So, to sum up, today really put the "pain" into "painting" and the "oh" into "pharaoh" (as in "oh, you must have seen me coming from a mile away," or maybe just "oh shit," I guess...)

All this makes it sound as if I had a really bad day, but I had to be pretty snarky for the post, didn't I? I was badly disappointed. Twice. But I did see some really good things. So, called it a moody day. The weather has been moody, too. Rain, sun, rain, sun. I kinda like that, though. Never know what you're walking into, and, apparently, that was the theme of the day.

Gelato to soothe my soul tonight, I think.