The morning of our last day began with an exploration of the Museum of Modern Art. This mirror-like wall near the entrance is difficult to describe. At first glance, I thought that the shimmering reflections was due to water running down the wall surface. But, actually, if I heard it correctly, huge fans were blowing air behind and against it. Evidently, the wall surface was flexible and fluttered under the powerful air stream. [If you look carefully, you can see me in the upper left quadrant wearing a beret and taking the shot.]
One of the featured exhibits was that of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist. It was an homage to refugees. The structure below seems to depict the plight of faceless ‘boat people’ in flight. The scale of the raft is enormous, easily 100 meters long [look at the individual standing below it in the right hand corner].
On our own for the afternoon, we walked to the Mucha Museum. Alfons Mucha was a prominent Art Nouveau artist in the early 20th century. In my post of St. Vitus’s Cathedral [see Prague 2], I showed his stained glass window. The exhibition contains an overview of the work of Mucha featuring a set of posters made during his ‘Parisian Period’ [188701904], including those made for the actress, Sarah Bernhardt. They are all in soft pastel colors, as seen in the samples below.
We rode back to the hotel by tram [seniors 70 and over can ride the bus, tram, or metro free of change]. After dinner, we were transported to the National Theater where we were treated to a performance of Antonin Dvorak’s opera, Rusalka. The interior of the theater was beautiful and ornate. My cell phone shots do not do justice to its grandeur.
This concludes our Vienna-Budapest-Prague trip postings. I hope you enjoyed them; I will return in mid-January with images from our Greece trip in 2005.
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