With only 9 days between them, Ali and Leonard have the closest birthdays in our family (besides Kaleb and Noé, ha!). Since it was Leonard's 40th birthday, I convinced him to take the day off of work and take me on a date. He thought that sounded like a good idea, so he did! He took me to the National Gallery of Canada.
Posing outside with Maman (the giant spider). Some people have very strong opinions about this spider. I don't mind it so much. I have to say that I'm impressed that the artist Louise Bourgeous was 88 when she created it! The original was made in 1999 and it sits outside the Tate Modern in London (we saw it when we lived in England). This is one of 6 subsequent castings. Three more live in Spain, Japan, and South Korea. The other two have toured other cities in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and even the Middle East!
You can also see our favorite church in Ottawa, the Notre-Dame Basilica. Many of the old churches in Ottawa have silver spires and they are just beautiful!
There were special exhibits by:
Alex Colville
(Please take me to the Beach!)
and
Chagall: Daphnis & Chloe
(I liked many of the colors he used, but the works didn't really speak to me, maybe because I've never been a huge mythology fan.)
We enjoyed visiting the permanent exhibits best. We spent 3 1/2 hours and were still rushed. I've always liked Renoir's paintings, but I especially liked seeing Claude & Renée
(Probably because I'm a mama!)
Impressionist paintings have always been my favorites. When we visited Monet's home in Giverny, it was a huge check mark on the bucket list. One time while we visited the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas I bought a couple of prints- one was Monet's the other was Pissarro's. The National Gallery has several works by Pissarro and I loved them all. This is Hay Harvest at Eragny.
Mary Pratt's works were also on exhibit. This one Smears of Jam, Lights of Jelly just blew me away! How did she capture the light so well? Amazing talent!
This was my overall favorite though: As the Old Sing, so the Young Pipe. It's by a Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens and was painted in approximately 1640! There is a huge story here with so much detail. I just love it!
We also went to Moxie's to have a delicious steak and shrimp dinner. We had to come home and include the kiddos in dessert though-
...more cherry cheesecake, yum!
We finished the evening up at the school watching Kaleb perform - Comptine d`un autre ete - l`apres-midi by Yann Tiersen in his school talent show.
It was a fabulous day! Forty looks good on you honey!!
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