Art for Art's sake part 2

31.07.2015

The next day of wallowing in art took place at the unlikely looking (from the outside it looks like any office building) Trade Fair Palace. Inside it works really well, as it should as one of the first functionalism (form follows function) buildings built in Prague in 1926. Since it is easier to walk down stairs than up them, I took the lift to the top and worked my way down the levels stopping halfway to grab a bite at the cafe on the ground floor. This turned into an exercise in delayed gratification since the Klimt paintings I really wanted to see were on the first floor. However I enjoyed the two floors of Czech 19th and 20th century modern art, and then I reached the amazing collection of French art of the 19th and 20th centuries. On this floor they included a whole room full of early Picassos, and paintings from Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Delacroix, Gaugin, and Toulouse-Lautrec, plus a dozen other well known painters. Eventually I reached the first floor and reached the large painting of the Virgins by Klimt. It was wonderful to see it up close, but difficult to take a photo of since it was covered in a sheet of plastic which reflected the strong lighting in the room ( this is a common problem when trying to get good photos, but we do what we can) There were two more Klimts in the room. The landscape didn't photo well, but I was happy to capture Woman behind a Muff. I spent five hours slowly working through this large collection and have only included what I think were some of the highlights of the day for me..... I spent another day in the city, but decided not to do another blog on Prague. I must be getting ready to return to New Zealand, since I think I may have done too many cities on this years trip. Only one more week in Berlin, and then I can put my camera away for another year...

seven floors of the ultramodern gallery