I decided yesterday to go to the daVinci exhibit at Union Station today. Our Union Station was completely rehabbed in 1996 with tax money from 6 counties in Kansas and Missouri. It is gorgeous! Very historic- many people tell stories of meeting loved ones under the clock during World War II. Amtrak stops here but the big draw is the Imax, the planetarium, Science City (an interactive space for children), and traveling exhibits. (You can read more about the station and see photos in wikipedia -I tried to put in a link but it didn't work-bummer.) This exhibit is the first one I've gone to. I did learn some things about him, like he designed and sold weapons to pay for his art supplies, but whether it lived up to it's billing is hard to say. First off-they said you could use your cell phone for an audio tour of the exhibit. That was tricky and took me, the nerd, three tries following their instructions to get it working and then it just did orally what was written on the exhibit walls. Then, it was billed as an interactive exhibit filled with full scale objects from his works. There were SOME full scale models of things but you couldn't touch those and some of the small scale models that were designed to be interactive couldn't be used either. Anyway, what I could use was interesting and kind of fun. I would say I came away thinking he was a remarkable man-but I went in thinking that so, Hum. Wondering if it was worth the $20.00 it cost. Maybe, no more special exhibits at the station? Experiences are always worthwhile though.
February's outing is to the National World War I museum--which always gets raves! There are LOTS of museums and historic sites near me. It will take a long time to visit them all!
1 comment:
I thinks it's a good thing to visit such exhibitions. Were there drawings of his? I went to see an exhibition which included Holbein drawings. There were only a handful and I thought - meh. Then I pinched myself because I was looking at something drawn by a man 400 years ago. That in itself was remarkable but when you compared those small, realistic sketches against the standard style of the time. Well, I ended up sitting there for a lot longer than I had planned. I think it can be difficult to put on a successful exhibit sometimes. I didn't enjoy a Picasso one but I did marvel at a Monet exhibition, not the famous paintings but some smaller ones. I had seen images in books but didn't realise how textural the real paintings were, how they caught the light. There were a couple of Van Gogh's in the same exhibition and I was entranced by his work. Was never a fan before. Go figure. The WWI exhibition should be interesting, if perhaps confronting.
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