Exploring old and new places

I took the afternoon today and went exploring in downtown Norfolk -- a rare treat. I wanted to see the current exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art called "Behind the Seen" -- a showing of artwork that has been hidden for years in the museum's vaults because they don't have room to exhibit their whole collection. It was a feast for the eyes as I moved slowly from painting to painting, room to room. Dutch masters like Peter Paul Rubens; American painters including Charles Wilson Peale and his son Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Moran and Georgia O'Keefe; European artists such as Rodin, Renoir, Sargent, and others that I met for the first time. They had one room which they called the Chrysler Museum Salon in which they covered the walls in the style of the famous Paris Salon with artwork, including twelve pieces that actually made their debuts at dthe Salon during the 19th century -- a large John Singer Sargent portrait being among them. I pushed through the exhibit with hesitant hurriedness only because I wanted to make it to one more place before sunset.
After leaving the musem a little later than I had planned, I rushed off down the road to the "north shore" of Norfolk to a beautiful old place on the Lafayette River, the Hermitage Foundation Museum. The Hermitage, as it is called by most people, is a place that I have long intended to visit, but one obstacle or another had kept me from it. The sun was just beginning to set as I drove onto the grounds. I parked and went to the door of the museum with the intention of going in to see their art exhibit, but was overwhelmed with the sights to see on the outside of the buildings. I hurried back to the car and put on my extra jacket (there was a cold wind blowing and the sun was losing its warmth), grabbed my camera and started walking all around the place, snapping pictures everywhere there was enough light. The blazing sunset was saturating everything it touched with rich reds and yellows, and the sky to the west looked even bluer. This was the art of God and I wasn't about to miss it. I stayed out till the colors faded and the museum closed and I was half frozen. I shot about 90 photos and couldn't wait to get home to look at them. Among them was this photo of a piece of driftwood that was alive with color from the sunset. I'm sure that in yesterday's dreariness it would not have caught my attention in quite the same way -- it's normal grayness would have blended into the gray day. But today it was transformed into a work of art that rivaled anything on the inside of the museum.
It was old places with new things and new places with old things. It was a banquet for my soul.