Anniversary trip to Cleveland, part 2 of 2

Click here if you missed Part 1 of our trip. 

After completing our visit to the Cleveland Botanical Garden (nee Garden Center) with lunch, Dear Husband and I walked over to the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is free! (As it should be: CMA is the 4th richest art museum in the country.) It's had multiple building configurations since its founding in 1913; currently the original building has newer wings that enclose a light-filled courtyard with a lofty glass atrium. Apparently it stands in as the SHIELD headquarters in the Marvel University movies.

In the atrium are two intriguing statues, an installation called "Strata" by Native American artist Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983).

We were too late to join the 1pm docent-led tour, so I decided to focus on one corner of the second floor, beginning with the Tiffany glass and Faberge objects and ending with the armor.

To the left: marble column looking up to a beautiful glass dome. To the right: marble statue of Terpsichore, Muse of lyric poetry and dancing.

To the left: a Tiffany stained-glass window that used to be in someone's parlor. To the right and below: Faberge. Kudos to the Museum for turning otherwise wasted space on the flanks of this entrance hall into mini galleries.

They have several artifacts from Jewish history scattered around the museum, such as these beautiful silver pieces.

To the left: This wealthy woman has an extravagant outfit and what is likely her own real face; Peter Paul Rubens had the "radical" idea to represent the sitter him- or herself and not just the trappings of their station (often the conspicuous consumption of the nouveau riche). To the right: a nautilus shell goblet made possible by Dutch trading and imperialism that reminded me of the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden. Below: an amount and variety of foodstuffs that only the best tables could provide.

To the left: Meissen porcelain! To the right: the most ridiculous thing we saw: a silver soup tureen with a lobster climbing over a fish for a handle. Below: a couple making beautiful music together.

We rested our sore dogs and tired lower backs on the benches in front of these enormous paintings of Apollo and the Muses by Charles Meynier (1768-1832) from 1798-1800. To the right (above) is Clio, the Muse of History. She clearly cares less about her raiment than about her writing; we tried to decipher the various relics in the shadows and debated why she has wings. ("The wings of history," as per Walter Benjamin on Paul Klee's Angelus Novus?) My favorite, composition-wise, was the one of the left, of Erato, Muse of Lyric Poetry. Apparently someone had painted a modesty veil over cupid, probably in the late 1800s. All told, it took conservators 5 years to restore the 5 paintings after they were discovered moldering in a Swiss castle.

It was...sobering to look at the evolution of metal armor and to see the hundreds or thousands of hours and finesse in the handiwork that went into protecting men and animals from each other.

Our last stop was an immersive video display about a Korean silk screen, Seven Jeweled Mountain. It was told like a fantastical travelogue, and indeed some of the mystery stems from the fact that the mountain range exists in what is now North Korea, so it is as unreachable as a peak in a fairy tale.

After a couple of hours to cool off and rest in our hotel room, we took the bus to Playhouse Square, where we ate dinner at a diner, Yours Truly. Then we joined the crowds streaming toward Progressive aka Jacobs Field for the Baltimore Orioles at Cleveland Guardians, the two best teams in the American League East. Alas, the O's were outmatched, as the hometown pitcher had a great outing, beating us 10-3. However, the rain and thunderstorms that had been forecast earlier in the week largely held off, and we only retreated up under the awning for an inning or so before regaining our seats in a delightful cross breeze behind home plate.

A talkative Lyft driver got us back to the hotel, where we promptly fell into bed to catch the end of Simone Biles's floor routine before an early morning drive back to Pittsburgh in time to make it to work by mid-morning. Happy 19th anniversary, DH!