Alyssa in Dublin: Weekend Around Dublin

This weekend was a very cultural one at that. On Saturday Mariel, Erika and I went to see the Edvard Munch Prints exhibit at the National Gallery of Ireland. It was amazing! They had a collection of 39 prints of his, and the owner of "The Scream" let the Gallery borrow it for this exhibition. I must say that I would consider the majority of Munch's work as dark. A lot of it was about death and no wonder considering both his mother and sister died of TB. The literature around the prints also mentioned that Munch experienced a nervous breakdown in the early 20th century. I was surprised to learn that Munch only died in 1944; I think that's very recent for an artist so well known! Usually famous artists lived in the 17th and 18th centuries when I think about it. Does that make sense? After this exhibit we went to The National Wax Museum Plus. It was alright but not as good as others I suspect. We saw many people of wax such as Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Santa Claus, The Simpsons, Gollum, Jack Nicholson as The Joker, and Hannibal Lector. I think the best part was the vault rooms in the basement of the museum that had Irish history. We learned about the 1916 Rising, the Salmon of Knowledge, and Setanta.

On Sunday Mariel and I set out for another cultural day at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. It is housed in the old Royal Hospital Kilmainham, which was built in 1684 as a home for retired soldiers and continued for almost 250 years. After repairs in 1980 the building was fit for the Museum opening in 1991. We saw some very odd things, along with some cool stuff. The weirdest thing I thought was an artist who put powerstrips and plug-ins all over a room and that was "art." I feel like the problem with modern art (for me) is that often I feel like I could have done the same thing, so I do not appreciate it as much as an elaborate painting. Since we finished shortly there, we decided to go back to the National Gallery to actually take a look at the paintings there. Some of the highlights we saw were Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ," Vermeer's "Lady Writing a Letter," Velazquez's "Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus," Monet's "Argenteuil basin with a single sailboat," and a Picasso. It was a beautiful building to look at. There was a security guard in one of the largest rooms who was dosing in his seat. It reminded me of the beginning of the movie "Bean" where Mr. Bean is slowly falling from his chair while napping at his post. Eventually he falls to his knees on the floor and as his head hits the floor a hallow noise rings out. It made me laugh to picture this! When we had our fill of the paintings we walked across the street to Merrion Square in search of the Oscar Wilde statue. We found him perched on a rock and climbed up there with him to snap a few photos. It was a great weekend at home in Dublin, but I can't wait until next weekend when we visit Galway and the Aran Islands!