Bruce Museum

      Last Saturday, I had a really good time at the Bruce Museum. I have to admit that this was my first time at this museum even thought I had heard a lot about this place. So after taking a Creative Voice course, where I have learned new ideas about art, I decided to go and explore this amazing place located just a couple minutes away from my home.

 The museum is located on Museum Drive in Greenwich. It is a large, one story building located on a hillside. Inside the museum, it is very clean and well maintained.  However, before I went there I did a little research about the museum, which was originally, built as a private home in 1853. The owner, Robert Bruce, donated his home in 1908 to the Town of Greenwich, specifying that it be used as a Natural History and Art Museum, as it is today.

      At first, I thought I had gone to a science museum because when I opened the door I saw collections which focused on natural history and includes minerals, fossils, mammals and birds. I have to confess that the crystal sculptures and all the colorful minerals from around world are very beautiful and neat. The beautiful colors of crystals blue, yellow, orange and white are really spectacular. Some of them even glow in the dark.

After walking further, I saw archeological dig with a lot of fossils in it, which were presented in a form of layers. It took a lot of years for the fossils to form such incredible coating.  For a moment, I felt as if I were” lost in a jungle” in a woodland diorama showing the earth as it looked five million years ago. A fifteen foot long woodland wildlife scene which is a replication of the dinosaurs’ era, changed sounds as day went to night. The wild animals located in the water, on the ground, and in the air make this place very real.    

          Next, I went to the Art Gallery which was the most attractive to me. The Bruce Museum fine art collection consists of selected European and American paintings. There are also sketchbooks, photographs, portraits and letters.  All of the exhibits are well described in the short information messages by every display.  The Art Gallery consists of four rooms where I was able to see different kinds of paintings, from different periods.

During my visit, the special exhibit featured the paintings from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker. He was the preeminent dealer of Old Master paintings in Amsterdam prior to World War II. He died accidently on the ship to the Netherlands where he took his family while escaping from the Nazi. All his collection, 1400 works of art was stolen by the Nazi then.  Years later, his only living beneficiary, daughter –in-law, begun a battle to recover the paintings. Finally, the Dutch Government decided to return 200 works to her. Today, I was the lucky one to admire a portion of it.

The one that caught my eye, and I think the biggest picture on the floor, was the “River Landscape with Ferry” by Salomon Jacobsz.  This painting was very naturalistic and extremely believable to me. The artist used a very colorful palette and “painterly” touch rather than line. This is very characteristic in his paintings.  The other painting, which I liked, reminded me of the painting I describe in my previous essay. The new painting is “Sailing Vessels in a Thunderstorm” by Jacob Isaacksz. My previous experience with similar painting, The Raft of the “Medusa” by Theodore Gericault helped me understand more about this picture and the artist’s construction. The dramatic images of the open ocean with threatening skies, wind and lighting were very realistic and scary. The exhibition also shows many portraits of man, women and children. The portraits which caught my eye were “A Child on its Deathbed” by Bartholomeus  Van Der Heist and “ The Frivolous Girl” by Pietro Antonio Rotari.  The first was painted in clear, white colors but there was visible threat of death. There was a black form on the white child. It was a sad, realistic look at the fate of many children in those times.

The “The Frivolous Girl” by Pietro Antonio Rotari, was a romantic, sexual, yet light, youthful portrait of a teasing girl. I would like this painting in my living room. It is a happy picture.

I really enjoyed my afternoon in the Bruce Museum. After the visit I decided to spend some time in the museum garden. The garden features many modern sculptures. The sculptures are made of steel and concrete. It was hard for me to understand these works. I need to go back and see them again. I am very curries about them.