Stepping out of our saftey zone to the ST.Louis Art Museum

Yes, in these frightening times of the pandemic, going anywhere, which guarantees meeting up with people who might have the coronal virus, is challenging.  However, we were now into four months of our isolation and I especially wanted to see the St.Louis Art Museum's special exhibit "Millet and Modern Art".  It was well worth taking the challenge, and we were happy we went.  If we were careful we did not need to touch anything; museum staffers with big smiles opened the doors for us.  Inside everyone was wearing masks and there was no crowding, we were able to keep an appropriate distance from everyone. 

Jean  Francois Millet (1814-1875) was a French painter know for developing "innovative imagery of rural peasant and landscapes".  Any quotes I write here are from the informational signs accompanying the art work.  In 1885 Vincent Van Gogh wrote :"Millet is Father Millet, counselor, and mentor in everything for young artists".   Between 1869 and 1890 Van Gogh produced 20 copies of Millet's work.  You may be familiar with Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night".  Pictured below is the first one of that theme painted by Millet.  It is of a rural scene complete with with a farm wagon," shooting stars and constellations and planets".  The painting by Van Gogh is more of a town scene with a church in the background.  I would find it hard to make a judgment on either, I like them both!

 In his painting The Reaper Van Gogh sought to"translate"  the original painting by Millet into color.

The exhibit also included an art work from the American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) it is titled Return of the Gleaner.  The painting depicts a very confident female peasant out in the harvest field. 

I thought that I knew something of art history, and I was very surprised to learn in this exhibit how many artists copied Millet's themes and put their own interpretation on how they saw his paintings.  Besides the ones I mentioned here; there were also paintings by Claude Monet, Camille Pisaro, George Saurat, Edgar Degas and Salvador Dali.  And speaking of the latter painter, the picture of The Angelus (first one in this posting on the exhibit's display board) was redone by him with a totally different theme.  To me The Angelus is a peaceful theme of two peasants taking a moment to pray at sunset.  Dali put a different approach on it totally.  He drew a man embracing a nude woman.  Another younger kneeling man with a conical head is on the ground next to them  Apparently he is the couple's dead son.  And Dali painted the woman as a nude, hinting at an incestuous relationship with her son.  It is titled "Meditation on a Harp".

A Return to Don Robinson State Park

 The blog post of July third mentioned this park located in Jefferson County Missouri.  The original owner had claimed that it was a " wild and woody area with lots of canyons" which John and I were most desirous to find- but not the first day we were there because of having our young grandchildren along.  We came back towards the end of August and started out on the Sandstone Canyon Trail.

Immediately coming onto that trail I detected a very foul odor.  I blamed it on the masses of mushrooms along our path, and they very much looked like excrement.  Upon closer examination, I deduced they were mushrooms, of the type which I had not seen before, and at home later I was not able to identify.

 

 The canyon trail was assessed as "moderate" and it was a bit of a challenge.  We traversed up and down ravines on rocky paths. Fortunately we thought to bring along our walking sticks.  Pictured above is one of several rock walls we saw.  And we kept thinking that soon we would see a canyon, with no luck.  It was a warm and humid day, after about 2 miles on the trail we took a connector tail off the canyon trail and headed back to our car.  But before we did that we met up with a gentleman who pointed us to another part of the same trail and encouraged us to take that path to view some awesome canyon sightings. Sounded tempting, but that would have entailed us walking two more miles on another rough part of the trail.  We were too hot and tired to consider it.

 

 

We returned to the park a  couple of week later on a much cooler day.  I took the above picture by turning around and getting the shot upward on the path.  Should give you an idea of the rocky paths we encountered hiking alone the ridge line of a box canyon- pretty much the type of trail we had also encountered on our last trip there.  The challenge of the trail did not bother us this time, we knew now we were going to see a canyon.  And so we kept trudging along yet still no sight of a canyon.  John made the comment that some people who had not been to the Grand Canyon just had nothing to compare the canyons here with the sights out west.

                                         

Looking down off our path we started to see the box canyon. Still hard to determine whether that is what we were looking for.

Sorry, that is the best I can give you of what we saw, between all the brush and trees and the presence of bright sunlight I just could not get the awesome picture I was looking for.  I would imagine in winter it probably could be more impressive.  I will end here with another natural wonder which John noticed as we finished the trail.  It is a natural stone bridge which we crossed on our path.

 

 

Klondike Park, Augusta, Missouri

The corona virus, as all of you know, is continuing to affect our lives; and mostly not for the good.  However, it is certainly forcing John and I to make frequent road trips around Missouri to keep us pleasantly occupied.   And that is not all that bad as we have discover some very scenic parks, one of which is Klondike park located in St .Charles County, near Augusta, Missouri.  

 First thing we noticed upon entering the park was the visitor's center, which is currently closed because of the pandemic.  The center sits in front of a towering river bluff.  We found a path nearby and climbed to its top.  From that vantage point we were able to see over the Missouri River.  In the distance is the Labadie Power Plant.

 Interpretive signs in the park mentioned that the Lewis and Clark expedition camped across the river not far from this area, and met up with an Native American tribe.   All total Lewis and Clark met up with 50 Native American tribes during the time of their travels west in the early 1800s.  Lewis and Clark developed a ritual with all the Indian chiefs during which they informed them that their land belonged to the United States and a new “great white Father”, Thomas Jefferson.  They then would present the Indian chief with a medal which had the face of Jefferson and one side and two hands clasping on the other. 

  The quarry was first mined for silica sand taken from the St.Peterson limestone in 1898. After being blasted out of the rock it was crushed and shipped to an off- site location to be manufactured into glass and other industrial products.  In 1945 232,420 tons of sandstone was shipped out to meet war demands.  The quarry was shut down in 1983.
                                         

The park has a campground and a lake for fishing.  With the river bluffs and quarry lake it is a very scenic area.  There are many signs indicating that swimming is not allowed, but apparently the people swimming in the lake did not see them.