Lots of Art, Milkstakes, and the Purty Kitchen

Last thursday the bus picked us up pretty darn early for our trip to Dublin, 7 am to be exact. Needless to say I slept on the bus ride considering we were in for a 3 hour drive with Brian, our trusty bus driver. We were scheduled to do some touring of a few major art museums for most of the day before getting to head out on our own and I was pretty excited to see what kind of art Ireland had to offer. After making a pit stop at a rest stop for some coffee and munchies we soon arrived in the city. I will put up photos of the works I saw that I most enjoyed, though the photos will be from google since we weren't allowed to take pictures so sorry if the quality on some of them isn't that great. Also, I've noticed that is VERY hard to find photos of some of the Irish painters, which is quite a shame, but I've scraped some up the best I can.

Our first stop was the Irish MOMA, I'm very happy to have added this museum to my repertoire of MOMAs that I've seen haha.

There was a lot of abstract stuff that I kind of have a hard time really appreciating considering the kind of art I do myself, but there was also some very interesting art that I very much enjoyed, most particularly the Lucian Freuds! Here were some of my favorites:

Nudes by Mainie Jellett: Cubism not really my style but the colors and values are phenomenal

Paul Henry - Low Tide: The colors are just... beautiful.

Paul Henry - The Watcher

The book illustrated by Harry Clarke: I really want to find it/own it!

An illustration of the little mermaid by Harry Clarke for the book Fairy tails written by Hans Anderson: Another one I would love to own.

Mary Swanzy - Female Nude With Horse

Henry Morre - Upright Figures: he is mostly a sculptor but his drawings were very interesting, Uncle Jim I thought you would appreciate them the most.

So then we went to the Dublin City Gallery - The Hugh Lane. This museum had a bit of a broader collection and also featured a pretty incredible Fancis Bacon exhibit. I'm not the biggest fan of Bacon, but I have to say it was pretty awesome to see the reconstruction of his studio. These are some of my favorites from that museum:

Edgar Degas - Beach Scene: Again, the colors, oh my. I love Degas.

George Russel - Winged Horse: I love the colors and impressionistic style of this painting but mostly all I could think of was PEGASUS! (Molly, Sam, Lex, Cara this is for you)

Claude Monet - Waterloo Bridge, London 1900

William Orpen - Reflections: China and Japan - haha look familiar? Nins this made me think of you and painting class =)

Harry Clarke's stained glass aka the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I could stare at these all day.

After that we were allowed to grab a quick lunch, emphasis on the word quick, and then we separated into groups to go look at more galleries specific to our interests. Since I'm kind of all over the place I went with Pam and her husband (the MCAD professor) to see a mix of painting, sculpture and photo. That was nice, but we were all kind of ready to settle in and get dinner by the end. On the way back to the hostel I noticed a couple little Indian restaurants on our street and immediately jumped for joy since Hannah and I had been talking about getting Indian food since we stepped foot on Irish soil. I know that sounds a bit silly, but I'm pretty serious about my Indian food and so is she. So needless to say that's where we went for dinner (it was delicious) and then we relaxed a bit before going out.

That night we prowled the local pub scene for a while before looking for a place to dance. We were with the rest of the Burren crew for a while, but when the urge to dance took over Hannah, Casey, Shawn, and I set out on a mission. On the way we found Ashley and after not getting into the club we wanted to and Shawn asking a few locals we stumbled upon the most ridiculous part of our night in the form of The Purty Kitchen. Yes folks, that was the name of the club. We should have stopped there, or maybe after we got smiley faces put on our hands with permanent marker, but Shawn was already in the club before we could turn around and all of a sudden we found ourself amidst a small amount of people and some really outdated music. It was all kind of unfortunate but we made the best of it and danced anyways until I just could not take listening to Pump Up the Jam, Yeah, and sped up versions of songs like Love the Way You Lie. We promptly left in search of better music and ran into a couple of really awesome Irish peeps, Liam and Re. They were also on a mission to find some great dancing but they knew the territory way better than we did so we tagged along and finally found a sufficient place to dance. Actually, it was more than sufficient, it was awesome and we danced the night away until we were just too tired to go on. Falling into a hostel bed never felt so good. I did loose my black and white hipster scarf though, I hope the person who picked it up is happy with it. =\

The Purty Kitchen: questionable restaurant by day, kind of ridiculous night club by night.

The next day was another early riser and we promptly headed out to the National Gallery. Again, some really great art, especially the exhibit they had up which included Picasso, Vermeer, Carivagio, and Van Gogh. Here, again, are some of my favorites (like I said, the Irish artists were harder to find). Also, I couldn't find any photos of them, but there was an INCREDIBLE exhibit up in this museum of the JMW Turner watercolors. They can only be shown in January because it is the month with the least light so that the pigments won't fade. They have to be in a room with a very specific temperature and the lights have to be dimmed. Turner used a lot of paints with pigments that faded or discolored due to chemical reactions so a lot of his works have been damaged through the years. These watercolors remained thanks to very careful art collectors and they are just so beautiful. I really wish I could show you but obviously we could not take photos and there are just none on the internet. You will just have to take my word for it, folks.

Picasso - Still Life With A Mandolin

Carivagio - The Taking Of The Christ (Sam, I wish you coul dhave been there looking at this with me)

Vermeer - A Lady Writing A Letter With Her Maid: I was really excited about seeing this one.

Van Gogh - Rooftops in Paris

Irish Artists:

William Mulready - The Toy Seller

Augustus Burke - On The Apple Tree

Augustus Burke - Connemara Girl: This was by far one of my favorites.

Ehhh sorry about the watermark! This was impossible to find.

Strickland Lowry - Trompe L'oeil (The Spartan Boy): Nina, look! I got to see one in real life!!!!

Ehhhh!!! Sorry about the crappy quality of this one too! These Irish artists, man, they are hard to find. I just had to include this one because it really represents what the country looks like out here.

Claude Lorrain - Juno Confiding Lo To The Care Of Argus

Thomas Lawrence - Lady Elizabeth Foster (Later Duchess of Devenshire)

William John Leech - The Sunshade: the lighting and colors in this just amaze me.

We then went to the National Museum and got to see the bog bodies!!! This was Hannah's moment since she had been waiting to see them since we got here. After tooling around for a bit we were finally allowed to do whatever we wanted so Hannah, Casey, Mandy, Ashley, and I headed out to find some lunch in the form of "Eddie" Rockets. The most important thing about this "Eddie" Rockets (aka Irish Johnny Rockets) is the fact that they had milkshakes. Milkshakes that are basically out of this world. We indulged in some all American food before visiting the art store and some Irish trinket shops for gifties.

We also stopped in a tiny heritage crest shop and we all looked up our namesakes and got some printed out. The man that ran the shop was very kind and gave a quite the discount for being students. Also, he called me an Irish princess (based on my family heritage of course) so he's good in my book. Once we got all of our errands done we split up a bit and Mandy and I went on a little shopping adventure that involved Urban Outfitters, a great dress on sale that now belongs to me, and my quick but failed attempt at finding a cheap black hoodie to paint in. Afterwards we met up at the hostel and made our way to where Brian was to pick us up in the bus.

The buildings in Dublin are wonderful

These buildings looked like they had veins haha, they must look spectacular in the summer!

Trinity College campus

The art store was right around that corner... a little sketchy, but great shop! Reminded me of Worcester =P

The Temple Bar - little social hub near our hostel

Our hostel:

Overall it was a very successful trip, I really enjoyed myself and I definately want to visit Dublin again.