We had read about the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis being the church with the most mosaic’s in the world.
It turns out it has 41.5 million pieces of glass tessera (small squares of glass) with over 7,000 colors. It is truly awe inspiring. The website has more pictures and more: http://cathedralstl.org/intro/
These pages describe the difference between Byzantine and Italian mosaics.
The basement has a nice museum that describes what went into building it. The forty or so craftsman who designed many of the different alters, domes and wall mosaics. This would be a must to see if one came here.
They also show the steps in making the tessera,drawings, process and tools that preceded the actual individual parts of a scene.
Down there they have two pages, 2 by 4 foot, song book used in the 14th century. The size was such that 50 to 60 people could sing from it in the choir.
Rose windows, mentioned at San Antonio.
Next was the Saint Louis Art Museum, this is one of the free ones. It is massive and partially built for the 1904 Worlds Fair. We hooked onto a tour and there was only one other person from Pennsylvania.
Our docent, Marsha, was a joy to be with. It turns out that they go through a three year training program and have to conduct 25 hours of training a year. That sure helps the depth of understanding and information given. The tour started in the ancient art section, looking at statues made of marble that had clothing looking like it was wind swept.
We then went into the Asian and Islamic art. She pointed out the significances of how the statues and rugs and doors were put together and what some of the fine points meant. The guides do tours a couple times a day. We spent an hour with her and her 3 carat diamond ring. The part we like is the impressionists and European and American early art.
One of the striking pieces was a water lily’s piece by Monet, look at the size. It stood against its own end wall, looked to be six by ten feet. There were paintings by Rembrandts, Cézannes and others. We ate lunch here at Wolfgang Puck’s café, Shirleen had a grilled cheese and I a chicken salad that had raisins in the mix, surprising to see his mug at the café.
This is for Abby.
Mansion in St. Louis.Off to the north we went. Arrived in Quincy and called Randy and Pam S. no answer, called Steve and Julie J. and they were home and had not eaten as of yet. We met at a Ruby Tuesday’s for rib, Shirleen the sauced baby back’s I a new Asian peanut spiced variety. It was not spicy hot but had a lingering spiciness. jerr
No comments:
Post a Comment