A Three-Museum Day!

The day began with a trip to the Städel – the “high art” (my description) museum in this town of museums. Once I arrived – a simple trip using the S-train and Google Maps, I did what everyone else did: I went straight to the special exhibit of Peter Paul Rubens. Wow!  What an impressive exhibit! It focused on how much Rubens developed his style from drawing the human physique from statues. Fascinating!  Yes, I realize that some of art training involves studying and copying the works of others.  But Rubens used statues – and made them come alive. (Incidentally, I also felt quite svelte from looking at Rubens’ women – until he started using his 2^nd wife as a model.  She was fairly thin. . .) Anyway, it was a fascinating exhibit with pictures – and sculptures - collected from all over the world. From there, I looked at the Städel’s permanent collection – a lot of European, and particularly German, art. I enjoyed the grouping – and the commentary about the grouping – of the collection. The explanations – in English, as well as German – discussed and explained trends in art at the time.  I really appreciated the explanations.  They made me feel as if I were back in my art history class, conducted in the Prado in Madrid. (Or maybe it was that class that allowed me to enjoy the descriptions. I guess this is a chicken/egg question.)
 

I took a break for lunch – in the museum’s fancy restaurant (great for people-watching) before heading down to the “basement” to the museum’s collection of post-1945 art. The date is for obvious reasons in Germany. The museum’s explanation was that, with the end of the war, art as we knew it disappeared, and art began anew. (That’s an over simplification, but you get the idea . . .). The museum has a good collection – mostly German, but some Frank Stella, a Picasso (there was another upstairs in the 20^th century collection), and any number of well-known folks from around the globe. 

On to Museum #2 –the Museum of “Applied Art” (more or less the translation of the German name). I chose that one because a description of its collection included the word, “textiles.” I thought it would be more of a craft museum, and I guess that’s a possible description of its collection. Anyway, the predominant exhibit was of the work of the fashion designer Jil Sanders (and yes, I spelled “Jil” correctly). She opened her first shop in Hamburg, followed by Berlin, New York and Paris.  Eventually, she began designing for Uniqlo, and designed for men as well as women. She retired from her role in the company rather recently. It was really interesting to see how this museum presented her. (I’ve been to several fashion design exhibits in museums in the U.S., and they were all very different – lots of mannequins with the actual dresses [usually] on them.) This exhibit was really different, with videos of the catwalk, as well as idea pages (forgot what they’re called) and samples of fabrics, and a lot of media showing the models in the clothes. It explored much more the process of design (and I felt as if I were back in my classes at Cañada College, which, by the way, helped me understand what they were trying to do with the exhibit). I wasn’t bowled over by the exhibit, although the museum itself is fascinating – and in a modern building with great views of the river.

From there, I followed my phone to Frau Rauscher Brunnen – a statue of a woman carrying a jug of apple wine. Why there? Because the description in the guide book said that “she” (i.e. the statue) often sprays unsuspecting “passersby” with water – and I wanted to see the phenomenon. Unfortunately, she wasn’t spraying today. Alas!

My third museum was the Museum Judengasse, the Jewish museum I found closed yesterday. As was the case with the Jewish Museum in Berlin, I was enchanted with this museum. As was the case in Berlin, this museum has a lot of hands on exhibits that add meaning to the visit, especially for children (of all ages). And as was the case in Berlin, this museum tells a lot about the prejudice against the Jewish community before the rise of Hitler. “Judengasse” refers to the walled off Jewish community – the first Jewish ghetto in Europe – that predated the Nazis by a couple of centuries. The museum is built on the site of a part of the Judengasse, and close to the site of the orthodox synagogue that was burned, along with the other synagogues in Germany, on Kristallnacht. While preparing to build the museum, some of the foundations of the houses in the Judengasse were unearthed and left in place.  That means the museum visitor can climb around on them, read about them, and understand a bit of how the houses were built and the community was organized.  The hands-on exhibits supplemented this “physical plant” by telling stories of life within the Judengasse at different times across its existence, and the relationship between the people living in the Judengasse and the rest of the Frankfurt community outside of those walls. There were also a few precious articles – Kiddush cups, Torah “labels,” menorahs, etc. - that had been saved from the community and the synagogue, and then were later donated to the museum. I really enjoyed this museum, in part because I’m so very interested in the topic, and in part because it was so very accessible. The description in the guidebook didn’t do it justice.

My trip back to the hostel was an adventure!  I was just about ready to text “the boys” to tell them how helpful Google Maps has been (after they watched my part of the miserable process of changing phone companies so I could have access to Google maps on this trip), when G. M. led me into a 2-hour maze of attempting to get back to the hostel. It turns out the police had shut down one of the train stops – a key one on my trip back. SO . . .I – and much of Frankfurt – had to find an alternate route to where we were going. To make a very long story short, I ended up taking 3 different - and new-to-me – trains, and walking a third of the way to make it back to the hostel. Oh, well . . . I made it!  Now I’d like to know what was happening at that train stop . . .