Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA

Before last year I would have prefaced this note with a trite phrase along the lines of “it takes a lot to interest/excite/fascinate/amaze me” (choose the adjective that best fits the circumstances) That is no longer the case. Lots of things interest me, many excite and fascinate me and I am constantly amazed.

The Getty Museum, accessed from a special off ramp on Interstate 405 just north of LAX airport, interested, excited, fascinated and amazed us, and the whole experience cost less than $30 and that was only because we had to have refreshments. We could have done it for the parking/entrance fee of $10, but during the afternoon we had to sit – once for a latte and the second time for a lollipop.

http://www.getty.edu/


Patricia and I visited the Getty Center twice in four days and still only saw half of the exhibits and the garden. On the first visit we rented the audio tour guides and then spent two hours listening to detailed and fascinating descriptions of paintings on the upper floor of the North building, a section dedicated to paintings before 1700.

It was a beautiful day so we spent the next couple of hours walking through and enjoying the beautiful gardens. This was the highlight of our first days visit. The colors – even in December – were stupendous. There were hedges in two shades of green in circular patterns in the middle of a circular pond, bright red bougainvillea grew in a canopy through giant umbrellas fashioned from steel rebar, yellow, white and red roses with beautiful scents flowered profusely and bright yellow giant trumpets hung magically suspended from a large shrub that I haven’t yet found the name of.

We sat for a while and absorbed the beauty of the garden and the surroundings.

Our second visit was shorter and filled in time on the way to the airport and there is no better place to while away an hour or two. This time we quickly traversed the Carleton Watkins photo exhibit and a delightful room showing a progression of landscape photographic studies from the dawn of photography in the early 1800’s to the present day. Then we went upstairs and spent a very enjoyable hour amongst the Impressionists and Post Impressionists – Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin – admiring wonderful paintings with a degree of depth and detail that is amazing. This is a section we will come back to and spend more time looking at and – next time – listening.