Day 14: Normality and ongoing issues with Christianity

The past few days have been characterised by a familiar routine of casual sightseeing, coffee consumption, drawing pictures by the river and composing by night. A bit boring I guess, but kind of necessary after ten or so days of constant busyness. Today was the same, but we did spend a couple of hours exploring the Weimar Palace Museum which houses a vast variety of artwork from the 14th to the end of the 19th Centuries.

The first floor (13th-16th Century) had some facinating sculptural and minaeture works on display, constructed from ivory/glass/other that were so intricate and complex in their detail. Observing the Christian material, from an atheist point of view some of it was very beautiful, whilst some of the other stuff was downright offputting and self indulgent cack. I don't know what was really going down for some of the artists at the time, but some of this stuff is downright nutty/sadistic/surreal. It's not really my cup of blood.

Moving onto the second floor (17th-18th Century) our moods were lifted infinitely by the charming Rococo and Baroque works on display which were mirrored in the incredibly lavish decoration of the palace. Putting aside the artworks for a moment, this palace is quite exquisite - layered with complex timber arrangements on the floor (which incidentally creak with really old sound), festooned in lots of gold paint and oodled in fine masonry and general pimping. The use of natural light was interesting too.

The third floor (19th Century) is where the New Romatics and Impressionists kicked in with their colourful daubs of paint, speckly pastoral vistas and nubile nymphs picking fruit. I even saw a decent Monet for the first time!

For the rest of the day we resumed to our rich tapestry of normality walking through a beautiful cemetary with anonymous graves and went graffiti spotting in the dimming afternoon.



It was also the brightest, sunniest, warmest day we've had in Weimar so far. I can't believe I got away with only one layer of clothing for a change.