Originals

On a single day last week year (forgot to publish this), St. Nicholas' feast day in fact, we were awed by getting close looks at some originals...

We had a little homeschool viewing of a handful of items from Marquette University's J.R.R. Tolkien collection. Then we headed over to the Milwaukee Art museum and were pleasantly surprised by their temporary exhibit of paintings on loan from Kenwood House. That includes Gainsborough's, Rembrants, and more. In fact, so much of the day running to my tastes that I can't find the right words.

They wouldn't let us photograph either of them so these web results will have to suffice while I describe the experiences.
http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkien.shtml
Chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party. <-- We saw this!!! Typwritten by J himself. Did you know Thorin Oakenshield was originally called Gandalf?
Chapter 5 - Riddles in the Dark <-- We saw this too! This one in his own handwritting. His writing, with a fountain pen, was oddly elegant and hard to read at the same time. Actually, looking around you could see his frame of mind... when he was being precise he would slow down and the script was beautiful. And when the muse was pelting his mind he would scrawl.

We also saw the original of the map that would eventually appear in the Hobbit.
And then we saw the Gainsboroughs, Sir Thomas Lawrences and Sir Joshua Reynolds ... and more!


http://mam.org/rembrandt-van-dyck-gainsborough/